Section

If he makes divorce contingent upon pregnancy, and she gives birth in less than six months, she is divorced from the time he made the oath. If he says, “If you are not pregnant, then you are divorced,” it is prohibited for him to have intercourse with her before she has established freedom from pregnancy by one menstrual period, where the divorce is irrevocable, …

His statement, “If he makes it contingent upon pregnancy, and she gives birth in less than six months, she is divorced from the time he made the oath”: if he says, “If you are pregnant, then you are divorced,” and she gives birth in less than six months, she is divorced from the time he made the oath, because we are certain that she was pregnant when he said, “If you are pregnant, then you are divorced.” Why do we say that she is divorced from the time he made the statement, rather than from the time she became pregnant? Because the minimum duration of pregnancy is six months. Note his words, “from the time he made the oath”: this is a figurative expression, since what has been mentioned is a mere conditional stipulation, not an oath; for he has made it contingent upon pregnancy, and pregnancy is not something within her control such that we could say he intended it as an oath.

His statement, “If he says, ‘If you are not pregnant, then you are divorced,’ it is prohibited for him to have intercourse with her before she has established freedom from pregnancy by one menstrual period, where the divorce is irrevocable”: in the first case, he said, “If you are pregnant,” whereas here he says, “If you are not pregnant.” The first is an affirmation, while the second is a negation. Thus, if he says, “If you are not pregnant, then you are divorced,” we say: he may not have intercourse with her until she menstruates, if she is irrevocably divorced. If the divorce is revocable, however, there is no problem, because he may have intercourse with her and that constitutes taking her back. But if she is irrevocably divorced—this being the final pronouncement of divorce—we say: do not have intercourse with her, for if you do, the matter becomes unclear to us. She may at that time not be pregnant, in which case you would have intercourse with her while she is irrevocably divorced.

Until when must he refrain from intercourse with her? The answer: until she menstruates. Once she menstruates, we know that she was not pregnant when he said, “If you are not pregnant, then you are divorced.”