On Purim I heard the heartbreaking story of an agunah finally released from her chains by her tragic death. Chani Kuperman, after fighting a valiant battle with cancer, died at the age of 37 and leaves behind 6 children. All the while, she was apparently fighting her ex-husband for a get, which he refused right up until her last dying breath.
I hope for her sake that the concept of souls reuniting with their earthly spouses in olam habah doesn’t happen for her, or if it does, that she will finally be granted her divorce in shamayim.
Back in my day (the early 1990’s), there was no concept of a halachic prenup to prevent a husband from withholding a get. Today it’s simply irresponsible for any orthodox Jewish couple to get married without one. Tablet magazine summarizes the obligation contained in the halachic prenup crafted by the Beit Din of America –
“First, if either spouse requests, the couple agrees to appear before a panel of dayanim, judges, and to abide by their decision regarding the get. Second, if the couple separates, the husband’s obligation under Jewish law to support his wife will be set at $150 a day, indexed to inflation, from the date he receives notice of her intention to collect, until the time that they are no longer married under Jewish law—i.e., until he gives a get.
The prenup says nothing directly about a get, as that could be interpreted as compromising a man’s free-will decision to give it; the man must give the get freely—although in the 12th century, Maimonides created a loophole that allowed rabbis to beat a man to help him realize that he willed his wife her freedom. Instead, the prenup just enforces the husband’s obligation, as set forth in the ketubah, the Jewish wedding contract, to support his wife. Basically, the prenup imposes a monetary cost to a husband’s decision to stay married to her.”
So far, the halachic prenup has a 100% success rate –
“It’s a rock-solid solution,” said Rabbi Yona Reiss, head of the religious court of the Chicago Rabbinical Council and past director of the Beit Din of America. The prenup, said the Yale-trained lawyer, “has produced a get in a timely fashion in 100 percent of the cases where it was duly executed.”
The halachic prenup is only effective if a couple has one. It’s time for every masader kiddushin to support this important solution to the agunah problem and make it a part of every Jewish marriage ceremony. Rabbis should refuse to marry any couple where the husband won’t sign a halachic prenup.
Jews don’t have the excuse that a prenup is dooming the marriage to failure before it even begins – every Jew gets married with a prenup already – it’s called a ketubah. Signing a prenup only takes a man a few minutes. Isn’t that worth potentially saving a woman from a lifetime of anguish?
