פירוש על כתובות 10:1

מי שהיה. יורשי הראשונה קודמם ליורשי השניה – if his wives died after him until they did not have sufficient time to collect [their Ketubah settlement].

Introduction Above in chapter four, mishnah ten, we learned that sons inherit their mothers ketuboth, above and beyond the inheritance they receive from their father. This clause in the mishnah is called “ketubat benin dichrin” which is Aramaic for “the ketubah of male children”. Our mishnah talks about situations in which a man had two wives and either he died or both of the wives died.

שניה ויורשיה קודמים – that she is a creditor and the inheritors of the first wife come to inherit from their father, according to the Ketubah “male issue,” for we are inheritors, it is taught in the Mishnah. Therefore, they pay the obligation first and what remains they shall succeed to the dowry, therefore, we pay the obligation first and what remains, they inherit, and specifically when the second [wife] took an oath on her Ketubah, then she or her heirs take her Ketubah. But if she died after her husband passed away, and she did not take an oath on her Ketubah, her heirs do not take anything from her Ketubah for we hold that a person does not bequeath an oath to his children, meaning to say, money that a person doesn’t take possession of other than through an oath, and if he dies prior to his taking an oath, that money a man cannot bequeath to his children.

If a man was married to two wives and died, the first wife takes precedence over the second, and the heirs of the first wife take precedence over the heirs of the second. If a man dies and leaves two wives, the first wife’s ketubah takes precedence over that of the second wife. If after the first wife collects her ketubah not enough money remains to pay the second wife, she will not receive her full ketubah. This is because the debt to the first wife was incurred before the debt to the second wife. If before they collect their ketubah, the wives die, the first wife’s heirs take the ketubah before the second wife’s heirs take theirs.

If he married a first wife and she died and then he married a second wife and he died, the second wife and her heirs take precedence over the heirs of the first wife. In this case the first wife dies while the husband is still alive, and he inherits her and her ketubah. He then marries a second wife and he dies. The first wife’s heirs want to now collect the ketubah (ketubat benin dichrin) from their mother, as I explained in the introduction. The second wife, or if she subsequently dies, her heirs, want their ketubah. The mishnah rules that the second wife or her heirs collect first because they are collecting a normal ketubah and they are like creditors who come to collect a debt. In contrast the first wife’s inheritors are collecting an inheritance which they have received from their mother and the payment of debts always takes precedence over inheritance. Therefore the second wife or her heirs receives their ketubah and only if enough money remains will the first wife’s heirs receive their ketubah.