DePaul Law Review Volume 45 Issue 2 Winter 1996 Article 7 Civil Enforcement of Jewish Marriage and Divorce: Constitutional Accommodation of a Religious Mandate Jodi M. Solovy Follow this and additional works at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/law-review Recommended Citation Jodi M. Solovy, Civil Enforcement of Jewish Marriage and Divorce: Constitutional Accommodation of a Religious Mandate, 45 DePaul L. Rev. 493 (1996) Available at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/law-review/vol45/iss2/7 This Comments is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Law at Via Sapientiae. It has been accepted for inclusion in DePaul Law Review by an authorized editor of Via Sapientiae. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. CIVIL ENFORCEMENT OF JEWISH MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE: CONSTITUTIONAL ACCOMMODATION OF A RELIGIOUS MANDATE INTRODUCTION When a Jewish couple marries, both parties sign an ornate docu- ment known as a ketubah. In layman's terms, the ketubah is the Jew- ish marriage license.' The majority of rabbis officiating a wedding will require the signing of a ketubah as part of the wedding ceremony. 2 Legal and Jewish scholars have interpreted the ketubah as a legally binding contract which sets out the guidelines for a Jewish marriage and divorce.3 Using this interpretation, a number of courts have re- quired that one party accommodate the other in following the speci- fied divorce proceedings that are mandated by Jewish law.4 The Jewish law requirements for a valid divorce are strict and often diffi- cult to enforce; namely, the law requires that a husband "voluntarily" give his wife a document called a get in order to dissolve the marriage according to traditional Jewish law.5 While the civil marriage contract alone binds the marriage in the eyes of the state, courts nonetheless have found the ketubah to be binding as well, and they have enforced both express and implied pro- visions of the ketubah in granting a civil dissolution of a marriage be- tween a Jewish couple.