1,826. Wives Who Become Prohibited to Their Husbands

Hilchos Geirushin 11:13

If a divorced woman engaged in extramarital relations with another man, she is allowed to remarry her husband. Deuteronomy 24:2 specifies, “She left his home and went and married another man.” It is act of marrying another man, specifically betrothal, that prohibits her to the first man.

Hilchos Geirushin 11:14

This prohibition includes the fact that a woman who had an adulterous relationship becomes prohibited to her husband. A man who continues to live with an adulterous wife is subject to the penalty of lashes. This is because Deuteronomy 24:4 prohibits a woman who has become unclean to her husband. This does not include the wife of a Yisroel (as opposed to a kohein) who was coerced. Accordingly, if a woman becomes prohibited to her husband because he warned her against seclusion with a certain man and she violated his warning, then he is subject to the penalty of stripes for acting rebelliously if he is subsequently intimate with her. If he divorces her for violating the warning and subsequently remarries her extralegally, he is obligated to divorce her.