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Considering that Rabbeinu Gershom prohibits forcing a wife to accept a Get she doesn’t want, why would one think a husband has a greater obligation to give a Get he doesn’t want to (considering that the wife may per Rabbeinu Gershom decline to accept a Get she doesn’t want)?
Pre-nup, please.
Who said one would?
There are ways to deal with a wife refusing a “get” that allow the husband to marry, and don’t result in mazerim. That is why we don’t hear about women refusing a “get” but do hear about a man refusing to give a “get”.
getzel: It is much rarer for a woman to refuse a Get than for the man to refuse to give (though I believe ORA tells men to sign the prenup because they have cases of men who are “Agunim” as their wives won’t accept a Get).
But a man has a recourse of a Heter Meah Rabbonim (sometimes legitimate, sometimes not). Also, many men care a lot less because their kids won’t be Mamzerim. Yes, they may have violated a Cherem (and they try to get out of it by quoting Acharonim that the Cherem is over etc.), but that’s nowhere near the level of the Issur of Eishes Ish D’oraisa.
If they both dont want why are they even talking about getting a get?
I’m not a feminist and I’m definitely not a misogynist, but I like your reasoning a lot. Why do husbands get such a bad rap when there may be plenty of wives in the same situation?
Someone please cattle prod me.
Neither one is justified. They both have a moral and religious obligation to give or receive a get willingly and immediately. Not doing so is extortion, is cruelty, and is using the brachos Hashem has bestowed (children, first and foremost, as well as resources, time, and kavonoh) as leverage in a petty, materialistic, and vindictive endeavour. Its hard enough to move on and continue to do what HKBH wants of us without this michshol.
There is no logic in thinking that someone (man or woman) kept in a marriage against their will will have any interest in making that marriage work, and the resentment, the hatred, the rebounding of that negativity on children and other family and friends will only grow. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a deluded fool.
When R’G made his takonos I am sure there was opposition to them, yet he did so because it was in the interests of Am Yisroel. If those who are considered Daas Torah want to demonstrate why they are or should be considered so, maybe they could address this issue simply, equitably, and finally in a takonoh of their own. A Horaas Sho’oh, as the divorce rate has never been so high, but the plague of vindictive creation of agunos and their male equivalent has never been so high either. THAT would be leadership indeed.
yichusdik: It’s not a matter of justification (assuming neither side seriously wants to “save the marriage” which suggests its too early to talk about “get”), but rather why we never hear about men complaining about wives not accept a “get”, which is because it is a statistically different situation.
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I know one woman (well, actually her lawyer) who refused a get because they were hoping to launch a smear campaign on the husband later, but he botched their plan. They were also hoping to use a bais din that allowed the wife to attach lots of extraneous paperwork to the Get (congress style) but he botched that too. So they refused the Get but didn’t tell anyone it was offered.
Apparently slime can run in both directions.
Getzel, you raise an interesting point. Two points in response:
1. The Torah and Rabbeinu Gershom arguably don’t express a preference for remaining married; they express a preference for dual consent. It’s not clear that the desired outcome was more refusal to divorce, it’s possible that the desired outcome was an autonomous participation in divorce.
2. Regardless of what the law says and what “rights” it represents, the law is forced to apply indiscriminately (although R’ Gershom left an “out”.) The women who demand divorces might argue that the law cannot help them because the law gives a “right” to all the nice men out there. But their husbands should still not be jerks.
UNRELATED: I don’t understand why this has become a “Crisis” with a capital C. There are a lot of ways that people can be mean to each other, and a lot of ways in which laws are inequitable toward men and women. People should always be menschen, but there is nothing unique about “gets” that should arouse such an outcry.
I have heard it is just as common for women to refuse a get as for men to refuse to give one. The reason you hear more about the men is that people like to care about it more. Perhaps they think it is worse since there is no possibility of heter meah rabbonim.
Popa, I agree with you. I would even go further and say that the cases that people hear about are *least* indicative of what really goes on, because the average Joe (or Jane) doesn’t have access to newspapers and influential people, nor does the average husband have the resources for a heter meah rabbanim. Whenever an agunah story hits the news, I assume that at least one family is either very wealthy or related to an influential person*.
*v’hamaskil yidom
“I don’t understand why this has become a ‘Crisis’ with a capital C. There are a lot of ways that people can be mean to each other, and a lot of ways in which laws are inequitable toward men and women. People should always be menschen, but there is nothing unique about “gets” that should arouse such an outcry.”
Are there other inequitable laws or other ways that people can be mean which prevent the flourishing of families? This is rightfully termed a “Crisis with a capital C” because it prevents women from remarrying and raising more children. For a different perspective, try comparing the agunah crisis to the shidduch crisis. They’re more similar than you might think.
JF – there are women who are mentally unstable and unable to care for their children who have rallied behind the “Get” crisis to schmutz their husbands. What people *don’t* hear is that sometimes the husband doesn’t want to give the get until the wife agrees to counseling, joint custody, no custody or maybe even just a bit of responsibility for her mental issues.
I wouldn’t say this is prevalent, but I would bet it is done more often than you think.
Some interesting passages on this topic in a recent post on Torah Musings:
Syag: Most of the cases that hit the news are well past that point. Many divorces take a few months because one side “refuses” to finalize the divorce until there is counseling or something like that. That’s fine, normal, and sometimes even recommended by the Beis Din. What is never, ever okay is refusing to give/receive the Get as a bargaining tool for money, custody, and stuff like that. The stories that are in the news are often well past the point of custody, money, etc. being finalized and yet the Get still isn’t being given.
If a legal divorce is finalized and the Get still isn’t being given, that’s usually a massive red flag that something very wrong is going on here.
I don’t really read the NY news so I was just talking about situations I know personally.
getzel1 who said “a husband from divorcing his wife who wishes to remain married to him.”
In that situation, in virtually all legal systems, including our own, it is too early to talk about divorce. If one spouse wants the marriage to survive, they need counseling, not lawyering.
Any competent legal system will wait until the spouse agree on the need to divorce, which usually doesn’t take long (either they decide the spouse opposing the divorce was right and they reconcile, or it becomes obvious to both that marriage is over).
The issues arise when one spouse (usually the man) is using the “get” as leverage to get a money or a better deal (typically involving custody). It is rarely over a desire for reconciliation.
Jewish Feminist said: “Are there other inequitable laws or other ways that people can be mean which prevent the flourishing of families? This is rightfully termed a “Crisis with a capital C” because it prevents women from remarrying and raising more children. For a different perspective, try comparing the agunah crisis to the shidduch crisis. They’re more similar than you might think.”
Why are you so hung up on the law? There are a million tools for inequity, from breaking someone’s window when you know he/she won’t retaliate to spending endless amounts of money in court when you know that the other party can’t match to alleging abuse in the course of divorce proceedings. The law is what it is and it maybe a bad thing on net, but that has nothing to do with individual people using it to their advantage. Why are people making a fuss about random people behaving badly, and why do people choose sides on the basis of one fact?
1) I am not “hung up on the law”.
2) The agunah issue has become a real epidemic. It’s not just “random people behaving badly”.
3) There are no “sides” when it comes to giving a get. If they’ve mutually decided to end the marriage, have divided their assets, and have been living separately, there can be NO reason whatsoever to withhold a get.
3) There are no “sides” when it comes to giving a get. If they’ve mutually decided to end the marriage, have divided their assets, and have been living separately, there can be NO reason whatsoever to withhold a get.
Sure, if there is nothing left to negotiate, there can be no reason to withhold a get. But suppose he is alleging that she molests the kids and using that as leverage to get custody? Mightn’t it be ok for her to refuse a get as leverage agaisnt him?
There certainly are “sides” in divorce.
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that is NOT getzel.
PBA: I would say that the only way I would ever support using the Get as leverage is in the case you just mentioned, but unfortunately if that were true then every single M’agen would just begin to claim the wife abuses the kids and use that an excuse. So while in theory I agree there are situations where it could be warranted, those situations are lost Mipnei Harama’in.
There are, in my opinion a couple of things that I would imagine contribute to what the Op wrote (assuming that it is the case- I really don’t believe it is)
1.) People will always sympathize with the person who no longer wishes to be married. Forcing someone to remain married to someone who they do not wish to be married too will (justifiably) leave a bad taste in most people’s mouths.
2.) Women tend to be viewed as the underdog in most fights they have with men (although this is not necessarily the case and indeed these days when woman have equal rights they are in many cases on equal footing-this was however not the case even 100 years ago in both frum and secular society)Most people are inclined to support the Underdog.
3.)According to Halacha A man getting his needs taken care of by other unmarried woman if his wife refuses a divorce is at most transgressing a La”av and is at most chayiv malkos mdirobonnon while a woman doing the same exact thing is considered on par with a murderer and would according to Halacha in an ideal world be executed.
Although it sounds nice to say “withholding a get is never justified” bad divorces can be REALLY bad and if a woman is withholding a man’s children or otherwise abusing him I would not judge the man for using whatever leverage he has to get her to stop; up to and including withholding a Get
@Syag – Oh my gosh…. Y’know, I thought it was a little strange that Getzel’s username had a 1 at the end again. Now I know. Pardon my lysdexic ingoracne.
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