I have mixed feelings about ketubot. On the one hand, they’re beautiful marriage contracts. On the other hand, they’re actually prenuptial agreements that someone drew flowers on. Weird.
Like the mezuzah, ketubot are apparently the next big thing among non-Jews.
The Austins are part of a growing phenomenon of non-Jews incorporating the ketubah, a document with millennia-old origins and a rich artistic history, into their weddings. Mrs. Austin, in fact, first learned about the ketubah from her older sister, also an evangelical Christian, who had been married five years earlier with not only a ketubah but the Judaic wedding canopy, the huppah.
“Embracing this Jewish tradition just brings a richness that we miss out on sometimes as Christians when we don’t know the history,” said Mrs. Austin, 29, a business manager for AT&T. “Jesus was Jewish, and we appreciate his culture, where he came from.”
Beyond its specific basis in Judaism, the ketubah represented to the Austins a broader concept of holiness, of consecration. “We wanted a permanent reminder of the covenant we made with God,” Mrs. Austin said. “We see this document superseding the marriage license of a state or a court.”
So the question is, if they split up, do they need a
get
?
ketubah
Pronounced: kuh-TOO-buh, Origin: Hebrew, the Jewish wedding contract.
