For the source text click/tap here: Kiddushin 74
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In the context of discussing family backgrounds, our Gemara discusses how we can be certain that a child is a bekhor – the first-born child to his father – a status that would give him certain advantages with regard to inheritance, for example.
The Gemara supplies a source for the father’s believability with regard to declaring his son a bekhor. The passage in Devarim (21:17) that forbids the father from transferring the advantage of the bekhor to the first-born of his beloved wife (if there was an older child from a different wife), requires him to acknowledge the status of the oldest son.
We explore the challenges raising sons in the context of marriage.