Virginity

Ketuvot 10b ~ More than You Ever Wanted to Know about the Barrel Test

On tomorrow’s page of Talmud, we will read the following:

כתובות י, ב

הַהוּא דַּאֲתָא לְקַמֵּיהּ דְּרַבָּן גַּמְלִיאֵל בַּר רַבִּי אֲמַר לֵיהּ רַבִּי בָּעַלְתִּי וְלֹא מָצָאתִי דָּם אֲמַרָה לֵיהּ רַבִּי עֲדַיִין בְּתוּלָה אֲנִי

אָמַר לָהֶן הָבִיאוּ לִי שְׁתֵּי שְׁפָחוֹת אַחַת בְּתוּלָה וְאַחַת בְּעוּלָה הֵבִיאוּ לוֹ וְהוֹשִׁיבָן עַל פִּי חָבִית שֶׁל יַיִן בְּעוּלָה רֵיחָהּ נוֹדֵף בְּתוּלָה אֵין רֵיחָהּ נוֹדֵף אַף זוֹ הוֹשִׁיבָה וְלֹא הָיָה רֵיחָהּ נוֹדֵף אָמַר לוֹ לֵךְ זְכֵה בְּמִקָּחֶךָ

The Gemara relates: A certain man who came before Rabban Gamliel bar Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi said to him: My teacher, I engaged in intercourse and did not find blood. The bride said to him: My teacher, I am still a virgin.

Rabban Gamliel said to them: Bring me two maidservants, one a virgin and one a non-virgin, to conduct a trial. They brought him the two maidservants, and he seated them on the opening of a barrel of wine. From the non-virgin, he discovered that the scent of the wine in the barrel diffuses from her mouth; from the virgin he discovered that the scent does not diffuse from her mouth. Then, he also seated that bride on the barrel, and the scent of the wine did not diffuse from her mouth. Rabban Gamliel said to the groom: Go take possession of your acquisition, as she is a virgin.

And so there was a happy ending to the story, and thus began the couple on a journey of happiness and mutual trust.

Another case of the Barrel TesT

In the last, bloody chapter of the Book of Judges, the civil war against the tribe of Benjamin reaches its climax. For reasons that we don’t have time to get into, four hundred virgins were captured from the town of Yavesh Gilad, and offered as a peace offering to the men of Benjamin.

21:12 שופטים

וַֽיִּמְצְא֞וּ מִיּוֹשְׁבֵ֣י ׀ יָבֵ֣ישׁ גִּלְעָ֗ד אַרְבַּ֤ע מֵאוֹת֙ נַעֲרָ֣ה בְתוּלָ֔ה אֲשֶׁ֧ר לֹא־יָדְעָ֛ה אִ֖ישׁ לְמִשְׁכַּ֣ב זָכָ֑ר וַיָּבִ֨אוּ אוֹתָ֤ם אֶל־הַֽמַּחֲנֶה֙ שִׁלֹ֔ה אֲשֶׁ֖ר בְּאֶ֥רֶץ כְּנָֽעַן׃

They found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead 400 maidens who had not known a man carnally; and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan

How, wondered the rabbis on that page of Talmud, did the soldiers know who was, and who was not, a virgin? Easy, said Rav Kahana, who lived in Babylon around the year 250 CE. All you need is a barrel of wine and a good sense of smell.

יבמות ס, ב

מְנָא יָדְעִי? אָמַר רַב כָּהֲנָא: הוֹשִׁיבוּם עַל פִּי חָבִית שֶׁל יַיִן, בְּעוּלָה — רֵיחָהּ נוֹדֵף, בְּתוּלָה — אֵין רֵיחָהּ נוֹדֵף

How did they know that they were virgins? Rav Kahana said: They sat them on the opening of a barrel of wine. If she was a non-virgin, her breath would smell like wine; if she was a virgin, her breath did not smell like wine.

(Rav Kahana, by the way, demonstrated an unusual enthusiasm when it came to the study of sexuality. It was he who hid under the bed of his teacher Rav, while the latter was having intercourse with his (Rav’s) wife. When Rav discovered this intrusion and asked for an explanation, Rav Kahana famously replied “תּוֹרָה הִיא, וְלִלְמוֹד אֲנִי צָרִיךְ” - “this too is Torah, so I need to learn all about it.” Rav’s outrage is not recorded.)

Maybe it’s all a metaphor

Perhaps this passage of Talmud should be understood as a metaphor. Here, for example is the commentary of Rabbi Shmuel Eidels, better known as the Maharsha (1555 – 1631):

מהרש"א חידושי אגדות מסכת יבמות דף ס עמוד ב

הכתוב שהוא מורה על הזנות ועבירה דבתולות כמ"ש זנות ויין וגו' ותירוש ינובב בתולות וק"ל

The verse teaches a relationship between immorality and virginity, as it is written “harlotry and wine [and new wine take away from the heart]" (Hos. 4:11) and "new wine will cause maids to speak" (Zec. 9:16), which is easy to understand.

Except that the passage in Ketuvot is clearly describing something that Rabban Gamliel actually did, and Rav Kahana in Yevamot was not suggesting a metaphor. So today on Talmudology, we ask what you were all thinking. “Is there anything to the suggestion that this test really works?”

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Bertrand RusselL’s Teapot

The great British philosopher Bertrand Russell (d.1970,) was also a great British atheist, who tired of some of the claims made in support of a belief in God. In 1952 he wrote the following:

Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

Whether or not one believes that Russel’s teapot is a reasonable analog to theistic belief, it is a reminder that when making an empirically unfalsifiable claim, the burden of proof does not lie on others to disprove it. We have no reason to believe the claim unless it has been proven by those who asserted its truth. It is worth remembering Russel’s teapot when considering some claims made in the Talmud; those which are not plausible must be considered to be just that, regardless of whether the claim has been empirically disproven.

Rather unexpectedly, one noted scholar seems to have taken up Russel’s Teapot challenge, and set out to explain that the Barrel Test as described by Rabban Gamliel, was a reliable test of a woman’s virginity.

Rabbi Mordechai Halperin AND The Barrel TesT

Rabbi Mordechai Halperin is an accomplished and highly respected physician in Jerusalem. Some of his books adorn the Talmudology library. He was the Chief Ethics officer at the Israeli Ministry of Health, and the editor of Assiah, the Journal of Jewish Ethics and Halacha. And Rabbi Halperin believes that the test has a basis in fact. Here are the steps in his argument, (and you can read the original here):

1) Some foods, like garlic, are broken down into substances that are absorbed into the bloodstream. These may later be expelled from the blood in the lungs, and may be smelled on the breath.

2) Many medicines and food substances can be directly absorbed from the mucosa. So, for example, some drugs are placed under the tongue, where they may directly enter the blood stream by crossing into the tiny blood vessels that line the mucosal surface. Alcohol can not only be absorbed into the blood by ingestion into the stomach. It may also cross directly, via a mucosal surface. The vagina is a mucosal surface,

3) The difference between a virgin and non-virgin is in the tone of the vaginal passage.

As a result, Rabbi Halperin claims that a non-virgin has a lower vaginal tone and that the vaginal mucosa will absorb more alcohol when placed over a wine barrel when compared with a woman who is a virgin. And so the blood alcohol concentration will be higher in the former than in the latter. This will be detectable by the smelling the breath of the woman. QED.

Before we go on, an apology

OK, before we go on any further, I want to apologize to the many woman (and men) who might feel outraged at this discussion. I know it reminds us of a time when, in Judaism (and in Christianity too) virginity was the most important of qualities that a bride could have. (For more on that, see yesterday’s post.) In many cultures it still is, and women who are suspected of not being virgins on the night of their wedding sometimes face violence and even murder. Here is Michael Rosenberg’s take, from his terrific (and expensive) book Signs of Virginity: Testing Virgins and Making Men in Late Antiquity (p.139):

We need not - and should not - ignore the grotesque and degrading image of setting a woman up on a barrel to test her virginity to see that Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi’s action is meant to bear the trappings of an objective process….

Critical to understanding the story is reading it in the light of its parallel in Tractate Yevamot of the Bavli. There, the Babylonian sage Rav Kahana suggests the barrel method for determining virginity. The striking difference between the appearance of the barrel test in bYev60b and its appearance here is that the version in Yevamot lacks the use of two maidservants to test out the method. There, Rav Kahana simply explains what one should do. In our passage [in Ketuvot] , this plot device highlights the “objectivity” of what Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi is doing; the editor(s) of the story depict Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi’s experiment as rigorous and /or objective. In the language of the modern scientific method: he tests out a hypothesis using controlled variables, and when that hypothesis is confirmed, he then makes use of it to determine the answer to an unknown question.

So, we must continue, in the name of science. The problem with Rabbi Halperin’s suggestion is that while the individual steps might be correct, they do not in any way lead to his conclusion.

How Scientific was Rabban Gamliel’s Methodology?

Rosenberg points out some of the features that Rabban Gamliel’s test has in common with “the language of the modern scientific method.” But to be clear, there was nothing scientific about it, at least in so far as we use the word today. For this, Rabban Gamliel cannot be blamed. He lived about 1,300 years before the birth of modern science, and it is silly of us to think he should have been conducting his test along the same lines that we conduct scientific tests today. Still, it is worth thinking about his methods through the lens of modern science. We will quickly see that the test, at least as described in Ketuvot, was far from scientific.

  1. Rabban Gamliel selected two women to take part in the calibration phase. They were “maidservants” a position that might mean anything from an employee to a slave. Were they coerced, or did they volunteer? If the former, the study was unethical.

  2. What were their ages, had they borne the same number of children, and where in their menstrual cycles were they? The latter is especially important since it affects the lining of the vagina and uterus (more on this below).

  3. Was the test blinded? Were the barrels identical? Was the same wine used in each? When calibrating his nose, how often did he smell? How long did each woman sit over the wine?

  4. In the actual test, did the bride seat herself for the same length of time as the women in the calibration phase? Was the same barrel used? Was it the same wine? Was the woman in the same part of her menstrual cycle as the women in the calibration phase?

Unless we know the answers to these questions (and many more), Rabban Gamliel’s test, interesting as it is, remains a far cry from anything that would pass as modern science. While it was published in the Talmud, it would not make it into any peer reviewed journal today. (Well, OK, maybe this one.)

With the possible exception of Rabbi Shimon ben Chalafta, the rabbis of the Talmud weren’t scientists. They were rabbis.

How good is the nose at detecting blood alcohol Levels?

Most of us are able to smell alcohol on the breath of a person who has consumed it. (Yes, I know that actually, pure alcohol has very little or no odor [think of vodka] and that the smell is really from the tannins, hops and other substances that make up the wine or beer or whatever. But let’s keep going.) How sensitive are our noses? Not very, it turns out. In one study, twenty “experienced” police officers were asked to smell the breath of fourteen volunteers who had been drinking, and whose precise blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) were known. How did the officers do?

Well, it depends on the BAC. Consider a BAC of 0.08%, the legal limit for driving in many places. To get that, most people would need to have four or five drinks. At that high level, the odor was correctly identified 80% of the time. At levels less that that, the alcohol could not usually be detected.

Decisions for positive BACs by beverage type and BAC. From H. Moskowitz et al. Police officers’ detection of breath odors from alcohol ingestion. Accident Analysis and Prevention 1999. 31; 175–180.

It should be noted that wine was the hardest odor to detect, and that when BACs were lower than 0.04% fewer than one third of noses could smell alcohol.

It might be countered that Talmudic wines were far stronger than wine made today; in fact, Rabbi Yosef Chaim of Baghdad, better known as the Ben Ish Chai, makes just this claim in his commentary on Yevamot.

ומה שהיה מסתפק רבן גמליאל בתחלה בניסיון זה היינו משום דחשש אולי יין של דורות ראשונים בזמן שעשו לבנות יבש גלעד היה יותר חזק מן יינות שבימיו ולכך אותו יין בדק וזה אינו בודק על כן עשה ניסיון תחלה בשפחות

Rabban Gamliel was initially uncertain about the test because of the concern that the wine that was used earlier in history , when it was used to test the women of Yavesh Gilad, was stronger that the wines of his time. Perhaps, therefore, that earlier wine worked in this test, but the current wines were untested. That is why Rabban Gamliel started with the experiment with the maidservants…

These wines contained a greater alcohol content, and so would cause a greater spike in the blood alcohol level. This may have been so, but there is good evidence (like this) that water was added to wine because that was the way the Greeks drank it, not because it was otherwise too strong to imbibe.

The Vaginal Mucosa and drug absorption

I am not aware of any research describing how a woman’s blood alcohol content varies with time she spent over a barrel of wine. But there is a lot of work on the vagina and its role in drug absorption. One review of the topic from two pharmacologists at Texas Tech noted that the“successful delivery of drugs through the vagina remains a challenge, primarily due to the poor absorption across the vaginal epithelium.” If that is true for drugs directly introduced into the vagina, the vaginal absorption of alcohol over a barrel must be considerably worse, if it exits at all.

To counter this factor, there is the urban legend of women inserting vodka filled tampons into their vaginas to get drunk. Snopes, which concluded the rumor was false did add this, though:

If one were to ingest vodka vaginally (or anally, as the rumor is also expressed that way), the practice wouldn’t result in booze-free breath because alcohol is partially expelled from the body via the lungs. Once liquor is in the blood, at least some of it gets breathed out, which is how breathalyzers measure blood alcohol content.

They provided no reference for this claim, though I suppose they could have cited Yevamot 60b. Be that as it may, the amount of alcohol absorbed by the vaginal mucosa would be so negligible as to be unmeasurable, and certainly not detectable on the breath.

Ancient Greeks and the Barrel Test

In his Hebrew defense of the barrel test, Rabbi Dr. Halperin did not place the belief into a context. And context is always important when examining the Talmud, because it was, after all, a product of its time and place (even if that time spanned several hundred years, the the place spanned many hundreds of miles). It turns out that the belief in smells and fragrances easily passing in and out of a woman’s body was also one that was held by the Ancient Greeks. Writing at least six hundred years before Rabban Gamliel bar Rabbi (who was a first generation Amora, and lived around the third century C.E) or Rav Kahana, the Greek physician Hippocrates had this to say:

If a woman does not conceive, and wish to ascertain whether she can conceive, having wrapped her up in blankets, fumigate below, and if it appears that the scent passes through the body to the nostrils and mouth, know that of herself she is not unfruitful.

The uterus, it was once believed, had a sort of mind of its own, and was especially partial to strong smells. Here, for example, is Aretaeus of Cappadocia, who lived around the time of Galen in the second century CE, perhaps only two or three generations before Rabban Gamliel Bar Rabbi:

In the middle of the flanks of women lies the womb, a female viscus, closely resembling an animal; for it is moved of itself hither and thither in the flanks, also upwards in a direct line to below the cartilage of the thorax, and also obliquely to the right or to the left, either to the liver or the spleen, and it likewise is subject to prolapsus downwards, and in a word, it is altogether erratic. It delights also in fragrant smells, and advances towards them; and it has an aversion to fetid smells, and flees from them; and, on the whole, the womb is like an animal within an animal.

Still, even among the Greeks, the assumption that the uterus could absorb smells was not accepted by all. The second century physician Soranus thought the idea was mistaken, but his objections demonstrate that the idea was popular.

The fumigation of women to determine their fecundity was not only a Talmudic belief. It was apparently one that was part of the ancient world. So why would the rabbis not believe it? Has Rabbi Dr. Halperin succeeded in persuading you that Rabban Gamliel’s test could reliably work? Or have the objections we have raised left you skeptical? I will leave that for you to discuss around your shabbat table this evening.

Shabbat Shalom from Talmudology

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Ketuvot 10a ~ Virginity

תלמוד בבלי כתובות דף י עמוד א

ההוא דאתא לקמיה דרבן גמליאל אמר ליה פתח פתוח מצאתי אמר ליה שמא הטיתה אמשול לך משל למה הדבר דומה לאדם שהיה מהלך באישון לילה ואפילה היטה מצאו פתוח לא היטה מצאו נעול

A man came before Rabban Gamaliel and said to him, I have found an ‘open opening’ [i.e. he claimed his wife was not a virgin]. He [Rabban Gamaliel] answered him: Perhaps you moved aside. I will give you an illustration: To what may this be compared? To a man who was walking in the deep darkness of the night [and came to his house and found the door locked]; if he moves the bolt aside he finds the door open, if he does  not move the bolt aside, he finds it locked. 

Many, many years ago I celebrated by Bar Mitzvah by laying my parsha, (כי תצא). My instruction focussed on getting the trop right; understanding the content - not so much.  Which perhaps was just as well, because here's part of what I read:

דברים פרק כב, יג-כא 

כי יקח איש אשה ובא אליה ושנאה: ושם לה עלילת דברים והוצא עליה שם רע ואמר את האשה הזאת לקחתי ואקרב אליה ולא מצאתי לה בתולים: ולקח אבי הנער ואמה והוציאו את בתולי הנער אל זקני העיר השערה:  ואמר אבי הנער אל הזקנים את בתי נתתי לאיש הזה לאשה וישנאה:  והנה הוא שם עלילת דברים לאמר לא מצאתי לבתך בתולים ואלה בתולי בתי ופרשו השמלה לפני זקני העיר:  ולקחו זקני העיר ההוא את האיש ויסרו אתו: וענשו אתו מאה כסף ונתנו לאבי הנערה כי הוציא שם רע על בתולת ישראל ולו תהיה לאשה לא יוכל לשלחה כל ימיו: ואם אמת היה הדבר הזה לא נמצאו בתולים לנער:  והוציאו את הנער אל פתח בית אביה וסקלוה .נשי עירה באבנים ומתה כי עשתה נבלה בישראל לזנות בית אביה ובערת הרע מקרבך

If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then hates her, and charges her with shameful deeds and publicly defames her, and says, "I took this woman, but when I came to her, I did not find her a virgin."  Then the girl’s father and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of the girl’s virginity to the elders of the city at the gate. And the girl’s father shall say to the elders, "I gave my daughter to this man for a wife, but he hated her. And look, he has accused her saying, I did not find your daughter a virgin.' But this is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity." And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city. And the elders of that city shall take that man and chastise him. And they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the girl’s father, because he publicly defamed a virgin of Israel. And she shall remain his wife; he cannot ever divorce her.

But if this charge is true, that the girl was not found a virgin, then they shall bring out the girl to the doorway of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death because she has perpetrated wantonness in Israel by playing the harlot in her father’s house. And you will purge the evil from among you. (Deut 22: 13-21.)

The first several pages of Ketuvot discuss issues around this passage from the Torah; they are  difficult reading for anyone with modern sensitivities. The Talmud takes most seriously the requirement that a woman be a virgin when she marries for the first time. (There is no similar Torah requirement for a man- though sex before marriage was generally frowned upon). In this page of Daf Yomi a man claimed his new wife was not a virgin, because he found "an open entrance". In reply, Rabban Gamliel suggested that perhaps she was indeed a virgin, but that he had "angled the entry" and in so doing had not felt the expected resistance.  Elsewhere (6b) we have read of the claim that some men were knowledgeable about intercourse with a virgin "at an angle" - and that these men are certainly allowed to consummate their marriage on a Friday night, since they will not cause the bride to bleed. So far, in the first ten pages of Ketuvot, we've read a lot about virginity and about bleeding on a bride's wedding night. So let's talk about that. (If this makes you uncomfortable, I suggest you stop reading this and return to Daf Yomi at Bava Kama.)  

The Hymen

Hymen was the Roman-Greek god of marriage.  Anatomically, the hymen is a fleshy membrane that is part of the female external genitalia. The evolutionary explanation for the hymen is not certain, and several theories have been proposed - none of them very satisfying.  In the Talmud the assumption is that this membrane is intact until torn during a woman's first intercourse.  This causes bleeding, and hence the reference in the Torah of a father "spreading the bedsheets" to show proof that his daughter had been a virgin when she wed.

 

איבעיא להו: מהו לבעול בתחלה בשבת, דם מיפקד פקיד או חבורי מיחבר
— תלמוד בבלי כתובות דף ה עמוד ב

The Doctor Can't always Tell (and Neither Can the Husband)

In a 1978 paper, two gynecologists described a small study of women who were virgins, and concluded that the hymen is intact in only a proportion of cases. In a more recent study, 52% of women who had past intercourse were found on examination to have an intact hymen.  The doctor just can't tell. And neither can the husband. 

DON'T BLAME THE VICTIM

The Talmud elsewhere describes a family in Jerusalem whose women were allowed to carry chains around their legs on Shabbat. Why were they given this permission? Rabbi Yochanan picks up the story:

There was one family in Jerusalem who took large strides when they walked and consequently the hymenal membranes of the young girls in this family would fall out. (ArtScroll note: "This was unfortunate, since an intact hymenal membrane serves as proof of a bride's virginity".) The elders made garters for them and put a chain between the garters, so that their strides would not be large, and as a result their hymens did not fall out. (ArtScroll note: "According to one interpretation cited by Meiri, the chain makes a sound when the steps are too rapid and forceful; thus, the sound itself reminded the girls to take delicate steps.") 

This is, to say the least, a difficult story to understand. But modern medicine is fairly clear on the subject.  All girls born with a vagina have a hymen.  "If hymenal tissue cannot be identified" wrote three experts from the Department of Pediatrics and the Sexual Assault Center at the University of Washington, "traumatic disruption should be considered as a possible cause." And an Israeli study  from the Bellinson Medical Center in Tel Aviv of over 25,000 newborn girls came to the same conclusions.  I know other cultures have their own taboos around virginity, but their taboos are not my concern right now.  The taboos of my culture are.  And for every girl and woman who was a victim of them, I am sorry. So very sorry.

Rav MOSHE Feinstein on what's really important

In 1973 Rav Moshe Feinstein (d. 1986), was asked by a newly observant woman if she needed to reveal her sexual history to a man she was dating.  Rav Moshe's remarkable sensitivity to this question can be felt through the words of his legal response. Yes, here and there are some remarkably sexist words, but put them aside and look at the big picture. Look where Rav Moshe went with this.  

 

שו"ת אגרות משה אורח חיים חלק ד סימן קיח 

ובדבר אם צריכה את להגיד להבחור שירצה לישא אותך לאשה, ודאי את צריכה לגלות לו, אבל אינך צריכה להגיד לו בראיה והכרה דפעם ראשונה שעדיין לא ידוע אם ירצה בכלל השידוך וממילא אסור אז להגיד לו, ורק אחרי שתדעי שרוצה לישא אותך בברור שכבר אמר לך ודבר בדבר הנישואין, צריכה את לומר רק בזה שנזדמן איזה פעם בשעה שלא היה לך כובד ראש כל כך לעמוד נגד המפתה בדברי רצוי ופתוי הרבה ותיכף נתחרטת ומצטערת על זה שאירע דבר כזה עד שיכיר מדבריך שאין לו לחוש שיארע גם כשתהא נשואה לו, ואז מאחר שהוא רוצה בך מפני שהכיר המעלות שלך לא יחזור בו בשביל זה שאירע איזה פעם מאחר שיכיר אותך לנערה שומרת תורה ומצותיה שיש להאמין שלא חשודה את שוב בזה ותהי' אשה מסורה לבעלה כדין התורה. 

Regarding whether you must tell the man who may want to marry you [about your sexual past, and not being a virgin] you must indeed tell him, but you don't have to do so the first time that you meet- because at that  stage it is not clear that he wants you. In fact at that stage it would be forbidden to tell him. Only after you are certain that he wants to marry you - when he has already told you and spoken about the marriage arrangements - then you must tell him. [Explain it to him this way:] It once happened when you were not thinking clearly and you were not able to withstand the man seducing you, and you immediately regretted your actions and were sorry that you had done this. [When he sees your sincerity] he will understand from your words that he does not have to worry that this would happen again if you were married to him.  For he will see your qualities and and will not regret his decision [to marry] because of what happened in your past. He will recognize that you are a woman who observes the Torah and its mitzvot, and he will believe that you will not countenance repeating this behavior, and you will be a  woman who is in the service of her husband as the Torah mandates. 

But what about the Ketuvah - the marriage contract that is read aloud at (orthodox) Jewish weddings? The text is clear "that so-and-so is marrying this virgin"! How, asked this woman of Rav Moshe, how can we put this in the document when it is not true? 

בדבר כתיבת הכתובה אין צורך להגיד למסדר הקידושין, כי מאחר שהחתן יחתום על הכתובה הרי הסכים לכתובת בתולה ושוב ליכא קפידא ומחוייב בכתובת בתולה אף אם באמת אינה בתולה אם לא הטעתה אותו...והנני בברכה שהשי"ת יקבל תשובתך ולא תכשלי עוד בשום חטא ותתנהגי בדרך התורה ומנהגי ישראל קדושים ותבנה בית כשר ונכון בישראל, משה פיינשטיין

Regarding the writing of the Ketuvah, you need not tell the rabbi who is officiating.  Since the groom is signing the Ketuvah he is agreeing to the use of the term "virgin" - and there is nothing else to be worried about. He will  be bound to the legal terms as if you were a virgin, even if in truth you are not, so long as you did not mislead him....And I bless you that God will accept your repentance and that you will  not stumble again with any transgression; that you will follow the path of the Torah and build a fit and proper house in Israel. [signed] Moshe Feintsein

This letter from Rav Moshe reminds us what it is that is of real importance in a marriage: Honesty, fidelity, compassion and forgiveness.  It's a wonderful lesson to carry with us as we study the rest of Ketuvot.  

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Ketuvot 10a ~ Virginity

תלמוד בבלי כתובות דף י עמוד א

ההוא דאתא לקמיה דרבן גמליאל אמר ליה פתח פתוח מצאתי אמר ליה שמא הטיתה אמשול לך משל למה הדבר דומה לאדם שהיה מהלך באישון לילה ואפילה היטה מצאו פתוח לא היטה מצאו נעול

A man came before Rabban Gamaliel and said to him, I have found an ‘open opening’ [i.e. he claimed his wife was not a virgin]. He [Rabban Gamaliel] answered him: Perhaps you moved aside. I will give you an illustration: To what may this be compared? To a man who was walking in the deep darkness of the night [and came to his house and found the door locked]; if he moves the bolt aside he finds the door open, if he does  not move the bolt aside, he finds it locked. 

Many, many years ago I celebrated by Bar Mitzvah by laying my parsha, (כי תצא). My instruction focussed on getting the trop right; understanding the content - not so much.  Which perhaps was just as well, because here's part of what I read:

דברים פרק כב, יג-כא 

כי יקח איש אשה ובא אליה ושנאה: ושם לה עלילת דברים והוצא עליה שם רע ואמר את האשה הזאת לקחתי ואקרב אליה ולא מצאתי לה בתולים: ולקח אבי הנער ואמה והוציאו את בתולי הנער אל זקני העיר השערה:  ואמר אבי הנער אל הזקנים את בתי נתתי לאיש הזה לאשה וישנאה:  והנה הוא שם עלילת דברים לאמר לא מצאתי לבתך בתולים ואלה בתולי בתי ופרשו השמלה לפני זקני העיר:  ולקחו זקני העיר ההוא את האיש ויסרו אתו: וענשו אתו מאה כסף ונתנו לאבי הנערה כי הוציא שם רע על בתולת ישראל ולו תהיה לאשה לא יוכל לשלחה כל ימיו: ואם אמת היה הדבר הזה לא נמצאו בתולים לנער:  והוציאו את הנער אל פתח בית אביה וסקלוה .נשי עירה באבנים ומתה כי עשתה נבלה בישראל לזנות בית אביה ובערת הרע מקרבך

If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then hates her, and charges her with shameful deeds and publicly defames her, and says, "I took this woman, but when I came to her, I did not find her a virgin."  Then the girl’s father and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of the girl’s virginity to the elders of the city at the gate. And the girl’s father shall say to the elders, "I gave my daughter to this man for a wife, but he hated her. And look, he has accused her saying, I did not find your daughter a virgin.' But this is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity." And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city. And the elders of that city shall take that man and chastise him. And they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the girl’s father, because he publicly defamed a virgin of Israel. And she shall remain his wife; he cannot ever divorce her.

But if this charge is true, that the girl was not found a virgin, then they shall bring out the girl to the doorway of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death because she has perpetrated wantonness in Israel by playing the harlot in her father’s house. And you will purge the evil from among you. (Deut 22: 13-21.)

The first several pages of Ketuvot discuss issues around this passage from the Torah; they are  difficult reading for anyone with modern sensitivities. The Talmud takes most seriously the requirement that a woman be a virgin when she marries for the first time. (There is no similar Torah requirement for a man- though sex before marriage was generally frowned upon). In this page of Daf Yomi a man claimed his new wife was not a virgin, because he found "an open entrance". In reply, Rabban Gamliel suggested that perhaps she was indeed a virgin, but that he had "angled the entry" and in so doing had not felt the expected resistance.  Elsewhere (6b) we have read of the claim that some men (Abaye referred to them as בבליים) were knowledgeable about intercourse with a virgin "at an angle" - and that these men are certainly allowed to consummate their marriage on a Friday night, since they will not cause the bride to bleed. So far, in the first ten pages of Ketuvot, we've read a lot about virginity and about bleeding on a bride's wedding night. So let's talk about that. (If this makes you uncomfortable, I suggest you stop reading this and return to Daf Yomi at Bava Kama.)  

The Hymen

Hymen was the Roman-Greek god of marriage.  Anatomically, the hymen is a fleshy membrane that is part of the female external genitalia. The evolutionary explanation for the hymen is not certain, and several theories have been proposed - none of them very satisfying.  In the Talmud the assumption is that this membrane is intact until torn during a woman's first intercourse.  This causes bleeding, and hence the reference in the Torah of a father "spreading the bedsheets" to show proof that his daughter had been a virgin when she wed.

 

איבעיא להו: מהו לבעול בתחלה בשבת, דם מיפקד פקיד או חבורי מיחבר
— תלמוד בבלי כתובות דף ה עמוד ב

The Doctor Can't always Tell (and Neither Can the Husband)

In a 1978 paper, two gynecologists described a small study of women who were virgins, and concluded that the hymen is intact in only a proportion of cases. In a more recent study, 52% of women who had past intercourse were found on examination to have an intact hymen.  The doctor just can't tell. And neither can the husband. 

DON'T BLAME THE VICTIM

The Talmud elsewhere describes a family in Jerusalem whose women were allowed to carry chains around their legs on Shabbat. Why were they given this permission? Rabbi Yochanan picks up the story:

There was one family in Jerusalem who took large strides when they walked and consequently the hymenal membranes of the young girls in this family would fall out. (ArtScroll note: "This was unfortunate, since an intact hymenal membrane serves as proof of a bride's virginity".) The elders made garters for them and put a chain between the garters, so that their strides would not be large, and as a result their hymens did not fall out. (ArtScroll note: "According to one interpretation cited by Meiri, the chain makes a sound when the steps are too rapid and forceful; thus, the sound itself reminded the girls to take delicate steps.") 

This is, to say the least, a difficult story to understand. But modern medicine is fairly clear on the subject.  All girls born with a vagina have a hymen.  "If hymenal tissue cannot be identified" wrote three experts from the Department of Pediatrics and the Sexual Assault Center at the University of Washington, "traumatic disruption should be considered as a possible cause." And an Israeli study  from the Bellinson Medical Center in Tel Aviv of over 25,000 newborn girls came to the same conclusions.  I know other cultures have their own taboos around virginity, but their taboos are not my concern right now.  The taboos of my culture are.  And for every girl and woman who was a victim of them, I am sorry. So very sorry.

Rav MOSHE Feinstein on what's really important

In 1973 Rav Moshe Feinstein (d. 1986), was asked by a newly observant woman if she needed to reveal her sexual history to a man she was dating.  Rav Moshe's remarkable sensitivity to this question can be felt through the words of his legal response. Yes, here and there are some remarkably sexist words, but put them aside and look at the big picture. Look where Rav Moshe went with this.  

 

שו"ת אגרות משה אורח חיים חלק ד סימן קיח 

ובדבר אם צריכה את להגיד להבחור שירצה לישא אותך לאשה, ודאי את צריכה לגלות לו, אבל אינך צריכה להגיד לו בראיה והכרה דפעם ראשונה שעדיין לא ידוע אם ירצה בכלל השידוך וממילא אסור אז להגיד לו, ורק אחרי שתדעי שרוצה לישא אותך בברור שכבר אמר לך ודבר בדבר הנישואין, צריכה את לומר רק בזה שנזדמן איזה פעם בשעה שלא היה לך כובד ראש כל כך לעמוד נגד המפתה בדברי רצוי ופתוי הרבה ותיכף נתחרטת ומצטערת על זה שאירע דבר כזה עד שיכיר מדבריך שאין לו לחוש שיארע גם כשתהא נשואה לו, ואז מאחר שהוא רוצה בך מפני שהכיר המעלות שלך לא יחזור בו בשביל זה שאירע איזה פעם מאחר שיכיר אותך לנערה שומרת תורה ומצותיה שיש להאמין שלא חשודה את שוב בזה ותהי' אשה מסורה לבעלה כדין התורה. 

Regarding whether you must tell the man who may want to marry you [about your sexual past, and not being a virgin] you must indeed tell him, but you don't have to do so the first time that you meet- because at that  stage it is not clear that he wants you. In fact at that stage it would be forbidden to tell him. Only after you are certain that he wants to marry you - when he has already told you and spoken about the marriage arrangements - then you must tell him. [Explain it to him this way:] It once happened when you were not thinking clearly and you were not able to withstand the man seducing you, and you immediately regretted your actions and were sorry that you had done this. [When he sees your sincerity] he will understand from your words that he does not have to worry that this would happen again if you were married to him.  For he will see your qualities and and will not regret his decision [to marry] because of what happened in your past. He will recognize that you are a woman who observes the Torah and its mitzvot, and he will believe that you will not countenance repeating this behavior, and you will be a  woman who is in the service of her husband as the Torah mandates. 

But what about the Ketuvah - the marriage contract that is read aloud at (orthodox) Jewish weddings? The text is clear "that so-and-so is marrying this virgin"! How, asked this woman of Rav Moshe, how can we put this in the document when it is not true? 

בדבר כתיבת הכתובה אין צורך להגיד למסדר הקידושין, כי מאחר שהחתן יחתום על הכתובה הרי הסכים לכתובת בתולה ושוב ליכא קפידא ומחוייב בכתובת בתולה אף אם באמת אינה בתולה אם לא הטעתה אותו...והנני בברכה שהשי"ת יקבל תשובתך ולא תכשלי עוד בשום חטא ותתנהגי בדרך התורה ומנהגי ישראל קדושים ותבנה בית כשר ונכון בישראל, משה פיינשטיין

Regarding the writing of the Ketuvah, you need not tell the rabbi who is officiating.  Since the groom is signing the Ketuvah he is agreeing to the use of the term "virgin" - and there is nothing else to be worried about. He will  be bound to the legal terms as if you were a virgin, even if in truth you are not, so long as you did not mislead him....And I bless you that God will accept your repentance and that you will  not stumble again with any transgression; that you will follow the path of the Torah and build a fit and proper house in Israel. [signed] Moshe Feintsein

This letter from Rav Moshe reminds us what it is that is of real importance in a marriage: Honesty, fidelity, compassion and forgiveness.  It's a wonderful lesson to carry with us as we study the rest of Ketuvot.  

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