Legal document: Bodl. MS heb. f 56/57

Legal document Bodl. MS heb. f 56/57

Shelfmark: Bodl. MS heb. f 56/57

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Engagement agreement from 1184. The date of marriage was set for the month of Elul in the following year, almost two years after the document was composed. The bride was orphaned from her father and there is no mention of a representative on her behalf as is common in many engagement agreements. This might indicate that she represented herself and that she was mature. However, the fact that two year would elapse before the marriage can take place might indicate that she was still rather young; see Goitein, Med. Soc. Vol. 3, pp. 92. } The father of the groom vows to take care of all the bride's expenses for five years after the marriage. It is possible that the groom was too young and the bride's family was concerned that he would be unable to provide sufficiently for the bride and thus sought to place this responsibility on his father. There is no mention of any fine on either party in the event that the marriage will not take place. Most of the contract is written in Aramaic and Hebrew but the conditions prevalent at the time in Egypt were written in Arabic and perhaps this indicates that they originated in the surrounding Muslim environment (in ENA NS 21.6 there are conditions in both Arabic and Hebrew and Friedman suggests that the conditions that have not yet won wider acceptance were written in Arabic; see Friedman, Polygyny, pp. 56-59).

engagement

Collection: Bodleian Library
Historical shelfmarks: Bodl. MS Heb. f 56 (Cat. 2821), f. 57; Bodl. MS Heb. f 56, fol. 57
Input date: In PGP since 2004

How to cite this record:: Bodleian Library, Bodl. MS heb. f 56/57. Available online through the Princeton Geniza Project at https://geniza.princeton.edu/documents/4754/, accessed December 26, 2024.
Link to this document:: https://geniza.princeton.edu/documents/4754/