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Questions · Ethics

Biblical grounds for divorce: adultery and desertion

What Christian writers said, from about AD 244 to 1930.

26 passages · 20 writers · 8 centuries

The short answer

Origen, Novatian, and Lactantius say a wife may be put away only for fornication or adultery, and Ryle, Edersheim, and the Guanabara Confession also limit the ground to adultery. The Westminster Confession names adultery or wilful desertion that the church or civil magistrate cannot remedy as the only cause sufficient to dissolve the marriage bond, and Matthew Henry names fornication or voluntary desertion. Hodge reports that Protestants taught dissolution of the marriage bond was allowable only for adultery and wilful desertion, and he says the state can make nothing a ground of dissolving the marriage contract that the Bible does not make a valid ground of divorce. Basil says a beaten wife would do better to endure and that pecuniary loss is not sufficient ground, the Council of Trent anathematizes the saying that heresy, irksome cohabitation, or affected absence may dissolve the bond, and Aquinas says other sins are not motives for divorce while unbelief, called spiritual fornication, is also a motive. Brown, Barnes, and Robertson report that the school of Shammai held divorce lawful only for adultery or unchastity, while the school of Hillel allowed it more broadly.

Adultery as the one ground

12 passages · 12 writers · 200s to 1800s

Origen, Novatian, Lactantius, Ryle, Edersheim, and the Guanabara Confession limit putting away or separation to fornication or adultery. Calvin, Matthew Henry, Aquinas, and Hodge say adultery frees the injured spouse or is a sufficient reason for divorce. The Neocaesarea canon says a layman whose wife has committed adultery and been convicted cannot enter the ministry, and that a minister whose wife commits adultery must put her away.

c. 246–248 · Origen, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew 14.24

After this our Saviour says, not at all permitting the dissolution of marriages for any other sin than fornication alone, when detected in the wife, “Whosoever shall put away his own wife, saving for the cause of fornication, maketh her an adulteress.” But it might be a subject for inquiry if on this account He hinders any one putting away a wife, unless she be caught in fornication, for any other reason, as for example for poisoning, or for the destruction during the absence of her husband from home of an infant born to them, or for any form of murder whatsoever.

1710–1714 · Matthew Henry, Commentary on Matthew 19.3-12

He allows divorce, in case of adultery; the reason of the law against divorce being this, They two shall be one flesh. If the wife play the harlot, and make herself one flesh with an adulterer, the reason of the law ceases, and so does the law. By the law of Moses adultery was punished with death, Deut. xxii. 22. Now our Saviour mitigates the rigour of that, and appoints divorce to be the penalty. Dr. Whitby understands this, not of adultery, but (because our Saviour uses the word porneia—fornication) of uncleanness committed before marriage, but discovered afterward; because, if it were committed after, it was a capital crime, and there needed no divorce.

1883 · Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah 4.22

Whatever, therefore, may be pleaded, on account of ‘the hardness of heart’ in modern society, in favour of the lawfulness of relaxing Christ’s law of divorce, which confines dissolution of marriage to the one ground (of adultery), because then the unity of God’s making has been broken by sin - such a retrocession was at least not in the mind of Christ, nor can it be considered lawful, either by the Church or for individual disciples. But, that the Pharisees had rightly judged, when ‘tempting Him,’ what the popular feeling on the subject would be, appears even from what ‘His disciples’ [not necessarily the Apostles] afterwards said to Him. They waited to express their dissent till they were alone with Him ‘in the house,’ and then urged that, if it were as Christ had taught, it would be better not to marry at all.

Adultery and wilful desertion

6 passages · 4 writers · 300s to 1800s

The Westminster Confession names adultery or such wilful desertion as cannot be remedied by the church or civil magistrate as the cause sufficient to dissolve the marriage bond, and Matthew Henry names fornication or voluntary desertion. Hodge reports that Protestants taught dissolution was allowable only for adultery and wilful desertion, and he says the Prussian law adds other offences and falls below the Scriptural standard. Basil says that in the case of a man deserted by his wife, the cause of the desertion must be taken into account.

1647 · Westminster Assembly, The Westminster Confession of Faith 24.6

Although the corruption of man be such as is apt to study arguments unduly to put asunder those whom God hath joined together in marriage: yet, nothing but adultery, or such willful desertion as can no way be remedied by the church, or civil magistrate, is cause sufficient of dissolving the bond of marriage: wherein, a public and orderly course of proceeding is to be observed; and the persons concerned in it not left to their own wills, and discretion, in their own case.

1872 · Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 3 (Part III, chapters XV-XX; Part IV, Eschatology) 3.19.11

It has already been shown that Protestants, making the Scriptures their guide, taught that the dissolution of the bond of marriage was allowable only for the two offences of adultery and wilful desertion. So far as the churches and their confessions are concerned, this is still the doctrine of almost all Protestant denominations.

Stricter limits, other causes, and reports of other views

8 passages · 8 writers · 300s to 1900s

Basil says a beaten wife would do better to endure and that pecuniary loss is not sufficient ground; Aquinas says other sins are not motives for divorce; the Council of Trent anathematizes the saying that the bond may be dissolved for heresy, irksome cohabitation, or affected absence. Brown, Barnes, and Robertson report that the school of Shammai held divorce lawful only for adultery or unchastity, while the school of Hillel allowed it more broadly. David Schaff reports that divorce was allowed for fornication only, a position the Schoolmen supported from the words of Christ, and Philip Schaff reports that the fathers recognized adultery alone as a sufficient ground of divorce.

c. 357–378 · Basil of Caesarea, Letters 188.9

In the case of her being beaten, and refusing to submit, it would be better for her to endure than to be separated from her husband; in the case of her objecting to pecuniary loss, even here she would not have sufficient ground. If her reason is his living in fornication we do not find this in the custom of the church; but from an unbelieving husband a wife is commanded not to depart, but to remain, on account of the uncertainty of the issue. “For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband?” Here then the wife, if she leaves her husband and goes to another, is an adulteress. But the man who has been abandoned is pardonable, and the woman who lives with such a man is not condemned. But if the man who has deserted his wife goes to another, he is himself an adulterer because he makes her commit adultery; and the woman who lives with him is an adulteress, because she has caused another woman’s husband to come over to her.

1546–1563 · Council of Trent, Canons and Dogmatic Decrees of the Council of Trent s24.can

Canon V.—If any one saith, that on account of heresy, or irksome cohabitation, or the affected absence of one of the parties, the bond of matrimony may be dissolved: let him be anathema.