religious marriage before civil divorce

fromnj

Fri, Sep 13 2013, 4:33 pm

Sorry, this is going to be long.

Dating with a get and not a civil divorce:
Many people do this. I am divorced and I dated people after my get and before my civil divorce. So did my ex-husband. So did my fiance. The reason is that once you have a get you are permitted to anyone and are not married by Jewish law.

As far as a court battle, this is easily overcome. If a husband gave a get and a wife accepted, chances are they both respect the process. Either one could allege in court that this is adultery, but the opposing counsel would simply argue that based on Jewish law, which both people clearly subscribe to (since the giving/accepting of the get is proof of this), the couple is permitted to have relationships with others.

I don't think that you can change the grounds for divorce once a divorce is filled. So if the couple filed for divorce on a "no-fault" basis, I don't think that post-filing affairs would have an bearing on the case. As someone already said, as long as they aren't having intercourse in front of the kids, it probably wouldn't have any impact on the custody.

Religious ceremony without a civil divorce
I know several people who have done this. Most rabbis will do it because it is preferable to the couple "living in sin." One of the men I know who did this lives in NJ, but is waiting for his civil divorce to be complete in NY. He hasn't had any problems.

I don't know about NYS, but in other states it is not illegal, even if the person is a registered clergyman. Rabbis perform kiddushin for couples who don't have civil marriage licenses. This is the same thing. All they are doing is performing kiddushin, which is not a legal status in the US.

One problem I have seen was cited in a NYT article about a year ago. A man gave his wife a get but they are still battling about child support, alimony, etc. In the meantime, he had a religious wedding with another woman. Now they have three additional children. AFAIK, the new children will count against the support payments for the old children. Meaning, even though that marriage has 4 kids (I don't remember how many) the man now has 7 kids. You can't set back the clock, so this support payments will take into account that he has other kids to support besides the original 4. It's unfair, but totally correct under the law.

Obviously the OP has to go with her gut. But the people who are warning about fire and brimstone need a small dose of reality.

southernbubby

Sat, Sep 14 2013, 11:32 pm

There are cases of uncontested divorces which take several months to complete simply because the courts are backed up. I don't understand how a divorce could take years to complete unless a judge won't declare the litigants to be divorced until all the issues are settled, and even then, why is the divorce not granted and the issues settled afterwards?
Basically, a person can be considered legally married long after he or she is religiously divorced. Once the person has filed for divorce, I wonder what type of legal ties that he or she has to the "ex". For example, if the divorcing party is injured and is unable to make decisions about end of life care, does the pending ex-spouse have power of attorney? If the person dies, does the divorcing spouse have to cover burial expenses?
There are some batei din that will perform a get but not give a certificate until the civil divorce is granted, in order to avoid a chillul Hashem as well as the fact that some issues regarding custody and property are not decided by the beis din, but by a secular judge, unless both parties agree to rabbinic arbitration.
I also wonder how often employers, insurance companies, etc check to see if a couple has a marriage license. It appears to me that any couple could claim to be married and no one would question it or look into the matter to determine if it was true.
While bigamy might be against the law, it seems to me that growing corn in the front yard is more prosecuted than bigamy is. When a law is not enforced, that might be a halachic shaila if that law needs to be followed to the letter.
It also does not appear that when someone goes to register for a marriage license, that the clerk checks to see if the person was ever married somewhere else and not widowed or divorced. How does the clerk prove if the person ever had a prior marriage? Does a death certificate filed in California appear next to a marriage license filed 50 years before in Indiana?
Long before gay marriage was legal, in those states where it is legal, the gays had commitment ceremonies which were marriages in every way but legally (and halachically!) Did anyone actually go to jail for that? The semantics were changed but the relationship was not.
I would say to consult a lawyer but ask also how to expedite the divorce because sometimes it can be expedited for a fee. I would also ask a rav because the halacha very much favors a man being married and it might be that the rav would agree to go ahead with a chuppah, even before the civil divorce is finalized, particularly if one party is dragging things out to punish the other (how is that more "moral" than having a religious ceremony before the civil divorce is finalized?). These thing might differ from case to case so there is not set answer.