פירוש על כתובות 4:6

האב אינו חייב במזונות בתו – during his lifetime [the father is not liable for her sustenance], whereas after [his] death, the daughters are supported from his property from the stipulations of the Ketubah (i.e., Jewish marriage contract) [and his daughter] not specifically, for the same law applies to his son, for the father is not liable to support/feed neither his sons nor his daughters when they are minors, but rather, if he is a man believed to be wealthy, meaning to say, that he is a rich man, the Jewish court takes from against his will in the manner that they force all the rest of the people of the city regarding tzedakah/charity and through it they support his minor age sons and daughters, but if he is not believed to be wealthy, the Jewish court shames/reviles him and announces to him that it is cruelty to him if he does not support his children, and that he is worse than the desert creatures who have compassion upon the offspring, ut they cannot compel him on this, whether his children are male or female and especially when the sons are young, but the youngest of the young and they are the least of the children of Shesh, the Jewish court forces the father and removes [funds] from his hand, against his will to support his children who are he smallest of the small, both the boys and the girls.

Introduction Since previous mishnayoth have been dealing with the rights a father has over his daughter, our mishnah deals with his obligations to feed, clothe and shelter her.

בכרם – on account that they would sit row by row like a vineyard.

A father is not obligated to maintain his daughter. According to our mishnah a father is not obligated to maintain his daughters. The Talmud gives several important comments and reservations to this ruling. First of all, it is also true of boys. Second, this is only true when they are over the age of six. When they are under the age of six, the father is obligated to feed them. Thirdly, when it says that the father is not obligated to feed them, it means that if he has no money, he need not go out and work in order to feed his kids. However, if he has enough assets to be able to give charity, he is not allowed to use them for himself before he gives them to his kids. Rather just as the court can force a person to give charity, so too the court can force this person to feed and maintain his children, even above the age of six. Finally, if he has no means by which to maintain his children, and chooses not to work in order to provide for them, while the court cannot force him to work, they embarrass him publicly, stating in public “even a cruel raven feeds its kids, look at this man who is less than an impure bird”. In summary, the only person who can get away with not feeding his kids is one who does not want to work for himself and is willing to endure public humiliation.

הבנים ירשו והבנות יזונו (see Tractate Bava Batra, Chapter 9, Mishnah 1 and Tractate Ketubot, Chapter 13, Mishnah 3, where this phrase appears as well) – from the provisions of the Ketubah that the male children will inherit the Ketubah of their mother and the female children will be supported from his (i.e., the father’s) property.

This exposition was made by Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah in front of the sages in the vineyard of Yavneh: “The sons shall inherit [their mother’s kethubah] and the daughters shall be maintained [out of their father’s estate” just as the sons do not inherit except after the death of their father, so the daughters are not maintained except after the death of their father. Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah supports the ruling in the first clause of the mishnah with a midrash based on some guarantees which are included in the ketubah and which we will see in subsequent mishnayoth. The ketubah states that sons inherit their mothers ketuboth and that daughters are maintained from their father’s estate. Both of these guarantees are actually written into the ketubah itself. Rabbi Elazar’s midrash is that just as the sons do not inherit their mother’s ketubah until their father dies (the father inherits it first), the daughters are not guaranteed maintenance until their father dies. While he is alive, he is not obligated to support them, as I explained above.

מת הבנים – the male [children] die,

[the daughters] do not inherit the Ketubah of their mother, other than after the death of their father;

similarly, the daughters are not supported from the property of the father from the strength of the provisions of the Ketubah other than until after the death of their father.