Kiddushin, Daf Vav, Part 4

 

Introduction

There are some similarities between divorce and slave manumission (even if, as I have insisted many times, and as this passage says twice, wives are not owned by their husbands). In both cases a man gives a person who lives in his household a document called a get and that person now is no longer a member of the household. Our sugya discusses whether there is any overlap in the formulae used to divorce or free a slave.

 

וכן בגירושין נתן לה גיטה ואמר לה הרי את משולחת הרי את מגורשת הרי את מותרת לכל אדם הרי היא מגורשת :

פשיטא נתן לה גיטה ואמר לה לאשתו הרי את בת חורין לא אמר ולא כלום

אמר לה לשפחתו הרי את מותרת לכל אדם לא אמר ולא כלום

 

The same applies to divorce: If he gives her [the get,] and declares, "Behold, you are sent out," "Behold, you are divorced," [or] "You are permitted to any man," then she is divorced. Now it is obvious, if he gives a divorce to his wife and says to her, Behold, you are a free woman, he has said nothing.

If he says to his female slave, You are permitted to all men, he has said nothing.

 

To slaves one says behold you are free. But this formula does not work for divorce because she was already free. Wives are not slaves and divorce is not manumission.

To a wife, one might say, behold you are permitted to all men because after divorce she may marry any other man she wants. But this does not work for slaves because she was not prohibited before manumission.

 

אמר לה לאשתו הרי את לעצמך מהו מי אמרינן למלאכה קאמר לה או דילמא לגמרי קאמר לה

 

[But] if he says to his wife, Behold, you are for yourself, what is the rule? Do we say, he meant it with regard to work; or perhaps he meant it completely?

 

Is you are for yourself a valid divorce formula? On the one hand, it could mean that she can keep her handiwork, which she generally has to give to her husband. Thus this would not be a divorce formula. Alternatively, it might actually be a valid divorce formula.

 

א"ל רבינא לרב אשי ת"ש דתניא גופו של גט שחרור הרי אתה בן חורין הרי אתה לעצמך

השתא ומה עבד כנעני דקני ליה גופיה כי א"ל הרי אתה לעצמך לגמרי קא"ל אשה דלא קני ליה גופה לא כ"ש

 

Ravina said to R. Ashi: Come and hear: For we have taught: The body of a document of manumission is, Behold, you are a free person, Behold, you are for yourself.

Now if a Canaanite slave, whose body belongs to him [his master], when he says to him, Behold, you are for yourself, he means it absolutely; how much more so in the case of a wife, whose body does not belong to him.

 

Ravina derives that this is a valid divorce formula if it works to free a slave, whose body belongs to the master, then all the more so it works for a wife whose body does not belong to her husband.