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Good afternoon chevra,
Thank you to everyone who responded regarding the Zoom sessions. I’m hard at work organizing them.
The fourth perek of Ketubot fully develops the halachik financial relationship between a father and his minor daughter. As the Torah indicates at the beginning of Parashat Mishpatim, a father is both entrusted and authorized to marry off his minor daughters. This is undoubtedly an arrangement that was intended for the daughter’s welfare at a time when: (a) marriages were arranged, (b) were critical to a women’s economic well-being, and (c) women married very young.
The Mishnayot in our perek presume that a father’s authority to marry off his minor daughter is one feature of his overall financial custodianship of his minor daughter’s affairs. The first example given here is one that is carried over from perek 3, as we now learn that the financial payments associated with the rape of a minor are paid to the father, rather than to the victim herself. Other examples follow throughout the perek. What also emerges is that the father’s legal position relative to his minor daughter ends once she becomes married (as opposed to merely “betrothed”). This continues to be true even if the daughter’s marriage should end.
One background note for Mishna 3 – all of the references are to Devarim 29: 19-21, the passage about a betrothed young woman who is involved in an adulterous act. (Yes, it’s hard to read.)
The Mishna that wins “biggest surprise” in this perek is Mishna 6, which teaches that technically a father’s obligation to sustain his children – whether sons or daughters – ends when those children turn seven. To be noted is the Gemara’s (49 a-b) insistence that while there is no obligation to sustain beyond the first six years, there is certainly a mitzva to do so. And in fact the Gemara reflects profound condemnation of any father who ceases sustaining his children at this age: “When they would come before Rav Yehuda to complain about a father who refused to sustain his children, he would say to them: Does the jackal bear offspring and cast the obligation to feed them on the residents of the town!? (i.e. Even a jackal feeds its young, and it is certainly proper for a father to support his children.) Also see Rambam’s comments, cited below.
Mishnayot 7 – 12 detail the many obligations that a husband has toward his wife, regardless of whether these obligations are explicitly recorded in the couple’s ketubah. (In fact, almost none of them explicitly appear in our ketubah text today.) One fascinating thing is that while (as we saw above) a father’s obligation during his lifetime is to sustain his daughters only up to age seven, the ketubah obligates the father’s estate to sustain his daughters until they marry in a case in which the father has died during their childhood (Mishna 11)
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Rambam, Laws of Marriage 12 : 14-15
Just as a man is required to provide his wife with her subsistence, he is required to provide for the maintenance of his children, both male and female, until they reach the age of six. Afterwards, he should continue to provide for their maintenance until they reach majority, as ordained by our Sages.
If, however, he does not, he should be rebuked and embarrassed publicly, and appeals should be made to him. If he [persists in his] refusal, a public announcement is made with regard to him: "So and so is cruel and does not desire to provide for the maintenance of his children. He is worse than an impure bird, which does provide for its chicks." Nevertheless, he should not be compelled to provide for the maintenance [of children] six and older.
To what does the above apply? To a person who is not known to have resources, and it is not known whether or not he is capable of giving charity. If, however, he has resources and he possesses the means to give an amount to charity that would provide for [his children's] needs, his property is expropriated against his will for the purposes of charity, and [his children's] needs are provided for until they reach majority.
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