Chatzi Mikudeshes: Rashi and Rambam's Approaches to Partial Kiddushin

This shiur undertakes a close reading of Kiddushin 3a and the dispute between Rashi (רש"י) and the Rambam (רמב"ם) on the validity of "chatzi kiddushin"—partial betrothal—both when a man attempts to betroth half a woman and when he offers only half of himself in kiddushin. Rabbi Zweig begins by working through Rashi's difficult explanation of Rava's principle "itzu l'veitre lo chazi" (a woman cannot be married to two men simultaneously). The class carefully parses Rashi's words: when a man says "harei at mikudeshes li chatzi," we might initially think he means "you may marry someone else with the other half." But Rashi explains that since everyone knows a whole woman cannot marry two men (itzu l'veitre lo chazi), the man must mean something else—namely, that he wishes to marry only half of the woman, leaving the other half unmarried. Rashi concludes that this too is invalid, establishing that partial kiddushin on the woman's side is ineffective. The shiur then turns to the parallel question: what if a man attempts to betroth a woman with only half of himself? The class works out that according to Rashi's reasoning, if the man explicitly states he wants only half of himself involved in the kiddushin, this would also be invalid—though Rashi does not spell this out directly. The key point is that Rashi begins with the principle of "harei at mikudeshes li v'lo acher" (betrothal to me and not to another) as the foundational case, from which the invalidity of chatzi kiddushin is derived. When a man says "mikudeshes li v'lo acher," this is not considered a case of "chatzi ish" (half a man) but rather a case of attempting to create dual kedushos, which fails because itzu l'veitre lo chazi. Only if he were to specify "chatzi ish" explicitly would it constitute partial kiddushin.