THE PATERNITY OF AN INFERTILE MALE

to determine his status on the basis of the village woman's evidence or the fact that he was married as an adolescent.

2. A key issue in this case is whether Nahum, as a young married man, was able to engage in normal sexual intercourse. His second wife, Estrella, testified that he did indeed fulfill his conjugal obligations. As we have seen, aman suffering from 17 beta- HSD or 5 alpha- reductase deficiency usually has a micro phallus at birth which enlarges sufficiently at puberty to enable him to insert semen into his wife's vagina. The literature on penile enlargement suggests enlargement of a phallus to a length of four to eight centimeters. Males with this disorder are capable of inseminating their mates/wives.” Therefore the testimony of Nahum's widow may be accepted.

3. If, indeed, as the evidence seems to indicate, Abraham had 17 beta-HSD or 5 alpha-reductase deficiency, then he may very well have been fertile. We must further note that Estrella bore witness that Abraham always ejaculated sperm during coitus. It would have been proper for the bet din to apply the halakhic principle, Rov habe'ilot ahar ha-baal:"Most acts of sexual intercourse are attributed to the husband."** Therefore, it is entirely within reason, in light of modern medical research, that Abraham Nahum was indeed the biological father of Jacob, thereby purifying him and his descendants of the stain of mamzerut.

Of course, Rabbi Abraham Palache and his colleagues of the rabbinical court could not have known the revelations of modern medical science regarding Abraham Nahum's medical condition. We cannot determine whether they believed that he had fathered Jacob or were engaged in a legal fiction. In any event, the court did hedge by using the back-up argument (which, indeed, is a legal fiction) that Jacob might have been fathered by a gentile.

The fact that the responsa do not mention whether Nahum had children with his second spouse is not relevant to the issue of his probable fertility with his first wife. There may have been many reasons for infertility either on his part or that of his wife. There is no validity in such an

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