Husbands and wives deserve each other TB Sotah 2

The next massekhet on our journey through the Talmud now that we have finished massekhet Nazir is massekhet Sotah. A few words of introduction are necessary. I recommend that you read the parasha of the sotah in Numbers 5:12-31 and can be found here https://www.sefaria.org/Numbers.5.13?lang=bi&aliyot=0. 

There are two kinds of women who are described as a sotah. The first category is a married woman who has had intimate relations with a man besides her husband. To prove her guilt, two witnesses have to testify that they saw her in the act. The second category is a doubtful sotah. This is a woman who is suspected of adultery after her husband warns her (kinui) in front of two witnesses against being seduced with the particular man and two witnesses then testify to seeing her entering seclusion (stira) with that man. Now this wife and husband are forbidden to have relations with each other until he takes her to the Temple where she undergoes a process of verification to determine whether she was indeed adulterous. Our massekhet primarily deals with the second category of a sotah. 

Although being a patriarchal society where women had few rights and were considered more of a procession then an individual, the Gemara realizes that husbands share some of the culpability when the wife commits adultery.  On daf TB Sotah 2a we learn “Rav Shmuel bar Rav Yitzḥak says: When Reish Lakish would introduce his discussion of the Torah passage of sota he would say this: Heaven matches a woman to a man only according to his actions, as it is stated: “For the rod of wickedness shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous” (Psalms 125:3), indicating that if one has a wicked wife it is due to his own evil conduct.” (Sefaria.org translation) In other words, husbands and wives deserve each other.

Nevertheless, the Gemara questions whether this is true and then provides a solution to the contradiction. “The Gemara asks: Is that so that a man is matched to a woman according to his actions? But Rav Yehuda says that Rav says: Forty days before an embryo is formed a Divine Voice issues forth and says: The daughter of so-and-so is destined to marry so-and-so; such and such a house is destined to be inhabited by so-and-so; such and such a field is destined to be farmed by so-and-so. This clearly states that these matters, including marriage, are decreed for a person even before he is formed. The Gemara answers: This is not difficult. This statement that Rav Yehuda says in the name of Rav is with regard to a first match [zivug], while this statement of Rabba bar Ḥana in the name of Rabbi Yoḥanan is with regard to a second match. A first match is decreed in heaven; a second match is according to one’s actions.” (Sefaria.org translation)