For the source text click/tap here: Ketubot 57
To download, click/tap here: PDF
Our daf discusses a lost ketubah followed by a new mishnah discusses the waiting period between betrothal and marriage.
A virgin is given twelve months from the [time her intended] husband claimed her, [in which] to prepare herself for marriage. Just as [such a period] is given to the woman, so is it given to the man to prepare himself. A widow is given thirty days.
Betrothal may occur at an early age, but that doesn’t mean that marriage will necessarily occur any time close to the betrothal. There are two steps described by our mishnah that occur before the marriage. The first is that the husband tells the woman whom he betrothed that he wishes to marry her, or the woman tells the man to whom she is betrothed that she wishes to get married. From that point on, if this is a first marriage, there can be up to a twelve-month period in which the couple prepare for the wedding and the marriage.
This would include time to prepare for the wedding, and more importantly, time to prepare the new house and the things that will go into it.
We explore the issues regarding lost ketubot as well as the space/time between kiddushin and nissuin, and the dual nature of the ritual compared with Islamic law.
Finally we open the thorny issue of spiritual abuse following Get refusals.