The Yemenite Sage Rabbi Shalom Mansoura of Sanna (d. 1888) explains that erusin is an expression of “tying” (similar to the English euphemism for marriage, “tying the knot”). Rabbi Yitzchak Ratzabi offers two ways of explaining this etymology. First, he cites Rabbi Baurch HaLevi Epstein (1860-1940), who writes that the root of erusin, ALEPH-REISH-SIN/SAMECH, should be understood as congruent to the root erez, ALEPH-REISH-ZAYIN, because the letters SIN/SAMECH and ZAYIN are interchangeable. The latter root refers to something packed tightly (see Yechezkel 27:24), like the word arizah (“package”) in Modern Hebrew, so it makes sense that erusin would also refer to the powerful bonds of matrimony. Rabbi Epstein also notes that erez is related to aizor (“tight belt”) by way of metathesis, continuing in the same theme of “tying” something tightly. Alternatively, Rabbi Ratzabi suggests that Rabbi Mansoura means that erusin is related to “tying” by way of a simpler metathesis without replacing any of the letters. If we simply transpose the final two letters of the root ALEPH-REISH-SIN/SAMECH, then we get ALEPH-SIN/SAMECH-REISH, which means “tie” or “bind.” A betrothed woman is “tied” to her husband in the sense that the only way she can marry someone else is if he grants her a bill of divorce (or dies).
Rabbi Vana argues that the word arusah (“betrothed woman”) is related to the Hebrew word eres (“poison”), because once a woman is betrothed to another, then she becomes like a poisonous snake or scorpion in the sense that anyone who illicitly approaches her is liable for the death penalty.
Rabbi Ratzabi cites another Yemenite scholar who explains that a betrothed woman is called an arusah in the same sense that a sharecropper is called an aris. The sharecropper enters a sort of partnership with the owner of the field, and thus retains partial rights to its produce. In a similar vein, a betrothed woman enters into a partnership with her future husband, who at that point only has a partial “claim” over her (in that she is now forbidden to commit adultery), but not a complete entitlement (i.e. if she dies, he does not inherit her property).
Finally, Rabbi Ratzabi offers two suggestions of his own towards understanding the etymology of erusin, both of which invoke the interchangeability of the letter ALEPH with AYIN. He explains that the root AYIN-REISH-SIN/SAMECH refers to “mixing,” like in the case of arisah (“dough”) which is mixed/kneaded. In some sense, erusin (spelled with an ALEPH)also refers to a “mixture” of sorts, as it represents the joining of man and wife in matrimony. Alternatively, Rabbi Ratzabi connects the word erusin to eres (“bed”), spelled with an AYIN, as an allusion to the conjugal reasons for marriage.
Rabbi Reuven Klein
