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From: teitz@aecom.UUCP (Eliyahu Teitz)
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: Re: language problems
Message-ID: <1318@aecom.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 25-Mar-85 19:03:17 EST
Article-I.D.: aecom.1318
Posted: Mon Mar 25 19:03:17 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 29-Mar-85 01:47:40 EST
References: <1028@topaz.ARPA>
Organization: Albert Einstein Coll. of Med., NY
Lines: 23

> As I had a completely secular education and grew up in completely
> religiously non-active family - WHAT IS A MAMZER?  Please?  Most of what I
> read in this newsgroup I can understand, but this one is getting to me.
> 

	The answer is not a simple one. A mamzer is a child born to an
 illegal wedding. Not all illegal weddings though produce mamzerim 
 ( plural of mamzer ). There are marriages in the Torah which are prohibited,
 but whose punishment is not death ( eg. if a Cohen [priest] marries a
 divorced woman, the child is not a mamzer. Likewise, if a man has marital
 relations with his wife when she is prohibited to him [ during and after
 menstruation, until she immerses in a mikva [ ritual bath ]). A marriage
 which is punishable by death ( not only marriage, even just relations with
 such a woman, eg. a man and his daughter ) produces mamzerim. One of 
 these cases is a woman who is married having relations with another man. The
 child of this meeting is a mamzer. The Torah only recognizes religious divorce
 and secular divorce is not valid, and a child produced by a subsequent 
 marriage would be a mamzer. A man is not prohibited from marrying twice. The
 reason is simple. If a man has two wives, we know definitely who the father
 is, while a woman with two husbands has a doubt as to who the real father is.


				Eliyahu Teitz.