Nashim (Hebrew: נשים) ("Women" or "Wives") is the third order of the Mishnah (also of the Tosefta and Talmud), containing the laws related to women and family life.
Nashim consists of 7 tractates:
- Yevamot: (יבמות, "Levirate Marriage"); referring to the mandated marriage of a widow to her brother-in-law, deals with the Jewish law of Levirate Marriage (Deut. 25:5-10) and other topics, such as the status of minors. It consists of 16 chapters.
- Ketubot: (כתובות, "Jewish Marriage Contracts"); deals with the Ketubah, as well as topics such as virginity and the obligations of a couple towards each other. It consists of 13 chapters.
- Nedarim: (נדרים, "Vows"); deals with various types of vows and their legal consequences. It consists of 11 chapters.
- Nazir: (נזיר, "One who Abstains"); deals with the details of the Nazirite vow and being a Nazirite (Num 6). It consists of 9 chapters.
- Sotah: (סוטה, "Wayward Wife"); deals with the ritual of the Sotah - the woman suspected of adultery (Num 5) as well as other rituals involving a spoken formula (such as breaking the heifer's neck, the King's septa-annual public Torah reading, the Blessings and Curses of Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, etc...). It consists of 9 chapters.
- Gittin: (גיטין, "Jewish Divorce Documents"); deals with the concepts of divorces and other documents. It consists of 9 chapters.
- Kiddushin: (קידושין, "Betrothal"); deals with the initial stage of marriage - betrothal, as well as the laws of Jewish lineages. It consists of 4 chapters.
Order of tractates[]
The traditional reasoning for the order of tractates (according to Rambam) is as follows.
- Yevamot is first because unlike the others, it is largely concerned with a compulsory commandment (levirate marriage) as opposed to a voluntary one.
- Ketubot follows as it signifies the beginning of married life.
- Nedarim follows because once a man is married to a woman, he has the legal right (under certain conditions) to annul her vows.
- Nazir, dealing with a special type of vow is a continuation on the subject of vows.
- The penultimate sections deal with the end of a marriage with Sotah which is concerned with infidelity and Gittin which is about actual divorce (Rambam's order swaps these two).
- Kiddushin is at the end because it follows the Scriptural order that once a woman is divorced, she can get betrothed to any man, this subsequent betrothal symbolised by the placement of Kiddushin.
Both the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud have a Gemara on each of the tractates in the Order.
See also[]
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