Deuteronomy 24

Chap. XXIV. Ver. 1—22. Law of divorces.—Divorces were always a deviation from the original institution of marriage, consequent upon man’s depravity as a fallen creature, arising from the inconstancy of his mind and the impetuosity of his passions. This customary deviation God did not please, in the judicial law, the magistrate’s rule, totally to prohibit lest it should occasion the cruel treatment, or even the murder, of those women, who were become disagreeable to their husbands. The uncleanness, on account of which the Israelites were “suffered, for the hardness of their hearts, to put away their wives,” was not adultery, or any suspicion of it; for both these cases were otherwise provided against: (ch. xxii. 22. (Leviticus 20:10)), but some ceremonial uncleanness, or diseases, or some natural or moral objection which formed a real grievance.—In the days of Christ, the Jewish teachers, having construed the permission into a commandment, extended it to the most frivolous matters; so that a licentious mind could not desire more allowance. Hence divorces prevailed to the disuse of polygamy, and to the still greater hardship of the women, who were sent away, one after another, under colour of this law; on various pretexts, to make way for a new object of the roving affections. This accounts for the discourses of Christ being more explicitly against divorces; though the reason of them equally determines against polygamy; ‘for from the beginning it was not so.’’—But whilst divorces were allowed, they were also regulated.

A man could not in a fit of anger send away his wife, but must have time for reflection, while the legal instrument was preparing. For he must give her a bill of divorce properly authenticated, and properly specifying the reason; and we may suppose some provision was also made her out of her husband’s substance. And it was no part of God’s law to prohibit either party from marrying again; which restraint, when imposed by an absurd policy,