A soon-to-be-married friend asked me for some guidance on the Agunah Prenup, a prenuptial agreement meant to deter husbands from denying their wives a get (Jewish writ of divorce). In short, the agreement provides that the husband must pay the wife $150 per day for every day that they no longer live together but remain married. The agreement is enforceable in US courts.
I signed this agreement, and I know that some rabbis will refuse to marry a couple unless they sign an agreement of this kind. Many in the Orthodox movement welcomed the development, as I did. Today though, I just didn’t feel as good about it.
Women should have the right to leave a marriage, and this agreement does not grant them that right within the halachic system. It punishes the husband so that he will exercise his exclusive right to end the marriage. Worse, it does not engage any halachic powers against the husband, it instead turns to the government and its ability to enforce contracts. It’s a ruse – the structural halachic problem is side-stepped entirely.
On the one hand it’s very neat, and is even in keeping with the halachic tradition that says that a Bet Din would force a recalcitrant husband to give a get even through corporeal punishment (i.e. beating him until he relents). On the other hand, neither beating a man until he consents to follow a religious ritual nor binding a woman to a marriage against her will are particularly progressive ideas. In the end, the prenup is a non-halachic solution to a halachic problem, and as such it does nothing for injecting life and relevance into the halachic system.
Garnel Ironheart said:
First of all, this is a necessary solution because Jewish batei din no longer have any legal authority to allow local askanim to beat up recalcitrant husbands.
And secondly, this pre-nup is in many ways quite similar to an eiruv – God said don’t carry on Shabbos except in a prviate domain and the rabbonim, using the definitions and traditions available, came up with a way to make a large area a private domain. Was it just because where there’s a halachic will there’s a halachic way? No, it was to make Shabbos livable for people who needed to choose between carrying or remaining stuck at home all day long.
This pre-nup agreement does the same for the marriage issue. It allows the woman some power to force her husband to give him a get until the day when the court can authorize her to rip his testicles off if he refuses.
rejewvenator said:
Garnel, I’m advocating for a more significant reform that will actually grant women the right to end a marriage, not a halachic end-run or accommodation. I’m looking for halachic acknowledgment of the unprecedented shift in the role of women in society, including in Jewish society.