[Avodah] Having a boyfriend equivalent to being married?

[Zev Sero]

Josh E. wrote:
> Zev Sero wrote: 
>> The chazakah would have to apply to both.  Both would
>> have had to be acting leshem kiddushin.  How likely
>> is that, in our situation?
> 
> This seems to be asking about what their intentions
> were. But their intentions are irrelevant in the face
> of a chazakah..

Huh?  The chazakah doesn't make them married, it's just a tool to
let us presume their intentions.  But a presumption can't override
the metzius.  If we knew for certain that their intentions were
*not* leshem kidushin, then we could not presume what we knew not
to be true.  In our case we're not telepathic, but the evidence is
strong against this presumption.  


>> And then there's still the question of witnesses. 
>> AIUI the witnesses are supplied by their living
>> together openly and notoriously, which
>> makes everyone who knows them a witness.  But this
>> depends on their social circle being not only kosher
>> eidim, but also themselves assuming that since "ein
>> adam..." the couple must have been married.

> Why does it matter what the eidim assume?

If they don't know or assume that it's leshem kidushin then how are
they eidei kidushin?   It's the chazakah that lets them "know" this
without actually being told.


> IF the chazakah is operational, then as long as they are
> witnesses to the actual biah, (or, I suppose, to a  yichud
> that is equivalent to witnessing biah?)

When would there ever be witnesses to that?


> Just like we don't take into account the couple's intentions

Where do you get this?


> Furthermore, why do we require that they be living together openly
> and notoriously? What if there were eidim who simply witnessed them
> being in a yichud setting where there was sufficient time for relations.

Because we can't assume there were ever eidim for that.   How many
people could testify that about you and your wife (assuming you're
married), apart from the eidei yichud at your wedding?  And in any
case, there has *never* been a chazakah that any two people who were
together long enough to do it must have done so.  Eidim for kidushei
biah must be *told* of the couple's intentions, or they're not eidim
of anything.  But when people live together as husband and wife, "anan
sahadi" that they have sex, and that they must have intended this
leshem kidushin.   Nowadays the presumption that they're having sex
is even greater, but the assumption that they must have both intended
leshem kidushin is simply not tenable.


-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas