Kiddushin 60: Is She Already Betrothed?

Today's daf continues our rabbis' discussion of uncertain betrothals.  For example, if a man says to a woman that he betroths her now and in thirty days, is she betrothed immediately? After thirty days?  If another man betroths her before the end of thirty days, is that betrothal valid?  Or is she already betrothed and thus she cannot be betrothed again?  The rabbis consider gittin in this context.  If a man says that he will divorce his wife now and in thirty days, are they divorced at all?  And if he dies before the end of thirty days, is she divorced, in which case if they are childless, she is forbidden to his brother and thus they must perform chalitza?  Or is she still married when her husband dies, in which case she must be offered to his brother in levirate marriage?  Because of the uncertainty in this case, the rabbis suggest that chalets is always performed if the divorce is uncertain.

The rabbis give us examples of a woman being betrothed in this way, followed by a betrothal to another man who says that they are betrothed now and after twenty days, followed by a betrothal to another man who says that they are betrothed now and after ten days, followed by one hundred more men and and one hundred more betrothals.  Does each betrothal require a divorce? Do only the first and last betrothals require gittin, divorces?

The rabbis argue about conditional statements and retractions.  A conditional statement would require that the condition is met for the woman to be betrothed.  A retraction would mean that the man is putting off his initial betrothal and they may not be betrothed at all after thirty days.

A new Mishna shares some examples: if a man tells a woman that they are betrothed on the condition that he brings her two hundred dinars, then they are betrothed when he does what he said.  Similarly, if he says that they are betrothed when he gives her a certain amount of money over thirty days, they are betrothed at the end of thirty days only if he gives her, even in small payments, the amount of money stated.  If he says that their betrothal is conditional on the fact that he has two hundred dinars, then he must have that money for the betrothal to be valid.  And if he says that that their betrothal is conditional on him showing her two hundred dinars, that money must be shown - and it must belong to him.  The rabbis say that she would assume that the money was his, and thus he meets his condition by showing her his own money.

The rabbis discuss conditional statements in kiddushin and gittin.  They seem to wish to be stringent, for mistakes about whether or not a marriage is legitimate could result in generations of mamzerim; community members who cannot fully participate in society.  However, they speak about the importance of leniency when deciding about whether or not a betrothal or a get is valid.

A final Mishna teaches us that if a man betroths a woman on the condition that he has a certain amount of land, or that he has land in a certain place, he must be held to that condition for the betrothal to be valid.  He cannot own just a part of the land that he shows the woman he wishes to betroth.

Certainly the rabbis were considering the human capacity to exaggerate, to fib, to promise that we are something that we're not.  They were attempting to create legal requirements to curb bad behaviour.  But how can lying or misrepresentation be monitored?  I suppose that the rabbis were hopeful that their recommendations and creation of halacha would be enough to dissuade people from lying.

First of all, in our modern society, fearing G-d is not usually the best deterrent, but in ancient times it might have been more weighty.  Second, I wonder whether or not people were generally more compliant in ancient times than now.  Doubtful!  Were the rabbis responding to the bad behaviour in their communities?  Or were they addressing these issues preventatively?  I can only imagine that people were people, and so they tried to take advantage of each other.  But that in between place - where laws are created to address questionable actions - it is hard to understand how this played itself out.  Would women be accused of still being married?  Would men try to betroth women who were not permitted to them?  How would this get found out? What would the courts actually do?