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When Marriage Brings Suffering, Part Two
By David P. Gushee
Read Part One
When Is It Permissible to End a Marital Covenant?
The aggrieved and suffering spouse who is loyal to the marriage covenant will not lightly end a marriage under any circumstances. Many steadfast men and women have endured the acute suffering caused by episodes of infidelity, acts of violence, and desertion and worked hard for change and for reconciliation. In some cases, hearts and lives have been changed and marriages saved. This indeed, is grace and mercy.
But still we must ask the question of whether, and when, it is morally permissible to end a marital covenant. Divorce is never formally introduced in the Old Testament. It simply makes its appearance as an existing practice, most significantly in Deuteronomy 24:1?4. This text assumes the practice of divorce, describes it and its grounds in passing, and then offers a case law application related to remarriage. This text became foundational for the Jewish rabbinic tradition, which debated the grounds for divorce based on Deut. 24:1a: "If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her ? " Two poles of interpretation emerged, a conservative school limiting the grounds for divorce to "indecency," and a more liberal school permitting (a man to) divorce for nearly any reason based on the language of "becomes displeasing to him."
Jesus is recorded as teaching about marriage in two primary texts that parallel each other with subtle differences. These texts are Matthew 19:2-12 and Mark 10:2?12. Small, slightly varied fragments of the teaching recorded in these texts are found in Matthew 5:31?32 and Luke 16:18.
Let's take the Mark 10 passage as our base, working from that to compare with Matthew 19 where significant differences emerge. Mark 10:2?12 has Jesus teaching about marriage in the context of being questioned by the Pharisees about divorce. The narrator tells us that they question him about divorce to "test" him; their goal was to trap Jesus in his own words rather than to gain knowledge about God's will. This must be kept firmly in mind or we too will ask Jesus the wrong questions.
The Pharisees want to know whether it is "lawful" for a man to divorce his wife (Mk. 10:2). It was lawful in Jewish society for a man to divorce his wife; in fact, it was apparently quite common. The rabbis debated what were the lawful grounds for divorce, not whether divorce was permissible. It is this sense of the question that Matthew's version picks up (19:3).
They want to ask Jesus about the legalities of divorce. In Mark, Jesus responds in the way they might have expected, asking about the dictates of Jewish law by referencing the "command" of Moses. In response, they cite Deuteronomy 24:1.
Jesus then surprises his listeners by moving the discussion to the book of Genesis. He acknowledges that the permission to divorce is (implicitly) found in Deuteronomy 24:1 but that this was because their "hearts were hard." At the "beginning of creation God made them male and female" (Mk. 10:6, quoting Gen. 1:27). Thus man and woman leave father and mother and cleave to each other. "The two will become one flesh" (Mk. 10:8, quoting Gen. 2:24); "they are no longer two, but one." Therefore, "what God has joined together, let man not separate" (Mk. 10:9).
Jesus reclaims marriage from the divorce lawyers. He demands that the discussion of God's will for marriage return to the original intent of the Creator. He explicitly locates marriage as an institution existing "from the beginning of creation," and describes the one-flesh union that exists in marriage. He intensifies the "one-fleshness" of marriage by saying that the couple is "no longer two but one," making clear that one-flesh means more than occasional marital sexual union. Then he asserts that God has joined together each husband and wife and demands that "man" not sunder what God has joined.
The creation origins and nature of marriage are thus reaffirmed. But so is a strong emphasis on the covenantal structure of marriage, especially the promise of permanence. This point is only emphasized in the next section of the teaching, where Jesus declares that "anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her" (Mk 10:11), and that the same would hold true for the woman who divorces her husband. The Jewish listener would not have needed to be reminded that adultery was a crime officially punishable by execution in Jewish law.
It has been noticed that the Mark and Matthew texts diverge here. Matthew has no reference to the woman initiating divorce, perhaps because if women ever initiated divorce in first-century Palestinian Jewish life, it was very rare. There was certainly no explicit provision for it in Old Testament law.
The other divergence is the famous exception clause in Matthew. Matthew's Jesus modifies the apparent "no divorce, no remarriage" stance with an exception in cases of sexual immorality (NIV: "marital unfaithfulness"; Greek: porneia). This exception clause, and the fact that it is found only in Matthew, has bedeviled and distracted Christian interpreters for centuries, and remains a vexing interpretive problem today.
The main point that needs to be made about the entire passage, whether in Matthew or in Mark, is that Jesus responds to a question about the legality of divorce by pushing past it to reaffirm both the creation purposes of marriage and the covenant structure of marriage. His teaching about marriage itself is best interpreted as offering an authoritative endorsement of God's will as revealed in Scripture, with a measure of intensification and a decisive shift in focus away from how we might finagle exceptions. His teaching about remarriage is best interpreted as a forceful prophetic rejection of legally sanctioned adultery; that is, the abandonment of the "wife of one's youth" in order to be with another woman. It may be legal, but it's still adultery. It was true then, and it's true now. Malachi had made the same point.
Paul's largest section on marriage and divorce is found in 1 Corinthians 7. Apparently responding to a comment from this troubled Christian community disparaging marriage (7:1), he affirms that (most) believers should be married (7:2). He grounds this declaration in the creation need for sex (7:3?5, 9, 36-38) and the fear of sexual immorality. He articulates his own preference for celibate singleness (7:6?7), but notes that people are gifted in different ways. This section offers a helpful affirmation of the creation purposes of marriage related to sexuality, though what has often been interpreted as a grudging spirit here has darkened the Christian vision of sex in damaging ways.
In dealing with the issue of divorce, Paul reaffirms an oral tradition of the teaching of Jesus that corresponds rather closely with the passages in Mark and Matthew. Believers are not supposed to divorce one another. If they separate, they should abstain from marrying someone else and instead be reconciled (7:10?11). Here Paul is reaffirming the covenant permanence of marriage, with the extra note emphasizing the central Christian focus on reconciliation.
Then Paul deals with a situation apparently arising with some frequency in Corinth — the religiously mixed marriage. A Christian is married, apparently unhappily, to an unbeliever. Should she initiate divorce, perhaps in order to remain pure of the taint of being joined with an unbeliever, even a worshipper of pagan gods?
Paul says no. The covenant of marriage is sufficiently binding, in the view of this rabbinically trained Jewish Christian, that even marriage to an unbeliever is not enough to justify ending it (7:10?14). Contrary to the decision for mass divorce of pagan partners mandated in the period of Ezra and Nehemiah, Paul has hope that the unbelievers (and their children) will be changed by the believers, not the other way around.
However, in a final twist, Paul does open the door to divorce (and, apparently, the morally justifiable prospect of remarriage) if the unbeliever "leaves" (7:15). In such cases the believer is not "bound" to the marriage (7:15, 27-28). Though the believer cannot initiate a divorce, he or she may be forced to accept it as a fact if initiated by their uncooperative and hostile partner. Why? "God has called us to live in peace" (7:15) and "How do you know ? whether you will save your [spouse]?" (7:15?16).
How shall we interpret these cryptic comments? Paul is doing three things here. First, he is acknowledging that "peace" in marriage has significance. This is a way of saying that the creation good of companionship matters, and that its opposite, constant conflict, is a dismal way to live. Second, in view of his earlier comments about marriage as a context for safe and sanctioned expression of the sexual drive, permanent separation without possibility of divorce or remarriage would also violate the creation good of sexual fulfillment (and open both people to the likelihood of sexual immorality). Finally, in noting that it is not always possible to win over a spouse to faith in Christ, Paul is recognizing that the covenant of marriage is deeply threatened by conflicting "religious" covenants on the part of the spouses. All three of these issues have surfaced in historic Christian treatments of divorce.
These texts have been relentlessly parsed for legalistic justification for and against divorce and remarriage for Christians. But that misses the point. Neither Jesus nor Paul wanted to emphasize when it might be permissible to divorce or remarry. Instead, they wanted to call believers to keep their marriage covenants and fulfill God's creation purposes in marriage.
Combing through both the texts and the history of their interpretation leaves me convinced that the best summary of a moral standard related to divorce is this: the covenantal structure of marriage is so binding that only a fundamental and irreparable breach of the marriage covenant can morally justify divorce.
Jesus, at least in Matthew, notes that sexual infidelity in marriage is a sufficiently grave violation of covenant that divorce might be permissible. Paul adds another possibility, desertion — by an unbelieving spouse. This text can be interpreted somewhat more broadly to encompass other covenant violations, and it has been read that way in Christian history. The church father John Chrysostom, for example, interpreted "desertion" in 1 Corinthians 7:15 to include situations in which an unbelieving spouse demands that a believer participate in pagan religious rituals or else part ways. He interprets the reference to "living in peace" in the same verse as speaking to the issue of violence: "If day by day he buffet thee and keep up combats on this account, it is better to separate."12 We have already seen that grave violation of the parental covenant in relation to a couple's children raises the serious possibility that covenant obligations to children may override covenant obligations to a covenant-breaking spouse. In short, it is impossible to offer any definitive list of covenant-destroying marriage misdeeds.
As for remarriage, here the history of legalism has had especially devastating consequences. Jesus linked remarriage and adultery in order to warn men that legal niceties do not cover over the reality of adulterous covenant-violating. If a man leaves his perfectly faithful and well-intentioned wife to go sleep with and eventually marry his secretary, he is adulterating his covenant with his wife (and his children), regardless of whether he can get a judge to give him a divorce decree. This is the point of the remarriage/adultery teaching, and it makes sense. Close reading of Paul's treatment of divorce in 1 Corinthians 7 helps us see that Jesus did not intend to bar all remarriage or classify all remarried persons as adulterers. He did intend to stop his hearers from finding false comfort in legal procedures that enable covenant breaking.
Philip Turner has pointed out that the root metaphor of a marital language of covenant is "relation." The Catholic tradition has employed a root metaphor of "substance" or "being."13 For historic Catholic thought, marriage is indissoluble because a metaphysical entity has supernaturally come into existence that literally cannot be destroyed. In shifting to the biblical language of covenant, the Protestant Reformers changed metaphors. For them, marriage is a human relationship with particular ends and particular obligations. Though the marriage covenant is solemn and binding, it is still relation-based — that is, it can be destroyed by the misdeeds of those human beings who participate in it. Divorce under such circumstances can be understood as the legal acknowledgment that the marriage covenant has been irreparably broken.
Does this mean that the marriage covenant was conditional, rather than unconditional? If so, how can it be said to be a covenant? If not, how can it be ended? This vexing question cannot easily be settled with reference to the Bible, because Old Testament covenant language is at times both unconditional ("I am making between me and you and every living creature a covenant for all generations to come" — Gen. 9:12) and conditional ("If you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession" — Ex. 19:5).
Margaret Farley has proposed a very wise answer to this dilemma. God's covenant promise is unconditional in that "it cannot be undone or withdrawn." Especially in light of the decisive act God undertook on the Cross, it is clear that "God's love is not pledged conditionally." But on the other hand, the nature of human response to God's unconditional love does matter, because the goal of God's covenant efforts is to establish and maintain relationships with people, and there can be no relationship that is not mutual, not two-sided. God reaches out to people in love and implores them to love him wholeheartedly in return (Mt. 22:36-40). God's goal in doing this cannot be reached unless people freely respond in love. And this God will not compel, indeed cannot compel, if he would respect their freedom as persons.14
The same thing is true in marriage. The covenant promises made on the wedding day are unconditional in that they are not revocable at will. They cannot simply be withdrawn. However, the nature of the covenant partner's response does matter. If you eventually respond to my covenant love with rejection, hatred, and infidelity, it does not affect the nature of my promises to you. But it does break my heart, because it annihilates the possibility of achieving the very goals to which we both once promised to give our lives. And if it becomes clear that the relationship the covenant was intended to establish, the goals we both committed to, the sacred vows we took, and the rules that were stipulated to achieve those goals, all stand in ruins, then even the most faithful covenant partner may have to acknowledge that the covenant is damaged beyond repair.
One puzzle remains: whether frustration in getting creation-based needs met might also constitute grounds for divorce. The case of fundamental covenant violations directly addressed by Scripture, like adultery and desertion, is fairly clear. But what about problems that go to the heart of the creation purposes of marriage: companionship in labor, life, and love, sexual relations, and family partnership?
My response remains a covenantal one. Part of what spouses promise to each other is to devote themselves to meeting one another's God-given sexual needs, bringing new life into the world together and raising that new life responsibly, sharing in the labors necessary to support a family, and providing for one another a measure of good-willed companionship. In other words, a good faith effort to meet one another's creational needs is itself part of the marital covenant.
Because human beings are imperfect sinners, we all fall short of fulfilling such promises in all their potential. Falling short in a way that can be expected of normal sinful human beings is not grounds for divorce. However, situations emerge in which a pattern develops of willful and repeated violations of both the letter and the spirit of such promises. Remember that covenants don't just stipulate behavior but they also establish a kind of marital community. This covenant-formed community hinges on a good-faith effort on the part of both parties to live out the relationship promised at its inception.
It is obvious that a pattern of physical and emotional abuse, the steady refusal of conjugal relations, the willful mistreatment or abuse of the couple's children, the refusal to contribute any effort to shared family labors either paid or unpaid, and the creation of an environment of unremitting hostility or hatred are all examples of violations of the covenant promises made on the wedding day. The circumstances in which such promise-breaking could create sufficient suffering to morally justify divorce cannot be determined by way of a general statement, but certainly such circumstances exist.
Covenants protect valuable relationships from harm. In Margaret Farley's words, "They take their meaning from the love they are designed to serve. They are relative in meaning and in value to the substance they help to frame."15 Biblical prohibitions against divorce support marital covenants and are aimed at protecting the innocent, especially women and children, from abandonment and harm. A certain measure of suffering is a reasonable price to pay to preserve a marriage covenant. But when a marriage relationship itself becomes fundamentally and irreparably harmful and oppressive, then it is probably the case that the marriage, rather than a divorce, poses the greater threat to the well-being of the most vulnerable.
The spouse suffering in such a marriage will likely consider divorce. But the Christian spouse in such a situation should not attempt to determine alone whether the state of affairs in his or her marriage constitutes a fundamental and irreparable breach of the covenant. One key role of the Christian community is to stand in the gap with suffering spouses and help them discern the nature of their moral obligations in times of great suffering — rather than turn away from them in their sorrow. In so doing, the community must take seriously both the marriage covenant and the current suffering. Mike Mason says that the marriage vows ask this question: "How dark a night are you prepared to pass through" with this person?16 In the middle of such a dark night — in the midst of a marital nightmare — no believer should find herself alone.
A Personal Word
This reflection on suffering in marriage could not have been written by a blissfully happy young newlywed. Neither, however, could it have been written by an unhappily married cynic. It is instead the product of a man whose own marriage has experienced a couple of very difficult seasons of suffering, primarily of my own making, before coming out in a healthier place on the other side each time.
While originally drafting this essay I discovered a fragment that I wrote at perhaps the worst moment that my wife Jeanie and I have ever faced. I was in great anguish, and was trying to think my way through it.
At the top of the page I wrote "Status of a Marriage." Under this heading I listed eight options:
- Ecstatic Union
- Intimate Partnership
- Cordial Friendship
- Peaceful coexistence
- Tense silence
- Active hostility
- Full-scale belligerence
- Irreconcilable brokenness
Irreconcilable brokenness
Finally, at the bottom of the page, I jotted these thoughts: "A marriage's status can vary over time. What to make of our swings between ecstatic union and active hostility? Should I seek to narrow the range (say, options 3-4) so the swings are not so intense? Right now I just want to move from 7 to 5 and perhaps to 4 for a goal."
I record these words publicly because they teach better than anything else a very important truth. Suffering comes in marriage, but if we endure, if we hold true, it does not necessarily stay. Darkness may come with the night, but joy comes in the morning.
As I write these words, I would place the "status of our marriage" at a 1. For several years now, we once again have had the joyful experience of consistently living at 1 or 2. Of course, these numbers are symbols and approximations. But they symbolize and approximate something very important. Seasons of suffering in marriage push individuals and couples to levels of endurance they may never have imagined having to reach. Such seasons test the strength of the marital covenant beyond what the blushing bride and groom could ever have envisioned on the day they took their vows. Those who have not (yet) gone through this vale of tears have no idea what it is like. Those who have been there know exactly what I am talking about.
Mike Mason was right in saying that we don't keep vows; the vows keep us. When covenant structures our marriage relationship, that covenant sometimes is the only thing that holds us. When my spouse for a time becomes my enemy, and none of those lovely creation-needs are getting met, still we have our covenant. Unless that covenant has been irreparably breached by my spouse, I have no moral right to breach it either, despite a time of misery. That remains my best statement of an ethic for divorce. Our covenant held, the crisis passed, and today we enjoy an immensely joyful marriage. What about you?
Read Part One
David P. Gushee is Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy and senior fellow of the Carl F. H. Henry Center for Christian Leadership at Union University.
Excerpted from Getting Marriage Right by David Gushee
Used by permission of Baker Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, Copyright © 2004 . All rights to this material are reserved. Materials are not to be distributed to other web locations for retrieval, published in other media, or mirrored at other sites without written permission from Baker Publishing Group.
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