SEPARATING THE ADULT FROM ADULTERY
community sees it to be undesirable to give an adulterous relationship the sense of having attained Jewish blessing—a sense that is most likely conveyed each time a rabbi acts as m’sader(et) kiddushin at a wedding—civil marriage may provide a solution to the problem.
Indeed, in the broader world of liberal halakhah, Israeli Progressive Judaism, American Conservative Judaism, and British Reform Judaism are all on record as continuing to oppose dignifying such relationships with kiddushin. Whether the couple lives together or enters into a civil marriage is, of course, beyond the control of these rabbinic authorities, but the possibility that the couple might make either choice has not propelled these groups to offer Jewish marriage as an alternative. The traditional paramour prohibition, apparently, is still seen to be worthwhile, though none of these groups provides explicit indication of why it is considered deserving of preservation. Since, however, they are unlikely to see the adulterous parties as being personally“tainted,” we might well assume that the paramour interdiction is maintained as a punitive disincentive to adultery, with much the same reasoning as that offered by Maimonides for the institution of mamzerut. The position of the British Reform Movement is particularly noteworthy because, although all three groups advocate that individual cases be handled on their merits by properly constituted batei din, the British rabbis explicitly draw a distinction between instances of technical adultery, after which they are prepared to conduct the marriage of the adulterer and paramour, and classic adultery, after which they are not.” Plainly, then, in cases of classic adultery, the ban on marrying the paramour does not represent some relic of the halakhic past, but remains a decisive element of the present.
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