DIVORCE 5. Divorce is a man-made law whose objective is to legally separate those who are in fact already separated. It is not against God's law, since it only reforms what men have done and is only applicable in cases in which Divine law was not taken into account. If it was contrary to God's law the Church itself would be forced to consider as betrayers of a trust those of its heads who, by their own authority and in the name of religion, have imposed it on more than one occasion. In these cases it would have been a double betrayal of a trust because it only had worldly interests in view, and not the satisfaction of the law of love.
Even Jesus did not sanction the absolute indissolubility of marriage. Did He not say: "It was because of the hardness of your hearts that Moses permitted you to repudiate your women"? This signifies that ever since the time of Moses, when mutual affection is not the only motive for matrimony, separation could become necessary. Nevertheless, He added that: "In the beginning it was not like that," meaning that at the origin of humanity, when men were not yet perverted by selfishness and pride, and lived according to God's laws, the unions were derived from sympathy and not ambition or vanity. Therefore there was no desire to repudiate.
Jesus goes even further, because He specifies a case in which repudiation is justified: that of adultery. Well, adultery cannot exist where there is sincere reciprocated affection. It is true that He prohibited a man to marry a repudiated woman. But here we must take into consideration the customs and character of men in those times when the Mosaic law prescribed stoning to death. When wishing to abolish one barbaric custom, it was necessary to find a substitute penalty; and He found it in the disgrace which would come from the prohibition of a second marriage. It was to a certain extent one civil law being substituted by another. But like all laws of this nature, it had to pass the test of time.
