The Obligation to Ask the Husband Regarding Canceling an Agreement Between Two Friends
Question
Hello.
A caregiver in a family daycare asked her friend to come and replace her for a few hours because she needed to go to the doctor. Afterwards, the doctor canceled the appointment, and the caregiver wanted to cancel the arrangement with the friend. The friend, for her part, agreed and said that from the outset she had not wanted to go out, and that the only reason she had agreed was because her husband wanted her to work, and her husband now also does not agree that she cancel. Must his opinion be asked?
Answer
Hello and blessings.
There is no obligation to ask the husband.
Source
Even if the agreement had been made with the husband himself, there are several reasons why it may be canceled: 1. The friend did not begin the work (333:1). 2. There is no davar ha’aved — a matter involving a loss — here, because the friend did not receive another offer that she turned down because of the first offer (ibid.). 3. Even if it were a case of davar ha’aved, there is an implied condition here, since she agreed with the understanding that she was going to the doctor, and these are “matters in one’s heart and in the heart of every person” — that if the doctor cancels, she would cancel the substitute (as in the case of a person who sells with the intention of moving to Eretz Yisrael, siman 207, se’if 3). And even if one were to posit that none of these reasons to exempt applied, in this case the husband is not a party with standing; although the earnings of a wife’s labor belong to her husband, nevertheless, before she has worked, he has no acquisition in what she is destined to work. (Editor’s note: perhaps this depends on the dispute between the Shulchan Aruch and the Rema in Even HaEzer, siman 81, as to whether a person can consecrate the proceeds of his wife’s labor.)
