ABSTRACT
The Mishnah understands marriage, among other things, as a reciprocal economic relationship. The rabbis of antiquity did not know of “joint checking accounts”; property belonged to either the husband or the wife. The Mishnah painstakingly elaborates the details of this economic relationship. Among the many issues it discusses are: the status and use of the dowry; how the marriage settlement or ketubah—a sum of money promised to the wife or her heirs upon the dissolution of the marriage—is to be treated; and the ability of a woman to own independent property and her husband’s use of it.
