Ketubot 4 – Death in the family of newlyweds

As we mentioned before, if a parent of either the groom or the bride dies, they can still go ahead with the wedding. This is in the case that postponing the marriage will lead to the loss of the prepared feast. They put the dead aside for a while, make a wedding, and afterward bury him and observe the seven days of mourning.

However, this applies only if the groom's father or the bride's mother died, but not in the case of any other relative. Why? – In those times, it was customary for the groom's father to prepare the wedding feast and for the bride's mother to provide her with adornments. So there would be no one to assist them otherwise.

After he consummates the marriage, the husband separates from his wife for the seven days of the wedding and for the following seven days of mourning and sleeps among men. This is because, after all, the groom is a mourner right after burial. A mourner is forbidden to be intimate with his wife. Thus, although he observes the seven days of celebration externally, he refrains from intimacy as a mourner in private. And even sleeping in separate quarters applies only if he was prevented from consummating the marriage – because then he may be overcome by desire and violate the rules. If he has already been intimate with his wife once, he can be trusted to control himself.

Art: A Wedding Feast by Pieter The Younger Brueghel