Parashas Vayeira · Passuk 20:3
And God came to Avimelech in a dream of the night and said to him, “Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife.”
Torah Temimah points to Sanhedrin 57b.
TT lemma: בעולת בעל.
English: “A man’s wife.” Rabbi Chanina taught: “And she is a man’s wife”—the category of a married woman applies to the children of Noach, but a woman who entered the bridal canopy and has not yet had relations does not [count as married for them].
Derash on the verse (Bavli sugya) — not a formal named middah of the 13. The phrase delimits the Noachide law of adultery.
For the children of Noach, the prohibition of adultery applies only to a woman who is a “be’ulat ba’al” (consummated marriage); a mere bridal-canopy without relations does not yet create that status.