What happens when a woman hides an important detail about her health, which ultimately leads to divorce?
In a ruling given in the Family Court in Petah Tikva, a husband sued his ex-wife, demanding that she compensate him because, according to him, she did not tell him that she was suffering from schizophrenia.
She, on the other hand, claimed that her husband agreed to accept her, and that the divorce was due to his conduct, not hers.
During the management of the case, it was discovered that the woman had indeed concealed her illness from her husband before their marriage, and that today, her mental state is relatively stable, and she even received custody of their son.
From a halachic perspective, there is an obligation for spouses to disclose to each other various defects that could affect the marriage.
Failure to disclose certain defects (such as certain illnesses or infertility) is used as a reason for granting a divorce, and when it comes to defects that make married life impossible, and if the other party had known about it - they would not have married.
In such a case, it is sufficient for one spouse to prove that the other spouse has a disability that was hidden from him/her in order to obtain a divorce, even if the party with the disability is not interested in a divorce.
And what about compensation?
The court awarded the husband 15,000 shekels - a much lower amount than what was claimed, and when the parties allowed the court discretion in the matter, this was because it was proven that the husband's conduct was also what led to the divorce, and not just the fact of the wife's shock, which was hidden from him.
In addition, in that case, the parties had already reached a divorce agreement, so the lawsuit was a "reopening" of it, and this is a problematic situation, since the agreement was supposedly supposed to end all disputes between them, including financial ones.
It is very likely that if the husband had proven that the illness was more severe and directly and exclusively caused the divorce - while causing real damage to the other party - the compensation would have been higher.
The importance of the ruling is that it proves that concealing essential issues in marital life can obligate the concealer to compensation, despite the low amount awarded in this case.
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