The Ketubah records one of the most sacred occasions in the life of the Jewish man or woman, the entry into wedlock. The text details the obligations undertaken by the husband to his wife. The Ketubah is signed in a ceremony conducted by the officiating rabbi and then read under the Chuppah immediately after the ceremony. It is then handed to the bride by the groom.
There is no reference in the Bible to such a document. Marriage was entered into by cohabitation or by a version of the sentence "Be Thou my wife and I am your husband for ever and ever," recited in the presence of two witnesses. The earliest Jewish marriage documents of which we know are from the time of the Babylonian exile, although the Aramaic document in its present form did not evolve until the 2nd century B.C. It was then that Rabbi Shimon Ben Shetach formulated the text for the Ketubah as we know it today.
Until recently, this text in its original form, unchallenged by the changing times, was used by many generations of Jews, Ashkenazic and Sephardic alike, with little variation between them.
In recent years, however, additional clauses have been added to the traditional text in an attempt to modernize the old one. The Reform movement went a step further by completely revising the whole document. This new version of the Ketubah is written in Hebrew (instead of Aramaic) and the vows are taken mutually by the husband and wife. A few other egalitarian texts are in existence today.
Throughout the ages, Jews, like their non-Jewish neighbors around them, have embellished religious articles with lavish illustrations and designs, sometimes despite condemnations by the rabbis, who were concerned about the violation of the Biblical prohibition against producing graven images. Evidence today shows that this practice might have started as early as pre-Hellenistic times. Thus, to study the many manuscripts that have stood the test of time and are still with us today, is to discover the history and spiritual experience of the various and scattered Jewish communities, as well as their involvement in the larger, non-Jewish societies.