It’s good to be king TB Yevamot 95

Comparing the first Mishna of our chapter with our current Mishna, we see that even though the cases are parallel women are greatly penalized and men are not. The first Mishnah records “With regard to a woman whose husband went overseas, and witnesses came and they said to her: Your husband is dead, and she married another man on the basis of this testimony, and afterward her husband came back from out of the country, she must leave both this man and that one, as they are both forbidden to her. And she requires a bill of divorce from this one and that one.” (TB Yevamot 87b, Sefaria.org translation)

Our current Mishna reverses the situation, but the results are not the same. “In the case of one whose wife went overseas and people came and told him: Your wife is dead, and he married her sister, and afterward his wife came back from overseas, the original wife is permitted to return to him, as his erroneous marriage to her sister is considered licentious sexual relations, and one who has intercourse with his wife’s relatives has not rendered his first wife forbidden to himself.” (TB Yevamot 94a-b, Sefaria.org translation)

Today’s daf TB Yevamot 95 explains why the results are different even though the cases look similar. “And let his wife be forbidden by his sexual relations with her sister, just as it is in the case of a woman whose husband went overseas, who is forbidden to her husband if she had relations with another man by mistake.

The Gemara answers: This is not comparable. With regard to his wife, who is forbidden to him by Torah law if she committed adultery intentionally, the Sages decreed concerning her that she is forbidden to him even if she did so unwittingly.

“However, with regard to a wife’s sister, where even if the sister sins intentionally the wife is not forbidden to him by Torah law, if he did so unwittingly the Sages did not decree with regard to him. And from where do we derive that she is not forbidden? As it is taught in a baraita that in the verse: “A man, when his wife goes aside…and a man lies with her” (Numbers 5:12–13), the emphasis of “her” teaches: It is her intercourse with another man that renders her forbidden to her husband, but the intercourse of her sister does not render her forbidden.” (Sefaria.org translation)

The Yerushalmi Talmud provides a different reason. The rabbis only enacted their decrees in cases that are commonplace. They did not enact their decrees where the case under discussion rarely takes place. Men going abroad was a commonplace event. I assume they went abroad because their business demanded it. Since it was a commonplace event, women were aware that they had to do their due diligence before marrying on the basis of only one witness. Failing to do their due diligence and marrying allowed the rabbis to penalize them. Women going abroad was not very common at all. Consequently, the rabbis make any decrees. Since they did not make any decrees they didn’t penalize the men like they penalized the women.

In both explanations we have to recognize that the men were making the rules whether by a derasha, exegesis, or why they enacted their decrees. I’m reminded of a line that Mel Brooks said in his movie The History of the World part two, “It’s good to be king.” In the rabbinic world, it’s good to be a man. We hear an echo of this idea in the traditional morning blessing “Praised are you, Lord our God, King of the universe, was not made me a woman.”