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19.3.20

In Rav Shach's Avi Ezri Laws of Marriage 22 law 29

Introduction. A wife can have three different kinds of property. Money or property that she brings into the marriage is divided into two types. If it is written in the marriage contract נכסי צאן ברזל then the husband gets the use of it and rent or fruit it produces. But it remains her's and if there is a divorce the property goes back to her and if the value is lessened he has to make up for that. Then there is money that is not written in the Ketubah. [נכסי מלוג] That also he gets the profits and use. But does not make up for the loss if the property is damaged. In any case, the money or property belongs to her.
But money or property that comes to her during the marriage belongs to the husband. That is money she makes in her job, or she finds, or is given to her. However, if given to her on condition that her husband has no part of it, then it belongs to her. But still [as all property that belongs to her], her husband still gets the profits. There is an exception, i.e. if the condition it was given to her stipulated that even all profits would not go to the husband.

[If that sounds confusing, the way to simplify it is to remember the basic difference if whether the money or property was brought into the marriage, then it belongs to the wife. If it was acquired by the wife after they got married, then it automatically belongs to her husband. These are all in Tractate Ketuboth chapters 6 to 9. [These are not well known facts because when people learn Ketuboth it often revolves around the the first parts way before you get to 6-9.]





In Rav Shach's Avi Ezri Laws of Marriage 22 law 29 is brought the idea that there is a difference between when a wife loans money to her husband to when she buys something from him. This comes from the Gemara in Bava Batra chapter 3 [חזקת הבתים] page 51. In the case of buying and selling if the money was known to the husband the deal is valid. The money is thought to belong to the woman. In the case she loans him money the money is considered to really have belonged anyway to him.

The way Rav Shach explains this is that money given in a loan if not anymore thought to be in the possession of the wife since the actual physical money of a  loan is always meant to be spent. It no longer is in the physical possession of the wife. But the money of a deal of buying and selling is thought to have been in the physical possession of the wife. 


In the Gemara itself the difference between buying and  a loan is brought and asked. The Gemara itself answers the husband did not want to be "a borrower is a slave to the lender" [that is a verse in Proverbs.] The idea is that if he could have gotten the money from her with having to arrange that it should be  loan he would have done so. But with buying and selling it is assumed that the deal makes both parties happy. The seller gets more utility from the money and the buyer gets more utility from the field. Rav Shach is just going into the deeper reason why the money in the case of selling in the first place is conspired in fact to have belonged to the wife.

That Rav Shach says is a good reason why her husband did not want to borrow. But what is the underlying difference? He says it is the issue of (חזקה) presumed status.