I just wanted to write down a thought I had on my way back from the sea shore about the case of a married woman where there is conflicting testimony if her husband died or not. the witnesses come to court at the same time and two say yes, he died and two say no. if she got married to a witness that said yes and she also says she is sure that her husband died, she can stay married. The Rambam holds this law applies even in a case where it is one witness agz,ainst another, but the Ramban says in that case she cannot be married to anyone. One problem with this is the question why should her being sure have relevance to the question? I thought to myself that this sounds like the law “one witness is believed in questions of prohibitions.” And there is some support to this idea from Abayee in Kidushin page 66. The case there is a witness says to a husband, “Your wife had sex with someone else (and therefore she is forbidden to her husband, and must be divorced).” Rava said, “He is not believed because any question about marital relations requires two witnesses.” But Abyee said, “The one witness is believed.” The reasoning of Abayee I think must be that two witnesses are required to create marriage or to create a divorce, but not to testify about a case of prohibition that flows from the fact of marriage. [An parallel example is two witnesses on a document are different from the testimony of the validity of the doc after it was written.] Now, you might ask if I am right, then why the law is she can marry only to the witness that said her husband died? Why not anyone? This is answered in Ketuboth page 22b where the Gemara brings up this question about an answer that Abayee had for R Yochanan and the Gemara answered that for her to marry anyone else would be a scandal. [There are different answers to this question in the Noda BeYehuda, Rav Shmuel Rozovski, Reb Aaron Kotler, and Rav Shach.]--------------------------------------I just wanted to write down a thought I had on my way back from the sea shore about the case of a married woman where there is conflicting testimony if her husband died or not. the witnesses come to court at the same time and two say yes, he died and two say no. if she got married to a witness that said yes and she also says she is sure that her husband died, she can stay married. The רמב''ם holds this law applies even in a case where it is one witness against another, but the רמב''ן says in that case, she cannot be married to anyone. One problem with this is the question why should her being sure have relevance to the question? I thought to myself that this sounds like the law “one witness is believed in questions of prohibitions.” And there is some support to this idea from אביי in קידושין page 66. The case there is a witness says to a husband “Your wife had sex with someone else.” רבא said, “He is not believed because any question about marital relations requires two witnesses.” But אביי said, “The one witness is believed.” The reasoning of אביי I think must be that two witnesses are required to create marriage or to create a divorce, but not to testify about a case of prohibition that flows from the fact of marriage. [A parallel example is two witnesses on a שטר are different from the testimony of the validity of the שטר after it was written.] Now, you might ask if I am right, then why the law is she can marry only to the witness that said her husband died? Why not anyone? This is answered in כתובות page 22b where the גמרא brings up this question about an answer that אביי had for ר' יוחנן and the גמרא answered that for her to marry anyone else would be a scandal. I assume that this answer was not raised by any later authorities because of the fact that רבא disagreed with אביי