In biblical times, the “mohar” was the financial compensation that the groom paid to the bride’s father in order to marry her, and it was customary for the bride’s father to give this money to his daughter. The mohar, rather than an agreement between individuals, was an agreement between families.

In Talmudic times, given the difficult economic conditions of that time, many of the potential grooms did not have the means to pay the mohar, so this custom began to decline and even reached the point where the bride’s father offered a dowry to the groom, so that his daughter could marry. Furthermore, the mohar ceased to be that sum of money that was given directly to the bride’s father, and became a kind of mortgage that would be paid to the wife in the event of divorce or the death of the husband. This sum would come from his property. This was put in writing, in what we know as the Ketubah, the marriage contract where the agreement was certified and the woman’s rights were assured.

Until the end of the Middle Ages, marriage was celebrated with two ceremonies, separated by an interval of time, sometimes up to a year. The first was the betrothal, “erusin,” where the bride and groom agreed to marry on a certain date and which legally implied considering the bride as a married woman, although she still lived in her parents’ house. Breaking this commitment required a divorce process. The second ceremony, “nisuim,” was the wedding itself, when the bride was taken to the groom’s house, to consummate the marriage.

In biblical times, a couple consummated their marriage in a special room. In Talmudic times, this room was called a “chuppah.” In the Middle Ages, the two marriage ceremonies began to be performed at the same time and the use of the chuppah as a bridal chamber was no longer used. Symbolically, the term chuppah began to be applied to different objects in different communities. In some, in the 16th century, it was used to refer to a veil worn by the bride, while in others it referred to a piece of cloth placed over the shoulders of the bride and groom. Many illustrations of Jewish weddings in medieval Europe did not show evidence of the use of the chuppah as we know it today, a canopy supported by four poles.

Today, the rules for celebrating a marriage imply that in the same ceremony, the betrothal, “erusin,” is performed first, where the groom gives the ring to the bride as “payment” for the mohar, followed by the reading of the ketubah and concluding with the “nisuim” part, all this with the bride and groom placed under the chuppah, as a symbol of their future home. The oldest known ketubah dates back to 440 BCE and was found in Egypt. It is written on papyrus and describes, in Aramaic, the amount that a groom paid to his future father-in-law, what each family contributed to the couple’s dowry, and where the wife is named as the beneficiary in the event of the husband’s death. Three hundred years later, the text of the ketubah was defined by Rabbi Simeon ben Shetaj and was written in Aramaic. The current text is very similar to that of two thousand years ago and the Talmud has an entire treatise, Ketubot, dedicated to systematizing all the details relating to this document.

Today, the ketubah records the date of the wedding, the names of the bride and groom, and the obligations of each one towards the other. It is signed by, among others, two witnesses who verified that the groom fulfilled his commitment. The fundamental objective of the Ketubah is to be the basis for a happy marriage, but if this does not turn out to be the case, then the little piece of |paper speaks.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography. Encyclopaedia Judaica and other texts