DANIEL SCHIFF

Reliable statistics on adultery indicate that although the popular mythology of the rampant nature of such behavior is vastly exaggerated, adultery is by no means a rare occurrence. It is, in fact, cogent to assume from the available data that around one marriage in five will be subject to adultery at some point in its dura­tion.” This is certainly a statistic large enough to foster societal implications that cannot be ignored. There is, moreover, no reason to suspect that the figures are any different for the vast majority of the Jewish community that is thoroughly integrated into modern society.®

Although the numbers might be relatively straightforward, the picture of adultery is made complex by the reality that not all forms of adultery are alike: we can discern at least five qualitatively different types of adultery. First is what might be called“technical” adultery. In an act of technical adultery, the parties involved may not even think of their behavior as being adulterous. An example that occurs frequently is that of the couple that has been separated for some time in anticipation of a divorce where one spouse decides to have a sexual relationship with someone other than his or her married partner. Whereas the parties concerned might well consider the marriage to be effectively“over,” insofar as the marriage has not been ended by a legal divorce, any sexual relationship must technically be defined as an act of adultery. From a Jewish perspective, of course, technical adultery represents a critical halakhic issue, because if no get has been exchanged, any new marriage that might be contracted inevitably results in what is halakhically regarded as an adulterous union. The Reform movement's late nineteenth-century decision to rely on civil divorce to effect Jewish divorce without need of a get has created innumerable cases of such technical adultery from the point of view

79