The Marriage Contract

When a Jewish man and woman get married they enter into a pre-nuptial marriage contract. This contract is called a Katubah. Being that the Katubah that I had signed is in Hebrew and I do not speak, read or write in Hebrew, I have no idea what kind of contract I had entered into. Ilana does have a knowledge of Hebrew, winked to her mother and had a look on her face that I would assume the devil would have when he got hold of your soul.

When we were married I had no idea that I would have to sign this document. I had asked the Rabbi what I was signing and he just laughed. I turned around and looked into the faces of everyone who was present when I had signed it and they had all whispered to each other and laughed as well.

Thirty years have passed since I had tied the knot and signed the document. To this day I have not found a translation of the Katubah but I can say that from the knowledge that I have amassed over the past thirty years I believe I know most, if not all of the rules and regulations I had agreed to.

The first thing Ilana said to me after I signed the contract was "What is mine is mine. What is yours is mine". This is most likely the first paragraph and the premise of the Katubah. The next item on the Katubah is that the wife gets to spend an obscene amount of money by buying mezuzahs for every door way in the house. For anyone who does not know what a mezuzah is, it is a small decorative holder that contains a hand written parchment scroll reciting a prayer to protect your home. The holder can be a cheap piece of plastic to an expensive piece of artwork. The mezuzah is then nailed to the doorway at an angle. Regardless of the holder, the parchment which is written by a certified scribe is quite expensive. Ironically, the only room that doesn't have a mezuzah in the doorway is the bathroom and that is the room where I need the most amount of luck. Instead of a mezuzah, I must count on prunes and laxatives to have a meaningful, religious experience.

The Katubah to my understanding also states that it is the husband's responsibility to go into the backyard each weekend and pick up about five pounds of dog droppings. Every second weekend I am obligated to mow the lawn. The Katubah is not one sided, it also spells out the obligations of the wife. The wife does laundry every Sunday with the exception of towels. Laundry is a complicated process and must be done just so. Towels are the only exception. Any idiot can do towels so that is why it is relegated to the husband.

Ilana has made laundry into an art form. When she finishes it smells springtime fresh and is soft and fluffy. Ilana divides the wash into eight separate loads. Work clothes; blues, green and grays; jeans; reds and purples; white underwear; color underwear; delicates and Towels. Each different load has many different settings from sturdy to delicates, hot, warm, cold, combination of hot and cold; fast spin; long spin; rinse once, rinse twice; add softener or not; when to add bleach or not. The permutations are mind boggling. I for one do not wish to master this art. My idea of doing laundry is taking everything, shoving it all into the machine in one giant load, add soap and hit the on switch.

When you get through the washing process you now have to consider the drying process. Some clothes shrink in the dryer. Some melt. What gets hung to dry (aside from the husband after signing the Katubah)? Then comes the folding. Have you ever tried to fold a fitted sheet?  I read somewhere that Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein never mastered this. E=MC² actually was an attempt to quantify the laundry process but Albert Einstein changed his direction to understand the beginning of the universe which was  in his eyes a much simpler process.

One of the other  responsibilities that is delegated to the husband in the Katubah is doing the dishes, pots and pans after a meal. I am very good at this if I must say so myself and I take great pride in this task. On this evening I went into the kitchen and found all of the pots and pans clean and dried and all of the dishes placed into the dishwasher. This was a clear violation of my rights as spelled out in the Katubah. I had felt violated. I confronted Ilana and laid down the law. The law of the Katubah! I said in my best Tevye to Golde voice "I don't do the laundry and you do not do the pots and pans!"

All in all I believe that I have mastered my responsibilities that I had agreed to in the Katbbah. The Katubah actually is designed to protect the rights of the wife and is essentially a one sided document. Contractually or not, I gladly accept my responsibility as husband and seeing a smile on my wife's face is reward enough for me. The traditional alternative would be handing over four hundred zuz if she ever wanted to leave me. I have no idea what four hundred zuz is in today's dollars.