Bava Metzia 12: Flying Found Objects, Status and Ownership

If an animal runs through a person's courtyard, does that animal belong to the courtyard's owner?  Similarly, if a purse is thrown into a person's home and it goes straight through the back entrance, does the purse now belong to the owner of the home?  These questions begin today's daf.  The rabbis consider the halachot regarding objects in motion and objects that have stopped moving.  At which point do we consider a moving object to have the status of a stationary object?  The rabbis teach that if the owner can run to catch the animal, the animal will belong to him.  A purse is considered to have stopped inside of the home, because someone could have grabbed the purse from the air while it travelling through the airspace within the home.  Thus thus moving purse also belongs to the owner of the house.

A new Mishna teaches us that found items belong to someone other than the finder in the following cases: a minor's found objects belong to his/her father, a Canaanite slave/maidservant's found items belong to his/her master, and a wife's found items belong to her husband.

Then Gemara points out exceptions: when the child is not a minor, when the slave is a Hebrew slave, and when the wife is actually an ex-wife not yet having received her get.  These people are permitted to keep the object that they find.  An adult child who lives in his father's home - who eats at his table and is supported by his father - must give a found item to his father toward shalom bayit, peace in the home.  A minor child will always bring a found item to his father, and so ownership of that item is simple to determine.

What about pe'a, or produce/leaves that have been left behind by labourers on a father's farm.  Is it permitted to walk behind those labourers to acquire what has been dropped?  The rabbis argue about the halachot regarding this question for sons, wives, and those who are deaf and mute.  What about the labourers themselves?  The rabbis argue about whether or not to allow labourers to take what has fallen for themselves. 

In discussing the rights of maidservants, the rabbis note that minor maidservants are freed when they develop two pubic hairs.  They are also freed when their father dies.  This leads the rabbis to conclude that items found by a maidservant belong to her father and not to her master.  In a similar vein, the rabbis consider who owns items found by a wife.  The rabbis agree that these belong to her husband.  They are concerned that her ownership could upset the husband who financially supports his wife. But a woman who is divorced is permitted to keep what she has found.

The rabbis clearly state that marriage benefits women; divorce disadvantages them.  From our twenty-first century perspective, their understanding is difficult to justify.  Wouldn't women be better off  financially when living without their husbands but making/keeping their own money?  Society must have been significantly different for women to be so deeply dependent upon their husbands for survival.  I cannot stop myself from trying to picture the life of a woman who has been divorced from a difficult husband, now living just with her children and without her husband's sustenance.  Was it the financial burden that crushed her?  Or the societal stigma?  Or the lost support of her extended family?  Or something that I'm not thinking of?  Why were women so much better off in bad marriages?