1The Gemara explains: The reason is due to enmity, so that he should not bear a grudge against her for finding articles and withholding them from him, which might lead him to become reluctant to provide her with sustenance.
2§ The mishna further taught that a father is entitled to his daughter’s earnings. The Gemara asks: From where do we derive this? The Gemara answers: As Rav Huna said that Rav said: From where is it derived that the earnings of a daughter belong to her father? As it is stated: “And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant” (Exodus 21:7), which indicates that just as with regard to a maidservant, her earnings belong to her master, as she was sold for this purpose, so too with regard to a daughter, her earnings go to her father. The Gemara asks: But one can say that this applies only to a minor, as a father can sell her as a maidservant. However, with regard to a young woman, whom he cannot sell, perhaps her earnings should belong to her.
3The Gemara responds: It is reasonable that her earnings should go to her father, as, if it should enter your mind to say that her earnings do not belong to her father, what about the fact that the Merciful One entitles a father to bring his daughter, when she is a young woman, to the wedding canopy? How can he bring her to the wedding canopy? Doesn’t he thereby cause her to neglect her earnings at that time, as she cannot work while getting married? If she has the rights to her own earnings, she can object on these grounds.
4Rav Aḥai refutes this claim: Say that when he brings her to the wedding canopy, he gives her the wages she neglects by taking a break from her work, and therefore the above objection does not apply. Alternatively, it is referring to a case where he brought her to the wedding canopy at night, when she does not work. Alternatively, it means that he brought her to the wedding canopy on Shabbatot or Festivals, when it is prohibited to work.
5Rather, the Gemara reverts to the original exposition based upon the case of a Hebrew maidservant, and argues that with regard to a minor, it is not necessary to derive from a verse that her father is entitled to her earnings, for the following reason: Now, if her father has the right to sell her as a maidservant, is it necessary to state that her earnings belong to him? Rather, when the verse was necessary, it was to teach that the earnings of a young woman also belong to her father.
6§ The mishna taught that a father is entitled to effect the nullification of his daughter’s vows. The Gemara asks: From where do we derive this? The Gemara answers that it is written: “Being in her youth, in her father’s house” (Numbers 30:17), and the Torah proceeds to explain that during this period a father can nullify his daughter’s vows.
7The mishna further taught: And he accepts her bill of divorce on her behalf. The Gemara asks: From where do we derive this? The Gemara answers that it is written: “And she departs out of his house and goes and becomes another man’s wife” (Deuteronomy 24:2). This verse juxtaposes departing a marriage and becoming a wife, which teaches that the halakhot of betrothal apply to her departing her husband’s home via a bill of divorce. Consequently, just as a father has the right to accept betrothal on his daughter’s behalf, he can also receive a bill of divorce on her behalf.
8§ The mishna taught that a father may not consume the produce of his daughter’s property during her lifetime. The Sages taught in a baraita : A father may not consume the produce of his daughter’s property during his daughter’s lifetime. Rabbi Yosei, son of Rabbi Yehuda, says: A father may consume this produce during his daughter’s lifetime. The Gemara asks: With regard to what principle do they disagree? The Gemara explains that the first tanna holds: Granted, in the case of a husband, the Sages decreed for him that he should consume her produce, as if this were not so, he would refrain from redeeming her if she were captured. The right of a husband to consume the produce of his wife’s property was instituted in order to correspond to his obligation to redeem his wife from captivity.
9However, in the case of a father, what is there to say? That he will refrain from redeeming her? Even without this right to the produce of her property he will redeem her, as she is his daughter and he will certainly not turn a blind eye to his own flesh and blood. And Rabbi Yosei, son of Rabbi Yehuda, holds: If he is deprived of the right to the produce of his daughter’s property, a father will also refrain from redeeming her, as he will reason: A pouch of money is held in her hand for a time of need, so let her go and redeem herself.
10§ The mishna further taught that if the daughter married, the husband has more rights than her father, as he consumes the produce of her property. The Sages taught in a baraita : If the father wrote for her in her marriage contract that he was providing produce, clothing, and vessels that would come with her as a dowry from her father’s house to her husband’s house, and she died during the betrothal period, the husband does not have the right to these objects. They said in the name of Rabbi Natan: The husband does have the right to these objects.
11The Gemara suggests: Let us say that the dispute of these tanna’im is parallel to the dispute between Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya and the Rabbis. As we learned in a mishna (54b): If a woman was widowed or divorced, whether from marriage or from betrothal, she collects the entire sum specified in her marriage contract, including any extra amount her husband added to the standard sum required by the Sages. Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya says: If she was widowed or divorced from marriage, she collects the entire amount. But if she was widowed or divorced from betrothal, she is entitled to collect only the standard minimum sum required by the Sages: If she was betrothed as a virgin she collects two hundred dinars, and if she was a widow she is entitled to one hundred dinars.