1,507. An Agent Who Dies

Hilchos Ishus 9:5

The rule in halacha 9:4 (that one man may divorce the woman and the other may marry her) only applies when the two men are not related. If they father and son, or two brothers, etc. then each man must give her a get and they are not permitted to have marital relations with her.

Hilchos Ishus 9:6

Let’s say that a man tells his agent to consecrate a woman for him but the agent dies and we don’t know whether or not he carried out the man’s task. We assume that he completed his mission because the legal presumption is that an agent fulfills his responsibilities. Therefore, since we don’t know which woman he may have consecrated, the man is not permitted to marry any woman who has a relative that might prohibit her as a forbidden relationship, such as a woman who has a daughter, mother, sister, etc. This is because, if the man were to marry woman X, the agent might have given kiddushin on the man’s behalf to the mother, sister or daughter of woman X. The man may marry a woman who doesn’t have any relatives that would prohibit her in this manner. If the woman has such a relative but that relative was already married when the man appointed his agent, then he is permitted to marry her. This is true even if that relative was divorced before the agent died. We don’t assume that the agent may have consecrated her after she was divorced because she was not fit to consecrate when the man appointed his agent. One does not appoint an agent to consecrate a woman who is not fit to be consecrated at the time he makes the appointment.