On the Acquisition of Women: Week 160 of Adam Kirsch's 'Daf Yomi' Talmud Study
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world.
This week, Daf Yomi readers began a new tractate, Kiddushin. Though Kiddushin is the last tractate in Seder Nashim, the section of the Talmud devoted to laws about women and marriage, it would have more logically come first, since it deals with the first part of the marriage transaction: betrothal. Just as, in American culture, a couple is first engaged and then married, so under Jewish law marriage is a two-part process. First the man acquires his wife through betrothal, then he marries her through a contract and a ceremony. The difference is that, while engagement is a purely symbolic relationship that usually has no legal status, betrothal or kiddushin already confers on the couple certain rights and responsibilities.