[Avodah] A question of Yichus

Chana Luntz Chana at kolsassoon.org.uk
Fri Jun 15 08:48:42 PDT 2012


RSB writes:

>I was asked to request assistance and comments from the members of this
group with regard to the following problem:

>A man discovers a letter his wife wrote her lover (it was open, in plain
>view) in which she states that she's quite sure the kid is his [the
lover's] b/c the husband was in the army when she became pregnant.

>This is the first indication the husband had of the existence of a lover -
or that the kid is not his. He leaves the house before the birth and sues
for >divorce in Israel.

Just a few comments that nobody (as far as I have seen), has made, which
surprises me.

There seems to be an assumption, which I find rather extraordinary, that
what this woman wrote is true.

Now it seems pretty clear, given that the letter was left in plain view,
that the woman wanted out from the marriage.  And clearly this letter was an
extremely effective way of achieving what she wanted.  But if in fact she
wanted out from the marriage, and wanted no more contact with her husband,
then the last thing she is going to want is for them to need to keep up
contact because he is determined to develop a relationship with yet to be
born child.

Surely the best way of ensuring that doesn't happen is by telling him the
kid is not his.

But how do you even know there is a lover around?  Only from the wife's
letter which was left for the husband to find.  Maybe there isn't even a
lover.  And if there is a lover, maybe the real lover isn't the lover named
in the letter (that has been known to happen before, there is a famous case
about 100 years ago in England, where a woman fingered a prominent
politician as her lover, derailing his career, while the evidence that is
now available seems to support the fact that while she was indeed committing
adultery, it was with somebody entirely different, whom she protected by
fingering the politician).  And if there really is a lover and he is the one
named in the letter, and in fact she really did send the letter to the lover
(not just left it for the husband to read), maybe she wants to convince the
lover that the child is his, because she wants him to stay involved in her
life, and figures this is a good way to do so.  And even if she is not
deliberately lying in the letter, there is still the reality of wishful
thinking, where she may wish the child to be that of the lover, and not of
the husband, and so has convinced herself that the conception must have
taken place when the husband was in the army.

It thus seems to me that the only thing one can really conclude from all
this is that the husband is well and truly better off out of the marriage.
DNA testing will of course show who is the real father, but the Israeli
courts, I think wisely, will not allow that.  However the letter itself
seems to me not to be worth the paper it is written on or to give any real
indication of the truth.

>Shoshana L. Boublil

Regards

Chana





More information about the Avodah mailing list