Within his responsum, Radbaz wrote one to Sim
Rabbi Meir b. 1215–1293) produces you view website to “Good Jew need award his partner more he remembers themselves. If an individual influences an individual’s wife, you will need to feel penalized significantly more honestly compared to striking someone else. For just one is actually enjoined to award an individual’s wife it is not enjoined to help you prize one another. . If the he lasts during the hitting their own, the guy can be excommunicated, lashed, and you can suffer the fresh severest punishments, even into the extent off amputating his arm. When the their spouse was willing to undertake a divorce proceedings, the guy need separation their own and pay their particular the newest ketubbah” (Even ha-Ezer #297). He says that a female who is strike because of the their particular husband is entitled to an immediate separation in order to have the currency owed their own in her own relationship payment. His guidance to slice off of the give out-of a chronic beater off his other echoes legislation in Deut. –a dozen, in which the unusual discipline out of cutting off a hand is actually used so you’re able to a lady just who attempts to save yourself their own partner during the a great method in which shames the beater.
In order to validate their opinion, Roentgen. Meir uses biblical and you can talmudic question to help you legitimize their opinions. After which responsum the guy covers new legal precedents for this decision on the Talmud (B. Gittin 88b). Therefore he closes one to “inside possible in which she is ready to deal with [occasional beatings], she cannot take on beatings rather than an end around the corner.” He things to that a digit has the possible in order to eliminate and therefore if the comfort was impossible, the rabbis need so you’re able to encourage him to help you separation and divorce their particular from “his or her own totally free will,” but if you to definitely shows hopeless, force your to help you splitting up their particular (as is enjoy for legal reasons [ka-torah]).
This responsum is found in a collection of R. Meir’s responsa and in his copy of a responsum by R. Simhah b. Samuel of Speyer (d. 1225–1230). By freely copying it in its entirety, it is clear that R. Meir endorses R. Simhah’s opinions. R. Simhah, using an aggadic approach, wrote that a man has to honor his wife more than himself and that is why his wife-and not his fellow man-should be his greater concern. R. Simhah stresses her status as wife rather than simply as another individual. His argument is that, like Eve, “the mother of all living” (Gen. 3:20), she was given for living, not for suffering. She trusts him and thus it is worse if he hits her than if he hits a stranger.
Baruch out-of Rothenburg (Maharam, c
R. Simhah lists all the possible sanctions. If these are of no avail, he takes the daring leap and not only allows a compelled divorce but allows one that is forced on the husband by gentile authorities. It is rare that rabbis tolerate forcing a man to divorce his wife and it is even rarer that they suggested that the non-Jewish community adjudicate their internal affairs. He is one of the few rabbis who authorized a compelled divorce as a sanction. Many Ashkenazi rabbis quote his opinions with approval. However, they were overturned by most rabbis in later generations, starting with R. Israel b. Petahiah Isserlein (1390–1460) and R. David b. Solomon Ibn Abi Zimra (Radbaz, 1479–1573). hah “exaggerated on the measures to be taken when writing that [the wifebeater] should be forced by non-Jews (akum) to divorce his wife . because [if she remarries] this could result in the offspring [of the illegal marriage, according to Radbaz] being declared illegitimate ( Lit. «bastard.» Offspring of a relationship forbidden in the Torah, e.g., between a married woman and a man other than her husband or by incest. mamzer )” (part 4, 157).