the divorce became effective. The witnesses to the signature and to the delivery of the document could subsequently attest to the fact that everything had been ac complished by the law.
This document, therefore, depended entirely on the husband and its acceptance by the wife. A rabbinical court(bet din) had no real standing in this matter unless a further dispute arose.[t may or may not have supervised the various stages of the document, i.e., the proper composition, witnessing and delivery, but that was not essential. The court did not initiate the procedure nor did it provide any kind of hearings in the matter.
These proceedings were straightforward and uncomplicated until questions of custody and financial control were raised. As such issues are nowadays settled by the civil courts, we need not be troubled by them.
Throughout the centuries, questions have been raised about the names of the individuals in the documents, the fitness of the individuals who were witnesses, the state of mind of the author of the document and the state of mind of the recipient, the qualifications of the scribe, etc. Eventually this simple document became rather complex. Its Hebrew or Aramaic text was fitted into preciselv thirteen lines. The names of each of the individuals involved had to be spelled absolutely correctly, and there were frequent discussions about the precise name of the individuals, nicknames,
etc. Furthermore, even the city involved had to be spelled prop
erly, often in order to locate it precisely; a river or stream flowing
through the city was also mentioned. If it was the first get written in a location, then each subsequent get had to be written in the same manner. The delivery of the get had to be properly attested, and since the decree of Rabbenu Gershom (1000 C.E.) a get could not be given to a woman against her will. Delivery had to be established through the woman's actual acceptance of the document; it could not be deposited with her. A vast literature deals with each of these questions in every century.
Most of the issues involved that troubled previous generations are of no concern to us as the civil court has already dealt with them in its own way and in a manner acceptable to us. At
this time, therefore, we have accepted civil divorce.