Commentaire sur Ketoubot 4:10

יתר על חולקיהום דעם אחוהון – if you die during my life and I betroth you, your children will take your Ketubah after my death when they will come to divide my possessions with the children that I will have from another wife, and the practical difference, for example, is that the Ketubah of this one is greater than that of the other wife, or the children of the other wife are more numerous from the children of this one and it is good for these that they will take the Ketubah of their mother and even if the Ketubot are equivalent for there is not written that the male issue collect, other than from the landed properties, but not from movable properties, and especially where the father left a measure of two of the Ketubot and one Dinar more, then the children inherit the Ketubah of male issue since there remains a place for the inheritance of the Torah for after each one of the children will take the Ketubah of his mother, there remains one Dinar to divide and to inherit the property of their father, but if the father did not leave other than according to the measure of two Ketubot or less than this, they divide the property equally and the Ketubah of male issue is not practiced by them.

Introduction This mishnah refers to a guarantee that a husband must give to his wife that her ketubah (in this case “ketubah” refers to money she brought into the marriage as a dowry) will be inherited by her sons. This will be explained below. Even if the husband does not write this guarantee in the ketubah, the sons still receive the inheritance.

If he did not write for her, “The male children that will be born from our marriage shall inherit the money of your ketubah over and above their shares with their brothers”, he is nevertheless liable, because [this clause] is a condition laid down by the court. The “ketubah” in this mishnah refers to money that the wife brought into the marriage as a dowry. When a wife dies her husband inherits this money and it becomes officially his property and not just his to use, as it was during the marriage. Written into the ketubah document is a guarantee that this wife’s male children will inherit this amount over and above their inheritance from the remainder of the father’s estate. For instance, let us say that a woman marries a man. She brings into the estate property in the value of 1000 zuz, has five male children and then she dies. The husband inherits this money and then remarries, this time a wealthy woman, who brings 10,000 zuz into the marriage and then has one son and dies. When the husband dies, he leaves an estate of 15,000 zuz. The one son of the rich woman inherits 10,000 zuz off the top. This is his mother’s ketubah and although it became his father’s property, he inherits that amount separately from the general inheritance (as long as it still exists). The five sons from the first marriage split the 200 zuz from their mother’s ketubah, each son taking 200 zuz. There are now 4,000 zuz left in the estate and each son takes an equal portion, except for the oldest son who takes a double portion. The purpose of this ketubah clause is so that a rich father-in-law will write a handsome dowry for his daughter. A father-in-law might fear that his son-in-law will have children from another wife and these children will inherit property that he wanted to see his grandsons have. Through this guarantee a father-in-law can be more certain that his property will stay with his blood relatives.