divorce Summary and Overview

The dissolution of the marriage tie was regulated by the Mosaic law (Deut. 24:1-4). The Jews, after the Captivity, were reguired to dismiss the foreign women they had married contrary to the law (Ezra 10:11-19). Christ limited the permission of divorce to the single case of adultery. It seems that it was not uncommon for the Jews at that time to dissolve the union on very slight pretences (Matt. 5:31, 32; 19:1-9; Mark 10:2-12; Luke 16:18). These precepts given by Christ regulate the law of divorce in the Christian Church.

"a legal dissolution of the marriage relation." The law regulating this subject is found #De 24:1-4| and the cases in which the right of a husband to divorce his wife was lost are stated ibid., #De 22:19,29| The ground of divorce is appoint on which the Jewish doctors of the period of the New Testament differed widely; the school of Shammai seeming to limit it to a moral delinquency in the woman, whilst that the Hillel extended it to trifling causes, e.g., if the wife burnt the food she was cooking for her husband. The Pharisees wished perhaps to embroil our Saviour with these rival schools by their question, #Mt 19:3| by his answer to which, as well as by his previous maxim, #Mt 5:31| he declares that he regarded all the lesser causes than "fornication" as standing on too weak ground, and declined the question of how to interpret the words of Moses.

DIVORCE' , the dissolution of the marriage relation. This was permitted by the law of Moses because already existent, but so regulated as to mitigate its injustice and cruelty to the wife, Deut 24:1-4, and in certain cases forbidden, Deut 22:19, 1 Chr 2:29. Although divorce was common in the later days of the Hebrew nation, Mal 2:16, and men put away their wives for trivial causes, Matt 19:3 -- and many of the Jewish doctors contended that this was the spirit of the Law -- there is no distinct case of divorce mentioned in the O.T. Our Saviour was questioned upon this matter, but he defeated the purpose of his inquisitors to entangle him in his talk, and took the opportunity to rebuke the lax morals of the day and set forth adultery as the only proper ground of divorce. Matt 5:32; 1 Kgs 19:9; Mark 10:11; Luke 16:18. According to Jewish customs, the husband was required to give his wife a writing or bill of divorcement, in which was set forth the date, place, and cause of her repudiation, and a permission was given by it to marry whom she pleased. It was provided, however, that she might be restored to the relation at any future time if she did not meanwhile marry any other man. The woman also seems to have had power -- at least in a later period of the Jewish state -- to put away her husband -- i.e. without a formal divorce to forsake him. Mark 10:12.

Deuteronomy 24:1-4 permits the husband to divorce the wife, if he find in her "uncleanness," literally, "matter of nakedness," by giving her "a bill of divorcement," literally, a book of cutting off. Polygamy had violated God's primal law joining in one flesh one man to one woman, who formed the other half or converse side of the male. Moses' law does not sanction this abnormal state of things which he found prevalent, but imposes a delay and cheek on its proceeding to extreme arbitrariness. He regulates and mitigates what he could not then extirpate. The husband must get drawn up by the proper authorities (the Levites) a formal deed stating his reasons (Isaiah 50:1; Jeremiah 3:8), and not dismiss her by word of mouth. Moses threw the responsibility of the violation of the original law on the man himself; tolerating it indeed (as a less evil than enforcing the original law which the people's "hardness of heart" rendered then unsuitable, and thus aggravating the evil) but throwing in the way what might serve as an obstacle to extreme caprice, an act requiring time and publicity and formal procedure. The school of Shammai represented fornication or adultery as the "uncleanness" meant by Moses. But (Leviticus 20:10; John 8:5) stoning, not merely divorce, would have been the penalty of that, and our Lord (Matthew 19:3; Matthew 19:9, compare Matthew 5:31) recognizes a much lower ground of divorce tolerated by Moses for the hardness of their heart. Hillel's school recognized the most trifling cause as enough for divorce, e.g. the wife's burning the husband's food in cooking. The aim of our Lord's interrogators was to entangle Him in the disputes of these two schools. The low standard of marriage prevalent at the close of the Old Testament appears in Malachi 2:14-16. Rome makes marriage a sacrament, and indissoluble except by her lucrative ecclesiastical dispensations. But this would make the marriage between one pagan man and one pagan woman a "sacrament," which in the Christian sense would be absurd; for Ephesians 5:23-32, which Rome quotes, and Mark 10:5-12 where even fornication is not made an exception to the indissolubility of marriage, make no distinction between marriages of parties within and parties outside of the Christian church. What marriage is to the Christian, it was, in the view of Scripture, to man before and since the fall and God's promise of redemption. Adulterous connection with a third party makes the person one flesh with that other, and so, ipso facto dissolves the unity of flesh with the original consort (1 Corinthians 6:15-16). The divorced woman who married again, though the law sanctions her remarriage (Deuteronomy 24:1-4), is treated as "defiled" and not to be taken back by the former husband. The reflection that, once divorced and married again, she could never return to her first husband, would check the parties from reckless rashness.