Q&A: Prenuptial Agreement — Agreement for Mutual Respect
Prenuptial Agreement — Agreement for Mutual Respect
Question
Hello Rabbi,
Regarding the “Agreement for Mutual Respect,” which various religious rabbis recommend signing before marriage, I saw that people previously asked for your opinion and, if I understood correctly, you do recommend it. But I tried to find the reasoning and got a bit stuck, and I’d be glad to understand better.
I’m asking purely in order to understand. I have no interest in creating some artificial equality or, on the contrary, rejecting it; I want to understand the spirit of the Torah / the Sages and see whether this agreement advances that spirit or דווקא not.
The purpose of the agreement as I understand it is to prevent refusal to grant a divorce by either side, and it works through an ongoing monthly financial penalty paid by the refusing party until the divorce is given.
I won’t try to analyze it fully, also because I’m really not expert in this, but I’ll try in general terms, and maybe I’m saying nonsense, but this is how I currently understand it:
1. The Torah / the Sages are opposed to hasty divorce, and therefore divorce is not something very easy to do and requires various things.
2. The Torah / the Sages are opposed to coercion within marriage and favor a certain freedom of will regarding divorce.
Accordingly, the question is how this agreement affects these two goals of the Torah, which on the face of it seem to be in a kind of zero-sum game.
So regarding goal 1, it seems to me relatively clear that the agreement does not advance it and actually harms it.
Regarding goal 2, it does indeed sound like it advances it.
So at the moment I’m left confused about this agreement.
Now I have another question: regarding the Torah’s second goal, which seemingly everyone agrees the agreement advances, why are the enactments of the Sages over the generations not enough?
Answers I’ve come across:
A change in the woman’s economic independence increases divorce refusal, because it increases demand for divorce due to the lack of financial dependence.
A change in the perception of marriage (once it was technical—building a family—and today people look for a personal connection), likewise increases the demand for divorce.
A change in the legal system: once the religious court had power; today it’s legal foot-dragging.
So basically, don’t all these reasons just create more instability in marriage?
If anything, I would say that this is actually a reason to strengthen the side of marital stability, not to further encourage divorce.
Maybe I’ve made this a bit too superficial, but I’d still be glad to understand where I’m going wrong, and maybe get a bit of an explanation for why it is recommended to sign,
Thank you very much.
Answer
Your assumptions are problematic. The fact that the trend of the Sages was a certain one does not obligate us. Trends and policy are variable matters and subject to dispute. What is binding is Jewish law, not the trends. In my view, the change in circumstances today requires a different policy. There is no value whatsoever in chaining a woman to a dead marriage. It benefits nothing and no one in any way.
According to your logic, why is there the ban of Rabbenu Gershom? The Torah’s apparent direction is that a person may have as many wives as he wants. Its direction is also that a man may divorce a woman against her will. Policy is something that changes from generation to generation. What suits and is correct for one generation can be terrible in another.
Thank you very much for the response and for your time; I sent a pretty long question..
I understand and of course accept the commitment to Jewish law and not to broader trends. I was trying to say something like what you say about the plain conservative reading versus the midrashic one, because in the end I assume we are aiming at some kind of spirit of the Torah (or of God’s will), even if in practice we do the opposite of what is written in it.
In any case, I’ll try from another direction, without getting into what the Torah / God wants.
I agree that there is no value in get-refusal, and if the response the Sages gave to the problem is no longer good today, then that requires an explanation of what changed; and if it is no longer possible to implement today, that also requires an explanation. (From this Mutual Respect agreement under discussion, I don’t understand those things, and it sounds to me like they are important for understanding the need for the agreement. I understand that it prevents refusal, but it sounds a bit superficial, almost manipulative, not to discuss all the background to the problem.)
As for the ban of Rabbenu Gershom, I’m very much in favor of reforms. Even though I haven’t dug into why in the past it was legitimate for the Torah to permit several wives, nowadays I obviously don’t need arguments for that. I assume the spirit of the Torah is correct and that those reforms are correct. How exactly that works out is less critical to me right now; same with coerced divorce, which I wasn’t familiar with.
But here’s another point: this agreement in question is itself basically a coerced divorce. If one side wants to divorce, he is essentially forcing the other side to pay a significant sum until he divorces..
Personally, I would sign it if I were asked, because I don’t want to force anything or fight with anyone. But if this agreement really is good and solves problems, it’s a shame there isn’t a better explanation of it, because right now I really can’t manage to understand it.
(And I have no religious objection or anything like that to the matter; I’d gladly adopt the agreement if I thought, independently of religion, that it was a good one.)
This also came out pretty long—sorry for the length, and thank you very much.