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Must someone who wishes to marry but who has in the past been committed to a mental institution declare this to his/her potential spouse beforehand, under Jewish law ?

By: דיאנה שאלתיאלPublished on: 13 June, 2022
Yes. Under Jewish law someone about to marry has a duty to disclose his/her full mental/emotional history before marriage. This point was emphasized in a judgment by Zefat (Safed) Rabbinical Court several years ago, in which it ordered the husband to divorce the wife. He had been imprisoned twice for physical violence to her . She claimed that before their marriage he had admitted to having been under supervision for emotional problems but had concealed the gravity of the situation and the fact that he had been institutionalized on six separate occasions in three different mental hospitals. His failure to reveal this amounted to grave deception , it held, but not grounds for cancelling the marriage from the outset . However, it did support her claim of divorce based on the grounds of ‘being fed up’.

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