daf bit: Bava Batra 167

[cellio]

The mishna teaches: a letter of divorce may be written for a husband though his wife is not present, and a receipt (for same) may be written for a wife though her husband is not present, so long as they are known. The g'mara clarifies that the document contains the name of the person in question -- a bill of divorce contains the name of the husband (who is issuing it), not the wife, and his name must be known to the scribe and witnesses. The rabbis then ask how such a document could be valid; if there are two Yosef ben Shimons in town and the wife is not present, there is a risk that the document could be delivered to the wrong man's wife! R. Aha ben Huna resolved this in the name of Rav: in a town with two men of the same name, neither one may divorce his wife except in the presence of the other. (167a-b)

(The g'mara does not here discuss the possibility of the scribe disambiguating in the the document, e.g. the Yosef ben Shimon who is taller, or who is a baker, or whatever. Perhaps this means that the two men must go together to the divorcing one's wife? But the g'mara elsewhere allows agents to deliver the document (presumably the source of the potential confusion on names), so that's probably not it. What is gained by having both Yosefs show up while scribes write a divorce document for one of them?)

Comments

[zevabe.livejournal.com]

I feel confident that I remember from somewhere else (likely Gittin) that one can disambiguate with grandfathers: Yossi ben Shimon ben Yaakov. I thought professions too, although they could change (he was a baker & now he is a butcher), and relative height seems a bad idea (well, he was the tall one, but then Yossi the basketball player moved to town...)

[cellio]

I had been assuming that these documents would be dated, so there would be an implicit "as of the date of this document" for any disambiguation. But I don't know -- are they? There have to be witnesses, but what about dates?

Using grandfathers makes sense.

[zevabe.livejournal.com]

A date is required rabbinically. The explicit reason is to prevent a somewhat out-there eventuality: A man will be married to his sister's daughter (perfectly fine). The wife/neice will then adulter while married. The wife's mother will urge her brother to give a get without a date. Then the claim that she was married while adultering cannot be proven (perhaps the get preceded the adultery), so she cannot be executed, when really she should be.

I think the odd relationship is included because a husband will listen to his mother-in-law only if she is also his sister.