Ketubah 59: On Women's Earnings, Women's Obligations in Marriage & Refusing to Nurse

The rabbis want to determine whether all - or how much - of a wife's earnings must go to her husband toward her sustenance.  While in yesterday's daf the rabbis were focused on a betrothed couple, today's daf finds the rabbis looking for the amount of money that a woman would earn as a basic amount.  Any money above and beyond that basic amount might be kept by the woman who earned it.  Or not, depending on the opinion of the rabbis.

They also consider vows, which can be nullified by a husband.  Certain types of vows, like konamot, cannot be made on things that do not exist yet.  Since the woman's earnings in question do not yet exist, she cannot vow that they will not go to her husband.  But aren't her hands existing in the world?  If we agree with that fact, we might also agree that the work of her hands can be consecrated in advance of their actual existence.

The rabbis wonder about consecration, as well.  When does something become holy?  Is it at the moment that the thing comes into existence, or when that thing is bought by someone who has vowed that they will become consecrated?  But if a person vows to consecrate a field, for example, as soon as it is bought back, the vow does not hold for the vow was made when the field was in another person's possession.  

After thinking through the analogies of consecrating fields and fulfilling mortgages, the rabbis repeat an earlier question: are these situations analogous to that of a woman who consecrates the work of her hands before she is married?  Not at all, for other possessions are completely different from the possession involved in marriage.  A woman will never have the power to divorce her husband.

Amud (b) specifies what a woman is obliged to do for her husband: 

• grinds wheat into flour
• bakes
• cooks
• nurses the children
• makes her husband's bed*
• makes thread from wool by spinning
• if she has one maidservant, that woman can do the grinding, baking and laundry.
• if she has two maidservants, those women can do the above plus the cooking and nursing as a wet nurse if desired
• if she has three maidservants, she doesn't need to the above nor make his bed, nor make thread from wool
• if she has four maidservants, she can sit on a chair like a queen because her work is completed by others.

The rabbis are quick to note that no-one should be idle.  Idleness is said to be linked to licentiousness   A husband can compel his wife to do some of the basic work that is acceptable within a given town.

They also speak of grinding - this labour is done by animals.  How would that count as her work?  The rabbis offer the possibility that she might supervise this work.  

The Gemara shares some telling thoughts of Rabbi Chiyya.  A woman is only for beauty, he says.  She is only for children.  She should be dressed in linen to be made beautiful, and she should be  young chickens and milk as she gets older to help her attain fairer skin.**

Beit Shammai say that a woman is never obligated to nurse her child if she does not wish to do so.  A husband cannot compel her to nurse but if they were divorced and the child would not otherwise nurse, he could pay his ex-wife to wet-nurse their child.  Interesting that a mother might choose to not nurse her child.  Was that a form of neglect, or was it assumed that the baby would find sustenance through a wet nurse, or through tea, etc., somewhere else?

Our daf ends with a conversation about how vows work within the context of nursing women.  

*This might suggest that married couples did not share a bed.  Was this because they would push the beds together and apart, as some orthodox families do today, depending on a woman's status?

 

**Certainly shadism existed two thousand years ago in ancient Israel.  But might this suggest that our ancestors had dark skin?  I'm guessing that they did not look like Ashkenazi Jews of today.