Divorce in Catholicism on grounds of adultery

There’s many “laws” on dissolving a betrothal, interesting to read through them.

Some betrothal dissolution laws did require a divorce certificate but I can’t find one for a Joseph and Mary situation. Likely because a woman in that situation would have been dealt with badly to say the least.

The Hillel filks allowed for a certificate if a woman burnt the bread, but I know of no evidence that a man submitted his case to a judge back then to issue a certificate of divorce.

And Jews didn't all just follow the Talmud. It records debates of one influential stream of Judaism back then. There were also Saducees in tge Sanhedrin, and the chief priests and High Priest...if tgey were a separate group from the Pharisees.

We’re talking about Joseph, who was just, there’s no reason to believe he wouldn’t follow the law. So what was the law for his scenario?

All the betrothal dissolution laws I can find, that require a divorce certificate, are betrothals that included sexual intercourse between the betrothed.

In other words, claiming Joseph planned to give Mary a divorce certificate, would be to imply they had relations during betrothal.

On the other hand, if the betrothed or married woman broke a law of Moses, the ketubah, marriage contract etc. was voided, she had no rights and was simply put away. And of course if she turned up pregnant in a non-sexual betrothal the outcome was much worse than annulment and being sent away.

My research isn’t complete yet but all things considered, it’s not looking good for the apoluo=divorce view.

I am not sure what your issue is. Joseph was thinking to put away Mary before they came together.

This is modern Hewish commentary but it touches on the time of the Mishneh.

This site says a get (certificate) was required after the first stage of marriage. In Judea, couples might have sex before the party if it prevented Roman governors from claiming first rights.

https://steinsaltz.org/daf/yevamot41/




Clearly from scripture we know this was not the case.

The burden of proof is on you to show that religious Hews would accept a divorce without a certificate.


She got no money. Where is the evidence that she did not get a certificate?

Are you messing with me bro? The agunah crisis, that has occurred for millennia even to this day, is the proof that it is lawful (within Judaism) to put away a wife without a divorce certificate.

Your statement makes no sense to me at all. I don't get your point. The agunah issue is a problem for Jews. If a man goes to war and goes missing, it's a problem for Jewish women and the leaders of their community. That's why Jewish men may give a conditional get, granting a divorce if they don't come back. Can you show a source that says a Jewish woman can get a divorce without a get?

I was just reading about how if a man's wife claim she committed adultery, he doesn't have to accept her testimony. If he has two witnesses and chooses to believe her, he can divorce her based on that, and get whatever relief from the marriage contract that comes if she committed adultery. The reason is the power to divorce is in the man's hands. She doesn't have to agree, and she can't initiate a divorce, so some women will lie, so it is up to the man, in Judaism, to agree. And post-temple, Jewish scholars added requirements for a get to be considered legitimate, so Jews consult with them. If there is not get, Orthodox Jews won't acknowledge a state divorce form. Think of situations where a Jewish woman unilaterally divorces a man and remarries. Her children by the next man are considered to be bastards in Orthodox Judaism.

A Jewish woman might take a Jewish man before religious authorities to compel a get. If they had some power in time past, and he was with holding food, clothing, or sex, for example, the court might compel him using beating to sign a get. That would be an extreme case. But he would have to sign it for Judaism to acknowledge the divorce.

This is different from the teachings of Christ which are much more limited when it comes to divorce. A woman put away with a get is indeed a woman put away.

Well, I had a look at the Catena Bible which shows ancient commentaries if you click on a verse. This is from Anbrosiaster from around 400 AD.


Ambrosiaster
AD 400
Paul says that no one should be divorced from his wife except in a case of fornication. As for the unmarried, what advantage is there in giving in to the lusts of the flesh? Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.

https://catenabible.com/1cor/7

I don't know where Paul says that fornication is the only grounds for divorce. Maybe he meant to say Jesus.

Another interpretation of the passage is that this may refer to the one who is called in a divorced state.

24Brethren, let every man, however he is called, therein abide with God.
25Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord: yet I give my judgment, as one that has obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful.
26I suppose therefore that this is good for the present distress, I say, that it is good for a man so to be.
27Are you bound unto a wife? seek not to be loosed. Are you loosed from a wife? seek not a wife.

That's another interpretation, that Paul is telling the one who is called in a divorced state he may marry.

Also, notice that in this latter part of the passage, Paul says that it is him speaking, not the Lord, then says he has no commandment from the Lord, and it seems like a lot of people want to focus on this section more than the teachings of Jesus.

It is clear that Paul is not teaching your interpretation, that divorce is okay as long as the man gives the woman a piece of paper, unless she fornicated, in which case he doesn't even have to do that.

Look at this verse from I Corinthians 7
10And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband:
11But if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife.

Verse 10-11 do not allow Christians to divorce. This aligns with the teaching of the Gospels.

He already told Christians not to divorce and remarry. Christ taught the man that married her that is put away commits adultery. She's still bound, not loosed, by the certificate. Illegitimate divorces do not count. You can make a case for the Protestant view here. But just saying if a man gives his wife a piece of paper for any old reason and he is loosed doesn't align with Christ's teaching. Verses 10-11 already forbid that.

I would like your response to my question about the disciples reaction to Jesus' teaching in Matthew 19. If Jesus just made it easy for a man to divorce his wife and remarry her, why would the disciples say if that were the case it is better for a man not to marry? How does that make any sense at all?

If the obvious plain sense of the text is true, then that reaction makes sense. They thought if it didn't work out, they could dump their wives with a piece of paper and move on to the next one. Then, the one they gave up years of their lives for taught it was adultery to do so. So their reaction makes sense. But how does it make any sense at all with your interpretation?

You obviously didn’t read the original article I posted. Not cool man.

Just google Jewish man remarries without get, you’ll find plenty of material on this part of the agunah crisis. Or go back and read the one I posted.

I think I get what you mean. It is illegal for the woman to remarry without the get. But what does this have to do with our topic? Jesus was responding to commentary on the Torah. The Pharisees asked about a woman put away with a divorce certificate before Jesus' comment about putting away wives.

A woman put away with a get is put away. Do you disagree?

I suppose this is an interesting topic, but clearly not the one the Lord was addressing.

But how is a Jewish man who puts away his wife without a certificate supposed to provide his wife with regular sex if she desires it. I read for most occupations a Jewish woman could require once a day. Providing a woman with food and clothing if she is put away could be difficult for many men also.

If you had read the original article it would have saved us a bunch of time.
It clearly articulates the problem of Jewish men causing women to become chained by refusing to give the get, and what’s worse is, the man often remarries (in synagogue, by his rabbi…) However, the woman is agunah.

Glad it’s starting to register. But before you deny my view you should try to understand it fully.

Jewish men have put away their wives without a divorce certificate and remarried for thousands of years, even before Jesus’ earthly ministry, it’s more rare now but still occurs within Orthodox Judaism today.
Please research this part of the agunah crisis or go back and read the article.

Once this sinks in, that Jewish men put away their wives without a divorce certificate and remarry, go back and read Matthew 5,19, Mark 10 and Luke 16, preferably in the KJV.

This is my view, Jesus was addressing this practice of putting away without the certificate, not divorce as we normally think of it. You don’t have to agree obviously.


Check out these words too.
Apoluo ≠ Apostasion
Shalach ≠ Keriythuth

I've read about the agunah problem. This is not what is being discussed in these chapters.

Matthew 19
7 They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?

8 He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.

9 And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.

Women put away with a certificate are women put away. This is obvious from Deuteronomy 24 and Matthew 19.

You’ll need to start at the beginning of the interaction to understand my view.

Matthew 19:3 The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?

Apoluo: put away.
Note the absence of apostasion: DIVORCE DIVORCEMENT

Apoluo is the Greek equivalent to Shalach.

Apostasion is the Greek equivalent to Keriythuth: the cutting of the matrimonial bond, divorce, divorcement.

See Deuteronomy 24:1

Mark 10:2-5
And the Pharisees came to him, and asked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? tempting him.
(The Pharisees asking about the putting away without the cert.)

And he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you?
(What does my scripture say?)

And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away.
(Scripture says to putt away with the cert.)

And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept.
(Yes, after the fall I allowed you to put away with the cert.)

…

Mark 10:11-12 And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery.

(If there is no Keriythuth: cutting off the the matrimonial bond, then it’s obviously adultery for the above folks)

Simple really.

Words mean things. Apoluo does not mean divorce, a cutting the matrimonial bond.

That was my first way of thinking too; however, there is one possibility.

Requiring that certificate of divorce does give a woman significant leverage if your welfare/comfort has become dependent on the dowry or her property in any way. If you could simply put her away while keeping the rights to use her wealth, it could alleviate a lot of hardship; this would be useful if your wife decided to go crazy. (However; if the man is the bad guy, it gives him way too much leverage to exploit.) So, requiring a divorce to put away significantly raises the risk-factor of marriage for men.

Again, illogical reasoning. The context and scripture being discussed are clear that those put away with certificates are put away. Put away includes putting away woth a certificate. Putting away with a certificate was what the Pharisees spoke of before Christ's response 'Whosever shall put away his wife....'

The agunah problem is a red herring.

@NOV25

I have given that article you posted earlier a more careful look. Have you noticed one of the fuzzy arguments he makes.


Here is a quote,
>>>They shall not take a wife that is a whore, or profane; neither shall they take a woman put away from her husband…
(Leviticus 21:7; KJV)

Leviticus forbids marrying a woman put away by whom? By her husband. But if ‘put away’ merely meant she was divorced—she no longer has a husband.<<<

This was a law for priests, not everyone. There is not even a command forbidding marrying a prostitute in the Torah for the non-priest. It was clearly not desirable. But the priest was not allowed to marry a prostitute.

If you read the same chapter a little further, it is clear that the priest has to marry a virgin.

13 And he shall take a wife in her virginity.
14 A widow, or a divorced woman, or profane, or an harlot, these shall he not take: but he shall take a virgin of his own people to wife.

Presumably the put away woman is going to have had sex with her husband, right? The priest can't marry divorcees, because he is not a virgin.

This bit of reasoning, "But if ‘put away’ merely meant she was divorced—she no longer has a husband." seems on the one hand like a lame bit of sophistry, but on the other hand, it seems like the kind of lame bit of sophistry you might find in the Talmud or used by Jewish scholars when they are trying to argue for a particular doctrine or get out of keeping a vow, or get out of supporting parents or something like that.

There is also this quote from that article,
>>>First, recall that through Ezra, God directed the Levites to put away their foreign wives (even if they had shared children; Ezra 10:3). This is a “catch-22” for the fundamentalist interpretation because if “put away” meant “divorce,” then here God requires the Levites to divorce, something He allegedly hates<<<

Where does the Bible say here that God directed the Levites to put away their foreign wives? The passage says Ezra told them to make a covenant to put away their foreign wives. The priests in the group were not allowed to marry foreign wives. So this is a special case. If a regular man marries his sister or his father's wife, is that marriage even legitimate?

Paul Ezra goes on to have regular Jews put away Egyptian wives. How is that required by the Torah? Wives to the seven nations were forbidden. Some people debate whether Ezra did a bit of overreaching here, but to say God directed him to do it is to make an assumption.

It may be that Malachi addresses some of the issues here, but it could be that there was just a big divorce culture among Israelites



This is also false from that article:
>>>In fact, no one until recently ever associated Malachi 2:16 with divorce, as Christian fundamentalism does today. <<<

This quote from ~220 AD does.
Tertullian of Carthage
AD 220
>>>For in the Gospel of Matthew he says, “Whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causes her to commit adultery.” He also is deemed equally guilty of adultery who marries a woman put away by her husband. The Creator, however, except on account of adultery, does not put asunder that which he himself joined together, the same Moses in another passage enacting that he who had married after violence to a damsel should thenceforth not have it in his power to put away his wife. Now if a compulsory marriage contracted after violence shall be permanent, how much rather shall a voluntary one, the result of an agreement! This has the sanction of the prophet: “You shall not forsake the wife of your youth.” Thus you have Christ following spontaneously the tracks of the Creator everywhere, both in permitting divorce and in forbidding it. You find him also protecting marriage, in whatever direction you try to escape. He prohibits divorce when he will have the marriage inviolable; he permits divorce when the marriage is spotted with unfaithfulness. You should blush when you refuse to unite those whom even your Christ has united, and repeat the blush when you disunite them without the good reason why your Christ would have them separated. <<< taken from the Catena Bible site.



He also says,
>>>>This, sometimes, was a way for husbands to get revenge or punish their wives/handmaids/concubines. A classic example can be found in 2 Samuel 20:3:

Then David came to his house in Jerusalem, and the king took the ten women, the concubines whom he had left behind to take care of the house, and put them in custody and provided them with food, but did not have relations with them. So they were locked up until the day of their death, living as widows.

2 Samuel 20:3, NASB<<<

These concubines had had sex with Absalom, possibly against their will, as a political statement. It makes sense that David would not sleep with them again considering his on had done so. Why would this be revenge? David, as a God-fearing man, was probably just trying to do the right thing. Politically, sex with a king's former wife was probably a really big deal and something that would undermine his authority. He got Micah back from her illegitimate husband. She had been his agunah because he was fleeing for his life.

He goes on with his divorce-and-remarriage-justifying hypothesis.

>>>Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.

KJV

Notice that the ESV chose “divorce” rather than “put away.” Additionally, the ESV (and other translations) states, “he who marries a woman divorced from her husband.” This translation seems illogical because if a woman is divorced, who is her husband? She has no husband if she’s divorced. <<<

This is sophistry, again. Also, it doesn't track with Pharisees' and Jesus' conversation. Let's look at Matthew 19. You can see it in Mark 10 also. The Pharisees ask about the __cause__ for putting away, not whether a certificate is required. We know Shammai and Hillel disagreed about causes of divorce. Hillel followers were probably quite influential during this time. It may be Shammai folks assassinated Hillel folks at a later time (unless that is a metaphor) and became dominate for a time later in the first century. Debates between these groups may have been a big deal to them. This one was about causes for divorce.

Jesus pointed out 'two, saith he, shall be one flesh.' He said what God hath joined together, let not man put assunder. The Pharisees ask why Moses ___commanded___ giving a divorce certificarte and sending her away. The Lord Jesus countered that Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts __allowed__ "you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery."

He is not allowing something Moses did. He puts permission for divorce with a certificate on Moses, not God. He forbids a man putting away his wife, except it be for fornication. Again, look at the context, put away clearly does not exclude putting away with a certificate, since Deuteornmy 24 mentions it, and the Pharisees had just mentioned it.

The website you rely on argues that if a man gave his wife a certificate, that she isnt' his wife, but that does not align with what the Lord Jesus teaches here.

And again, the command is that _when_ a man finds some nakedness in his wife that displeases him, he gives her a certificate and sends her away, and she marries another man who gives her a certificate or dies, the first husband is not to take her. There is a set-up to a situation, a case, then a command. You, like the Pharisees, are treating the set-up for the case as a command, unlike the Lord Jesus, here. Jesus' teaching overturns the Jewish understanding of marriage and divorce. Your author there is just trying to stick to the old status quo. He doesn't even bother to deal with the details of Jesus' argument about Moses. Neither are you.

The website you referred to says,
>>>Remember, Jesus was speaking to Law-observing Jews.>>

Really? Several chapters later, Jesus would say the Pharisees say and do not, that they neglected the weightier matters of the law. He disagrees on this issue of divorce also. To the chief priests and elders He would say the kingdom of heaven would be taken from them and certificate given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.

And 'Whosoever shall put away his wife' includes those who give a to do so. And clearly a woman who has been put away with a certificate has been put away.