she is among those women whose marriage may be contracted without their consent, and her guardian with authority to compel marriage acknowledges it, then his acknowledgement is like hers. This is because he has the authority to initiate the marriage contract, and therefore has the authority to acknowledge it. According to the school, a father may marry off his daughter even if she does not consent and is unaware of it. Thus, if he acknowledges that a certain woman is the wife of a certain man, the marriage is established, whether she acknowledges and agrees to this or does not acknowledge it, because he has the authority to initiate the contract and therefore has the authority to acknowledge it.

But if he is a guardian without authority to compel marriage—that is, someone other than the father—we must consider whether she authorized him. If she did, his acknowledgement is valid; otherwise, it is not. Thus, if this guardian—for example, a brother—acknowledges that she is the wife of a certain man and that he married her to him, we ask her: “Did you authorize him?” If she says, “Yes,” we say that his acknowledgement is valid, for the reason previously mentioned: since he had been authorized, he possessed the authority to initiate the contract and therefore the authority to acknowledge it. But if she says, “I did not authorize him,” we do not accept the guardian’s acknowledgement, because he did not have the authority to initiate the contract and therefore did not have the authority to acknowledge it.

Thus, we have three persons: the woman, the guardian with authority to compel marriage, and the guardian without such authority. Of these, the woman’s acknowledgement of marriage is valid in all cases—except that the author stipulated that no two men claim her as their wife. The acknowledgement of the guardian with authority to compel marriage is accepted in all cases, whether she authorized him or not. As for the guardian without such authority, his acknowledgement is accepted only if it is established that she authorized him, because he has no authority to contract her marriage without her permission.

His statement: “If a person acknowledges the lineage of a minor or an insane person of unknown lineage, saying that he is his son, his lineage is established.” The subject of “if he acknowledges” is “an acknowledger,” because when there is no clear antecedent, the active participle is derived from the verbal noun of the verb. Thus, we say: if an acknowledger acknowledges the lineage of a minor or an insane person, that person’s lineage is established through him. For example, a man has with him a young child who has not reached puberty, and he says: