Nashim נשים
The order of the family: marriage and divorce, vows, levirate marriage—and tractate Sotah, out of which a whole layer of moral teaching grew.
Seven tractates. Ketubot—on the marriage contract that protects the wife: the sum written in it makes divorce expensive and therefore rare. Gittin—on the bill of divorce, where every letter counts. Kiddushin—on how a marriage is made, and the famous opening mishnah: "a woman is acquired in three ways."
Yevamot opens the order and treats levirate marriage—a case in which the law requires what elsewhere it forbids. Nedarim and Nazir are on vows; Sotah is on the wife suspected of adultery and the ordeal of bitter water, which by the Mishnah's own testimony was abolished by Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai "when adulterers multiplied."
The order has 7 tractates: Yevamot, Ketubot, Nedarim, Nazir, Sotah, Gittin, Kiddushin.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Shabbat 31a — «chosen» — this is the order of Nashim
- Mishnah Kiddushin 1:1 — «a woman is acquired in three ways»
- Mishnah Sotah 9:9 — the abolition of the ordeal of bitter water
Basis: Talmud and midrash.