For the source text click/tap here: Gittin 72
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At the end of the first perek of Massekhet Gittin we learned that a divorce cannot be granted after the husband has already died (see daf 13a-b). Therefore, if the husband orders a messenger to deliver a geṭ to his wife, should he die before the geṭ was successfully delivered, there will be no divorce (i.e., the woman will be a widow, not a divorcee).
The Mishna on our daf discusses cases where the husband makes the divorce conditional on his death. It is fairly obvious that if he uses an expression that indicates that the divorce will take effect when he dies, then the divorce will have no meaning. If, however, he says that he is giving her the divorce and that once he dies, he wants the divorce to take effect retroactively from today, then the divorce will work, according to his instructions.
We explore the famous royal divorces in England that appropriated rabbinic laws of divorce.