It’s long been common for young girls to dress up as brides on Purim, which made me wonder: Are Jews allowed to marry on Purim?
According to Jewish law, it is traditionally said that “one should not mix one joy with another,” which would suggest that the joy of a wedding should not be combined with the joy of Purim. Indeed, some of the greatest halachic authorities ruled that holding a wedding on Purim is forbidden for this reason. Among those who prohibited it were the author of Magen Avraham (Rabbi Avraham Abele Gombiner, 1637–1682) and Rabbi Hezekiah da Silva (Livorno 1656 – Jerusalem 1695) in his work Pri Chadash (New Fruit).
However, in the Shulchan Aruch, the ruling states: “It is permitted to marry on Purim,” and the Rema (Rabbi Moshe Isserlis) adds: “Both on the 14th and the 15th of Adar.”
To explore how Jewish communities actually practiced this ruling, we can turn to the National Library’s catalog of ketubot – Jewish marriage contracts. By searching for ketubot dated simply to the 14th of Adar in a regular year, or rather the 14th of Adar II in a leap year, I found 25 such ketubot after filtering the results. The filtering process focused on two main aspects: First, in two ketubot, the date was recorded as the 14th of Adar, but upon examining the specific year, it was revealed that there were two months of Adar that year, and the wedding had actually taken place in the first Adar.
One such ketubah was written in Florence, Italy, in 1878, and the other in At-Tawilah, Yemen, in 1889.
The second filtering criterion was ensuring that the ketubah was not from a city that was surrounded by walls in the days of Joshua bin Nun. After all, Jewish law decrees that in such cities Purim is to be celebrated on the 15th of Adar and not the 14th! Due to this check, two ketubot from Jerusalem were removed from the list.
However, the list does include ketubot from cities where the walled status is uncertain, and as a result Purim is observed on both the 14th and 15th of Adar. One such ketubah was written in Jaffa in 1880, and two were recorded in Damascus—in 1867 and 1904. As is well known, aside from these two cities, there are many other places in Israel and around the world where uncertainty lingers in regards to the question of their possession of walls during the days of Joshua, leading to the practice of celebrating Purim for two days rather than one. When in doubt – party on!
The majority of ketubot on this list come from Italy (11) and Yemen (5), with the rest originating from a variety of locations, ranging from Tbilisi in Georgia to Rangoon in Burma (modern-day Yangon, Myanmar).
It is also worth noting that in most of these ketubot, only the date “14th of Adar” is mentioned, without explicitly stating that the wedding took place on Purim. Only in one ketubah, from Ferrara, Italy, in 1909, is it explicitly written: “On Sunday, the fourteenth day of the month of Adar, which is the day of Purim.”
Wishing everyone a joyous Purim—and mazal tov to all those getting married and dressing up as brides!
