ktubbah - de azi

Ketubbah is perhaps the most beautiful and romantic chapter in the Jewish tradition. It has accompanied the Jewish people throughout the centuries, and no Jewish wedding anywhere could be solemnized without it. Following the Talmudic sages, authorities on Jewish law state quite categorically that "A man may not live with his wife, even for one single hour, without a Ketubbah."

Despite its importance, the Ketubbah is not mentioned in the Bible. The first reference to contract associated with a Jewish marriage ceremony is in the apocryphal book of Tobit, written sometime in the third or fourth centuries. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a few marriage contracts were discovered among the Elephantine Papyri--an archive of documents, written in Aramaic, belonging to the Jewish military colony in the Egyptian Island of the Elephantine some 2,500 years ago. These constitute the earliest known Jewish marriage contracts. However, the Ketubbah as it is know today received its form much later during the Talmudic period.

According to the letter of the law in Deuteronomy, a husband is entitled to divorce his wife at his own discretion, without any obligation on his part. The Sages, however, were concerned to make this more difficult for the husband on the one hand, and to protect the wife's interests on the other. After lengthy deliberations about every single detail, this ultimately led to the to the formulation of a standard marriage contract: Upon entering into a marriage, the groom undertakes certain obligations, aimed first at safeguarding his wife's rights in various respects. This includes protecting her against arbitrary divorce, and second, at guaranteeing her sustenance should the marriage be nonetheless dissolved--whether as a result of divorce or the husband's death. According to Rabbinical law, the principle obligation imposed on the husband is financial: he is required to guarantee certain amounts of money, some fixed in advance, and some dependent of future financial status; the wife is entitled to these sums if she is divorced or widowed. The groom is required to give the bride: "All the my property, real and personal, including, (literally) the shirt from my back," to secure the trousseau. I tend to think this is a fine thing to have in writing. The deed in which these obligations are recorded, in the presence of two witnesses, was known as the book of the Ketubbah, or later simply as the Ketubbah.

Besides financial obligations, the Ancient Aramaic Ketubbah also listed the husbands other obligations to his spouse under biblical law: providing her food, her clothing and her conjugal rights. The Talmudic Sages added several other obligations, including the duty of the husband to redeem the wife should she be taken captive, and to care for her medical needs should she fall ill. These additional obligations did not need to be mentioned in the Ketubbah itself and were latter omitted altogether in later periods.

In the Middle Ages, a standard fixed Ketubbah text came into existence in the Ashkenazi world, and this is the one that is primarily still in use today. But variations from around the world bear the stamp of the host country, whether it be Italy, Greece, or the Near East.

http://www.ketubbah.com/histText.html