Study Yevamot folio 113B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Or perhaps his mind is not clear, i.e., he cannot achieve full and clear understanding, and yet he is always of one mind. In other words, a deaf-mute functions at the same level of intellectual capacity every day. Rav Ashi explains the other possibility: Or perhaps it is obvious to R' Elazar that
The Talmud asks: What is the practical difference how one defines the intellectual capacity of a deaf-mute? The Talmud answers: It makes a difference with respect to divorcing his wife with a bill of divorce. If you say that a deaf-mute has one consistent mind, his divorce is equivalent in status to
But if you say that he is at times competent and at times imbecilic, he may betroth a woman, as the rabbis are stringent and assume that he was healthy and of clear mind at the time; however he cannot divorce her, due to a concern that he was competent when he betrothed her but he is incompetent no
§ The Mishnah taught that one whose wife became imbecilic may not divorce her. R' Yitzḥak said: By Torah law, an imbecilic woman may be divorced, just as it is in the analogous case of a halakhically competent woman who was divorced against her will. Since there is no need for a woman to agree to r
The Talmud inquires: What are the precise circumstances of this case? If we say that this woman knows how to guard her bill of divorce, i.e., she understands the concept of a bill of divorce, and she also knows how to take care of herself, would people treat her in the manner of ownerless property?