Thing is Jr, He put her away and did not divorce her, or keep her. These men left the women in a legal loophole that afforded her and their children absolutely NO protection (legally or spiritually).
During the massive repentance that went on with the restoration of the Temple services, people had already been married and seeing that the Torah did not afford them to marry "strangers" and "idolaters", they put the women and the children away, wondering should they divorce them or not, and take new wives. This is what the Prophet was discussing with them. It was not a good situation at all.
This is the status of the Agunah. And it happens even today in pockets all around the world. Men who put away their wives for frivolous things, and these women have no legal reprocussions in the Beit Din. They have to plea with the judges and rabbis to punish the husband and have him either take her back or give her a bill of divorce. It is a very stressful and hard position to be placed in. Without a Get, she cannot go anywhere. Without her Ketubah, she can't remain married with her DH.
If the husband cannot be found (and trust me, oft times they can be found, even after years and years) the beit din has to rule that the husband is possibly dead, finally unchaining the poor woman.
Circumstances leading to a woman being declared an
agunah are:
- The disappearance of the husband without any witnesses declaring that he is dead;
- The husband succumbing to a physical or mental disease that leaves him in a coma or insane and unable to actively grant a divorce;
- The husband refusing to grant his wife a get when she is deemed entitled to one under Jewish law. A woman denied a get by her husband is technically called a mesorevet get, although the term agunah is more commonly used.
A woman who is denied a divorce from her husband is not considered an
agunah until her husband refuses an order by a
rabbinic court to give her a
get.
What constitutes a legitimate request for a divorce is based on halakhic considerations and the particular case of the couple. See
Mesorevet get below.
Agunah - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
See also
http://www.mucjs.org/MELILAH/2005/1.pdf
and
Emotional Abuse and Your Faith: Agunah is to stay chained
If you go to news.google.com and type in "Agunah" or "Chained wife" you'll get results talking about this condition. It's not about a light divorce. Putting away is a legal middle ground to basically blackmail someone and leave them neither married, nor divorced - and subject to your whims, and in a complicated tax, religious and personal situation.
Here is but one example of what you will find:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/us/04divorce.html?_r=2&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha23
The status of the Agunah would be similar to the status any "Joe schmo" would have happen if their husband or wife just walking out and disappearing without a trace, or if they were MIA in the military. No ability to do anything until they are declared legally dead, or they are found.
If she remarries, her children are considered mamzer and unable to marry within the Jewish community. Her genetic line is cut off from her people. (not a good thing at all!) She is considered an adulterous woman. An honorable man of society would not simply 'put away' his wife, unless he was hard-hearted. A man that wasn't honorable enough to do so is at times threatened with excommunication. The husband profaned the Torah by abandoning his family, and then came to the temple to worship. However, given a get - she is free to remarry. Even Y'shua discussed this point in a passage everyone uses to prove it is forbidding divorce within Christianity. However, he was discussing a point about the status of the agunah and that of divorce within a rabbinic context, with other rabbis who were testing him.
If you recall, there was a time where Moses put away Tzipporah and their two sons. They stayed with his father in law until such time that his father in law brought them back to him, after the crossing of the sea of reeds.
Exodus 18
1 Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, heard about everything God had done for Moses and his people, the Israelites. He heard especially about how the LORD had rescued them from Egypt.
2 Earlier, Moses had sent his wife, Zipporah, and his two sons back to Jethro, who had taken them in.
It certainly wasn't a high moment for Moses.
Then Miriam and Aaron get in on the blame game. (Numbers 12)
I can't speak to marriages outside of the religious paradigm, but I can say that I will not blame anyone who has a divorce. We are not in their marriage, we do not know what happened behind those closed doors, or even how those people are in their private lives. We can only make that call on our own marriages, in our own back yard, unless we are professionals helping that individual couple.
