One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
גירושין
Gerushin 10
Sefer Nashim · Divorce · What a defective get leaves behind: three grades of failure, the woman forbidden to two men, and the reservation the law will not let a husband keep to himself.
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Gittin she needs, and neither man may keep her
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Owed her by either husband
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Witness whose word bars him from marrying her
Part 1Three Words and What Each One Costs
- Void (bateil): nothing happened. She is married in the full sense; if she remarried she must leave, and a child by the second man is illegitimate. Yet she is not forbidden to a priest husband as a divorcee, with one exception: "you are divorced from me, but you are not permitted to marry anyone else," the wisp of a get that disqualifies her from the priesthood by rabbinic decree (10:1)
- Unacceptable (pasul): rabbinic only. Forbidden to the priesthood by Scriptural law. She should not remarry, but if she has she need not leave, her children are legitimate, and a valid second get is written while she stays with her second husband. His voluntarily divorcing her is praiseworthy only if she has borne him no children; if she has, he should not, so as not to sully his sons' reputation (10:2)
- Doubtful: she must leave. She should not remarry, must leave a second husband if she has, and her children by him are of doubtful status, since her own status is in doubt (10:3)
- Nothing to restart. Where the get was unacceptable or doubtful and the first husband wants her back, she is permitted to him with no renewal of the marriage, no seven blessings and no new marriage contract, unless she had been divorced in a binding manner (10:3)
RememberA divorce that accomplishes nothing can still leave a trace: the wisp of a get bars her from the priesthood.
Part 2The Woman Between Two Men
- A get from each, and forbidden to both forever. A void get followed by remarriage, or remarriage on testimony that the husband died followed by his return, requires a get from both men, and she may never live with either again, even if she acted in complete ignorance. The decrees exist lest it be said that a married woman was released without a get, or that a man took back his divorcee after another man had her. If either transgresses he is compelled to send her away (10:4-5)
- Consecrated but not married: she goes home. If she had only received kiddushin and the marriage was never consummated, she is permitted to her first husband and the second need not give a get at all, since no marriage bond attaches to a woman forbidden by a severe prohibition, and onlookers will assume the consecration was conditional (10:6)
- What she is owed, itemized: nothing. Neither man takes an object she finds or the profits of her work, neither annuls her vows, neither owes her ketubah money, maintenance or any stipulation, neither answers for her property worn out or lost including nichsei tzon barzel, and whatever either man already received is not expropriated. Money she already collected is not clawed back (10:7)
- The scribe's mix up is read in her favor. If the get went to the husband and the receipt to the wife and she has not remarried, no divorce occurred and he gives it again. If she has remarried and he then produces the get claiming it never reached her, he is not believed: we presume it was given, fell from her hand, and he found it and wants to forbid her to the second husband (10:11)
RememberThe difference between going home and being forbidden to two men is not her innocence. It is whether a bystander has an innocent explanation available.
Part 3The Reservation He May Not Keep
- Say it out loud, and close the door. One divorcing over unsavory reports or indiscriminate vows is told to inform her he divorces her to chastise her and will never remarry her, lest she later reform and he say he would not have divorced her, which would make the get look conditional and therefore void, and her later children illegitimate. The same applies to an aylonit and to one who bleeds during relations. If he transgresses before she is consecrated to another, he need not divorce her (10:12-13)
- Nobody who freed her may benefit from it. The agent who brought the get and validated the signatures, the lone witness to the husband's death, the sage who ruled her forbidden by a vow, and a man reputed with a maidservant later freed or a gentile woman later converted, may none of them marry her, though they are not forced to separate if they transgress. The bar lifts if his own wife died or divorced him at her initiative (10:14-15)
- But his son may, and so may one of two witnesses. A person will not commit a sin so that someone else will benefit, so she may marry the witness's son, the sage's son or any relative. She may marry one of the two witnesses to her divorce or her mi'un, or a judge at her chalitzah; the suspicion exists only where a single witness freed her. Shy away from witnessing mi'un, make yourself available for chalitzah (10:16)
- Relations with his own divorcee are presumed a remarriage. Before witnesses, and before she married anyone else, we assume he intended consecration and not licentiousness, even if money passed, so she is consecrated and needs a second get. Seclusion before two simultaneous witnesses raises the same doubt where they had been married, not where she was only consecrated. The Rambam rejects the geonim who extended this to any woman or to a maidservant who bore a son, as far from the paths of Torah judgment (10:17-19)
RememberThe presumption that a man will not act licentiously was said about his own wife. It was never a general statement that men behave well.
Part 4Rumor, and the Limits on the Husband
- A rumor cannot divorce her, but it can undo itself. A rumor that a known wife was divorced gets no credence even if the whole city repeats it. But a rumor of kiddushin reported in court, followed by a rumor of divorce from those kiddushin, releases her: forbidden on a rumor, permitted on a rumor (10:20)
- No provisional marriages. He may not marry a woman intending to divorce her, nor keep her as a wife and live with her while intending to divorce her. He should not divorce a first wife except for sexual misconduct and should not hurry to divorce her; a second wife he hates he may send away (10:21)
- Divorcing immodest conduct is a mitzvah, and marrying her afterward is not fitting. "Drive away the scoffer, and contention will depart." A woman divorced for loose conduct should not then be married by a proper man, so that it not be said that one man sent away a wicked woman and another brought her home (10:22)
- He may not divorce a wife who cannot protect herself. A wife who becomes a deaf mute he may divorce. One who loses control of her mental faculties he may not divorce until she is stable, a rabbinic ordinance so she will not be left unattended and violated. He must house her and feed her from her own resources and may marry another; he owes her no sustenance, garments, conjugal rights, medical treatment or ransom from captivity. If he transgresses and divorces her, the get is binding and he may remove her from his home (10:23)
RememberThe law takes his legal power away at exactly the point she cannot protect herself, and then states plainly how little it can compel him to give.