Jewish views on marriage

Because marriage under Jewish law is essentially a private contractual agreement between a man and a woman, it does not require the presence of a rabbi or any other religious official.

[citation needed] In Haredi communities, marriages may be arranged by the parents of the prospective bride and groom, who may arrange a shidduch by engaging a professional match-maker (shadchan) who finds and introduces the prospective bride and groom and receives a fee for their services.

[23] Marriage obligations and rights in Judaism are ultimately based on those apparent in the Bible, which have been clarified, defined, and expanded on by many prominent rabbinic authorities throughout history.

The descriptions of the Bible suggest that a wife was expected to perform certain household tasks: spinning, sewing, weaving, manufacture of clothing, fetching of water, baking of bread, and animal husbandry.

[39][40] Adulterous married and betrothed women, as well as their male accomplices, were subject to the death penalty by the biblical laws against adultery.

[48] Although the wife always retained ownership of her property itself, if she died while still married to her husband, he was to be her heir, according to the opinion of the Talmud;[48] this principle, though, was modified, in various ways, by the rabbis of the Middle Ages.

[19] In Jewish tradition, the husband was expected to provide a home for his wife, furnished in accordance to local custom and appropriate to his status;[19] the marital couple were expected to live together in this home, although if the husband's choice of work made it difficult to do so, the Talmud excuses him from the obligation.

[19] Expanding on the household tasks which the Bible implies a wife should undertake,[25] rabbinic literature requires her to perform all the housework (such as baking, cooking, washing, caring for her children, etc.

), unless her marriage had given the husband a large dowry;[19] in the latter situation, the wife was expected only to tend to "affectionate" tasks, such as making his bed and serving him his food.

[53] The husband was also expected by the classical rabbis to provide his wife with jewelry and perfumes if he lived in an area where this was customary.

[55] Prominent rabbis of the Middle Ages clarified this, stating that the husband must make any provisions required by local burial customs, potentially including the hiring of mourners and the erection of a tombstone.

[40][65] In Talmudic times, once the death penalty was no longer enforced for any crime,[66] even when a woman was convicted, the punishment was comparatively mild: adulteresses were flogged instead.

[40] Nevertheless, the husbands of convicted adulteresses were not permitted by the Talmud to forgive their guilty wives, instead being compelled to divorce them;[67] according to Maimonides, a conviction for adultery nullified any right that the wife's marriage contract (Hebrew: ketubah) gave her to a compensation payment for being divorced.

This category can vary: it can mean a few biblical verse, chapters in medieval books of law, or self-standing modern traditional Jewish guides to marital sexuality.

Marriage is held to be uniquely mandatory for men, and an unmarried man over the age of twenty is considered "cursed by God Himself.

[86] The choice of a ketannah to annul a marriage, known in Hebrew as mi'un (literally meaning "refusal", "denial", "protest"),[86] led to a true annulment, not a divorce; a divorce document (get) was not necessary,[87] and a ketannah who did this was not regarded by legal regulations as a divorcee, in relation to the marriage.

[88] Unlike divorce, mi'un was regarded with distaste by many rabbinic writers,[86] even in the Talmud;[89] in earlier classical Judaism, one major faction – the House of Shammai – argued that such annulment rights only existed during the betrothal (not engagement) period (erusin) and not once the actual marriage (nissu'in) had begun.

According to the National Jewish Population Survey 2000-01, 47% of marriages involving Jews in the United States between 1996 and 2001 were with non-Jewish partners.

However, debates around Numbers 12:1 suggest that Zipporah, the wife of Moses, is described as a "Cushite woman" to highlight a potentially much darker skin tone.

Specifically, marriage of Israeli Jews must be conducted according to Jewish Law (halakha), as viewed by Orthodox Judaism.

[94][95] Some secular-Jewish Israelis travel abroad to have civil marriages, either because they do not wish an Orthodox wedding or because their union cannot be sanctioned by halakha.

[96] In such a case, a husband may be compelled to give the get, if he has violated any of his numerous obligations outlined in Jewish law and the couple's specific ketubah;[97] Historically, this was sometimes accomplished by beating and or monetary coercion.

[99] Since around the 12th century, some officials within Judaism have recognized the right of a wife abused physically or psychologically to a forced divorce.

In modern times, when a husband refuses to issue a get due to money, property, or custody battles, the woman who cannot remarry is considered a Mesorevet get, not an agunah.

A man in this situation would not be termed a Misarev Get (literally, "a refuser of a divorce document"), unless a legitimate Beis Din had required him to issue a Get.

Within both the Conservative and Orthodox communities, there are efforts to avoid situations where a woman is not able to obtain a Jewish divorce from her husband.

The ketubah serves this function in Conservative Judaism in order to prevent husbands from refusing to give their wives a divorce.

In June 2012, the American branch of Conservative Judaism formally approved same-sex marriage ceremonies in a 13–0 vote with one abstention.

Also in 1998, the Responsa Committee of the CCAR issued a lengthy teshuvah (rabbinical opinion)[106] that offered detailed argumentation in support of both sides of the question whether a rabbi may officiate at a commitment ceremony for a same-sex couple.

The Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association (RRA) encourages its members to officiate at same-sex marriages, though it does not require it of them.