"It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law," Jesus replied. But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.' 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate . . . Any one who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery." (Mark 10: 5-12 NIV)
While doing my daily Bible reading, I was reading from Mark 10 about Jesus' teaching on divorce and it struck me that Mark's gospel account is the most concise and readily understood, certainly being consistent, however, with the other teachings of Scripture about divorce. It is in the divorcing to marry another that adultery is committed. (Adultery is forsaking, disregarding, the vow. Because we have sex on the brain, we think adultery only has to do with sex.)
The Mosaic law on divorce was intended to be remedial. The options for any woman in ancient times were extremely limited. Certainly, there were beautiful and talented women who were leaders and business women, but they were an extreme minority. The options for a discarded woman was even more limited; cast out of her household, what was she to do? She couldn't even marry because, technically, she was still married. It was understood that the Mosaic law on divorce made it possible for the marriage to be ended so that the wife could legally marry again (Deuteronomy 24:2), having the option of marriage rather than resorting to immorality to sustain herself. The option for divorce was not part of God's plan for marriage, but it was intended to be a practical remedy for those with sinful hearts. One of the interesting facets of the Biblical teaching on divorce is that God views remarriage to the first partner to be an abomination if there has been a subsequent marriage (Deuteronomy 24:3-4).
According to the Department of Health and Human Services, more than Seventy percent of divorces are initiated by women. These days women have a lot more options so they are much less dependent, plus the fact that the hearts of women are fully as hard as men's. Another statistic indicative of that fact according to DHHS is that fully two thirds of child abuse is initiated by the biological mother. Given the Casey Anthony case, I'm not surprised.
Our Father's Blessings,
Tom
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This is one of the reasons I tend to be libertarian in my views about government. Even an all-powerful, almight God allowed freedom of choice in most of the civil affairs of a nation. Even God knows that the force of law cannot make mankind righteous in their hearts, but they still have to be governed. In the goverance of a nation, the Lord isn't trying to run a Sunday School, but a country.
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