Marriage and Virginity
10. A question I should now like to ask is about the case where a husband leaves his wife or a wife leaves her husband, not because of adultery but for celibacy, and he or she stays celibate.
Will anyone who marries the other partner be an adulterer or adulteress? If you say, "No!" then you contradict the Lord, as these are his words: It was said, however: Whoever divorces his wife must give her a bill of divorce. But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife except in the case of adultery causes her to commit adultery, and anyone who marries her after she has been divorced commits adultery (Mt 5:31-32). Note that she is the one divorced, not the one divorcing; and, because celibacy is only for the few, she gives in to her inability to be celibate and marries; and still it is an adulterer marrying an adulteress. Both are guilty, both deserve to be condemned, both the woman who married while her husband was still alive and the man who married the woman while her husband was still alive. Shall we say that Christ's law is inhuman in this case? It makes her guilty and punishable for that great crime, although her husband has divorced her without any previous adultery on her part and, because celibacy is only for the few, by divorcing her has driven her to remarry. Why do we not say here that the husband should be considered as dead, since by divorcing her wrongfully he broke the marriage bond first? By what reasoning can we say that someone who has not divorced his wife, even though he is an adulterer, has broken the marriage bond, while the one who has divorced his wife, even though she is chaste, has not broken the marriage bond? I say that this bond remains in both cases, because A woman is bound to her husband, as long as he lives (1
Cor 7:39), whether he is celibate or an adulterer, and consequently, because A woman is bound to her husband, as long as he lives, a woman who marries after being divorced commits adultery, and a man who marries her after she has been divorced commits adultery.
At present, however, we are arguing about the complaints of those who are unable to stay celibate. What seems fairer than this woman's complaint, who says, "I was the one divorced, I did not divorce him; and because celibacy is for the few, I have not stayed celibate, but to avoid committing adultery I have married; and because I have married, I am called an adulteress"? Should the law of God be changed because of this seemingly just complaint, so that we will not class her as an adulteress? Never! You will answer, however, that she should not have been divorced, since there was no prior adultery to justify it. What you say is true; the Lord pronounced on the husband's sin, when he said, Anyone who divorces his wife except in the case of adultery causes her to commit adultery (Mt 5:32). Does it follow then