The Chief Rabbinical Council will seek to link to the consumer price index the sums listed in Ketubahs (religious certificates of marriage) as due to the bride if the marriage fails, Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren said.
Goren made his promise to the Na’amat woman’s organization, the sister agency in Israel of Pioneer Women of America. Na’amat had complained that the financial commitment by the groom was not taken seriously because Israel’s constant inflation virtually guaranteed that the buying power of any such sum would be far less later, if the wife sought a settlement for a divorce.
An example cited was a pledge in a Ketubah by a newly-wedded husband, at his marriage 12 years ago, to pay his divorced wife 1,000 Pounds when that was equivalent to a month’s salary for a well-paid worker. At the present time, 1,000 Pounds would hardly pay for a movie theater ticket.
Goren said the Rabbinical Council would take the needed legal steps to end this “deprivation” of women of their rights.
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