SELECTED REFORM RESPONSA
invalid. One of the reasons which he rejects is that the wife has had a hysterectomy. Feinstein declares that this fact is no reason to void the marriage; and he cites precisely what we, have cited from Even Haezer 23: 5 as proof that a man may continue to have sexual intercourse with his wife even after she has had a hysterectomy.
I cite Moses Feinstein not only because he is a prime Orthodox authority and has applied, as I did, the permission in Even Haezer 23:5 to hysterectomies, but because he also gives two strong Talmudic proofs of the permission to remain married and have intercourse with a woman who has had a hysterectomy. His two proofs are as follows: The first is from the Talmud in Yevamot 42b. There the discussion is over the rule that a woman must wait three months after being divorced or widowed from one husband before she may marry a second. The purpose of this three-month wait is to distinguish (havhana) between a child of the first husband and a child of the second- in other words, to make sure of the paternity of the child. If she had waited only two months and given birth seven months after her second marriage, it would be uncertain whether the child is a nine-month infant from the previous husband or a seven-month baby of her second husband. Therefore she must wait three months between the two marriages. The discussion in the Talmud is whether or not she needs to wait the three months if she is barren. Rashi explains the word"barren" here as meaning if she has had a hysterectomy. Thus it is clear that a woman who has had a hysterectomy may(or may not) have to wait three months, but in either case, she may be married and live a normal sexual life.
The second proof cited by Moses Feinstein is also from Rashi . It is in Ketubot 60b. There the discussion is about the rule that a woman who is nursing a child may not remarry for twenty-four months(the period of lactation). Then a similar debate arises in the Talmud as in Yevamot, whether a woman who is barren must wait the twenty-four months. Rashi , evidently facing the unasked question as to how a woman who is barren can have a child and now be nursing him, explains the word"barren" as meaning that she had hysterectomy. Therefore, whether or not she has to wait the twenty-four months, she may be married and live a normal life. Thus Rashi to the Talmud 218