Earlier this year my daughter had to read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlett Letter. Published in 1850, it is written in sufficiently old-timey English to initially be a daunting read for the average American high schooler. The historical setting and speech patterns also give the impression that the plot portrays a dated cultural phenomenon of publicly shaming people for private consensual relationships.
My daughter had to write a paper about The Scarlett Letter, and one of her main themes was the double standard by which the persecuted protagonist, Hester Prynne, was treated as opposed to the father of her child, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, who ultimately fell prey to the judgement of his own conscience. She wondered at the difference in character between Hester and Dimmesdale, with Hester braving jail and humiliation rather than exposing her paramour, versus Reverend Dimmesdale letting Hester take the fall for both of them.
The other day someone emailed me the link to a website that alerts the Orthodox community to women who are committing halachic adultery because, in the author’s opinion, they don’t have a kosher get. Apparently, some people think it’s a public service to warn the community about women who received a get under suspicious circumstances, and publicize the fact that any children from their subsequent marriages should be considered mamzerim.
There are probably other such websites out there, and I don’t choose to give them any publicity by linking to them, however, it’s a fine line to walk. On the one hand, I wonder if I should even mention these types of controversies, for fear of spreading further gossip. On the other hand, I don’t see anyone speaking up in defense of the women being named as (halachic) adulteresses.
I know there are people in my life who would say no one is speaking up for these women because they are willfully doing something wrong. However, as women subject to release from marriage by men (whether husbands or rabbis), are we doubting the validity of the get, the rabbis, or the women? If a rabbi releases a woman from marriage through get or annulment, why isn’t that sufficient, and why is it her fault if other people don’t recognize her status as an unchained woman? If she went through the proper channels, how can that not be enough?
Just as converts are sometimes put in the unfortunate position of being pawns in their conversion rabbi’s missteps, rendering other rabbis to pronounce his conversions invalid, will women who receive a get or annulment have to live in fear that their single status might be unduly revoked at any time – even after they have remarried and had children with their second husband? Will their children be condemned to the unfortunate status of mamzer because of politics, the backlash against feminism (which is seen as a driving force behind the movement to free agunot), or a recalcitrant husband with good connections?
It irks some prominent rabbanim that American Jewish women have the option of filing for divorce in civil courts. They feel that all custody and financial settlements should be decided by a beis din, and any settlement decided and enforced by civil law on a woman’s behalf is akin to blackmail. They feel that some husbands give a get under duress in exchange for their wives going easier on them in civil court. Therefore, some have questioned the validity of such religious divorces where the husband’s hand was forced in order not to lose custody, property, or pay exorbitant child support or alimony as ordered by a civil court. In fact, some men are encouraged to withhold a get until such matters are negotiated to their satisfaction or the wife agrees to renegotiate a civil settlement that’s already been decided in her favor.
In any event, there is a sense of irony that in 2015, Jewish women still face wearing a Scarlett A, just as women did in the mid-17th century Puritanical Massachusetts Bay colony that Nathaniel Hawthorne described. Interestingly, in the stories being spread about these willful Orthodox women flouting halacha by refusing to remain agunot (instead choosing to accept the release offered to them by respected rabbanim, who might later have second thoughts when pressed by their colleagues), we usually don’t hear a peep in their defense from their second husbands, nor is the second spouse usually implicated in the scandal. Of course, the first husband, who in most cases was a get-refuser, is portrayed as the cuckolded victim. It’s the woman who is the scheming vixen and the men who are the casualties of her wily machinations.
