“as much as we are stymied by halachah in these awful agunah situations, we are thankful to halachah for having created the marriages and the families that so many of us enjoy”

There are indeed any number of ways that a couple and a rabbi can purposefully subvert the halachic validity of a marriage ceremony, and any one of these ways would be sufficient to obviate the need for a get, should the couple separate later on. The justification for this proposal is simple and straightforward. If we have no way of ensuring a halachic off-ramp, then we simply have to avoid getting onto the halachic on-ramp.

On a visceral level, I understand why this proposal is appealing. There is even a sense of justice about it. Yet, I shudder to think about its possible unintended consequences. For as much as we are stymied by halachah in these awful agunah situations, we are thankful to halachah for having created the marriages and the families that so many of us enjoy.

Rav Yosef Kanefsky, “Ensuring the Spirit of Halachic Marriage”, The Jewish Journal (11-17 April 2014), 12.