Wedding Ketubah: Personalized Illuminated Marriage Contracts

Wedding Ketubah specializes in personalized Ketubot / Ketubahs based on historical designs and texts that reflect the heritage of the couple. Click here to contact Wedding Ketubah.

Ketubah is a protective safety valve for the wife.

In ancient times, leaders of faith communities insisted on the marriage couple entering into the Ketubah agreement. It acted as a replacement of the biblical dower or bride price, which was payable at the time of the marriage by the groom to the bride or her parents.[see Exodus 22:15-16 and Deuteronomy 22:28-29.]

Ketubah is a mechanism whereby the amount due to the wife (the dower) came to be paid in the event of the cessation of marriage, either by the death of the husband or divorce. It may be noted that the biblical bride price created a major social problem: many young prospective husbands could not raise the bride price at the time when they would normally be expected to marry. So, to enable these young men to marry, leaders of faith communities, in effect, delayed the time that the amount would be payable, when they would be more likely to have the sum.

The adopted was to provide for the bride price to be a part of the ketubah. It may also be noted that both the dower and the ketubah amounts served the same purpose: the protection for the wife should her support (either by death or divorce) cease. The only difference between the two systems was the timing of the payment. It is the predecessor to the wife’s present-day entitlement to maintenance in the event of the breakup of marriage. Another function performed by the ketubah amount was to provide a disincentive for the husband contemplating divorcing his wife: he would need to have the amount to be able to pay to the wife.

Wedding Ketubah specializes in personalized Ketubot / Ketubas based on the designs and texts that reflect the heritage of the couple. Click here to contact Wedding Ketubah.