157. An Answer on the Question of Divorce. Mt. 19:3–9; Mk. 10:2–12

Some Pharisees came up and, testing him, asked: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?” The Lord said to them in answer: “What did Moses command you?” They said: “Moses allowed us to write a certificate of divorce and to put her away.” The Lord Jesus said to them: “Because of your hardness of heart, he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. Have you not read that He who created all things from the beginning made them male and female (Gen. 1:27), and said: For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh (Gen. 2:24)? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no man separate.”

They said to him: “Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of divorce and to put her away?” The Lord says to them: “I have said that Moses, because of your hardness of heart, permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it was not so.”

And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife except for unchastity and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.“

His disciples said to him again in the house: “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” And he said to them again: “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.””