SELECTED REFORM RESPONSA

if a man takes a woman for the purpose of marriage and they just live together(under that intention) this is an absolutely valid marriage.

Their physical relationship(known in the Jewish neighborhood) makes the marriage as valid as if there were all the necessary witnesses. This source(Perushei Ibra) gives the fullest discussion of the laws involved. Rabbi Henkin returns to give a briefer statement of the law(Hapardes, XXXII1, no. 10, p. 12), in which he simply says that if a man lives with a woman and the Jews of the neighborhood know it, it is a full marriage.

Of course, the opposite opinion is also held in the law, that such free unions or, for that matter, civil marriages are not Jewishly legal. However, the opinions cited above that such marriages are legal are sufficiently important that they must be given considerable weight and certainly cannot be brushed aside. Furthermore, the tendency of the law among recent Orthodox scholars is to consider such marriages as Jewishly legal(Abraham Haim Freiman, Seder Kiddushin Unissuin, p. 362).

Now let us assume that Reform or Liberal marriages lack many of the observances which Orthodox law considers necessary to marriage, kosher witnesses(i.e., those who do not violate the Sabbath and other ritual observances), a properly written ketubah, and so forth; nevertheless none of these defects can possibly invalidate the marriage, for the couple live together as man and wife in the knowledge of the community. Add to this the fact that in Reform marriages the intention clearly is to be according to the laws of Moses and Israel as the contracting parties understand it; then even the objection which some scholars made against the Marrano marriages falls to the ground. Here, in Reform marriages, there is the clear intention of marriage, of Jewish marriage. There is also the living

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