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From: teitz@aecom.UUCP (Eliyahu Teitz)
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: Re: What is a mamzer?
Message-ID: <1363@aecom.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 9-Apr-85 12:50:41 EST
Article-I.D.: aecom.1363
Posted: Tue Apr  9 12:50:41 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 10-Apr-85 21:11:08 EST
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Organization: Albert Einstein Coll. of Med., NY
Lines: 62

> 
> In practice today, most rabbis will insist that for a marriage
> to be valid (and to prove intent?)  the man must also give his wife
> a token (a ring) and also a valid marriage contract (ketuba),
> even though the Talmud allows any one of the three.
> 

	Sorry to disagee. The rabbis, according to the Talmud, Tractate 
 Kidushin, allow three way to marry a woman. There is a two step processin
 in 
 mayrrying a woman, kiddushin and nisu'in. Kiddushin is the process in which
 a woman become prohibitted to men ( after this step she is considered set
 aside, kadosh ( holy, or separated ), for one man and all others are 
 prohibited. This can be done in one of three ways, giving the woman something
 of monetary value ( customarily a ring ), by intercourse, or by giving her a
 legal document ( a shtar as it is know in hebrew ). After this ceremony it was
 customary, in the times of the Talmud, for the couple to be separated to save
 money and prepare for the wedding. So the first ceremony is not unlike an 
 engagement, just that today's engagements aren't done as religious rituals.
 After a year's time the couple would get together again and have the wedding,
 or nisu'in, where the husband would take his wife to his home and she would be
 his. 

	Today, we do both ceremonies together. First we have the kiddushin,
 when the rabbi says the blessings over the wine, under the canopy. Then the
 husband gives the ring to his wife. After this the rabbi reads the marriage
 agreement, ketuba. The ketuba was set up as an insurance policy for the wife
 by the rabbis. What the ketuba basically says is that if the husband should 
 divorce his wife or die, he or his estate would be responsible to pay an 
 amount of money to the woman. The exact amount depends on how much a husbands

 wants to add to a base figure ( which has been estimated at about $ 15,000 -
 $ 25,000 ). This is not the document which the rabbis allowed as one of the
 methods of kiddushin. That is a different document ( and the point of my
 disagreement ). After this document, the ketuba is read ( and it is used as
 a filler, to separate between the ceremonies of kiddushin and nisu'in ) the
 nisu'in starts, with the rabbi again reciting blessings over wine. After these
 seven blessings, the couple go off to a room by themselves, with the entrance
 to the room watched by two men to insure that the couple is alone. After the
 couple emerges from the room they are amrried, since it is assumed that the
 husband could have had relations with his wife and thereby consummated the
 marriage.

	As far as intent is concerned there are a few points to be made. If
 a couple has relations without intent to be married, and even if there was
 intent, but the man didn't say anything to the woman ( I seem to recall that
 the man must make a statement that he wants the woman as a wife before having
 relations withhu
 her, although I may be wrong ) then they are not married. 
 Howevver, there is a separate problem if the couple is living together. If 
 they live as a miarried couple even though they have not been married in the
 way set up then they might be considered married anyway ( which is why most 
 orthodox rabbis require gittin of couples married by non-orthodox rabbis in
married in a way that there is a flaw
 in the ceremony ( if, for instance, the witnesses in front of whom the ceremony
 was performed were invvalid ). This is a problem that we have today, which 
 could potentially lead to mamzerim. Therefore we must all be careful in our
 dealings with the other sex to insure that we don't inadverntently mess up
 future generations.


				Eliyahu Teitz.