Thinking about South Carolina’s governor Mark Sanford got me thinking about Chapter 19 of the Gospel According to Matthew. With the news that Jenny Sanford is effectively separating from her husband, I note that Jesus never contemplated that she might have the right to divorce him.
Some came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
“Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
Mr. Sanford, who says he is a very religious man, can only divorce his wife if she was unfaithful to him, but Jesus says nothing about a wife being able to divorce her husband when he flies off to Argentina to have sexual relations with his lover. This is a very convenient arrangement for the man.
