Q&A: Conditions in Marriage
Conditions in Marriage
Question
Hello Rabbi. I listened to the episode you did with the women criticizing the rabbinate, and in passing you said that there is no logic at all to claiming that a condition in marriage, if done properly, would not be valid.
At one point, when I studied this topic with Rabbi Moshe Moshe Lichtenstein, he argued (if I remember correctly in the name of Rabbi Soloveitchik) that “there is no condition in marriage” means that it is simply impossible to make marriage conditional at all, because marriage is just a reality—if a man and a woman live together, they are married, no matter what they say.
Is that explanation not an accepted or acceptable interpretation?
Answer
9.3.2023, 17:45 – Michael Abraham: The condition applies to the betrothal.
9.3.2023, 17:51 – S.: Obviously, but if the above reasoning is correct, and if one accepts the view that the wedding canopy effects acquisition, then making a condition on the betrothal would not help.
9.3.2023, 17:52 – Michael Abraham: Why not? If they made a condition on the betrothal and the condition is not fulfilled, the betrothal is void.
9.3.2023, 17:54 – S.: But if the wedding canopy effects acquisition, then even without betrothal there would still be marriage and a bill of divorce would be required…
9.3.2023, 17:56 – Michael Abraham: I didn’t understand a thing. The wedding canopy does not effect acquisition; at most it imposes marriage status (as a matter of Jewish law, we do not rule like Rav Huna in Kiddushin 5a).
9.3.2023, 18:01 – S.: Um… okay—now that is already an understandable claim, if you really hold that we do not rule like Rav Huna. I seem to remember from my rabbinical studies that there are halakhic authorities who do take his opinion into account.
9.3.2023, 18:02 – S.: And that this is one of the reasons given by those who require a bill of divorce after a civil marriage.
9.3.2023, 18:50 – Michael Abraham: That is an esoteric view, and all the major decisors wrote that a woman is acquired in three ways. In any case, it is obvious that someone who did perform betrothal did not intend to acquire through the wedding canopy that followed it.
And even if the wedding canopy does effect acquisition, that would follow the view that the canopy has a transactional dimension, and therefore one can make a condition on it as well.
And to say that the condition was intended only for the betrothal and not for the canopy is ridiculous, certainly as a general claim. Maybe in a particular case one could argue, based on specific indications, that he made the condition only on the betrothal. But to derive from that a sweeping rule that there is never a condition in marriage is absurd.
In short, nobody would be concerned about such a thing unless it is driven by an agenda. It does not hold water at all.
9.3.2023, 19:04 – S.: I understand. As I said, according to Rabbi Soloveitchik’s explanation of the matter, in Rav Huna’s view the wedding canopy effects acquisition automatically and not by intention, but those remarks were said for conceptual analysis and not as practical Jewish law, and I have no idea whether anyone actually takes this into account in practice.
Thank you!