For the source text click/tap here: Ketubot 88
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According to the Mishna, in a case where a woman demands payment of her ketuba based on the fact that she was divorced, but she could not produce her geṭ, if her husband claimed that he paid it (even though he admits that he cannot produce a receipt for payment), he will not have to pay the money.
Similarly, if a man produces a promissory note but cannot produce a prosbol, and the Sabbatical year has passed, the borrower will not have to pay.
Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel rules that from the time of the Roman government’s decrees against religious practice, both the wife and the lender would be believed, since it would be dangerous to keep the geṭ or the prosbol.
We explore the constitutional accommodation of Jewish contractual obligations in civil law with Jodi Solovy’s analysis.