Translations:Does the divorce of the foreign women in Ezra 9-10 show that civil government has authority to dissolve marriages or preside over "divorce trials"?/4/en

A man did not have to ‘go to court’ to get a divorce. Those laws that do refer to divorce are concerned either with circumstances where divorce is prohibited or with regulating relationships after divorce has already happened. In both cases the protection of the woman seems to be the main point of the law. ... What [Deut. 24:1-4] does require is that a man who divorces his wife must give her a ‘bill of divorce’. This would have been for the woman’s protection. It was documentary proof that she had been divorced, so neither she nor any future husband could be accused of adultery if she married again.