Yevamos 10:2-3

Yevamos 10:2

Continuing the case in mishna 10:1 of a woman whose husband was reported dead so she remarried but then her first husband turns up alive: if she married with the permission of the court, she must divorce both husbands (as in 10:1) but she need not bring an offering (because she acted according to the court’s decision). If she married without the court’s permission, she must divorce both husbands and she must bring an offering (for her inadvertent sin). The power of the court is such that it can exempt her from having to bring an offering. If the court ruled that she could marry but she married improperly (such as if she was a divorcee and she married a kohein, which is prohibited), she must bring an offering because they only said that she could marry (and not that she could marry impermissibly, so in this case she violated the court’s ruling).

Yevamos 10:3

Let’s say that a woman’s husband and son both went overseas, then witnesses came and reported that her husband died and, subsequent to that, her son also died. In such a case she is exempt from yibum, so she remarried. Later, she discovers that in fact her son died before her husband, so it turns out that she was actually obligated in yibum. In such a case, she must divorce her new husband and children born from this union are mamzerim, whether they were born before or after her first husband died. [In practice, children born from such a union are not mamzerim.] Let’s say that they originally told her that her son died followed by her husband so she performed yibum with her brother-in-law, then later found out that her husband in fact died first. In such a case, she must divorce her brother-in-law and any children born of this union are mamzerim, whether they were born before or after her son died. If she was informed that her husband died so she remarried, then it turned out he was alive but he subsequently died for real, she must divorce her new husband. In such a case, children born before the first husband’s death are mamzerim but those born after are not. If they told her that her husband died so she got betrothed but her husband later turned up alive, she may return to him. She is not disqualified from later marrying a kohein even if her new fiancé gave her a get (because doing so was an unnecessary act). Rabbi Elazar ben Masya explained that the Torah disqualifies a woman “divorced from her husband” (Leviticus 21:7) and not a woman divorced from a man who is not her husband.