The Wife's Right to Divorce in Jewish Law: History, Dogmatics and Hermeneutics
Journal of Jewish Studies, Vol. 62, pp. 340-63, 2011
25 Pages Posted: 26 Oct 2011
Date Written: June 5, 2009
Abstract
The paper has two aims: historical and dogmatic. Historical, in studying two actual Jewish Law traditions in which divorce was issued at the wife’s demand, with analysis of the legal interaction between them; dogmatic, in examining the status of three legal concepts of unilateral termination of marriage derived from these traditions: coercion of a get (a Jewish writ of divorce), terminative conditions, and annulment of marriage. The two topics lead to one integrated outcome: exploring the status of the tools which enable issuance of divorce in Jewish Law against the will of a recalcitrant spouse.
Keywords: Jewish law, marriage, divorce, annulment, coercion, get, genizah, ketubbah, rebellious wife,
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