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With apologies for having missed Perek 13....
Perek 14 revolves entirely around the unique legal nature of a marriage or divorce contracted by a "cheresh" or a "chereshet", a man or woman who is deaf-mute. The Mishna regards a person who is deaf-mute as being of compromised cognitive understanding in the eyes of Biblical law, and thus unable to either contract marriage or issue a divorce. At the same time, the Sages very much wanted to create a legal framework within which people who are deaf-mute could be married (and if necessary, divorced), both in order so that they be afforded the joys and the financial securities of marriage, and also because as a general rule, the Sages worried that people who had no marriage options might choose to live lives of sexual looseness. To this end, the Sages decreed that Rabbinic law would recognize the marriages that deaf-mute people entered, and that these marriages could only be ended with a "gett" just like a typical marriage would be.
Before I summarize two of the central ideas that appear in our perek, I want to bring to your attention this very important essay by Rav Benny Lau, in which he traces the significant development in Halacha over the centuries regarding the status of someone who is deaf-mute, very much including the likelihood that there is no halachik difference these days between the marriages of people who are deaf-mute and those who can hear and speak.
Back to our Mishnayot: As has been true throughout Yevamot, it's very helpful to sketch the cases out on a piece of paper which, in particular in this perek makes the Mishnayot fairly easy to understand. Two things to help guide you:
(1) Whenever a "yibbum" situation arises, and the marriages of both the deceased and surviving brothers are recognized only by Rabbinic law, the procedures of "yibbum" proceed just as they would under typical circumstances, with the exception that chalitzah is not an available option (as this was not included in the Rabbinic extension of marriage laws to people who are deaf-mutes. )
(2) Biblical law will always trump Rabbinic law. Thus, a very strange (and sad) situation arises if a "cheresh" and his "non-cheresh" brother marry sisters, and the "non-cheresh" brother dies childless (Mishna 4). Since the marriage of the "non-cheresh" brother is fully recognized by Biblical law, the "cheresh" is obligated to his brother's widow as a "yavam" despite the fact that his brother's widow is his own wife's sister. This is because Biblical law doesn't recognize the "cheresh's" marriage to the widow's sister. This tragically spells the end of the "cheresh's" marriage, as he can no longer remain in relationship with the sister of his "yevama", whom he also cannot perform chalitzah with (Biblical law wouldn't recognize that either).To make matters worse, he can also not actually perform "yibbum", for by dint of rabbinic law his brother's widow IS the sister of his own wife (a status she retains as long as her sister is alive). In the end both he and she are tragically "stuck".
It is fortunate that the great majority of the cases here likely existed much more in the minds of the Mishnaic rabbis than in real life, and it is fortunate that the Mishnaic ruling that was likely the most well-practiced one in this context is the one enabling deaf-mutes to experience married life.
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