For the source text click/tap here: Ketubot 81
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The Torah uses the word “wife” (alternatively translated as woman) in summarizing the laws of the Sotah. From here the rabbis deduce that she must have the status of full wife in order to drink the bitter waters. A betrothed woman does not have such a status and hence, even if her fiancé forbids her from being secluded with a certain man and afterwards she is secluded with him, she does not undergo the sotah ordeal.
Similarly, a “shomeret yavam”, a woman whose husband died childless and is waiting for either levirate marriage (yibbum) or the release from levirate marriage (halitzah), does not drink the bitter waters. This refers to a case where the yavam, her brother-in-law, warned her not to be secluded with a certain man. Both of these women do lose their ketubah, since they were secluded after being warned; however, neither is allowed to undergo the sotah ordeal.
We explore the themes of adultery and passion in the English Patient by Michael Ondaatje,