[Avodah] [Areivim] Polygamy

[chana at kolsassoon.org.uk]

Moving this to Avodah:
I wrote:
> >But there is mention of more.  The assumption throughout the 
tractates you
> >mention is that the natural state of Tzaros vis a vis one another 
is one of
> >hate, to the extent that eg in Yevamos 118a, one wife is assumed to 
be
> >prepared to be mekalkel herself (by pretending that the mutual 
husband was
> >dead) in order to be mekelkel the other wife - saying (to link to 
another
> >thread) "tamus nafsheha im plishtim".  That is not a nice pretty
> >relationship we are discussing here.

>I believe that you are conflating two Gmaraos,  The one you cite, as
>opposed to the one I cite below, refers to a 'zarah' testifying 'lo
>mes', not 'mes'; the kilkul in your case is the consequent 
prohibition
>on both of them from remarrying, not, as in the case I cite, the
>manipulation of the woman to remarry illegally.

I see I misremembered the  pshat of the gemora - although looking over 
it again, I am surprised.  After all attempting to render oneself an 
aguna, just so as to render one's tzarah an aguna, while obviously not 
a great situation, seems strangely worded as "mekalkel".  Whereas the 
reverse situation, where one might be rendered forbidden to one's 
husband, is surely more accurately described as mekalkel.

>The Mishnah (Y'vamos 117a) states: "All are believed to testify [to
>permit a wife to remarry] except for her mother-in-law, her
>mother-in-law's daughter, her 'zarah', her 'y'vamah', and her 
husband's
>daughter."  Rashi (ibid.) explains "the reason for all of them is 
that
>they hate her and they intend to ruin her.  Her mother-in-law hates
>her, for she says in her heart 'this one will consume all my toil and
>trouble'".  Although there's no element of "tamus nafshi im
>Plishtim" here, we do see that Hazal assumed that mother-in-laws
>typically hate their daughter-in-laws, or at least that this is often
>enough the case for their testimony to be suspected as unreliable;
>Hazal's assumption about the 'zarah' relationship may be of a similar
>nature, and I don't think we can conclude that they actually 
considered
>the latter relationship any more pathological than the former.

But it is precisely the tamus nafshi im Plishtim aspect that 
distinguishes the tzarah case from the others.  From the mother-in-
law's perspective, she gets rid of that pesky daughter in law who is 
consuming everything she worked for without personal cost - as it does 
not impact on her status at all (well her son might have what to say, 
but still).   And even vice versa, the daughter in law remains without 
any questions on her marriage.  However, in the case of a tzarah, 
whatever she says about the situation vis a vis her tzarah, by 
definition logically impacts on herself as well.  And that would seem 
to give her an added impetus not to lie over and above the other women 
who logically are regarded as hating each other.  Which is why, while 
the flow of the gemora on 118a might appear to be regarding a lo meis 
case, it still seems to me to be at least implicitly a commentary on 
the mishna and the particularly fraught nature of the relationship 
between tzaros in general, whether in a meis or lo meis case.  In none 
of the other cases is there a tamus nafshim im Plishtim aspect - and 
that seems to me to clearly make it more pathalogical than the other 
relationships - something that it seems to me Chazal identify by use of 
the phrase.

>> Chana

>Yitzhak

Regards

Chana



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