Our Gemara discusses certain kinds of conditional divorces which are not valid:
If a man says to his wife: This is your bill of divorce on condition that you will not drink wine for all the days of my life and your life, that is not severance. The bill of divorce in the Torah is called a bill of severance, meaning that for the document to be valid all connections between the husband and wife must be severed. If there is a provision in the document that maintains a permanent connection between the spouses, e.g., not to drink wine for all of her life, the document does not effect a valid divorce.
Although Gemara may be known for discussing rare and hair splitting cases, sometimes it’s worthwhile to speculate as to what was the motivation for a particular scenario. For example, over here, why is the husband drafting a divorcement bill with the odd stipulation that his ex-wife not drink wine?
We might formulate possible nefarious or benevolent purposes. It is a known principle in the Gemara that bitter husbands have a tendency to want to harass their wives in the divorce process (see for example Gittin 74b). In this situation, the husband may want to impose arbitrary restrictions on his ex-wife, stopping her from enjoying herself as if she should be mourning the loss of the marriage. On the other hand, there might be more benevolent intentions, such as she had alcoholic tendencies and didn’t want the woman who was raising his children to be drinking.
Regardless, the ethos conveyed by this halakha is that divorce must be final, and the husband can no longer have a hold on his ex-wife, at least a life-long one. Here we see halakha enacting a psychological principle: When it’s time for something to end, it should be absolute in order to allow people to move on.
I am a therapist who is staunchly pro-marriage and will help clients fight to hold onto their marriage in every respectful and ethical manner, even if one spouse is less enthusiastic. But if the time has come that all options are exhausted, never hold back a Get, and never try to hold onto or control the person once it's time to let go.
Translations Courtesy of Sefaria, except when, sometimes, I disagree with the translation
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