The Origin of Ketubah: A Study in the Institution of Marriage

We find recorded in the tannaitic literature two documents in relation to marriage, Shetar Kiddushin שטר קדושין and Ketubah כתובה. Neither of these documents is mentioned in the Bible. A Mishna in the tractate Kid. states that a woman may be acquiredin one of three ways, either by Kesef, or by Shetar, or by Bi'ah. Some scholars are of the opinion that theKetubah is identical with Shetar Kiddushin mentioned in the Mishna, and therefore they believe that the Ketubah is the oldest form of a marriage contract. This point of view is not borne out by tannaitic literature, and I believe that the contrary is the case. The Ketubah and the Shetar שטר are not one and the same thing. The Shetar is a much older document than the Ketubah. The Mishna employs merely the term Shetar. If the Shetar and the Ketubah were iden- tical, why then did not the Mishna use the term Ketubah orShetar Ketubah? In the entire tannaitic literature we do not find Shetar referring to Ketubah.