It is written in Deuteronomy 24: “If a man takes a wife and marries her, and if she becomes displeasing to him because he has found something indecent about her, he shall write her a certificate of divorce and give it to her and send her from his house. Once she has left his house, she may go and marry another man.” The delivery of this document, called a “get” in Aramaic, is what makes the divorce effective, unlike a civil divorce, where a judge declares the marriage dissolved.

According to halakha, Jewish law, granting the “get” falls exclusively to the husband. The wife, on the other hand, cannot ask for a divorce; at most, she can ask a rabbinical court to request that her husband grant her the get, but the husband cannot force her. Halakha states that the get must be granted freely; It is only valid when given and received voluntarily; if any kind of coercion is involved, it is void.

Originally, the wife’s consent was not required for the husband to divorce her. This changed approximately 1,000 years ago when Rabbi Gershom decreed that a man could not divorce without his wife’s approval. However, the halachic rule that gives the husband the power of divorce has led to problematic situations, such as the case of the «agunah» woman, literally «bound,» who is one who cannot marry because she has not obtained a get, either because her husband refuses to grant it or because she has disappeared, for example, in combat or in an accident, and her death cannot be reliably certified.

Different movements within Judaism have responded differently to the unequal treatment of women in the case of divorce by halacha. Modern Orthodox Judaism considers the get essential, but has found a mechanism to remedy this difference: the prenuptial agreement. In it, both parties agree to submit to a rabbinical arbitration court, and the husband agrees to pay his wife a predetermined amount daily until the divorce is finalized. This document was drafted jointly by Rabbi Mordechai Willig of Yeshiva University in New York and Rabbi Zalman Nechemia Goldberg of the Jerusalem rabbinical court.

For its part, the Conservative movement also requires the traditional get, but in cases where the husband flatly refuses to provide it, a special rabbinical court can declare «hafkaat kiddushin,» the dissolution of the marriage, thus freeing the wife. The Reform and Reconstructionist movements have eliminated the get requirement and accept a divorce decreed by a civil court as valid for religious purposes. In Israel, divorce is much more complicated, as there are two parallel courts authorized to hear divorce cases between Jewish couples: the Rabbinical Court and the Family Court. Although Israeli law originally gave the rabbinical court jurisdiction over divorce, new laws enacted by the Israeli parliament encouraged these courts to impose sanctions on spouses who refused to grant a get. Thus, the religious and civil spheres became intertwined.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Encyclopaedia Judaica and other sources.