Bava Batra 132

Ordinarily, a wife is entitled to a portion of her husband’s assets in the event that he divorces or predeceases her. However, today’s daf cites a teaching from Mishnah Peah that imposes limitations on this legal principle:

If a man writes his property to his sons, and he wrote any amount of land to his wife, she has lost her marriage contract.
 
According to the cited mishnah, if a man writes a document granting his property to his sons, and he also writes a document granting any amount of land to his wife, the wife no longer has the right to the property guaranteed her by her marriage contract. The Gemara seems surprised by the implications of this and inquires about the particulars of this case. 

Rav says: (This mishnah is referring) to transferred ownership through his wife. And Shmuel says: And where he distributes in her presence and she is silent. Rabbi Yosei, son of Rabbi Hanina, says: (It is referring to a case where) he says to her: Take this land for your marriage contract.

The Gemara offers three different situations in which the situation described above holds. According to Rav, it applies to a case where the wife formally participates in the transaction in some way. Shmuel says it also applies in a case where she witnesses the transaction and does not protest, implicitly consenting through her silence. And Rabbi Yosei says it applies only in a case where the husband is explicit that his gift of land effectively nullifies her marriage contract.

But still the Gemara isn’t satisfied. 

We learned that Rabbi Yosei says that if she accepted the distribution upon herself, even if he did not write (a document), she has lost her right to her marriage contract. By inference, (it can be stated that) the first tanna holds that both his writing and her acceptance are necessary for her (to lose her right).

The mishnah in Peah goes on to cite Rabbi Yosei’s opinion that a woman can lose her marriage contract if she accepted such a transfer even in the absence of a written document affirming as much. The Gemara thus infers that the first opinion of the mishnah must hold that both a written contract and the wife’s acceptance are necessary for her to lose her marriage contract. How then do the three named rabbis on our daf all effectively lower the bar? The Gemara continues by citing a teaching from Rabbi Yehuda: 

Rabbi Yehuda said: When (does she lose her right to receive payment of her marriage contract)? Where she was there and accepted. But if she was there but did not accept, or accepted but was not there, she has not lost her marriage contract. The Gemara concludes: The refutation of all is indeed a conclusive refutation.

Rabbi Yehuda lays two constraints: the wife must both be present at the time of the transfer and acquiesce to it. If not, she retains her marriage contract rights. And this is where the Gemara lands, concluding that this teaching refutes the three rabbis on today’s daf.

Later legal codes tweak this a bit. Maimonides holds that the wife forfeits her rights “if she does not protest,” while the Shulchan Aruch concludes that this is the case “if she was silent when he informed her and she did not protest,” but that any forfeiture of her wedding contract rights excludes assets the husband subsequently acquires and her dowry. Maimonides’ rationale is interesting. Imagining that the wife’s acceptance of the transfer effectively makes her a partner with the sons, he believes that “the satisfaction she receives from being made a partner together with his children is great enough to cause her to forfeit her rights to this property.” We should all be so lucky.

Read all of Bava Batra 132 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on November 4, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.