Monday, December 8, 2014

Why Can't A Woman Marry Two Men [Continuation Of "Can A Mother In Law Perform Mi-un"]


Continuing this thought.

Why can a married woman not take a second husband. Listen - not every guy fulfills all of his wife's wishes. Let her take another and maybe she will be happier. "These are my husbands - Mordy and Nordy". Plus, there will be healthy competition to earn her love.... Buuuut, we know that it is ASSSSUR. Why?

That is a famous machlokes [it would be more famous if more people would learn properly:)]. The Pnei Yehoshua [Gitten 43] writes that kiddushin does not take effect on a married woman because she is already קנויה to her first husband and a woman can't be קנויה to two men. The Avnei Milium [44/4] argues and says that the kiddushin doesn't take effect because she is considered an ervah just like other arayos in the Torah where kiddushin doesn't take effect. לפי הפני יהושע היא כבר קנויה לראשון ואין אפשרות להיות קנויה לשני אנשים ואילו לדעת האבני מילואים אין קידושין תופסים באשת איש מפני שהיא ערוה ככל עריות שבתורה שאין קדושין תופסים בהן. Ahhhhh - lashon ha-koesh!:).

Who is right?

Both of them!:-):-) As we learned there are two aspects to kiddushin. There is a kinyan and there is ishus that creates an issur ervah. It would seem that the kinyan aspect prevents another man from marrying her [as per the PY] while the ishus aspect makes her an issur ervah to all other men [as per the AM]. It would further appear that these two elements are expressed in the language of the pasuk: ואיש אשר ינאף את אשת איש אשר ינאף את אשת רעהו - The pasuk is seemingly repetitive. Not. The first part of the pasuk expresses the ערוה and אישות aspect - אשר ינאף את אשת איש, while the second part of the pasuk expresses the kinyan aspect - אשת רעהו.

If so, we can say that when a goy gets married, there is no חלות דינית - halachic ervah-type status to their marriage, but only an ענין מציאותי a reality, a מצב of marriage, since she is connected to another man. This is learned from the pasuk ודבק באשתו - ולא באשת חבירו - one [even a goy] must cling to his wife and not to his friend's wife. A wayward gentile woman is not עובר on the איסור of ערוה. All that is involved is a type of gezel because she is  קנויה to the first man. Still not geshmak but not as serious as if there would be an איסור ערוה. [I have readers from places like China. I fear that they will have trouble with this post...:-)].

A proof would be from the Ran [Sanhedrin 57a] who says that a יפת תואר who is an אשת איש is permitted to a Jew that was קונה her בקנין כיבוש מלחמה. If there was an ערוה issue involved then the kinyan wouldn't help. We see from here that there is no ערוה and only a kinyan which can be annulled by another קנין.