Q&A: Kiddushin: Not Saying "to me" vs. "Your daughter is betrothed to me"
Kiddushin: Not Saying "to me" vs. "Your daughter is betrothed to me"
Question
Why is it that if he said, "Behold, you are betrothed," and did not say "to me," according to most opinions we do not treat this as a possible betrothal, whereas if one says, "Behold, your daughter is betrothed to me," we are concerned about betrothal with respect to all the sisters?
The reason that in the second case we are concerned about betrothal is that there was an "act of betrothal."
A husband—who spoke and gave. As for the woman, the act is bounded off (with respect to all the daughters in the family); at most it was not defined precisely as to which one of them, and therefore all of them must be concerned.
In the first case too, all the players in the drama are present—just in reverse.
A specific woman, toward whom the act of betrothal was directed. As for the husband, admittedly the act was not defined precisely with respect to who is betrothed, since he did not say "to me."
But it is still bounded to a limited number of people! (Similar to the sisters.)
After all, in any case there is a husband here who gave and spoke. At most, another possibility is that someone appointed him as an agent for betrothal, and that can be clarified through him.
Or at the very least, should we not be concerned about an act of betrothal out of doubt—perhaps he is the one who betrothed her and not an agent?
Answer
That is only a formal resemblance. The difference is clear. In the first case there is no defined group. You can always say that there is a defined group consisting of all human beings in the world (in that sense, a statistical majority not present before us is like a majority that is present before us, because all human beings are the group before me). Beyond that, in the second case the group is defined מתוך the statement itself and not only by logic ("your daughter"—that is, one of your daughters). In the first case, the statement does not define any group at all. At most, you as an interpreter of the situation understand that it could apply to someone from a certain group. Something like this is Rashba's distinction in the law of "severance" between an everlasting condition and a condition for a thousand years.