The stereotypical Jewish wedding conjures images of dancing, glass-breaking, and rejoicing. The most foundational aspect of the festivities is the textual basis of traditional Jewish marriage, consisting of three key legal agreements: kiddushin (betrothal), ketubah (wedding contract), and get (writ of divorce). Like most marriages until the 1960s, Jewish marital documents are predicated on an unequal, contractual, and property-based relationship.
The Mishnah tractate Kiddushin details how the man acquires the woman as he would other property, and establishes the mechanism for divorce, which rests entirely on the man’s consent while aiming to protect the woman from abandonment. The woman is entirely passive in the ritual. Kiddushin requires the sexual exclusivity of the woman to the man, but he has no similar obligation of chastity to her. Today, there are multiple egalitarian reworkings of kiddushin, as it remains the foundation of Jewish marital law. For example, the brit ahuvim, created by Rabbi Dr. Rachel Adler, rejects the idea of acquisition and instead utilizes the language of mutual partnership. Another option, the hitkadshut, serves the same purpose as kiddushin while making the language of sanctification mutual.
The ketubah, the legal contract comparable to both a civil marriage license and a pre-nuptial agreement, grants women some degree of protection in marriage. As the contract is signed, the man promises to provide for his maiden wife, and she brings her dowry. Ketubot require the woman’s consent to marry and ensure that the woman would be provided for if something happened to her husband. This provision was vital when a woman’s social and economic position was inextricable from her marriage. The ketubah, however, still carries built-in inequalities that treat women as passive assenters to marriage, not active participants. Namely, the obligations taken on through the ketubah are completely different, with the man promising to provide for the woman for the duration of their marriage and the woman agreeing. Many women today bristle at the idea that their sole contributions to marriage is their virginity and dowry, and have created innovative revisions to equalize the ketubah. In some cases, the brit ahuvim can act as a ketubah once it is written and signed. Some versions revise the traditional ketubah text, forging a sacred partnership like the covenant that the Jewish people have with Hashem and promising mutual support for both spouses.
A get, or writ of divorce, is a key mechanism for the expression of women’s autonomy. As with the ketubah, the get was progressive for its time, allowing women to petition their husbands for divorce in certain circumstances. However, its utility is heavily restricted, as it still requires a husband’s consent in order to get the divorce. The Mishneh Torah states that men should be coerced into signing a get when appropriate. Yet, many women are left as agunot, or chained women, figuratively tied to their defunct marriages and prohibited from remarrying and having future children. This process draws a stark contrast to the no-fault secular divorce laws that are common today. Orthodox Jewish feminists have identified the get and agunah as key women’s issues within halakhah. One solution is the Lieberman clause, a 1950s addition to ketubot in which the husband and wife agree to allow a bet din (rabbinic court) to adjudicate their divorce.
The fundamental feminist concern with kiddushin, ketubah, and get is gender inequality that privileges the man, stemming from halakhah treating women as property that men could acquire. For much of Jewish history, these legal structures protected women from abandonment by husbands, ensuring their security and status in Jewish society. Today, they can keep women in marriages they do not wish to be in and deny them equal rights.
In the Mishnah, a woman only acquires herself, or is autonomous in her life, if her husband divorces her or he dies. We are fortunate today to know generations of Jewish women who acquire themselves not through hardship, but at adulthood, as Jewish men always have. The language of property and acquisition may be a dated part of halakhah, but there can be nothing more fundamental than owning yourself, your actions, and your tradition.
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