30 | OCTOBER 17 • 2019
Legal
Precedent
DAVID SACHS CONTRIBUTING WRITER
S
purned spouses in Michigan,
whether Muslim or Jewish, can
take note of a recent ruling of
the Michigan Court of Appeals.
It involves divorce — specifically,
whether a spouse can enforce a reli-
gious marriage contract in the state’
s
civil court system.
In the appeal of a divorce case
from Wayne County, a Muslim wife
sought to enforce a religious con-
tract made with her Muslim hus-
band calling for a monetary gift to
the bride (called a mahr) pursuant
to an Islamic marriage ceremony. In
ruling in favor of the wife, the court
cited as precedent a 1983 New York
case enforcing a ketubah, the Jewish
marriage contract.
Both Muslim and Jewish mar-
riage traditions are similar in that
they provide financial support for
the wife. But among their many
differences is that the Islamic prac-
tice requires the groom to give a
monetary gift to the bride before or
after the wedding ceremony, while
a ketubah mandates continuing
support for the wife, even after a
divorce.
In the Michigan case, the Muslim
wife sought the $50,000 payment
required by their particular religious
marriage contract but never paid.
In the divorce proceedings, the
husband’
s attorney argued that a
Michigan court could not enforce
such a religious marriage contract
because of the constitutional separa-
tion of church and state. The wife’
s
attorney argued that the monetary
provision of the mahr agreement
satisfied all requirements of an
enforceable civil contract.
When the trial judge ruled in
favor of the wife, the husband
appealed to the Michigan Court of
Appeals. There was no existing case
law in Michigan on this point, and
there was disagreement among the
various other states that had ruled
on the issue.
GETTING A GET
The New York case that the
Michigan court relied upon
involved an ex-husband’
s refusal
to appear before a rabbinical court
Legal
Muslims and Jews fi
nd unity
in D-I-V-O-R-C-E.