Talmud - Bava Metzia 18a בבא מציעא י״ח א׳

then what is meant by the wording: She collects all that she is entitled to? What she has is only the main sum of the marriage contract of one hundred or two hundred dinars that she can collect. Clearly, the mishna is referring to a case where the husband wrote a marriage contract, and it does not indicate that a betrothed widow receives payment of her marriage contract.

And if one would say that the marriage contract of a betrothed woman is instead derived from that which Rav Ḥiyya bar Ami teaches, that is also difficult. He teaches: One does not enter acute mourning on the day of the death of his betrothed wife, nor may he become ritually impure at her funeral if she dies, if he is a priest; and similarly, she does not enter acute mourning for him if he dies, and she may not become ritually impure at his funeral. If she dies, he does not inherit her property. If he dies, she collects payment of her marriage contract.

If it is derived from here that a betrothed woman receives payment of a marriage contract, this is not proof, as perhaps this too is referring to a case where he wrote a marriage contract for her. And if you would say that if it is referring to a case where he wrote her a marriage contract, what is the purpose of stating this? One could answer that while this clause is obvious, it was necessary for Rav Ḥiyya bar Ami to state that conversely, if she dies, he does not inherit her property.

Rather, Abaye retracted his objection to Rabbi Yoḥanan’s proof from the mishna, not because of the case of a widow from betrothal, but due to an indication from within the mishna itself. Because if it enters your mind that we are dealing with a place where they do not write a marriage contract, where a woman’s bill of divorce is effectively her marriage contract, and therefore she can use her bill of divorce to collect payment of her marriage contract, that does not make sense; is it written in a bill of divorce that the husband is liable to pay the wife the one hundred or two hundred dinars she is owed? In fact, this is not written in a bill of divorce.

And even if you would say that since the Sages instituted that she use the bill of divorce to collect her marriage contract, it is considered as though the liability of the husband to pay one hundred or two hundred dinars is written in it, and it would still be problematic to say that the bill of divorce is sufficient for her to collect payment. The husband should still be able to claim that he is exempt, and say: I already paid it.

And if you would say that if the husband would state such a claim, we would say to him: If, in fact, you paid her, you should have torn up the bill of divorce, and he could respond and say to us: She did not allow me to tear it up, because she said: I need the bill of divorce to remarry, by using it as proof that I am divorced.

And if you would say that we would then say to him: You should have torn up the bill of divorce and written on the back of it: The reason that we tore up this bill of divorce is not because it is an invalid bill of divorce, but rather it is in order that the woman not collect payment of her marriage contract again with it, this suggestion is not always applicable. Does everyone who collects payment of a marriage contract collect payment in court, where it is possible to write such a legal statement? Therefore, the suggestion that a bill of divorce serves as a marriage contract remains untenable. This leads to the conclusion that the basis for collecting payment of a marriage contract where such a document does not exist must be a court enactment, in accordance with the interpretation of Rabbi Yoḥanan.

MISHNA: If one found bills of divorce, or bills of manumission of slaves, or wills, or deeds of a gift, or receipts, he may not return these items to the one who is presumed to have lost them, as I say it is possible that they were written and then the writer reconsidered about them and decided not to deliver them.

GEMARA: It can be inferred from the mishna that the only reason that these documents are not returned is that there is a concern that the person obligated by the document reconsidered with regard to them and decided not to deliver them. But if the writer says: Give this found document to the intended recipient, the finder must give it to him. And since the mishna places no limitation on this, presumably this is the halakha even if a long time passed since it was lost, and there is no concern that perhaps the document belongs to someone else with the same name.

And the Gemara raises a contradiction from a mishna (Gittin 27a): With regard to an agent who was bringing a bill of divorce to a woman, and it was lost by him, if he found it immediately, the bill of divorce is still valid. If not, then it is not valid, as it is possible that the bill of divorce that he found is not the same one that he lost, and this second bill of divorce belongs to someone else whose name and wife’s name are identical to the names of the husband and wife in the lost bill of divorce.

Rabba says: This is not difficult, because there, in tractate Gittin, the mishna is stated with regard to a place where caravans passing through are common, and there is a concern that the found bill of divorce belongs to someone else with the identical name. By contrast, the mishna here is stated with regard to a place where caravans passing through are uncommon, so there is no such concern.

The Gemara adds: And even in a place where caravans passing through are common, there is not always a concern that the bill of divorce may belong to another man with an identical name, and this concern is only where it has been established that there are two men named, for example, Yosef ben Shimon in that one city.

As, if you do not say so, that this concern is taken into account only in a place where it is known that there are two people with this same name, then there is a difficulty presented in the form of a contradiction between this statement of Rabba and another statement of Rabba. As there was a certain bill of divorce that was found in the court of Rav Huna, in which it was written that the bill of divorce was written in Sheviri City, which is located on the Rakhis River. Rav Huna said about this:

Traduction : The William Davidson digital edition of the Koren Noé Talmud, with commentary by Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz.

Bava Metzia 18a examines whether a betrothed widow can collect her marriage contract and debates if a divorce document itself serves as proof of payment.