Q&A: Hello Rabbi. I wanted to ask whether the verse "Stolen waters are sweet," which appears in Sanhedrin 75a and Nedarim 91a and elsewhere as a reason why a married woman is more desired than an unmarried woman, and as the Talmud expounds on this that from the day the Temple was destroyed the taste of intercourse was taken away and given to transgressors, is because of the prohibition involved (as the plain sense of the Talmud suggests), or because of the pleasure of having also "stolen" the husband's ownership over his wife… I inferred the necessity of this from the Talmud in Sanhedrin 26b regarding testimony by someone suspected of sexual transgressions about a married woman, where the Talmud raises the possibility of disqualifying him even for testimony that she is married, because he has an interest in her being "stolen waters are sweet." What troubled me most about this is that if it is false and she is really not married, what has his testimony accomplished? After all, in actual truth she still is not a married woman, as the lying witness knows. I would be glad for your thoughts on this difficult Talmudic answer, and on the question itself. Thank you very much in advance.
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Hello Rabbi. I wanted to ask whether the verse "Stolen waters are sweet," which appears in Sanhedrin 75a and Nedarim 91a and elsewhere as a reason why a married woman is more desired than an unmarried woman, and as the Talmud expounds on this that from the day the Temple was destroyed the taste of intercourse was taken away and given to transgressors, is because of the prohibition involved (as the plain sense of the Talmud suggests), or because of the pleasure of having also "stolen" the husband's ownership over his wife… I inferred the necessity of this from the Talmud in Sanhedrin 26b regarding testimony by someone suspected of sexual transgressions about a married woman, where the Talmud raises the possibility of disqualifying him even for testimony that she is married, because he has an interest in her being "stolen waters are sweet." What troubled me most about this is that if it is false and she is really not married, what has his testimony accomplished? After all, in actual truth she still is not a married woman, as the lying witness knows. I would be glad for your thoughts on this difficult Talmudic answer, and on the question itself. Thank you very much in advance.
Question
Answer
Seemingly, the Talmud there really does indicate that "stolen waters are sweet" does not refer to the halakhic prohibition but to the theft. Therefore, if a religious court rules that she is a married woman, then even if in truth she is not, this would still count as "stolen waters."
But perhaps one could reject that, because once the religious court rules that she is a married woman, there is a prohibition against having relations with her even if the truth is that she is not. Especially since he has imposed a prohibition upon himself ("shavya anafshei chatikha de-isura"), and therefore for him there is certainly a prohibition.