Ha-Get " (Rules of Practice in Divorce), "should busy himself with divorce matters unless learned in the law of divorce; for the minutiae are numerous, and one can easily err, whereby the divorce is invali dated, and the children born of the second marriage are bastardized. And God save us from such mistakes!" The one essential condition to a valid divorce was that the husband should give his wife a bill of divorcement; and the Rabbis seized upon this fact to remove the entire act out of the irresponsible hands of every man into the court of law, where the first duty of the judge was to bring about a reconciliation of the parties. In deed, there is an ancient tradition that Aaron, the high-priest, had, in the exer cise of such quasi-xxdcva functions, recon ciled many a couple who had applied for divorce. The many restrictions and the general policy of the law soon settled the rule of practice, that no divorce would be granted except for cause shown, and only coram judice. The old theory that the husband had a right to divorce his wife continued to flourish for a long time, but only as a theory; for in practice, already in the first century of the present era, this right of the husband had been overruled. In the elev enth century many Jews, under the influ ence of the general laxity of morals, took great liberties with the right of divorce; whereupon Rabbi Gershom of Mayence de creed the " Kherem," or sentence of excom munication, against any man who divorced
his wife against her will without cause, and allowed a divorce ex parte only when the woman had been proved guilty of immo rality or crime. The right to give a bill of divorcement had never been conceded to the wife; nor does the Tora recognize her right even to sue for divorce. This defect of the written law was supplemented at an early date by the Rabbinical law. The Rabbis saw that in many cases it would be barbarous to compel a woman to continue to live with a man unfitted physically or morally to be her husband. In such cases they allowed her to sue for a divorce, and on proper proofs of the husband's disability would compel him to give her the letter of divorce. Originally, the causes recognized as valid were few, and limited to cases where the husband could not perform his duties to ward his wife; if she sued for divorce for any other cause, she lost her " Kethuba" (Dotalium) and all her property rights in her husband's estate. After the organiza tion of the Mohammedan courts in the seventh century, Jewish women were wont to turn to these for divorce; since under the Koran they did not, as under the Jew ish law, lose their property rights. To prevent this defection, Rab Hunai and Mar Raba, the two leading Rabbis of the time, ordained (about 675 A. a), that in all cases the wife could sue for divorce without loss of her property rights. This decision practically gave husband and wife equal standing before the Jewish law in matters of divorce.
