The laws of vows establish a clear framework for managing a woman's personal commitments as she transitions through different stages of life. When a woman moves from her father's home to her husband's home, a unique legal and social middle ground emerges. This specific situation addresses a betrothed young woman, rather than one who is fully married [רש״י, רמב״ן, תורה תמימה]. Betrothal creates a transitional phase where the couple is firmly bound to one another, yet the woman has not fully entered marriage and still lives with her father [אם למקרא, חומש קה״ת, רש ר הירש]. If the laws were addressing a fully married woman, they would be completely unnecessary, as those specific rules are detailed elsewhere [רש״י, מזרחי, מלבי״ם].
Because the betrothed woman is in this period of transition, the primary approach among commentators is that the authority to cancel her vows is shared jointly between her father and her fiancé. Neither man can cancel a vow entirely on his own. If the father cancels the vow but the fiancé remains silent, or vice versa, the vow is only partially broken. While the severity of the commitment is weakened, the restriction does not completely disappear [בכור שור, הכתב והקבלה].
Furthermore, if either the father or the fiancé explicitly decides to uphold the vow, the other person's attempt to cancel it becomes completely invalid [רש״י, שפתי חכמים, גור אריה]. Even if the one who upheld the vow changes his mind that very same day and asks a sage to release him from his decision, it is too late; he can no longer join his partner to cancel the woman's vow [ברכת אשר, לבוש האורה, דברי דוד].
This shared responsibility extends even to vows the woman made before she was betrothed, when she was exclusively under her father's care. As long as the father had not yet heard or reacted to those earlier promises, the fiancé gains the special ability to join him in canceling them [רמב״ן, רש״י, שפתי חכמים, משכיל לדוד]. This power is entirely unique to the betrothal period. Once the couple is fully married, the husband loses the ability to cancel any old vows his wife brings with her from her father's house [תורה תמימה, רלב״ג, רש ר הירש, הכתב והקבלה].
Beyond standard vows, the rules also cover sudden oaths [שד״ל, רלב״ג, חזקוני]. These are commitments spoken in moments of high excitement, emotional turmoil, or sudden passion, where the woman binds herself to a restriction [תורה תמימה, מלבי״ם]. The shared authority between the father and the fiancé applies equally to these heated, emotional outbursts, ensuring that all her commitments are managed with the same joint oversight.