In your post entitled Marriage Ceremony, I was rather surprised by the following line: “The Torah requires that when a man wishes to marry, he must first sanctify the woman to himself in front of two witnesses: the ceremony called kiddushin.” What does marriage have to do with making the woman holy?
The way the Hebrew language works is that there is a three letter root which symbolizes an underlying concept. Different shades of meaning will then be expressed based on the context in which it is used. The word kiddushin does share the same root as the word kodesh (holy) – ק (k), ד (d), ש (sh). However, let’s look at the following words that share this root, and see if we can come to some sort of common denominator.
Kodesh = Holy; Kiddush = Making the blessing over wine to herald the entrance of the Sabbath; and Kiddushin = Marriage;
It appears to me that the common denominator between all of these words is “separation” or “uniqueness.” Something that is Kodesh is holy; it is unique and special. By saying Kiddush over wine, we are sanctifying the Sabbath, making it special, and declaring it’s distinction from other days of the week. Kiddushin refers to an act by which the groom designates a particular women to be his wife, uniquely his own and forbidden to all other men – again an act of differentiation, making something special and unique.
Therefore, the marriage act does not make the woman holy, per say. Rather, it is the process by which she is made unique to her husband.