He left the permission unrestricted, whereas, in the case of the woman who offered herself to him, He qualified it as exclusive to him. Thus, His omission of this qualification in the other cases indicates that the permission is shared.
If it is said:
“Silence indicates neither exclusivity nor a shared ruling, whereas the qualification of exclusivity rules out a shared ruling. Its purpose, then, is to prevent anyone from supposing, on the basis of separate evidence, that the ruling is shared. Making something lawful for him certainly does not indicate that it is exclusive to him. But does it indicate that the permission is shared, or does it indicate neither? This is the point at issue. Once it is qualified as exclusive to him, it indicates exclusivity.”
The reply is:
If it did not indicate that the permission is shared, the ruling would not be established for the community, since there would be no evidence for it—just as no ruling of prohibition is established concerning matters on which He remained silent, because there is no evidence for it.
At this point, one might argue that they regarded it as lawful on the basis of the default rule. But that is not so, because sexual relations are forbidden unless made lawful by the revealed law. It would therefore have been forbidden to them, and there would have been no need to make it exclusive to him, had the unqualified address not entailed a shared and general ruling, belonging to the category of expressions that are particular in wording but general in their ruling.
The underlying principle is that an expression’s linguistic scope may become narrower or broader through established usage, whether in the revealed law or elsewhere. Thus, although the address to him is linguistically particular in its wording, it is general by established usage. It is among those expressions whose scope has shifted, through the established usage of the revealed law, from particular to general. Similar shifts occur in addresses to kings and the like, and such instances are numerous, just as