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.