By setting up rules prior to the marriage in the form of a contract, both spouses[2] have an interest to negotiate a divorce in a dignified manner, and get-refusal is avoided.
The earliest prenuptial agreement for the prevention of get-refusal was developed and accepted by the Rabbinical Council of Morocco on December 16, 1953 ("Sefer Hatakanot", Vol.
Following Messas' involvement, the Rabbinical Council of America actively pursued this issue (“The RCA Commission: Solving the Problem of Gittin", Hamevaser, Vol.
The latest in a series of RCA resolutions -- "that since there is a significant agunah problem in America and throughout the Jewish world, no rabbi should officiate at a wedding where a proper prenuptial agreement on get has not been executed”—was passed on May 18, 2006.
There are optional clauses authorizing the court to rule on monetary matters or child custody and related issues.
In essence this means that from the point that his wife asks for a get and the Beth Din recommends that he deliver the get, until he gives the get, the husband is obligated "to support my Wife-to-Be from the date that our domestic residence together shall cease for whatever reasons, at the rate of … in lieu of my Jewish law obligation of support so long as the two of us remain married according to Jewish law…."
Each had its halakhic proponents and detractors, but for better or worse none gained the kind of widespread support necessary for effectiveness until seven years ago.
"[6] The director of the Beth Din of America, Yona Reiss,[7] has repeatedly stated in public arenas (orally and weekly in The Jewish Press newspaper) that to his knowledge, the "prenuptial agreement is one hundred percent effective.
In every case of a couple that had previously signed a prenuptial agreement and later came to divorce, there was a get delivered in a timely fashion.
[citation needed] Conservative Judaism has sought to prevent cases of get-refusal by attaching a clause to the ketubah (marriage contract), as opposed to a separate prenuptial agreement, known as the Lieberman clause: The parties agree that if there are civil divorce proceedings, then both must appear before a beth din (rabbinical court) of the Rabbinical Assembly and of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
The Women's League of Conservative Judaism officially endorsed the use of the Lieberman clause in combination with a prenuptial agreement in 2008.
[14] A different agreement developed in Israel in Hebrew, called the Heskem L’Kavod Hadadi (the Agreement for Mutual Respect[15]) was authored by a team of two rabbis and a rabbinical court advocate — David Ben Zazon, Elyashiv Knohl and Rachel Levmore[16] — in consultation with experts in various fields (Jewish law, Rabbinic courts, family law, women's organizations, psychology).
[17] The prenuptial agreement essentially works on a similar principle of spousal support in the case of recalcitrance as that of the Beth Din of America.
[24] On August 2, 2015, Moshe Sternbuch announced that the Beth Din of America prenuptial agreement results in potentially disqualified gittin.