Matthew 19:6, 7 Why they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.… The law of marriage must be thought of as fixed for human beings before the Fall. Natural laws are not fixed in view of man's wilfulness and sin. They remain natural laws after man has sinned; but their application and practical working are modified by the new conditions and relations which sin has introduced. God made man male and female. God designed single pairs. God proposed lifelong faithfulness of the wedded pairs. There is no natural provision made for divorce, because such a thing has no place in the natural order. In the Divine idea human society is based on the mutually helpful relation in which one man and one woman may stand. Instability of human society comes when the family bond can be easily broken. The human infirmities which have necessitated modifications of the natural marriage laws are - I. CRUELTIES. It became necessary for woman to have some defence against man's violence. Natural law makes man and woman equals. They are different; but their faculties and sympathies are relative, and each is head in a way. But sin took first shape as masterfulness; and man, the stronger, took advantage of woman, the weaker, and made her his slave. There had to be adjustment of law to meet this condition and give due protection to the weaker one. "But for the possibility of divorce, the wife would have been the victim of the husband's tyranny; and law - social law - which has to deal with facts - not with what ought to be, but with what is - was compelled to choose between two evils." Woman's lot, even in civilized times, would often be intolerable but for the possibility and the fear of divorce. II. INFIDELITIES. This subject needs to be touched very wisely in a general audience; and yet there is no subject on which wise words are more pressingly demanded. It is one of the most serious of the mischiefs wrought by sin, that it has loosened men's control of bodily passion. And the mischief is wrought, not in man only, but also in woman. Infidelities make the continuance of natural relations impossible, though the modification of law, which permits divorce, makes no attempt to deliver man or woman from the power of their infirmity. - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. |
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