The Halacha which governs our lives as Jews regulates, as we know, marriage and divorce. When Jews marry this is done by the groom giving the bride an object of value. Traditionally this object is a ring. When a Jewish couple choose to end their marriage, this is done by the husband giving his wife a document known as a get.
It is a fact of the Halacha that divorce can only be executed by the husband. A wife may petition a rabbinic court (beit din) to receive a get . but it is only the husband who can carry this out. The court may order the husband to divorce his wife, the court may even order the husband to be imprisoned (in Israel the rabbinic courts have this authority) but the court cannot terminate the marriage.
The reality that only the husband can terminate the marriage presents the husband an opportunity to abuse the Halacha. A married woman may not remarry until she receives a divorce. And while the rabbinic courts in Israel can ( and do) issue sanctions against and even imprison husbands who refuse to execute a get , an obnoxiously stubborn husband can refuse to obey the court. There are cases of husbands who have sat in prison for many years refusing to comply with the order of the court to divorce their wives. The situation is worse outside of Israel where rabbinic courts have no authority to punish recalcitrant husbands.
This is the way things are. As a response to this state of affairs solutions have been sought within the Halacha to correct the situation. The solutions that have been developed are various prenuptial agreements. These prenuptial agreements differ in their Halachic formulae, but in essence they levy financial penalties against the husband who refuse to execute a גט when a rabbinic court orders him to do so.
In this series we will learn about the basic laws of גיטין and the various prenuptial agreements that have been composed.
I hope that this series of classes will help make the use of these agreements more widespread and so minimize (or even eliminate) cases of women being held hostage in marriage.