Could you elaborate a bit on your view — which conditions and which agreements can be effective in this matter, and what halakhic mechanism is expressed in them?
(Not to mention even a column or two on the halakhic side of the issue….)

Doesn’t seem likely in the near future. That would require going through the various proposals and agreements and analyzing and surveying them.

Heaven forbid I should ask for something so shocking as that (to go through empirical instances of the idea of an agreement! Revolting…).

All I’m asking for is a theoretical schema — what kinds of conditions can take effect, why according to Talmudic law this is "ostensibly" nullified, and why in your view it is nevertheless halakhically valid.

With God’s help, 6 Adar II 5782

The agreements circulating in Israel are intended to allow either spouse to initiate the dissolution of the marriage without needing to prove fault or wrongdoing on the part of the spouse being divorced, and without agreement on the divorce arrangements (division of joint property and custody of the children). A fixed period is set from the day notice is given of the unilateral desire to divorce, after which the one who does not comply with the unilateral dictate is obligated to pay the initiator of the divorce high support payments, in order to force him or her to evaporate from the home without any right to peep.

Regarding a wife divorcing her husband, the discussion is in terms of a coerced get, but in my humble opinion the bigger problem is that in these agreements the man too has the right to remove his wife unilaterally, so that if she refuses to evaporate she will be obligated to pay financial compensation to her husband until she leaves.

This situation effectively neutralizes the protection of the ketubah, whose purpose is that it should not be easy in his eyes to divorce her. Since under the agreement the husband can obligate his wife to pay high financial compensation for her refusal to divorce, you could not have a clearer case of “easy in his eyes to divorce her” than that. It seems to me, therefore, that a couple may not live together even for a single moment under such an “agreement,” in which the woman loses the protection of the ketubah.

It seems to me that in the United States there are agreements of a different kind, which do not allow the spouses to remove one another freely and without cause, but rather obligate the spouses to obey the ruling of a religious court when the court finds that according to Torah law there is grounds to obligate or compel a divorce. In that situation it is not the arbitrary will of the spouse that obligates the divorce, but Torah law, and the agreement obligates the one who refuses to act in accordance with the court’s instruction to pay increased support due to that refusal.

Best regards, Yaron Fish"l Ordner

This is not a question of types.
A condition that makes the betrothal contingent on something may lead to a situation where, after the woman is married, her betrothal is nullified, and then all sexual relations are promiscuous relations and the children, if there are any, were born outside marriage. It says in the Talmud that there is no condition in marriage, meaning that the condition is valid as long as they have not yet married. But after they are already married, the condition is nullified, because the assessment is that they do not want the sexual relations to become promiscuous relations. But one must note that there is no fundamental flaw in the condition itself. It is possible to make betrothal contingent on a condition just like any other legal act. The problem is only the inferred intention of the parties — whether they seriously mean to make it conditional.
Therefore, in a case where it is clear that they do want this, and the fact that the sexual relations would become promiscuous does not change their intention, then the condition is valid.