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Perhaps divorce often happens to those who should have not married each other in the first place Reply

Indeed, to get a get can get complicated Reply

Shalom Raymond:
Sorry for the typos that do happen despite my best intention. In a way you are correct, but emotions get on the way, and falling in love is many times not a rational process. Divorces could be avoided with counseling beforehand, so that differences can be ironed or not , but most couples think that this is "it," and go ahead on their own gut feelings. When personality issues arise, arguments occur, and the falling out of love happens for a variety of reasons that would make this post long, but you know this.
The problem that has to be solved is the issue of the GET=divorce instrument, The latter is held by men. Out vengeance, some men refuse to give the Get, some of them end up in jail, but not all. Years and years can pass until that man decides to free that woman. Rabbis have arranged prenups to stave that situation, but I think it has not worked as well as expected. Complicated isn't it ? Reply

Yes, well, if I am not mistaken, it was no less an authority than the Rambam who made an interesting observation about the whole Get process. He wondered out loud how it can be that Torah law mandates that if a man does not willingly grant his unhappy wife the divorce she desires, that men from the Jewish community can come and use physical coercion to set the husband straight. While the intention may be pure, it is just not the Jewish way to force anybody to do anything. Well, says the Rambam, deep in the husband's heart, there is the desire to do the right thing, and so those in the community who physically force him to give his wife a divorce, are not really forcing him at all, since that is what he really wants to do anyway, since he knows that is the right thing to do. In other words, his conscience triumphs over his ego Reply

Raymond:
grateful for your response with an interesting take of the Rambam's opinion.
So, sadly, yes, recalcitrant husbands appear in all times, but the ones that suffer are the women who can't get married again if they do not have the GET! If they do find another man despite no GET - her future children might be in trouble in terms of acceptance in the community! I As you probably know: women who don't get the GET are called "Agunot," and it is a very difficult situation not be able to go on with their lives. Those no GET men do it out of spite, revenge , and ill will. Yes counseling before marriage would have avoided that ! New Halacha: the Agunot's issue, and the opening room for women to learn more texts because it is women who raise the children to be Jews,. Kabbalah draws women because it is more receptive to them. Yes? Reply

I know relatively little about the Kabbalah but one thing I can say for sure is that in traditional Judaism, men and women are of equal status, so that if any given man tries to lord over his woman on the basis of Jewish law, that really he has no standing. All of us are human, and therefore prone to error. Often what is going on when a man acts as if he is superior to women is that he is being influenced by the culture around him. It is one of the reasons why Torah study is so important, as it helps to counteract such negative cultural influences Reply

Shalom: In the same condition, I know superficially about Kabbalah, in the sense that in some instances the sources of construction were outside influences - even though later it becomes a Jewish way of thinking. My father said not to me, when trying to understand it. First see the Torah, and you come to the conclusion that all the matriarchs were forceful and allowed to be that; So was Dvorah! The changing attitude toward women develop in the Diaspora. In many ways those were rules to protect them from the outside world, but at the same time, they ended up being restrictive because men then become in charge of almost everything- except what is customary. and not time-bound. When I continued with my Jewish Studies some relatives asked " do you want to be a rabbi? " THAT was far from my mind. I just wanted to learn Judaism and grow. See that in my time not even a Bat Mitzvah was acknowledged, when they made so much ado about my brothers. Learning is a value ! Reply

Unfortunately for me, I have no such memories of my wedding, since I never had the good fortune of being married. However, I do have some bittersweet memories of being at my younger sister's wedding way back in 1987 Reply

I like those little comic bits thrown in as well. Sometimes I think they are put i there to see whether we are really paying close enough attention to the choices given to us Reply