The third thing that happens is the wedding contract, the wedding contract. It's called ketubah, ketubah, the wedding contract. What would happen is the girl would then be, after the men have had the arrangement, the woman would be brought in, and then he would propose to her. This was the opportunity for him to present his desire, and she had the right of refusal. She could refuse. Remember in the day when Alianza came to Rebecca, they did all negotiations with the father, and there was all the gifts of gold and silver and jewels given. Then she had to give her consent, so the bride must give consent. The bride must give consent. Now once the bride's given consent, then they draw up the wedding contract. The wedding contract, the ketubah was very, very important.
We have a little piece of paper which we sign, you know, you sign the marriage register, and you sign a little bit of paper, but this is a different bit of paper. It's not like here. This is a different bit of paper. In this piece of paper, it outlines a number of things. One of the things it outlines, is the bridal price. It makes it very clear what's going to be paid. The second thing it outlines is the details of the wedding, how big the wedding is going to be, what's going to happen in the wedding, and then the third thing it outlines, is the provision that the groom promises and undertakes to make how he will provide for the bride. Now you can imagine the excitement. Here's someone come into the house, talked with dad, there's a price been sorted out by the men, and now she's got the opportunity to enter into this marriage contract.
Now if she agrees, then they sign the marriage contract, and they drink wine together, and now they're betrothed. They're betrothed. That word betrothal there is as good as married, they're as good as married. In fact the only way you could break a betrothal was by divorce, so legally the betrothal actually meant they're now husband and wife. Now notice what it said in Matthew 1, Verse 18. It says now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, so they're betrothed. Now the next thing that would happen would be that the groom would have a bridal gift. He'd have a gift, it's called matan - and he would gift up - they drank the wine together, and they'd written and signed the documents. He would give a gift to the bride, and the gift to the bride, sometimes it could be a few coins. Often she would make the few coins into a band and put them around her head, hence the story or the parable of the Woman Who Lost the Coin. It possibly was the wedding gift, so that's why she really, really went everywhere looking through that house trying to find that coin.
So she had that, and now she's ready to be married. She's got the wedding gift. She's got the wedding gift, they've worked out the price, worked out the contract, got all the details about everything, all the promises are going to be made, and now they're as good as married. They're betrothed. Then the husband would say, the bridegroom would say: that I'm going now to prepare a place for us to live together as husband and wife. It was understood that's what he would do, and so there would be a period of separation which could be a year or two years. Quite interesting, in Singapore, housing issue is so major for young couples, that they go and have a service in a registry office so they're legally married, and then they wait a year to two years until they can get accommodation. Then they have the official wedding. It's quite interesting to see that they do that - think whoa, that's not easy, two years, my! So anyway but there it is.
Now the bride of course, and the groom, there was some things happened during the betrothal period, and during the betrothal period, which is an important period, it was the period of preparation, period of preparation. So the betrothal period is not just hanging around waiting, it's a period of intense preparation. The first thing that we find is that the groom, he went to his father's house, because he would take his bride to the father's house, so he had to prepare for her, and the normal thing they did was to add an extension onto the father's house. So he would build onto the house that existed and make new rooms for her. The new rooms would have within it the bridal chamber, and where they would live as a couple, so they would be part of the father's house. While he was away doing that and making that preparation, then the bride's responsibility was to get herself ready, so she had one to two years. Now she knew approximately when he's coming, but she didn't know the exact details, so here's the thing.