פירוש על קידושין 4:4

ארבע אמהות – two from the side of the father and two from the side of the mother.

Introduction Before marrying, men were supposed to make “background checks” of their potential wives to uncover any potential “flaws” in their lineage. Our mishnah teaches that there are eight mothers whom he must check; if these eight mothers are fit to marry priests, then the man may assume that the woman whom he wants to marry is fit as well.

שהם שמונה – four from [the side of] the father and four from [the side of] the mother. And what are they? Her mother, her mother’s mother, the mother of her father’s mother, the mother of the mother of her father’s mother, the mother of her father, the mother of her father’s mother, the mother of her father’s father, the mother of the mother of her father’s father. We examine them so that there was not among one of them a disqualification/blemish.

He who marries a the daughter of a priest must investigate her lineage up to four mothers, which are eight: her mother and her mother’s mother, her mother’s father’s mother and her mother, her father’s mother and her mother, her father’s father’s mother and her mother. The first clause deals with priests who wish to marry the daughters’ of priests. In ancient times it was common for priestly families to intermarry with one another. The “four mothers” are 1) her mother; 2) her mother’s father’s mother; 3) her father’s mother; 4) her father’s father’s mother. For all four of these mother’s he must also check her mother. The Talmud explains that the mothers are checked and not the fathers since if there was a “flaw” in the male lineage, the men, when they argued with each other, would have cursed each other based on their faulty lineage. However, women don’t argue in such a manner and therefore if there were flaws in their lineage they would not have been made known. Therefore, he must check the mothers and not the fathers. The man must check and not the woman because women who are fit to marry priests are allowed to marry men disqualified from the priesthood, whereas priests are prohibited from marrying women disqualified from marrying priests.

ואם היתה לויה וישראלית – And a Kohen comes to marry her.

[In the case of] the daughter of a Levite or an Israelite, one more is added. Those men who wish to marry women of Levitical or Israelite families must check one more mother. It is unclear exactly what “one more mother” means. It either means that he goes back one more generation for each mother already checked (bringing us to 12 mothers), or that he checks one more mother on each side (for a total of 10). The reason that he must check back further is that it is more common for there to be faulty lineage in Levitical and Israelite families than it is in priestly families.

מוסיפין עליהן עוד אחת – one mother for each and every pair, such as her mother, and her mother’s mother, and the mother of her mother’s mother, and similarly for all of them, and that we examine the mothers, but we don’t examine the fathers, lest there is a disqualification in her father or in her father’s father, because it is the manner of people, when they put each other to shame through a dispute, they put each other to shame through traced genealogy for if there was any disqualification from the side of the fathers, it was known. But the women do not put each other to shame with disqualification of genealogy but rather through unchastity, and if there is within them a matter of disqualification of genealogy, it has no voice. And this obligatory examination is not mentioned, other than with a family that raises a protest against her legitimacy, but a family that does not have an suspicion about he, does not require an examination, for all families stand under a presumption of fitness, and the man alone must check when he comes to marry a woman from a family where there is a doubt, but the daughter of Kohen who comes to marry does not have to check upon the man [and his family], for there is no specific law prohibiting women of legitimate birth to marry men of illegitimate birth (see Talmud Yevamot 84b), and the daughter of a Kohen is permitted, ab initio, to marry a convert and a man unfit for the priesthood because of his father’s illegitimate connection, and the same law, all the more so, applies for the daughter of a Levite and an Israelite woman.