Sent Away by Sexual Immorality

Men’s or women’s hearts were still hard in Jesus’ day like in Moses’ day, but Jesus made it clear that divorce by the husband is only justified before God when the wife has been “immoral” or “unchaste.” The idea here is that he is only justified before God for divorcing his wife when she has had a sexual relationship with another person. It is implied that it was consensual, not coerced or forced. In this case, it is the hardness of the wife’s heart against her husband that separates what God has brought together and it is her sin against her husband and against God. The disciples are so surprised by Jesus’ words that they say men shouldn’t marry at all if sexual immorality is the only reason they can divorce their wives. Apparently, divorce was a common solution for unhappy husbands even when the wives were sexually faithful.

Women were not permitted to write a certificate of divorce, so Jesus did not address them directly in this passage. We do however know that God expected men, not just women, to be chaste because in the Bible both the man and the woman, not just the woman, were to be stoned when adultery was committed. We also can see that the Pharisees were not judging justly, bringing only the woman and not the man before Jesus to be stoned for adultery. Jesus, exposed their unrighteous behavior by saying that the one without sin should cast the first stone.

Though Jesus stated that divorce was justified for sexual immorality, a woman could not write a certificate of divorce and send her sexually immoral husband away. All she could do was to physically leave him, to move out, to separate from him. But without a home or an income or protection, she would be taking a very big risk. The risk was too high for most wives and so probably the wife stayed and suffered instead, especially if she had children.

(Based on Deuteronomy 24: 1-4, Matthew 19:1-9, John 8:1-11)