Heter meah rabbanim ( "permission by one hundred rabbis") is a term in Jewish law which means that one hundred Rabbis agree with a beth din (rabbinical court) that a particular situation warrants an exemption to permit a man to remarry even though his wife refuses or is unable to accept a (a legal divorce according to Jewish law). This solution is available for the man to remarry due to the fact that according to Torah law, a man may be married to more than one woman, and even with the Heter, he is still considered married to the first woman. However, since a woman cannot be married to two men and must receive a bill of divorce according to Torah law in order to be considered single, there is no Heter to receive permission from 100 rabbis to remarry without a divorce. In about 1000 CE the Ashkenazic halachic authority Rabbeinu Gershom of Mainz is said to have issued four decrees through his court. His bans included a decree prohibiting polygamy, and a decree prohibiting a man from divorcing a woman without her consent. Three centuries later Asher ben Jehiel explained why Rabbeinu Gershom issued his ban: "Because he saw the generations unbounded and 'throwing the divorce' so he decreed to equate the powers of the woman to the powers of the man." Even though, Rabbeinu Gershom, the leading authority of the age, decreed that a man was not allowed to divorce a woman against her will, the force of his decree was mitigated by later authorities who allowed for an exemption in certain extreme cases, in which they granted permission for a man to marry another woman if he received permission from 100 rabbis (). Examples of cases where 100 rabbis allowed for a man to marry a second wife include the case of a man whose wife went missing, or refused to accept a for an extended period. In such cases as these, the will permit him to remarry only after one hundred rabbis agree with them to issue an exemption. To ensure that a particular situation justifies an exemption, the rabbis instituted a requirement, that at least one hundred Torah scholars domiciled in at least three countries or, according to some authorities, three jurisdictions, certify that dispensation for a second marriage is justified. In order to get a , it used to be that a man