I also remember that you once said that if someone makes cynical use of Jewish law against someone else, then Jewish law freezes itself in such a case. For example, if a thief breaks in on the Sabbath, it is permitted to kill him even though that involves desecrating the Sabbath. For example, in this responsum:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%A1%D7%A8%D7%91%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%92%D7%98-%D7%95%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%92%D7%AA-%D7%92%D7%A0%D7%91

Would that permit the betrothal here?

I was astonished to read the arguments for permitting a married woman.
A. They try to derive the law that a father accepts betrothal from the sale of his daughter as a maidservant. Selling her as a maidservant is presumably for the father’s benefit, not the daughter’s. And after all, he can even betroth her to a vile man or a leper.
B. Clearly he does want to betroth her, and if they waive the support payments he expects the husband to give a bill of divorce. Like any other seller who has various different goals, and even in a case of “they coerced him and he sold,” in the end he wants to sell.
C. Therefore, the talk about a presumption of propriety and that he is not believed is also strange. The father and mother are equal right now in that the support money matters more to them than the daughter’s being chained. They are exactly the same. If so-and-so admits that he owes all his money to someone else and by doing so condemns his family to the disgrace of starvation, is he not believed because a decent person does not do such a thing? I am amazed.
D. The idea of issuing a public call to bring witnesses is strange altogether. Even if witnesses are obligated to come even without a direct claim against them, just from a general announcement, to infer that if they did not come then they do not exist—this we have never heard. Maybe they did not hear, maybe they died, maybe they are lazy, or maybe the father bribed them.
E. The idea that nowadays fathers do not act this way and therefore there are grounds to think he is lying is a strange idea. Clearly we are dealing here with an unusual father, and it makes no sense to judge him by the majority of fathers who are not unusual.

A presumption of propriety is completely irrelevant. Even a full-fledged criminal is believed to say that he betrothed his daughter, and on the contrary, the presumption is that since he goes crazy with threats like this, he is also capable of carrying them out.

Oren,
That is an interesting suggestion. We need to think about what the criteria are. I’m not sure it is applicable in every context. Regarding a burglar breaking in, I think it can be shown. And likewise with the general halakhic rule that a person cannot prohibit something that is not his.

Tirgitz,
A. Selling her as a maidservant teaches us about a daughter’s betrothal, but derive from it and from itself while keeping it in its own setting. That does not mean the father betroths his daughter for his own benefit. And by the way, even when he sells her as a maidservant it can be for her benefit too, so that she will have support and perhaps designated marriage afterward. I seem to recall a discussion among later authorities about whether a father accepts betrothal for his daughter as her agent—meaning she is essentially the one being betrothed—or whether he betroths her, as if he is the actor of the betrothal.
B. That requires thought, but here the goal is unrelated to the betrothal in any way. It is entirely external. In my opinion, here it is not correct to say “they coerced him and he sold.” This is not an intention of betrothal.
C. He certainly would not be believed. It may be asset concealment. What does his wife have to do with it? She may give up the support payments and yield. Who said she is stubborn like he is? The question here is whether to believe him that he betrothed her, even before she decides whether to give in.
D. The call for witnesses is a consideration that joins the others; it certainly does not stand on its own.
E. In my opinion this is a very correct and simple idea, clear as daylight. There is more than just some indication that this whole thing is false. The father is not unusual at all. He is trying to make money, like any ordinary liar.

Unclear Person,
See section E in my reply to Tirgitz. Even a full-fledged criminal is believed to say that he betrothed her as long as his criminality does not create suspicion that he is lying. By the way, I now think that such a person is wicked by his own account, and perhaps there is room to disqualify him as a witness because he is wicked. There are examples of disqualification even without lashes for the prohibition.

A person does not render himself wicked for the purpose of disqualification due to wickedness.

“By your own words, you are wicked.” In any case, if he does not render himself wicked, then the conclusion is that the event really did not happen, because if it did happen, that is wickedness. And regarding the rule of splitting the testimony, there is much room for analysis here, and in my opinion that does not apply here, but this is not the place.

There are quite a few agunah-permitting rulings based on far-fetched claims and questionable permissions, such that if someone raised them in any other halakhic discussion, his arguments would be rejected; in the best case they would laugh in his face, and in the worst case he would be called “Reform” or one who causes the public to sin. In the laws of the Sabbath, kashrut, and more, arguments much stronger than these are easily rejected.
Thousands of women who are still married go and have children who are mamzerim, and thousands have stumbled into relations with a married woman. Suddenly all the rabbis who are strict and conservative, who in everyday life compete over who can find more stringencies and be stricter, are competing over who can produce more leniencies. And they should not argue life-saving necessity or even possible life-saving necessity, because this is a prohibition for which one must be killed rather than transgress—of course, if there is a valid permission then there is no problem.

What is the relevance of disqualifying him as a witness because he is wicked? His credibility is not by the law of testimony but by the law that a father is believed regarding his daughter.

And when a father testifies about his daughter, does he somehow become credible if this is not testimony? If he is wicked, then he is suspected of lying, so obviously that is true here as well, even in the law of recognition. But even if not, I do not see any necessity to distinguish. Especially if we are discussing disqualifying him with respect to the very matter in which he rendered himself wicked.

This is “by your own words, you are wicked,” meaning that he is not believed regarding the testimony in which he presented himself as wicked, although one could discuss splitting the testimony, as I noted above.

Suspected of lying—maybe that applies in this specific case.
But the point is that if there is a source saying that in the case of a father, suspicion of lying disqualifies him, that would be proof. But from ordinary witnesses there is no proof, even for the side that a wicked person is suspected of lying, because if the Torah gave credibility to a father,
then the regular laws of witnesses do not apply to him.
For if you say otherwise, it should have been stated explicitly that a transgressor is not believed to say that he betrothed his daughter.
And in general, a person who betroths his daughter to a vile man or a leper
also seems to me to be a great wicked person, and according to you he would not be believed.

It seems more likely that mere suspicion of lying is not enough, but rather there has to be a reason to assume that he is lying.

“Bottom line, in my opinion there is no need to be concerned about this at all. Complete nonsense.”
With all due respect, it seems a bit hasty on your part to write such a thing.

We’re repeating ourselves. I’ll just say that giving her over to a leper is not at all wicked. If there is no other candidate and she needs a husband, then that is what he did for her benefit. I’m willing to change the wording from “complete nonsense” to “there is no need to be concerned about this.”

So you mean that if the father gives her to a leper against her will and against her wishes, and there is someone else, but the leper pays more and is an evil and cruel person, then the betrothal does not take effect. I would very much like Jewish law to work that way, but to innovate like that from pure reasoning requires the muscles of Hercules.

In my opinion one can prove from Tosafot on Kiddushin 3b, s.v. “And if you should say,” that if the father gives her to a leper then she has shame and impairment, but if she gives herself to a leper then there is no shame and impairment. If the father too betroths her only for her own benefit, then the distinction regarding shame is not understood.
If that is indeed proven from Tosafot, is that evidence against the innovation that a father has the power to betroth only when, in his judgment after weighing everything, it is for her benefit?

You are again repeating the same point that has already been answered. I wrote that the points I raised do not necessarily stand alone as an independent permission. Their combination is enough to permit. I already noted to you that later authorities discussed a father who betroths his daughter: is he her agent, or is he the legal actor? If he is her agent, then reason suggests that he cannot act to her detriment. “I sent you to fix things, not to ruin them.” See on this matter, for example, here: https://asif.co.il/download/kitvey-et/alon%20shevut/alon%20shevut169/169_05edrei.html
And I have not even entered here into the reasoning of “whoever betroths” and the possibility that the Sages uprooted the betrothal in extreme situations like these.
When a father gives his daughter to a leper, that is a complex case. It has advantages and disadvantages. She has a spouse, but he is a leper. In such a situation, perhaps one cannot claim cancellation of agency, just as in the law of benefiting someone when there is both benefit and liability together, as in Kiddushin 42a and many other places; rather there may be an obligation of compensation. But I would need to enter into the passage to see the proof.
Beyond that, it may be that in their times daughters accepted the father’s decisions, because the norm was that he determined things. Therefore even with a leper there is no cancellation of the betrothal. But nowadays the situation is different. She would not have accepted it on that basis. That is of course connected to the distinction I already mentioned: in their days, concern for a match was in many cases concern for life itself.

All I asked about was the proof from Tosafot, so I do not understand what it means here that the question was already answered. Whether something is a combination or a certainty makes no difference for the purpose of discussing the evidence.
Even if the father is the daughter’s agent, the idea that she can say to him, “I sent you to fix things,” even though the appointment is against her will and does not depend on her at all, is apparently your own tremendous innovation, because I did not find it in any way in the article you cited—I read the whole thing letter by letter, though quickly. If a priest causes a sacrifice to become piggul, and if priests are our agents, then why can’t the Israelite say to him, “I sent you to fix things,” so it should not be piggul at all but just ordinary slaughtered meat and permitted to be eaten? Clearly, “I sent you to fix things” applies only when the appointment is in the sender’s hands.

What I meant was that you attacked one of my considerations and said it is not enough on its own to decide the matter, and I already answered that not every consideration stands on its own. These are subsidiary factors. Here again you are raising the same argument against one subsidiary factor as if it were the decisive consideration.
And of course it makes a difference whether something is a subsidiary factor or not. Even if something is uncertain, it can still serve as a subsidiary factor.
“I sent you to fix things” is not necessarily something she herself says, but something said by the one who appointed him on her behalf—the Torah or the Holy One, blessed be He. He was appointed to look after her, and he is not doing so.
A sacrifice cannot become ordinary slaughtered meat because it is sacred. It is not even unconsecrated meat in the Temple courtyard. Beyond that, the Holy One appointed the priests to be our agents, and the question is whether there the appointment is void if they render the sacrifice piggul. That is not like the appointment of the father, whose role is to care for the weak and for someone who cannot care for herself. There it is reasonable that if you are not caring for her, your appointment is void. In sacrifices, if you do not act properly, that is a transgression. The Jewish people—the priests and we together—are acting here before the Holy One.

There is a methodological point here that I would be glad to understand, with your permission. How do we analyze something that is only a subsidiary factor? We examine it through the evidence on its own. If it turns out that the evidence is not decisive, or that there is room in reasoning both ways, then it can join as a subsidiary factor. Its being subsidiary only allows one to provide more strained or less certain answers, but answers are still needed even for a subsidiary factor, and one still derives practical implications from it according to that approach. I once had a study partner who would constantly raise possibilities in both directions, and when I argued against one side on logical grounds he would defensively tell me, fine, I’m not sure about it, but maybe. And I argued to him that if something is one of your possible sides, then you need to discuss it as if it were certain; and if it has been refuted, it has been refuted. Any rejection that would work against something standing on its own works all the more so to reject it if it is only a subsidiary factor.

I sign on every word. Except that when you attack a subsidiary factor by saying that in order to permit on its basis one would need the muscles of Hercules, you are doing something I already rejected. A full discussion certainly can and should be conducted about every subsidiary factor exactly as you described.

Muscles.

Accepted—let’s leave the muscles out of it.

Forgive me for coming back to this, but I still have not understood: according to your reasoning, that even in an agency appointment made by the Holy One one can say “I sent you to fix things,” how does a priest have the power to render a sacrifice piggul if they are our agents? And if with piggul in slaughter you answered that in the end the slaughter was not done properly and the sacred sacrifice was not permitted, and therefore it becomes piggul—I need to check whether there is piggul even if an Israelite or even a non-Jew simply stabs the sacrifice, or whether this is specifically a law concerning priests—what about piggul in the sprinkling of the blood? How does the priest have the power to render it piggul? We should say: “We sent you to act properly before the Holy One, and your sprinkling is meaningless, and we will bring another priest who will come back and sprinkle.” [By the way, piggul is not only in public offerings but also in private offerings, and if the priest intentionally rendered it piggul he is liable to pay. So this is not the Jewish people and the priests against the Holy One, but rather the individual and his priest-agent before the Holy One.]

About that I wrote that we and the priests stand before the Holy One, and this is not a discussion between me and the priest. When I wrote “we and the priests,” I did not mean the public, but every individual Jew together with the priest who offered on his behalf. This is unlike a father who acts vis-à-vis his daughter. She is the one making the claim against him. Besides the fact that she is helpless, as above.
And the reason the priest must pay is that in practice he damaged me, but that does not mean I am his sender in the sense of ordinary agency, which is void when he acts destructively.