Ketubot 10 – Claims of "not a virgin" and their results

A particular groom appeared before Rav Nachman, claiming an "open entrance." Rav Nachman told his attendants to give the man lashes with palm branches because "the prostitutes of the city of Mevarechta must be lying in front of him" for him to know whether his wife was a virgin with such certainty.

But it was Rav Nachman himself who said that the man is believed!? – Yes, he is believed, but he is flogged for his past promiscuous behavior. Others say there is no contradiction: a widower would be believed with such a claim, and a bachelor would not.

Another groom came to Rabban Gamliel, Rabbi Yehudah the Prince's son, claiming that he did not find blood. Rabban Gamliel examined the cloth he wiped himself with and, after washing, found blood there. Yet another groom came to Rabbi Yehudah and claimed that he did not find blood, while his wife claimed that she was a virgin at the time of marriage. Rabbi Yehudah saw that their faces were dark from malnutrition, so he commanded his servants to take them into a bathhouse to be bathed, make a feast for them, and bring them into a room. They now found blood, and Rabbi Yehudah congratulated them. He applied to them a phrase from Lamentations, "their skin cleaved to their bones and became dry as wood."

Art: Bath Houses by William Glackens