[Avodah] so is she married?

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

I wrote:
> When teenagers play around, and stage a pretend wedding, everyone
> knows that they were just playing, and did not intend to actually get
> married. But they *did* go through the motions...

R' Micha Berger responded:
> As did someone who said "Will you marry me?", gives her a ring,
> there are eidim, and both of them even have every intent to spend
> the rest of their lives as a couple. No?

It depends on what you mean by of "the rest of their lives" and "as a couple". The whole idea of engagement is that, yes, they are agreeing to be a couple of "rayim ahuvim" henceforth and forever, but they are NOT agreeing to be a *married* couple until some future point.

"Engagement" is not a new institution. Halacha does not stop a man from going up to a Jewish woman he never saw before, and offering her kiddushin. But even though that would be valid, it is simply never done. Not in our culture, not in any culture, Jewish or not, present or past. As far back as Yitzchak and Rivka, there was first an agreement to be married (Bereshis 24:51), and only after that (no earlier than 24:53, it seems to me, and possibly only much later) did she actually become his wife.

> I mean, the gemara says giving her a ring while discussing
> inyanei qiddushin is enough, or "will you be buried next to me?"

Yes, I'll concede that it says that. But it isn't a magic formula. IIRC, it is cited specifically to point out that there *is* *no* magic formula, that the text of "Haray at" is not m'akev, that all we need is a giluy daas, which (in the absence of sufficient evidence to the contrary) reveals that the intention of the couple was that this act would effect the marriage.

I maintain that in the video cited at the start of this thread, they made no such giluy daas. Everything the man did in that video was typical of how people in that culture get *engaged*. The ring was not a plain band typical (even among non-Jews) of a wedding ring, but it had a jewel in it, typical of engagement rings. He knelt down (though I couldn't tell if it was on one knee or both), which is also traditional among many when proposing to get engaged. Most important, however, was his use of the *future* tense, when he asked "Will you marry me?", rather than "Do you marry me?" which I concede would have been problematic.

I think that we have each explained our views adequately. I suggest that we take a time-out until such time as we can cite some sources who explore the limits of the gemara which
> ... says giving her a ring while discussing
> inyanei qiddushin is enough, or "will you be buried next to me?"

Akiva Miller

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