Divorce

              “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” (Matthew 5:313-32)

 

            We like to think that we’ve advanced beyond the sexism we see in the Bible, but divorce hurts both sides. Both husband and wife are left without that part of themselves that took care of some aspect of their lives. Women are often the bigger loser when it comes to divorce because we often earn less in our jobs. This is not as true now as it was in the past because of traditions in which women didn’t work outside of the home. Divorce was effectively throwing a woman out of her home with nothing. It was particularly nasty in that culture because, until 1000 AD, polygamy was permitted. A man could have more than one wife. He could effectively have little to nothing to do with her as long as he supported her. Granted, one difficult spouse can make life trying for a household, but does a person being challenging to get along with justify the destruction of that person’s life? For the women of that time, there were only two options – find a new husband, which was adultery, or find a place in a relative's home.

            What Jesus teaches here is that cultural permission to destroy another person is unacceptable. If you take marriage vows, you don’t have the right to destroy a wife/husband or lead her/him into a situation where they have to do something wrong to survive. If you engage in sexual activity and get pregnant (or she does), it is not right to destroy the baby. If your child does something horrific, you aren’t to disown and disinherit him/her. There may be some action necessary that the person might not like, but destroying the person who has displeased you is not in the list of possibilities. Giving them no effective choice but to sin is not acceptable.