| Divorce in Judaism and it's Legal Significance for Women
The act of divorce in Judaism is a ritual with religious and legal significance. I focus on its legal significance for women. First, I briefly explain how in Jewish divorce the husband, by contract, essentially releases control over his wife's sexuality. Second, I argue that the ritual itself, that is, the physical ceremony in which the husband gives the bill of divorce ("get") and the wife accepts it, represents and perpetuates the unequal contractual relationship of the parties that began in the marriage contract ("ketubah"). Third, I explore what public function this ceremony plays for the Jewish community. In secular family law, divorce performs a public function for the community by defining who is no longer "off-limits" or "taken" and by forcing people to define themselves by particular gendered roles if they want certain legal rights. Similarly, in Jewish law, divorce identifies that the woman is no longer forbidden to another man (if she in fact received the get) and allows the woman to exercise certain legal rights established in the ketubah. Finally, I explore possibilities for maintaining these functions of divorce while eschewing the contractual and ritual inequalities grounded in control over women's sexuality.
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