What is an agunah?

According to Jewish law, there are two ways of terminating a Jewish marriage, death and divorce.  In order for the divorce to be valid it must be administered by a Jewish court (in Hebrew, Beit Din) and be in accordance with Jewish law.  While rabbis will encourage  a couple to obtain a civil divorce, just as they will encourage a couple to obtain a civil marriage license prior to the Jewish wedding, the civil divorce does not effectuate a Jewish divorce, which finds its origins in the Torah.  The three rabbis that comprise the Beit Din do not grant the divorce themselves, but rather oversee the delivery of the divorce from husband to wife.

An agunah is a woman who is no longer in a functional marriage, and whose husband cannot or will not grant a Jewish divorce.  Classically agunah cases arose when a husband was lost at sea, or did not return home from war, and his whereabouts were unknown.  Until the Beit Din could confirm his death, his wife was considered married to him and consequently was not permitted to remarry.  While such scenarios do arise in modern times, the more common scenario is when a husband refuses to grant his wife a Jewish divorce at a point wherein he is required to do so.  A husband may withhold the Jewish divorce to gain financial or custodial concessions, or out of spite.  Leading mental health professionals label the withholding of a Jewish divorce as domestic abuse, and likewise agunot display the same symptoms as those suffering from domestic abuse.

Since it is not the Beit Din that grants the Jewish divorce, the husband’s acquiescence is essential, without which the Jewish divorce will not be valid.  The wife’s consent is also required to effectuate the divorce and therefore she too can stall the process.  The incidents of women behaving as the recalcitrant party is far less common than incidents of men behaving as the recalcitrant party, a proportion that closely parallels the ratio of perpetrators of domestic abuse among men and women.