Quote of the Day

Every one who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, makes her an adulteress(Matt 5:32).  The compact of marriage is a matter of such sacredness that it is not nullified even by separation.  For if a wife marries while her husband is still alive, even if he has left her, she commits adultery, and he who left her is the cause of this evil.  I wonder, however, whether, just as one can renounce an adulterous wife, it is also impossible to marry another when one has renounced her.  Holy Scripture makes this a difficult problem since the apostle says, on the authority of the Lord, that a woman should not leave her husband; but that if she does so, she must remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband.  Yet she should not in any case leave her husband and remain unmarried unless he is an adulterer;  for by leaving him she might cause one who was not an adulterer before to commit adultery (Matt 5:32).  Still, if she cannot exercise continence, she may properly be reconciled to her husband if she puts up with him or if he changes his ways.  But I do not see how a man could be allowed to marry another when he has left an adulterous wife since a woman is not allowed to marry another man if she leaves an adulterous husband.  Since this is so, the bond of fellowship between the spouses is so strong that although they are joined together for the sake of begetting children, this bond is not to be broken in order to beget them.  A man might divorce a barren woman and marry a woman who would bear him children, but this is not allowed.  And in our time Roman custom forbids having more than one living wife by taking an additional wife.  To be sure, if a man or a woman were to abandon an adulterous spouse and marry another, more children would be produced.  But since the divine rule seems to forbid this, it makes very clear the strength of the marriage bond.  I do not think that it could ever have such great force unless there were attached to it the sacral power of something greater than this weak mortality of ours, a bond which, although people abandon it and desire to nullify it, still remains unshaken and able to bring them punishment.

Augustine of Hippo