Gittin 50: Who Is Responsible?

Who is responsible for a person's debts if those debts cannot be paid?   Usually a guarantor is held responsible, even if the collateral has been sold to someone else.  However, a guarantor for a ketuba is not held responsible for payment of that ketuba.  Facilitating a marriage is presented as a special mitzvah.  Perhaps, as well, the rabbis wanted to encourage people to participate in the system surrounding marriage, for all of Jewish life and halacha is founded on the societal structure maintained by the family unit.

The rabbis compared the case of land for orphans with other cases.  Inferior land is taken from orphans if their deceased father owes a debt.  But we learned earlier that superior-quality land is always used to settle debts.  One of the possible answers to this question regards the rabbis' care for minor orphans.  While this directive does not specify that it applies to child orphans, the rabbis posit that adults might not need this special treatment as would children.

The Gemara in amud (b) considers what the halacha if a person's owed land has been given away as a gift (rather than having been sold).  Is that property taken from the new, possibly ignorant buyer?  The rabbis walk through complicated situations where debtors, lenders, guarantors, sellers, and others might be responsible due to different circumstances.  We learn about how produce that has been consumed and the care for wives and daughters do not meet the same criteria as other responsibilities. 

Finally we read the rabbis' questions regarding consumed produce that has had no fixed price and about the care for women and daughters which was not written into the ketuba but was assumed.  It made a difference whether or not anything was in writing regarding all of these transactions.