Nedarim - Daf 91
- אשת כהן שנאנסה יש לה כתובה
On the previous Daf, Rav Pappa said that Rava tested them with an inquiry: אשת כהן שנאנסה – A wife of a Kohen who is violated and thereby forbidden to him, יש לה כתובה או אין לה כתובה – does she receive a kesubah or not? Do we say that since her being violated is equal to a Yisroel’s wife committing adultery willingly, in that they both become forbidden to their husbands, so she would lose her kesubah like a Yisroel’s wife who is willingly unfaithful? Or can she say that as far as she is concerned, she would be permitted to him (since she was violated), and it is only his special status as Kohen which forbids her to him, so it should be viewed as his bad fortune and no fault of hers? They resolved the query from our Mishnah, which taught that a woman who said she was defiled must be divorced and receives her kesubah (originally). What is the case? If she said she willingly defiled herself, then she forfeits the kesubah, so she must have said she was violated. Therefore, the Mishnah must be about a Kohen’s wife, since only she becomes forbidden through violation (requiring divorce), yet the Mishnah says she collects a kesubah.
- If a woman is believed to say her husband divorced her
The Gemara inquires: אמרה לבעלה גרשתני מהו – If she says to her husband, “You have divorced me,” what is the halachah? Is she believed to marry someone else? Rav Hamnuna suggested a resolution from our Mishnah, which taught that a woman who claimed to have been defiled is not believed according to the Mishnah’s later ruling. That is only because she realizes that the husband does not know the truth, so she is not afraid to lie to him, but to claim that he divorced her, which he knows about, she should be believed, דחזקה אין אשה מעיזה פניה בפני בעלה – because there is a presumption that a woman would not be so brazen-faced to her husband to claim what he knows to be untrue. Rava sought to prove the opposite: Although in the Mishnah’s initial ruling, she is believed to say she was defiled, התם משום דלא עבידא לבזויי נפשה – there it is because she would not want to disgrace herself to say she was defiled unless it were true, but it is possible that a woman would falsely claim divorce to escape her husband.
- Incidents in which concerns of adultery were dismissed
The Gemara records two incidents in which a woman indicated that she had relations with her husband the previous night, which the husband denied, prompting a concern that she mistakenly had relations with someone else. Rav Nachman said in both cases that we assume she is interested in another man, and her statement is disregarded. In a third incident, a man was secluded with someone’s wife, and when the husband returned, the man broke through a weak wall and fled. Rava said that we are confident no sin was committed (and he need not divorce her even as a stringency), because the adulterer would have hidden. In a fourth incident, an adulterer entered a home, and when the husband returned, he hid behind a curtain. When the husband was about to eat food tasted by a snake, the apparent adulterer called out to him to warn him. Rava said we are confident no sin was committed, because he would have allowed to husband to die. The Gemara explains the novelty is that one might have thought the adulterer prefers that the husband remain alive, as it says: מים גנובים ימתקו ולחם סתרים ינעם – “stolen waters are sweet, and bread of secrecy is pleasant.”
