Who is a virgin? TB Yevamot 59 (with help from daf 57)

 Because the Kohen Hagadol, the High Priest, comes in the closest contact with God, the source of all holiness, the Torah lays down very strict rules about who he may marry. “He may take [into his household as his wife] only a woman who is a virgin. A widow, or a divorced woman, or one who is degraded by harlotry—such he may not take. Only a virgin of his own kin may he take as his wife— that he may not profane his offspring among his kin, for I YHVH have sanctified him.” (Leviticus 21:13-15)

Today’s daf TB Yevamot 59 teaches that the dating and marriage pool is not that deep for the Kohen Hagadol. To appreciate the disagreement between Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Elazar and Rabbi Shimon, we have to know the three stages in a girl’s\woman’s life. From birth to 12 years old, the girl is considered a ketana (קְּטַנָּה), a minor. From 12 years old to 12 ½ years old she is a na’ara (נַעֲרָה), a young woman. After 12 ½ years old she is considered a bogeret (בּוֹגֶרֶת), a grown woman.

What is the legal definition of a virgin is at the core of the disagreement between Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Elazar and Rabbi Shimon. We define a virgin as a person was not had sexual intercourse no matter what his or her age is. The movie The 30-year-old Virgin proves my point. At least Rabbi Meir would disagree with this definition. “It was taught in the mishna: And a High Priest may not marry a grown woman (bogeret- בּוֹגֶרֶת). The Sages taught that the verse: “And he shall take a wife in her virginity” (Leviticus 21:13) excludes a grown woman, whose hymen has worn away, i.e., it is no longer as complete as that of a minor or a young woman; this is the statement of Rabbi Meir. Rabbi Elazar and Rabbi Shimon declare a grown woman fit to marry a High Priest.” (Sefaria.org translation) 

Rambam poskins that the Kohen Hagadol may not marry a bogeret. (Mishnah Torah, Sefer Kedusha, Forbidden intercourse, chapter 17, halakha13). Interestingly, he aloo interprets a section in our sugiyah that the Kohen Hagadol may not practice bigamy. He is allowed only one wife at a time.

We learned back on TB Yevamot 57 that a girl may marry at the age of three years old and one day. I wish to quote to you Sue Parker Gerson’s dafyomi page to help put the marriageable age of children into social and historical context.

“Putting aside for a moment the horrific notion of a man having sex with a three-year-old girl (we’ll come back to this), let’s take a beat and look at the context in which these statements are made.

“First, we need to understand that the difference between the age of three and three and one day is the legal demarcation of the age at which a girl can be married, with her father’s consent. (The age for boys is nine.) We also need to know that the marriage ceremony, as we will learn in much greater detail in tractates Kiddushin and Ketubot, is split into two stages: betrothal (erusin) and the marriage ritual (nissuin). Marriage itself can be effected in three ways: with a kebutah (marriage contract), payment (or the giving of a gift of monetary value) or sexual intercourse.

“For many reasons, not the least of which was low life expectancy, it was common in the ancient world for parents to betroth their children at a young age. In the era of the rabbis, the average life expectancy was just 25. Without modern medicine, people died young due to illness and, among women, in childbirth. Parents were therefore motivated to attach their children to another family in order to provide care and stability in case they didn’t survive. This was especially so in Jewish communities targeted with violent antisemitism. Sometimes, parents even brought their young children to the wedding canopy and then brought them home to wait until they reached puberty. This is the reason why the erusin and nissuin rituals are separated. Sometimes, they took place months or even years apart.

“But this passage isn’t discussing just betrothal; the rabbis are talking quite dispassionately about actual intercourse between a man and a girl who may have been as young as three. Or even younger: The Gemara describes her as a tinoket — literally, a baby. While the Gemara rules that if a child was younger than three it didn’t count as a real marriage, if she was older than three — even by a day — it did.

“What are we to make of this?

“While our daf shows that the early rabbis were aware of such marriages, other texts demonstrate that they didn’t approve of them. Sanhedrin 76b quotes Rav as advocating that parents wait until the age of puberty to marry off their children, and he forbids child marriage altogether on Kiddushin 41a:

“It is prohibited for a person to betroth his daughter to a man when she is a minor, until such time that she grows up and says: I want to marry so-and-so.

“A girl who is nevertheless married off as a child may reject her husband once she reaches maturity. As we will read soon on Yevamot 107a, Beit Hillel declares a minor may reject her parents’ chosen suitor. 

“I’d like to think that the rabbis, if not abjectly horrified like I was when reading this passage, were at least disgusted by it — or at least disgusted enough that multiple later legal rulings were enacted to discourage (and ultimately forbid) it.” (https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/yevamot-57/)