Note 8 — Chapter XI · HISTORY OF SEPARATION AND DIVORCE UNDER ENGLISH AND ECCLESIASTICAL LAW

Before the compilation of the Mishnah the form of the get "was not yet strictly fixed, it only having been required to contain, besides the date and the names of the parties, the words 'Thou art now free for any man.'" But later custom required a more elaborate form and the "presence of at least ten persons."—Mielziner, The Jewish Law of Marriage and Divorce, 128. Eventually the procedure in ordering, writing, and delivering the bill of divorce became complex, and it took place before a rabbi specially skilled in the law, who thus had opportunity to check hasty or unjust action through his advice or by refusing to deliver the document: see Saalschuetz, Das mosaische Recht, 801; Mielziner, op. cit., 116 ff.; Duschak, Das mosaisch-talmud. Eherecht, 95 ff.; especially Lichtschein, Die Ehe nach mosaisch-talmud. Auffassung, 94 ff.; and Amram, op. cit., 132-204, both giving full details as to the "get." For the form of the "get" see Meyrick, "Marriage," Dict. Christ. Ant., II, 1111; Amram, op. cit., 157; Lichtschein, op. cit., 136; Duschak, op. cit., 143, 144; Mielziner, op. cit., 129; Selden, Uxor ebraica, III, 24: in Opera, IV, 797.