DIVORCE, Christian Law of. Under tk sa divorce are included several aeparatioitf of aao^ persons which are quite nnlike one anodier. Fe& they may have been Joined in nnlawlbl vt&ei ' when near relationship waa a bar to tkdr mm. and the law, on ascertaining this fed, dedsa te they never were legally married. Such m tbi or where Henry YIII of England was sepni^ 6^ his first wife by an ecdeeiastical court, sad n Re- mitted to marry again; or, as it woold htmm?^ er to say, was declared noTer to hsve been vasai at alL Cases of this kind are properly not 6tm^ but annulments of marriage, or dedsntiosf i^ nullity of the marriage. They occur in all m^cc^ and against them the precepts of Christ mtAie rected. Only it is a dn of legisIstiaD, sad t tfi to men, if the obstacles to marriage ttt^u^^ in Catholic countries, made too nomerooft. hie'^ ly, there are separations of persons ]xMijweai which involve the hnpoeaibOity for eitiwrtftkBk marry again during the life of the other. Ttimi» often called divorces or separations amtma^^" and sometimes separations merely. FbsOjr, tbot^ divorces proper, or separations a maih miitm» dissolutions of a marriage originally liwia^ wiAlBf- ty given to one or both parties to omtracti sevc^ riage. It is these two last kinds of dirofce l»«^ we shall confine ourselves in the preeeat srtkk.
At the time when Christ appeared in the ^* very great laxity of divorce prevailed in tk i^ which have had the greatest inflnence on tk pp* of mankind. Among the Jews, as his bees iM 4i* the husband coold reyndiate his wife te uyn**
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zlk rendered her society distasteful to him, and was '• reqtLired by the law to give her a formal notice to idrair from his house. The wife, it is true, had no 1 liberty, and yet ladies of the higher classes among J eirs i^eie beginning to act as if they had. Among Greeks and Romans, both husband and wife had ost unrestricted power of divorce in their hands ; only could they separate by mutual agreement, but ler party could loose the marriage bond with tittle tio formality. Among the Bomans, originally se- e in observing the laws of fiunily morality, there L been a gradual declension through- several oentu- I until the days of Christ. At that time the em- or Ao^nstus attempted by a system of laws to put top to the alarming neglect of marriage, to the fiwe- n of divorce in certain respects, and to the frequen- of adultery. Loss of more or less dower, or obli- ;\on to pay it back, fell on the culpable author of I divorce, and severe penalties were inflicted on an ilterous wife and her paramour. But Roman man- rs were too corrupt to be mi^e better by the leges Urn relating to these points. The higher classes ictised divorce and committed adultery almost oJ itum, and the lower lived to a considerable extent in Qcubina^. The evil remained uncured. The em- ror Septimins Severus, as Dion Cassius says (lib. , § 16), who had the records in his hands, and was nsnl under this sovereign, instituted three thousand osecations for adultery at the beginning of his reign ; It manners were too strong for law, and it all went r nothing.
Meanwhile the commands of Christ in relation to vorce were a slowly-working leaven, thrown into his harch to keep it pure, and, through the Church, des- ned, more or less, to influence legislation, and to aid iose other influences by which the Gospel sought to moble fiimily life. These precepts of the Master arb mtained in Matt, v, 81, 82 ; xix, 8-10 ; Mark x, 2-12, id Luke xvi, 18« to which the teaching of Paul in 1 <iT. vii, 10-15, is to be united as an important supple- lent. We propose to give the substance of the in- Tuctions in the New Testament concerning divorce nder several heads, but have not space to defend our ositions as fhlly as we could wish. 1. The Uberty iven to a man by the Mosaic law to put away his rife " because he found some nncleanness'* or some- tiing oflbnsive ip her (Deut xxiv, 1) was an accom- lodation to the hardness of the Jewish heart, and did lot harmonize wiih the original declarations concern- og the nature of marriage. 2. He, therefore, who •uts away his wife, except on the ground of her fomi- ation, and marries another, commits adultery (Blatt. dx, 9), and he who thus puts her away leads her to com- ait the same crime (Matt, v, 82). 8. He who marries t woman that iias been divorced commits adultery, and be woman who puts away her husband and marries mother man (Mark x, 12) incurs the same kind of piilt, which is a precept that seems to look beyond the tfosaic code, under which no liberty of initiating di- vorce was conceded to Jewish women, to the practices of heathen lands. We may observe in regard to these passages, jErs^, that Mark and Luke do not record the exception preserved in Matthew, ** excepting for the cause of fornication," but the plain reconciliation of the passages mnst be found in the principle that an exception in a fuller document must explain a briefer one, if this can be done without force. Now, as di- vorce for that one reason was admitted by all, Mark and Luke might naturally take this for granted with- out expressing it. Becondly^ by fornication is intend- ed a sexual crime since the beginning of the marriage state committed by either of the parties with a third I)er8on, i. e. adultery begun or completed. And the exceedingly rare crime of sodomy, or bestiality, as the greater, may be fiiirly included in the less, adultery. Again, (fttrdfjr, the exception is the sole exception. It ctnnot be said with any honesty that Christ, in sayhig