Is it ever proper to withhold a get?

ZD, I agree. They should not have gone to the media.

Lior: Let me give you a perfect Mashal for your case. You are in essence saying that if someone hurts you pretty badly (let’s say they beat you up and maybe even leave some permanent damage), it is your right to torture them every day for the remainder of either of your lives. That is, in a word, evil. I don’t care if the attack was unprovoked.

Lior: The longer she says she wants out, the less likely it’s Nasnah Eineha and the more likely she doesn’t doesn’t feel happy in this marriage.

And yes, society is different nowadays than then. That doesn’t change any Dinim, but it does help us in judging whether each case is Nasnah Eineha or not.

The halchachic issues notwithstanding, we are actually observing a war of bad midos, in which the warring spouses are looking to inflict as much pain and anguish on the other. Divorce is ugly. Recognize it. It has become the exception that a couple enters the divorce process looking to resolve the issues amicably. There are only two professions that benefit – the lawyers and the toanim. Dayanim would rather spend their dayanus time doing Choshen Mishpat cases – they’re less ugly, and yield considerably more income. Everyone else, including the soon to be divorced couple, lose everything. Many friends abandon them, many family, and their social positions tend to diminish. All for the few moments of sweet revenge against the other.

Men have the options of withholding the get. Child support can be litigated, and sooner or later wrestled from the father through legal channels. Women have other resources to fight their wars. They include the accusations of domestic violence, child abuse, and other shenanigans to deny the father access to the children while dragging them through expensive court battles. Men find their reputations tarnished, even destroyed by these false allegations. But those are women’s weapons.

So either side can be washed down for exposing and implementing rather despicable midos, ones which we spent our yeshiva/school days learning about in mussar lectures, and the same ones we need to address as part of our Elul/teshuvah avodah. Which spouse is on the offense or defense varies per situation. I have trouble recognizing the generalizations about evil men or evil women. There are no reliable statistics. Numbers would not help anyway. If a case involves a nasty man, the majority figure of offensive women would not matter. And vice versa.

It becomes the obligation of those authority figures who get involved, whether askanim, professionals, rabbonim, etc. to address the couple at this level. “If you want to spend inordinate amounts of time and money fighting to the finish, you may. We will profit from it. The alternative is to participate in good faith efforts to negotiate. You’ll win some things and lose some things. All that you are guaranteed to experience is the absence of revenge. That is an issue to address, and some therapy may help for that. You will gain considerable savings in the short and long term, and the children will be granted a reprieve from the turmoil of ongoing battles between the parents. This alternative sounds like WIN-WIN.”

Francorachel3:

You’ve been drinking the kool-aid. I’m very sorry to tell you, but the percentage of false accusations about domestic violence is staggering. The estimates vary between 50-70% being false. All shelters for battered women require charges filed with police. Why? Because this process helps eliminate those accusations that are frivolous. (People mistakenly claim that the sponsoring agencies encouraged police reporting. Actually, it is a requirement of the city government that funds the shelter to insure that those who do not qualify will not be permitted to take up the space that someone who does qualify might need.)

I would never conclude that any report of DV is true or false. Following taking whatever action is needed to insure safety, just in case, there should be some process of investigation to verify whether the accusations have merit. You are correct that some of the perpetrators of DV appear to the public to be “frumme fine mentchen”, and that character witnesses from the shul where they daven are uninformative. You are accurate, but that does not mean there are no false accusations. There are, and the numbers are quite high. If you inquire from the agencies who assist victims of DV, they will confirm that they have men calling as well, and that their cases (by the time they seek outside help) are even more pitiful then the women victims.

Yes, there are lawyers who should be disbarred. I personally know some of them. One, in particular, tends to give up the cases part way, having earned some fees, then allowing another attorney to try his luck. Ask anyone connected to Family Court how many cases of DV get dismissed because of lack of evidence, and outright fabrication. I might not know a lot about other things, but in this case, the information I share is part of “The Little I Know”.

Please notice that I am not commenting about the withholding of the get. I am steadfast against it. However, I would never allow a get to be given if the agreement that settles the affairs of custody, support, division of assets, etc. is incomplete. Whoever holds back on that is the party responsible for delaying the get. And here it is a draw, 50-50. That is fact.

You didn’t seem to find it so difficult to condemn a woman to a lifetime of igun for the sake of precedent.

What if there’s no objective way to determine that he’s been abusive, but it’ s obvious that she is miserable? Do you still want to force her to stay with him? How do you define “without cause”?

I’m speaking in abstract terms since I cannot judge any particular case, obviously. A case where objectively there is bona fide abuse that remains uncorrected would seem to me to constitute halachicly just cause to be able to demand in beis din and be granted a mandatory divorce. Regarding your asking about no objective determination, if abuse is claimed by his spouse and he denies it, I seem to recall that SA specifically says that B”D places a witness in their residence to determine the truth. Perhaps that can be a guide in answering your question.

I too am discussing propriety, good behavior, righteousness and Gan Eden. Everything I’ve stated is within those parameters. His not giving a Get-on-demand because she woke up on the wrong side of the bed or just decided the single scene is more fun than married life or that he isn’t rich enough for her or that she’d prefer a European husband instead of an American like him or that he is boring or that he doesn’t bring her flowers or that he doesn’t get along with her parents or that he’s just not her type is NOT revenge and there is no default and automatic reason he should give it because she asked for it. And it is improper, bad behavior, unrighteous and a risk to her Gan Eden for her to insist on it unreasonably or to walk out unreasonably if he wishes to continue the marriage and fulfill his duties and obligations to provide her all her marital rights. And his reaction as such fulfills all aspects of propriety, good behavior, righteousness and Gan Eden.

DY, I addressed that point above in my response to your Point 2.

Lior, not really, because you keep on going back to the notion that he merely wants a functional marriage, without addressing situations where that’s not realistically going to happen.

Sam, I assume the mods have some kind of confidentiality issue (although I’m sure you didn’t mean it literally).

DY, so lets address the situations where that’s not realistically going to happen.

You’re a dayan. A woman petitions the beis din for a Get. She says that she and her husband disagree on too many things in life so therefore they’re not compatible. That’s her basis. You and the other two dayanim determine that objectively her concerns, even if provable and true, do not fit into any halachic category that requires a husband to give a Get if he does not wish to. The husband, in the evaluation of the beis din you’re sitting on, earnestly and sincerely wishes to continue the marriage. He states he is ready and willing to fulfill all his marital obligations to her, as he had until she left. You and the dayanim agree there is no halachic basis to order a Get. What do you do at that stage (soon after she first walked out); order her to stop being a moredes and return to her husband? Is that what halacha requires?

Okay, that was when the case first came to court soon after the breakup. Now it is two or three years later. Literally nothing changed. She still didn’t return and wants the Get – and he sincerely still wants the marriage. They come back to beis din. At this point you’re sure there’s no realistic chance she’ll ever change her mind or go back. But you also see he is sincere in his stated desire to continue the marriage. You think he is being completely unrealistic and perhaps even delusional in thinking that might happen but you acknowledge his sincerity. You and the other dayanim strongly advise him that you highly recommend he give it since you believe there is no realistic chance she’ll change her mind. He politely declines following the suggestion. I maintain halacha doesn’t obligate he give it and he gets no aveira for not giving it (and she is continually sinning by having walked out), and doesn’t even allow beis din to advise him that he is halachicly required to give it or to demand or pressure that he do so.

Do you disagree and maintain that he, at this stage, is halachicly required to give it? Do you as dayan order him to give it? I maintain that if the beis din does order or pressure it, even if he says even though I don’t want to give it but if beis din orders I am obligated to give it, then I will give it on that basis, it constitutes a Get Me’usa.

What do you, as a dayan, do to insure halachic compliance by both parties as well as insure the beis din itself follows proper halachic requirements here that doesn’t result in a get me’usa or worse?

You linked to fny’s comment to me and my response to him. What is your action as a dayan in the above scenario based on your understanding of halacha?

I think Lior has some really great points.

In fact personally I’m aware of a pretty famous case where every Dayan involved was fully aware that there was no reason what so ever for her to demand a get.

In fact the Beis Din was in possesion of a letter she wrote right before leaving where she stated unequivically that the man in question was a “great husband”. She just decided she wanted something else in life. The husband then said fine, however he stated that he was not fine with the sutody arrangements and would withhold the get until it was arranged to his satisfaction.

In this case the Dayanim involved all agreed that from a Halachic standpoint there was absolutly no reason that he had to give a get.

Yet demonstrations were held in front of the mans house, and some Dayanim tried to come out with convulted reason swhey he was mechuyov to give the get even though halachically she was wrong!

I think the wider, underlying problem is that we as a society have absorbed a drop to much of the culture around us.

Even in America until recently there was no concept of a “no-fualt” divorce.

If you married and you committed to a relationship. You now had a responsibilty to maintain that relatonship, a responsibilty that was strengthened once children would come into the picture. If you wanted to end it you had to have a good reason to.

You could not just have “divorce on demand” and who cares about what it meant for the person you committed to.

Ben Levi: Simple question, yes or no: Is it cruel to prevent someone from ever remarrying when they are clearly unhappy in their current marriage?

It depends.

If there are children involved?

Then in many cases the “immoral” decision is a person (man or woman) who is trying to break up a home and thereby significantly impacting the children that he or she brought into the world.

If there are no such factors, then I do not know if it is “cruel”, there really are very very rare cases where the husband refuses to give a get simply for “spite”. (I am aware of several cases, none of them were cases where the husband was refusing to give a get simply for “spite”.)

This all may be true at a point where the marriage is salvageable. I am talking about point where it is not.

There may be children suffering, and her reasons may have been wrong and immoral, and she may herself be guilty of cruelty, but in that situation, it is indeed spite.

Bottom line: if someone seriously wants out of the emotional aspect of the relationship of marriage, there is nothing anyone can do to stop them. Once this occurs, it is cruel, controlling and abusive to force them to remain in a legal relationship.

This will make me unpopular for sure, but it seems to me that if the woman is unjustified in asking for a Get, then she is the aggressor and the husband is under no obligation whatsoever to grant her one.

The fact that she is completely determined and committed to ruin the marriage is worthless. She is inflicting harm and that can obligate no one.

If the kids get ruined thereby, it is she who has ruined them. Not him.

(I do fully understand that the husbands best interest is not to have his kids ruined, so he would grant the Get instead. I discuss only who is at fault.)

Again, marriage is no prison. If she cannot hack it, she is entitled to leave. But only if she must. If she wants a divorce because she thinks she can do better or for variety’s sake, she is doing wrong.

She is entitled to petch, lots of them.

Frumnotyeshivish,

The thing is that in Judaisim the husband is under nop obligation in many of these case’s to give a get and Beis Din does not have the kegal basis to obligate him even if they feel that the “smarter” thing for him is to give one.

DY: “What is your recommendation in such a case regarding “propriety, good behavior, righteousness and Gan Eden”?”

Is it ever proper to withhold a get?

“the issue here is not what the woman should do, and not what beis din should do. It’s what the husband should do.”

All these issues are intertwined and can be discussed together.

“If I had to guess, probably ???? ?????, not ???? ?????.”

So we agree there is no ???? ?????. Where do you find in halacha this scenario attributed to a ???? ?????? The ???? ????? I see halacha citing are situations as ??? ??? ??????? ?????? ????? ????? ????? ?????? ???? ?????

“This all may be true at a point where the marriage is salvageable.”

Which is what I am discussing. Why your seeming reluctance to acknowledge a marriage may be salvageable much much more often than modern society treats it or accepts? And very well may be salvageable even where one spouse thinks it is not salvageable. Much like ???? ????? taught us in his ??? *extending* the ability for one spouse to unilaterally salvage the marriage against the will of the other spouse! Placing an arbitrary or even objective timeframe after which one spouse who simply walked out could then wait it out for the timeframe to pass would simply undermine and effectively eliminate halacha’s (and ???? ?????’s) insistence that there is no unilateral right to a divorce; and all the halachas describing what does and what does not justify a divorce would go out the window.

Avrom: It isn’t a Torah value to unwarrantedly break up a family. There is no right-to-divorce or divorce-on-demand in Judaism. As far as the realisticness of the timeframe is concerned, don’t forget that halacha specifically says a divorce can only be done if the husband desires it. This point isn’t just theoretical or something that doesn’t simply mean exactly that. Halacha does not at all say that husband must desire it if it is requested of him (barring the occurrence of abuse.) The Torah explicitly says that a divorce only is done if he wants to do it, meaning if he doesn’t want to do it he has no moral, ethical or legal obligation to change his mind. What if someone gives you a gift and later changes his mind? You have no obligation whatsoever to return the gift to him as much as he wants it back. Secondly, what is or isn’t realistic is in the eyes of the beholder. A court cannot rule on the realisticness of a situation where there is no obligation in the first place. As I said earlier; perhaps objectively it is an unrealistic expectation; perhaps he is being delusional in thinking the her mind will change. Do we fault a person for unreasonably holding out for and davening for a refuah for an ill family member’s recovery when it is “unreasonable” to expect that to happen? Also take into consideration that she is sinning [being a moredes] by having unjustifiably walked out of the marriage. The Torah itself gives him the moral right to hold out when it says it can only be given according to his will. Now what I just related doesn’t jibe well in modern 21st century societal values; but it is our eternal Torah values even if secular society has embraced no-fault divorce.

BTW, a slightly tangential point that Ben Levi raised and DY seemed to agree with, is that if one spouse unreasonably seeks a divorce against the other spouses will, then the spouse wishing to continue the marriage, even if he agrees to terminate it per the insistence of his spouse, has the moral right to hold out for an acceptable custody arrangement for himself before giving it. After all he would like to continue the marriage both spouses committed to and raised children under and there is no obligation on his part to agree to a divorce and normally a parent lives with his children in his home. It is both callous and maleficent to unwillingly force a person out of a marriage he put his life into building and put him into a situation of being divorced when it is unreasonable and all other options have not been exhausted. And it is certainly unfair if not cruel (for both the parent and the children) that a parent and his children should lose daily access and daily interactivity with each other in their upbringing because a spouse capriciously demanded a divorce and the breakup of the family.

fny: I beg to differ. I strongly posit that most divorces were avoidable and in the long term the children suffer from the divorce having occurred rather than the marriage being preserved. The examples to the contrary are the exception not the rule.

A few points in response:

1) You are equating her being wrong with him being right. It doesn’t work that way.

2) Not being cruel and vindictive is very much a Torah value, not merely a modern fabrication.

3) ???? ????? are the precise words I heard from a dayan regarding a case where al pi din he is not obligated to divorce her, but he should for Gan Eden purposes. I am not knowledgeable enough to go through all of the relevant halachos with you; as I said, it’s a guess.

4) Yes, I think he can withold for custody issues, but for Gan Eden purposes the arrangement should be based in the children’s best interest, not his or even “justice’s” best interest.

5) There is no question that there are cases where the marriage is unsalvagable. I think this should be determined by an objective party, according to Torah values rather than modern values, and when it is determined, and all other matters are reasonably settled, he should, and should be encouraged to, give the get.

6) Although I’m no expert, from the little I’ve read, you misunderstand the purpose of the cherem d’Rabeinu Gershom regarding a forced get. It is not so that she can prolong the marriage indefinitely; it’s to prevent him from easily divorcing her at whim. In no way, shape or form does this indicate that there isn’t a point in time at which it’s clear that she should accept the get.

Lior,

It isn’t a Torah value to unwarrantedly break up a family.

Also take into consideration that she is sinning

Your assumption that a woman wanting a divorce is acting capriciously, unless she can provide you with clear-cut evidence of abuse, is fundamentally misogynistic. Sometimes valid reasons are difficult or terrifying to articulate, and some abuse can be hidden from all but the victim. There may also be other valid reasons not involving abuse, such as an irreparable loss of trust.

Also, two wrongs don’t make a right. One spouse acting badly does not validate the other spouse acting badly.

If a couple is going to beis din for divorce proceedings, the home is R”L already broken, and it would take both of them to rebuild it. This cannot be forced on one of them.

It is both callous and maleficent to unwillingly force a person out of a marriage he put his life into building and put him into a situation of being divorced when it is unreasonable and all other options have not been exhausted.

Your attempts but failures to make statements like this gender-neutral (writing spouse or person, but then exclusively using he and him) are revealing.

In a marriage, do you think it is only the husband who puts his life into building it?

Avram, there’s no point in making diyukim and speculating on a poster’s sinister intentions.

You wrote, “two wrongs don’t make a right. One spouse acting badly does not validate the other spouse acting badly”, and you are 100% correct, even considering both spouses equally.

I also agree that there could be underlying issues which can be difficult to articulate. However, this could go either way, it’s not husband or wife specific.