Agunah

Agunah (Hebrew: עגונה‎, plural: agunot (עגונות); literally ""anchored"" or ""chained"") is a halachic term for a Jewish woman who is ""chained"" to her marriage. The classic case of this is a man who has left on a journey and has not returned, or has gone into battle and is MIA. It also refers to a woman whose husband refuses, or is unable, to grant her an official bill of divorce, known as a get.For a divorce to be effective, Jewish law requires that a man grant his wife a get of his own free will. Without a get no new marriage will be recognized, and any child she might have with another man would be considered a mamzer, a term often translated as but dissimilar to the concept of a bastard. It is sometimes possible for this woman to receive special dispensation, called a heter agunah (dispensation by a halachic authority based on a complex decision (based on substantial evidence) that her husband is presumed dead).Because of the difficulty of the situation for women in such situations, it has been a task for every generation of halakhic authorities to try to find halakhically acceptable means to permit such women to remarry. In the past it was somewhat commonplace, due to the danger of travel and primitive communication means, for people leaving home never to be heard of again; as such, rabbis have had to deal with this issue on a constant basis. Over the past few centuries, thousands of responsa have been written to deal with cases of agunot.In the past, most agunah cases were due to a husband dying without leaving clear evidence of his demise, or becoming mentally ill (insane). Nowadays, in the atmosphere of the irreligious, many agunah cases arise as a result of a husband withholding a get in order to extract a more favorable divorce settlement, sometimes as brutal as extortion, or as a means of vindictively delivering a parting abusive blow to his wife. In response, agunah groups have organized to support these women and try to find a solution to this problem. Various remedies have been proposed, but as yet, no one solution has common acceptance. Nevertheless, the Prenuptial Agreement for the Prevention of Get-Refusal is one remedy which is in use in Modern Orthodox Jewish communities worldwide and is accepted by moderate halakhic authorities.While it is widely assumed that the problem lies primarily in men refusing to grant their wives a get, and that it is a widespread issue; in Israel, figures released from the chief rabbinate suggest that men are refused divorce in equal numbers, and that the numbers are actually a couple of hundred on each side.Nevertheless,""A woman suffers more in this situation, as she is Biblically forbidden to marry again, and children she might bear to another man would be considered mamzerim (bastards) according to halakhah. A man is similarly not permitted to marry before being divorced, but the ban is much less severe (because monogamy was instituted by one single overreaching authority in Europe in around the year 1000CE, and was accepted in Europe (Ashkenazim), whereas Sefardic and Mizrahi (Eastern) Jewish communities did not until very recently.) This considered, his future children will not be considered illegitimate.""