To get around Jewish law, some rabbis insist on prenups

c. 2013 St. Louis Post-Dispatch

(RNS) For some Orthodox Jewish women the problem isn’t finding a mate, it’s getting a religious divorce when the marriage goes sour.

To obtain a religious divorce in the Orthodox Jewish community, a wife must first secure a “get,” a letter dictated by the husband and written by a trained scribe that in essence gives the wife permission to sever the marriage and move on. Without it, she is unable to remarry and any future offspring she might have is considered illegitimate. In other words, she is a chained woman, or in Hebrew, an “agunah.”