ABSTRACT
Jewish marriage followed three basic stages: engagement, a contract for a future marriage; betrothal, a binding religious commitment; and marriage, a solemn union. Engagement documents might contain three basic provisions: 1) financial obligations, 2) post-mortem division of property, and 3) agreements to protect women from abuse, especially becoming trapped as an agunah, or chained woman, in a violent, polygamous, or polygynous relationship and never able to marry again. The terms were recorded in documents (called variously tenaim, shidukh[in], hitun, shi-abudim, or fidanzamento), perhaps supplemented by Italian, Latin, or Hebrew agreements. Some terms appeared later in the ketubah (plural, ketubot, also called sefer ketubah, shtar ketubah, istrumento/contratto di nozze), which the groom presented to the bride at the wedding. These documents are often formulaic without revealing the entire financial picture. The basics included a dowry, nedunya or dote, a portion of the bride’s family’s assets. The man’s family contributed the “main ketubah,” the ikar or the mohar, the bride-price, that is a counter-dowry (tosefet; controdote or donatio propter nuptias, aumento, indirect dowry, or dower), and maybe gifts, clothing, and jewelry (matanah, matanah lahud, matanah gemurah; donation inter vivos). Like any contract, engagements could be broken, usually with a penalty.
