This Sunday, the lectionary invites us to ponder Mark 10:2-16. The English Standard Version divides the portion into two passages. It supplies the title “Teaching about Divorce” to the first, and the title “Let the Children come to me,” to the second.
I’ll focus on the first. In this passage, Mark tells us that “Pharisees” asked Jesus a question about divorce in order to test him.
Is divorce a problem? Why? Imagine you’re seated with five of your friends around a table in a restaurant. Imagine someone says so-and-so is getting a divorce. Imagine their responses.
What questions will they ask? What statements will they make? Will there be a difference between the responses of Christians and non-Christians?
We can be sure they’ll ask questions like what’s the reason for the divorce, how long have they been married, how many children do they have, how old are the kids, who’ll get the kids, how did their parents react, will it be a friendly divorce, and so on.
But would anyone ask the question the Pharisees asked Jesus,
“Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”
What does “lawful” mean anyway? Whose law? Which court? Who enforces?
The number and rate of divorces in Malaysia is of interest even to the Chinese-government owned Xinhua news agency. Last year, it ran a headline which screamed:
“Malaysia’s divorces surge 43.1 pct to 62,890 in 2022.”
The Malay Mail, citing data from the Statistics Department, said:
“The number of Muslim divorces registered an increase of 45.8 per cent in 2022 (46,138) as compared to 2021 (31,650).”
I couldn’t find any data for Christian divorces, but I know there are many.
According to news reports, COVID-19 caused the increase. Two reasons are given. First, the movement restrictions and job losses increased stresses on marriages. Second, registration of divorces was delayed.
We can go into a lot more statistics, for example the average interval between marriage and divorce, the ages of couples, and so on. But the fact remains: There are tens of thousands of divorces each year.
I return now to the question. Why did the Pharisees ask Jesus whether it’s lawful for a man to divorce his wife? Was divorce a problem in society then? Was divorce a question over which people were divided?
Were the Pharisees trying to trap Jesus into saying something which would allow them to claim that he, like John Baptist, had criticized “king” Herod Antipas who divorced his wife in order to marry his brother’s wife?
You can read what happened to John Baptist in my column titled “The preacher’s head at the king’s birthday feast.”
The society of that time was very patriarchal. Men could treat women very badly. They could, “legally,” divorce women for almost any reason.
Matthew, who wrote after Mark and expanded on much of what Mark wrote, gives a longer version of the Pharisees question. They asked,
“Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” (Matthew 19:3)
The Pharisees were men who took obedience to God’s laws very seriously. But there were divisions among them. They wanted to know which side Jesus was on in a debate which was raging in those days. It was a debate over the rightness, in God’s eyes, of “any cause divorce.”
They debated how to interpret, how to apply, Deuteronomy 24:1-4. In that passage, in the first verse, we read the basis for divorce. The Living Bible translation brings it out very starkly. It reads,
“If a man doesn’t like something about his wife, he may write a letter stating that he has divorced her, give her the letter, and send her away.”
That translation can be challenged, but I can’t go into it here. I’ll just say one thing: in that patriarchal society, where women were considered the property of men, many people said a man could divorce his wife for any reason. Any reason.
Could be, he didn’t like her cooking. Could be, he didn’t like her clothes. Could be, he didn’t like her criticisms. Some Rabbis said, whatever the reason, the husbands decision to divorce his wife “was lawful.”
An article on The Bible Project website points out what the two main schools of Rabbis said in Jesus’ day.
The House of Shammai said divorce was only permissible if the wife committed adultery. The House of Hillel said divorce was permissible for any reason, even spoiling a dish. Or burning the rice.
There’s another passage in the Old Testament which speaks of divorce. It’s Exodus 21:10-11. This law protected any woman whom a man bought as a slave and made his wife. If he then took another wife, and neglected his first, slave wife, she could “lawfully,” leave him.
That’s the law, as it was understood in those days, and some say applies even today. But we mustn’t only speak about law, about what’s permitted and what’s not.
We must also recognize the trauma of those who have to undergo divorce. The website of Mental Health America captures their trauma in words directed to anyone who has to navigate separation and divorce. It says,
It’s normal to feel sad, angry, exhausted, frustrated and confused—and these feelings can be intense. You also may feel anxious about the future. Accept that reactions like these will lessen over time. Even if the marriage was unhealthy, venturing into the unknown is frightening.
The space available in a column is too little to deal comprehensively with any subject, let alone a subject as sensitive, disruptive and frightening as divorce.
I can only say that Jesus also spoke about divorce in the Sermon on the Mount, and the apostle Paul spoke about divorce in his letters.
If you’d like to go deeper into this subject, I recommend you read the Bible Project article which I’ve linked. The last two sentences in it are a great summary of the biblical teaching on marriage and divorce:
“God’s intention from the beginning is for men and women to live as co-equal partners. Marriage should never include abuse or neglect, and when it must dissolve to prevent further harm, neither party should take advantage of the other.”
I think that’s a wonderful, God-pleasing way to look at divorce.[1]
Broken marriages often result in broken families, broken spouses and broken children. Laws exist to prevent or to deal with these things. Not to serve as escape doors for self-centred, self-righteous spouses.[2]
Peace be with you.
[1] The Bible Project article is simple and helpful. I also recommend US Methodist Bishop William Willimon’s article titled “The Risk of Divorce” on the Religion Online website. He is gentle but firm in his rejection of “the ‘situationist’ approach, [in which] rules and codes are jettisoned in favour of the broad, unspecific, vague demands of “love.”
[2] See this sad article, published in April 2020: Muslim Ex-Wives Aren’t Getting Alimony & Child Support From Ex-Husbands During MCO. It gives a very brief account of alimony payments which husbands must pay their ex-wives, under both Muslim and civil law.
To learn more about Rama, click here.
Thank you Rama for the biblical perspective. On this sensitive topic.