For the source text click/tap here: Yevamot 110
To download, click/tap here: PDF
A new Mishna teaches about conditions for chalitza, yibum, rival wives, and divorce in cases where a man marries two minor girls, a minor girl and a "deaf-mute"(sic), a minor and a halachically competent adult woman. The Mishna suggests that consummation or chalitza will exempt the rival wife from yibum or chalitza if the wives are both minors or deaf and mute. However, if one wife is a minor or a deaf-mute and the other wife is a competent adult, chalitza/yibum cannot exempt the adult.
Part of these considerations focus on what is Torah law and what is rabbinic law.
We are discussing girls/women who were extremely vulnerable.
Today, there are many laws that have been created to protect women from these sorts of behavior, which often would lead to terrible harm.
We explore the nature of stigma, with reference to Prof jeffrey Rubinstein’s analysis of the Shaming of Avdan (see my Daf Ditty Yevamot 105) and his Ethics of Shame in the Bavli with a tribute to Prof Shama Friedman’s scholarship.