Kiddushin 44: Authority to Accept in Kiddushin and Gittin

The Gemara discusses some of the similarities and differences between the halachot of marriage and the halachot of divorce.  Interestingly from a feminist perspective, their conversation revolves around the concept of consent.   In betrothal, we have learned that  unless his daughter is a minor, a na'ara's consent is required for betrothal.  In divorce, a woman's consent is not required but is valid.  Rav Yehuda, however, believes that only her father can accept the get - and that only her father can accept the kiddushin.

One of the larger questions is whether a daughter is property of her father, an extension of her father, an individual who has appointed her father as an agent.  When we frame the daughter's experience differently, we can understand her experience very differently.  In amud (b), the rabbis actually ask whether the young woman could be thought of as an extension of her father's hand, or as her father's courtyard (for a contract must be brought to her to be valid).

The Gemara also considers some of the difficulties that might arise if the young woman does not have a father.  In such cases, the girl can be betrothed through her mother/brothers without her consent while she is a minor girl.  Before she becomes a na'ara (between age 12 and 12 and half), she is offered what is known as the right of refusal.  There would be no get required in such a case; it is as if she were never married.  We also learn about fathers who decide that their daughters will be sold as maidservants, which seems to be code for marrying one's daughter into a marriage of servitude to her 'master' or his son.