Why do some Christian churches teach that remarriage is adultery, unless the ex-wife/husband cheated? Or their ex pass away? I have heard this argument, particularly in the pentecostal and hard-line Baptist movement. What does the Bible really teach on the subject? I searched this forum and found references to very old canon. It was not really helpful to me.
There is no divorce in the Catholic Church. Separation is permissible if the couple remain celibate, when living together leads to conflict, then to anger, and other sins. If a spouse leaves for another, he or she is an adulterer- persists in mortal sin.
The spouses participate in the act of God's creation, which the Church maintains is the purpose of marriage so this sacrament can be pronounced as having never been valid
ex post facto, if one side had failed to disclose certain medical conditions like infertility or a terminal disease. Total honesty is expected so that both understand what they're entering into, in any event, all of that should come out during the marriage preparation process they go through with the pastor.
One Polish guy I know married an Irish girl who never told him she didn't want children, or at least not with a guy like him at that time. She was cheating with her boss, while he was deployed to Iraq, he'd joined the National Guard to get some help paying for engineering school, their marriage was annulled based on that prenuptial lack of transparency. After the dark period, and a lot of praying by his father who also went to
Guadalupe to ask Our Lady for help, it turned out great for him in the end- a large gaggle of children with a real American country girl.
The Catholic Church cannot contradict the Gospel, her stance has always been like that of those Baptists you brought up.
This is Jesus
speaking:
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?
Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, for this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh. Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away? 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.
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.
Notice how in the last sentence Jesus does not implicitly permit divorce, he just points out two instances of how a man can become an adulterer. If they are one flesh, as I see it, the immorality of one taints both. A pure woman shouldn't look for a divorced man, even if his wife is the guilty party.
As a Protestant you can look at this, where they discuss it further:
Anabaptists presents 'What does the exception clause mean?' from What the Bible Says about Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage, a book by John Coblentz published by Christian Light Publications.
www.anabaptists.org
... espoused partners were referred to as husband and wife (see Matthew 1:19 and 20 -- "Joseph her husband" and "Mary thy wife"). Therefore to break an espousal in Jewish society required a legal separation -- a writing of divorcement equivalent to that required of married couples.
According to this view, Jesus' exception was aimed primarily at this Jewish situation. He was saying, in other words, that divorce is wrong, except the putting away of an espoused partner who is unfaithful during engagement.
Joseph was in such a predicament when he learned that Mary his espoused "wife" was with child. "Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily"
In the Gospel of Mark it
says:
And in the house his disciples asked him again of the same matter. 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.
This is what Saint Paul says (suggested by
Biblehub):
1 Corinthians 7:10-11
To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.
1 Corinthians 7:39
A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, as long as he belongs to the Lord.
Romans 7:2-3
For instance, a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. So then, if she is joined to another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man.
