Description

Legal record (#63). Trousseau list (taqwīm). Groom: Yosef b. Netan'el ha-Kohen. Bride: Sitt al-Kafā'a bt. Bū l-Faḍā'il ʿOvadya b. Shemuel. "Another marriage agreement composed in Fustat thirty years later reads very differently. The agreement does not survive in full, but its contents are summarized above a partial inventory of the bride’s dowry (taqwīm) copied into a court notebook. Here the pledges all extend the other way, strengthening the bride’s legal position rather than eroding it. The groom, Yosef b. Netan’el ha-Kohen, promises his future wife, Sitt al-Kafā’a bt. Abū l-Faḍā’il, that he will trust her financially; that he will neither marry a second wife without her permission nor keep a female slave against her wishes; that if she dies before bearing children, he will claim only half her dowry as inheritance and return the rest to her birth relatives; that she may continue to live in Fustat rather than Cairo; and that he will not object if she sells off any of her dowry items and buys other property with the proceeds" (Krakowski, Coming of Age, p. 241). NB: Goitein and Krakowski referred to this document as folio 25b–26b (Firk. II NS 1700.25b–26b and Yevr.-Arab. I 1700.25b–26b respectively, with the 'b' indicating verso) in accordance with the foliation written in pen; but the correct folios are 26–27, as written in pencil (the librarian with the pen gave two folios the number 8).