Yosef Karo

“ Paragraph 1 — Every man is obligated to marry a woman in order to be fruitful and to multiply. Anyone who does not engage in procreation is as if he murdered, and detracts from the Divine image , and causes the divine presence to depart from Israel. Rem"a: He who has no wife is without blessing, without Torah etc. and he is not called a man. Once he marries a woman, his sins are crumbled, as the verse states: "One who has found a wife has found goodness and obtains favor in the eyes of God." ”

“ Nowadays, we do not force people regarding this matter. Similarly, one who did not fulfill the mitzvah to procreate and came to marry a women who cannot have children, like an infertile women, an old women, or a minor because he desires her for her money, even though legally we ought to stop this, we have not been accustomed already from many generations to be particular regarding marriage partners. Even if one marries a woman, and is with her for 10 years, it is not customary to force him to divorce even if he has not fulfilled (the mitzvah of) procreation. ”

“ We use excommunication and nidui to compel one who has married two wives to divorce one of them. There are those who say that today we cannot compel compliance to one who has violated the regulation given that the fifth millennium has passed. We do not have this custom. There are those who say that if one’s wife became an apostate, we would have someone else acquire the get on her behalf and he may marry another, and this is indeed the custom in some places. In a place with no custom, one does not have to be stringent, and may marry without divorcing the first wife. ”