What did Jesus say about divorce?

At a Glance

What I said: What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate (Mark 10:9). Whoever divorces his wife, and marries another, commits adultery against her (Mark 10:11). In Matthew, I made one exception: except for sexual immorality (Matthew 19:9).

What the rest of the Bible says: The law of Moses let a man divorce his wife by writing her a certificate (Deuteronomy 24:1). The prophet Malachi condemned men who dealt treacherously with the wife of your youth (Malachi 2:14).

When today’s view appeared: Churches have argued about divorce and remarriage since the first centuries. Catholics forbid remarriage after divorce while a spouse is living, and grant annulments. Most Protestant churches allowed it for adultery and desertion from the 1500s on. Easy divorce by law came in the twentieth century.

The short answer: I was hard on divorce because, in my world, divorce was something men did to women. I was protecting the one who could be thrown out of her house with a piece of paper.

Under the law my people kept, only a husband could divorce.

A man could write his wife a certificate, put it in her hand, and send her out of his house (Deuteronomy 24:1). She could not do the same to him. Her marriage contract might promise her a sum of money, but a divorced woman could still be left with little: no land, no income, sometimes no family who would take her back. She might remarry, if someone would have her, or beg, or worse.

The teachers of my day argued over what reasons were good enough. The law said a man could divorce his wife if he has found some unseemly thing in her (Deuteronomy 24:1). The school of Shammai said that meant unfaithfulness. The school of Hillel said it meant almost anything, even if she spoiled a meal. A later teacher, Rabbi Akiva, went further: a man could divorce his wife if he found another woman more beautiful.¹

So when some Pharisees came to me and asked, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? (Mark 10:2), they were asking me to pick a side in that argument.

What I said

I went back to the beginning. From the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. For this cause a man will leave his father and mother, and will join to his wife, and the two will become one flesh … What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate (Mark 10:6–9).

When they pointed out that Moses had allowed divorce, I said: For your hardness of heart, he wrote you this commandment (Mark 10:5). The law allowed it because men were hard. It was never what God wanted.

Later my disciples asked me about it in private, and I said: Whoever divorces his wife, and marries another, commits adultery against her (Mark 10:11). Against her. In the law, adultery meant a man taking another man’s wife, and it was counted as a wrong against her husband. A husband was not said to wrong his own wife. I said a husband could wrong his own wife. And I added: If a woman herself divorces her husband, and marries another, she commits adultery (Mark 10:12). Roman law let a wife divorce her husband, and some women of power did. I held husband and wife to the same rule.

In Matthew’s gospel the saying has an exception: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery (Matthew 19:9; also 5:32). Mark and Luke do not have it (Luke 16:18). Scholars still argue whether those words are mine or Matthew’s explanation of what I meant.²

My disciples were shocked. If this is the case of the man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry (Matthew 19:10). That tells you how strict I sounded to them.

What I did with people whose marriages had broken

I was strict in what I taught. I was not cruel to the people who had failed.

At a well in Samaria, I met a woman who had had five husbands; and he whom you now have is not your husband (John 4:18). I did not send her away. I talked with her longer than with almost anyone else in John’s gospel, and she went back to her town and told everyone about me.

In a story found in later copies of John’s gospel, men brought me a woman caught in adultery. They went away one by one, and I told her, Neither do I condemn you. Go your way. From now on, sin no more (John 8:11).

And I warned that a man who looks at a woman with lust has committed adultery with her already in his heart (Matthew 5:28). I did not leave men room to feel righteous while their wives carried the blame.

What the rest of your Bible says

The law of Moses allowed divorce, but it also protected a wife from neglect. If a man took a slave woman as his wife and then took another wife, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, and her marital rights. If he doesn’t do these three things for her, she may go free (Exodus 21:10–11). Some Jewish teachers read that as the basis for a wife’s right to be released from a husband who neglected her.³

The prophet Malachi spoke for wives who had been put aside: the LORD has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion, and the wife of your covenant (Malachi 2:14).

After I was gone, Paul wrote that if an unbelieving spouse leaves, let there be separation. The brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases (1 Corinthians 7:15).

What came after

The church took my words seriously, and argued over how far to take them.

For most of its history the Western church taught that a true marriage could not be dissolved. The Council of Trent in 1563 made that firm Catholic teaching.⁴ Catholics may receive an annulment, a finding that a valid marriage never existed. The Orthodox churches allow divorce and remarriage in some cases, as an act of mercy.

Most of the Protestant reformers, such as Luther and Calvin, allowed divorce for adultery and for desertion, reading Matthew’s exception and Paul’s words together. The Westminster Confession of 1646 says the same.⁵

In the twentieth century, most Western countries made divorce far easier. California passed the first no-fault divorce law in the United States in 1969.⁶ Divorce became common among Christians as among everyone else.

And for too long, many pastors told women to go back to husbands who beat them, quoting my words about divorce.⁷ That is using my protection of wives against them.

What You’ll Hear Back

“God hates divorce.”

You may have heard that from Malachi 2:16. The Hebrew is difficult, and recent translations read it as God condemning the man who hates and divorces, who covers his garment with violence (Malachi 2:16). Either way, it is spoken for the wife who was put away, not against her.

“Jesus allowed no divorce at all, so a remarried person is living in adultery.”

That is how my words sound in Mark and Luke, and some churches hold it. Most Christians read my words alongside Matthew’s exception and Paul’s, and allow remarriage in some cases. I would remind you that I talked for a long time with a woman who had had five husbands, and I did not tell her to go back to the first one.

“Divorce is a sin, so an abused spouse should stay.”

No. I said what I said to stop men from throwing away their wives. Sending a woman back to a man who hurts her turns my words into the weapon I was taking out of men’s hands. The law of Moses freed a wife who was neglected. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27), and marriage was made for the people in it, not to trap one of them.

“People just don’t take their vows seriously anymore.”

Many don’t, and I asked a great deal of married people. I still do. But the first thing I asked of husbands was faithfulness to their wives, and the first thing I asked of everyone was mercy to those whose marriages had broken.

Check It Yourself

Look up: Mark 10:1–12.

You will find: the question about divorce, my answer, and the words against her.

Then read Matthew 19:3–12 and John 4:1–42, and compare what I taught with how I treated the woman at the well.

The Short Version

• I was stricter about divorce than most teachers of my day.
• Under the law my people kept, only men could divorce, and a divorced woman could lose almost everything. I was protecting wives.
• I said a husband who divorces and remarries commits adultery against her, and held men and women to the same rule.
• Matthew’s gospel has an exception for unfaithfulness. Paul allowed separation when a spouse left.
• My words were never meant to keep someone in a home where they are harmed.