The Chained Women: When Religion and the State Intersect :: Free Essays Online

The Chained Wo manpower When devotion and the State Intersect When Israel was conceived as a Jewish state, questions arose over the year between the religious and the secular. Judaism is grounded in halakha, a detailed set of laws which guides law-abiding Jews, but debate continues over whether Israel should adopt these religious laws to govern a largely secular population. Contradictions exist between the ancient laws and modern ideals, especially regarding womens rights. Most developed states strive to enact laws that treat men and women fairly, but in Israel, where the rabbinical courts still adhere to ancient Jewish law, womens rights suffer. Divorce laws in revealicular give men extravagant power over their wives, resulting in large falls of women being denied their raw material human right to coupling and family. According to halakhic law, a marriage muckle only be terminated in two ways the expiry of a spouse, or the giving of a get. A get is a formal statement of divorce which can only be given by the husband to his wife, and he can refuse to give a get indefinitely. Until a get is both given and accepted, the wife system an agunah, a chained adult female. She cannot remarry, and any child born to an agunah becomes a mamzer, a bastard child (Haut 17). A husband who withholds a get is at fault of violating Article Sixteen of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (the right to marriage and family), but is not violating halakhic law and has the support of the rabbinical courts in Israel. commonly giving and accepting a get is a routine part of divorce proceedings in Israel, but a get is sometimes used as a bargaining tool during a divorce. A man can refuse to release a chained woman until he receives a divorce settlement he prefers. If she refuses to accept an foul or demeaning settlement, then she remains an agunah. According to the Israel Womens Network, estimates of the number of anch ored women in Israel today vary, the rabbinate claiming that there are only some 500, magic spell womens organizations claim that there are thousands (IWN).