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arriage ConditionsDate: 1047
MATERIAL:Paper
LANGUAGE: Hebrew
CONTENT:
This document represents the conditions which Tuvia b. Eli had to accept before being permitted to marry Fa’iza, the daughter of Solomon, in Fustat (old Cairo) in 1047. He had to promise that he would no longer associate with disreputable members of the community and to undertake that he would neither travel abroad nor purchase a slave-girl unless he had received the specific permission of his wife to do so. He declares that he totally, willingly and unreservedly accepts these and various other conditions.
IMPORTANCE:
What is particularly interesting here is the power which the bride, or perhaps her father, had in demanding exemplary behavior from the bridegroom before agreeing to the marriage. There are numerous documents in which the future rights of the bride and her children are protected in the matter of additional wives, divorce or death. This one is rare in its insistence on a change in the bridegroom’s habits.
QUOTE: "I shall associate with good men and not corrupt ones. I shall not bring home licentious individuals, buffoons, frivolous men, and good-for-nothings. I shall not enter the home of anyone attracted to licentious behaviour, to corruption and to revolting activities. I shall not associate with them in eating, drinking or any other activity"
READING: ‘Pre-Nuptial Agreements: A Geniza Study’, by M. A. Friedman, Diné Israel 6 (1975), pp. CVII–CXIV; A Jewish Archive from Old Cairo, by S. C. Reif, Curzon Press, Richmond, Surrey, 2000