Eduyos 4:8-9

Eduyos 4:8

Beis Shammai permit a forbidden woman’s co-wife to marry a deceased husband’s brother but Beis Hillel prohibit this. If such a co-wife performed chalitzah (the shoe-removal ceremony) Beis Shammai prohibit her from marrying a kohein (because it was a valid chalitzah) but Beis Hillel permit it (because it was a meaningless act). If such a co-wife underwent yibum (levirate marriage), Beis Shammai permit her to marry a kohein (if she is subsequently widowed again) but Beis Hillel prohibit it (because she participated in an illicit relation). Even though these two schools prohibit and permit mutually exclusive women, they did not hesitate to marry women from the other community (relying upon one another to provide them with the appropriate information). Similarly, these two schools declared different things to be ritually clean and ritually unclean but they didn’t hesitate to prepare food in ritual cleanness with one another (again relying upon one another to provide any necessary details).

Eduyos 4:9

Let’s say that there are three brothers, two of them married to sisters and the third is single. If one of the married brothers died and the single brother married his widow by maamar (i.e., with money or a document) and then the other married brother died, Beis Shammai say that he retains the current wife and the other woman has no yibum obligation because she is his wife’s sister. Beis Hillel say that he must divorce the first woman and perform chalitzah with the second (because maamar does not sufficiently effect marriage for this purpose). Regarding this, they said, “Woe to him because of his wife and woe to him because of his brother’s wife!” (because he cannot retain either of them).