“Whosoever Shall Put Away His Wife Saving for the Cause of Fornication, Causeth Her to Commit Adultery”

Joseph F. McConkie, Robert L. Millet

In the Old World, carnal and fallen men had begun to take advantage of the divorce laws in their culture. Though marriage had been established in the beginning as a religions institution, a rite intended to bind the participants forever, yet in the days of Moses divorce had been permitted “because of the hardness” of the hearts of the people (see Matthew 19:3-8).

By the time of Christ the situation had degenerated markedly. One historian writes: “Among Jesus’ Jewish contemporaries no one questioned the legitimacy of divorce. The only question was what constituted adequate grounds; and it was this question of grounds, not the legitimacy of divorce as such, that split religious schools into opposing factions.

The teacher Shammai, for one, took the conservative position: the only offense serious enough to justify divorce was the wife’s infidelity. Shammai’s opponent Hillel, famous for his liberal judgments, argued instead that a man may divorce his wife for any reason he chooses, ’even if she burn his soup!’ The well-known teacher Akiba, who agreed with Hillel, added emphatically, ’and even if he finds a younger woman more beautiful than she.’” (Elaine Pagels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, pp. 13-14.)

Given his understanding of life among the Palestinian Jews in the meridian of time, one can appreciate why the Savior would desire the reform of a system that allowed men to slip capriciously in and out of marriage. His was a call to a higher righteousness, an invitation to consider carefully the sacred nature of marriage and the importance of fidelity and commitment between married partners.

Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 4

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