Guide
Mishnah Nashim (Women)
By Carol Bakhos
The third order of the Mishnah, Nashim (Women), contains tractates dealing with laws governing the personal status of women: procedures for betrothal, marriage, divorce, and levirate marriage; prohibited unions; vows, because the vows of daughters and wives are subject to the approval of their fathers and husbands; and the special case of the Nazirite vow. The excerpts presented here are from tractates Yevamot, Kiddushin, Ketubbot, and Gittin. In addition to attention to the calendar and matters of ritual impurity, the laws of marriage were also an area of sectarian dispute in Second Temple times (see Marriage).
Related Primary Sources
Primary Source
Mishnah Yevamot
m. Yevamot 1:4; 6:6; 16:7–10
Though these [Beth Hillel] forbid and these [Beth Shammai] permit, and these disqualify and these make eligible, Beth Shammai did not refrain from marrying women…
Primary Source
Mishnah Kiddushin
m. Kiddushin 1:1
A woman is acquired in three ways and acquires herself in two ways.
She is acquired by money, by document, or by sexual intercourse.…
Primary Source
Mishnah Ketubbot
m. Ketubbot 13:10–11
10. There are three lands with regard to marriage: Judaea, Transjordan, and the Galilee.
We do not require [a spouse to move] from a village to a village or from a town to a town…
Primary Source
Mishnah Gittin
m. Gittin 4:1–9; 5:3, 9
1. If a man sends a get [divorce document] to his wife and meets the bearer [before he delivers the get], or sends a messenger after him and says to him [the bearer of the get], “The ge…