Two Views of Marriage — Two Views of Women: Reconsidering Tav Lemetav Tan Du Milemetav Armelu

TWO VIEWS OF MARRIAGE - TWO VIEWS OFWOMEN: RECONSIDERING TAV LEMETAV TAN DU MILEMETAV ARMELU Susan Aranoff INTRODUCTION For almost two decades, the struggle to free agunot, "chained women" whose husbands refuse to divorce them,1 has been intensifying in the Orthodox Jewish community. Under Jewish law, only the husband has the power to sever a marriage, and that power cannot be exercised on his behalf by a belt din (rabbinical court, pi. batei din), even in cases where the marital relationship has become attenuated or abusive. As a result, women locked into intolerable marriages may wait for years or even decades to be freed and able to start new lives. In the last few years, a new belt din, established in 1996 by Rabbi Emanuel Rackman and Rabbi Moshe Morgenstern in association with AGUNAH, Inc., an organization dedicated to this cause, has been at the center of the struggle for freedom for agunot. This new belt din began freeing agunot by making rulings of kiddushei ta'ut, a finding that an error took place at the time of the wedding that voids the marriage agreement and thus releases the agunah without her husband's consent. The Orthodox rabbinate in the United States2 has strongly criticized the new belt din. Its representatives contend that the Talmudic phrase tav lemetav tan du milemetav armelu, "better to dwell two together than to dwell alone," is a binding halakhic principle that negates the new beit din's approach to freeing agunot from their intolerable marriages. After a brief summary of the earlier phases of the struggle to free agunot, this paper focuses on a reconsideration of the tav lemetav principle in the Talmud. It makes the case that, contrary to the objections of critics, the Rackman beit din's approach is consistent with the talmudic text, not at odds with it. Nashim:A Journal ofJewish Women's Studies and Gender Issues, no. 3. ©2000199 Susan Aranoff The Struggle to FreeAgunot I have been an agunah activist for more than a decade as part of AGUNAH, Inc.3 The struggle to free agunot in the Orthodox community is far from over. Nevertheless, agunah advocates can take heart from the fact that, over the years, we have succeeded in putting the plight of agunot high on the Orthodox community's agenda and in educating Orthodox rabbis and laypersons regarding three major aspects of the agunah problem: (1) the existence ofagunot; (2) the procedural corruption and mismanagement of Orthodox batei din; and (3) the extortion and prejudicial position of women in halakhah as interpreted by rabbis in the Orthodox batei din.4 At first, early in the struggle, agunah advocates had to overcome the opinions of rabbis5 who insisted that there were hardly any agunot at all.6 But gradually, after years of media coverage and demonstrations, and as agunot gained the courage to identify themselves publicly, it became clear that there were significant numbers.7 Regrettably, many rabbis still slip into the word game of insisting on calling these suffering women mesuravot get, women refused a Jewish bill of divorce, rather than agunot, as if a different appellation in some way vindicates the rabbis' earlier denial of the agunah problem or diminishes the injustices perpetrated against these women. Second, agunah advocates had to expose the fact that the beit din system was mismanaged and corrupt, so that justice was almost never done for agunot. Rabbis heaped criticism on AGUNAH, Inc., for publicizing accounts ofbeit din misconduct.8 But soon the public at large recognized the hefkerut, the blatant impropriety that reigned in batei din, and rabbis were forced to acknowledge that AGUNAH, Inc., was right: the beit din system was dysfunctional and, yes, corrupt. Third, agunah advocates had to make clear to the Orthodox halakhic community that their dayanim (rabbinic judges) were operating with a view of marriage and women that was inherently prejudicial to women. Thus, even if beit din administrative procedures were reformed and corruption rooted out, women would still be gravely disadvantaged and abused in the beit din system, because of the inferior status assigned to wives by batei din and the resulting imbalance of power in favor of the husband. Once again...