פירוש על כתובות 8:8

כל נכסיו – that he inherited from his brothers is surety for her Ketubah.

Introduction This mishnah is a continuation of yesterday’s mishnah, in which we learned that the widow has a lien on the dead brother’s property. The yavam cannot even pay off her ketubah and then use this property.

גירשה אין לה אלא כתובה – but all the while that he did not divorce [her], all of his proerpty is mortgaged to her.

He cannot say to her, “Behold your ketubah lies on the table’, rather all of his property has on it a lien from her kethubah. The yavam cannot say to his yevamah that he has designated for her a specific piece of property for her ketubah and that he therefore can do what he pleases with the remainder of his brother’s property. Rather he cannot sell any of his brother’s property.

הרי היא ככל הנשים – for a person who divorces his wife and restored her [as his wife In remarriage] on the condition of her first Ketubah he has remarried her and it is necessary to teach us that regarding the widow of a brother who died without issue that she should not say that she is his wife, for he wrote for her a Ketubah from his money, but his widow of a brother who died without issue, who is not his, he wrote for her other than the property of her first husband, which were pledged and surety when he divorced her and restored her [as his wife]. I might sya this is her Ketubah from her. This comes to teach us that this is not the case.

So too, a man may not say to his wife, behold your ketubah lies on the table, but all of his property has on it a lien from her ketubah. If he divorced her she is entitled only to her ketubah. If he remarried her she is like all other wives, and is entitled only to her ketubah. Similarly a man may not set aside a certain piece of property and designate it for his wife’s ketubah. When Shimon ben Shetach established the rabbinic ketubah, part or perhaps all of his legal innovation, was that all of a man’s property is subject to his wife’s ketubah. This is not to say that a man cannot sell his own property. However, if he does, and then when the wife comes to collect her ketubah her husband or his estate cannot pay it off, she can reclaim the previously sold property from its purchasers.

If the yavam divorces his yevamah, he can now pay off her ketubah and then sell the rest of the brother’s property. If he remarries her, she no longer has the status of a yevamah, but rather she is like all other wives, who cannot prevent their husband’s from selling their property.