Again, this law was not written with the same cultural assumptions about marriage that we practice today. Abraham, Israel, Judah, David, Solomon, and others had multiple wives. Polygamy was perfectly acceptable in their culture. Read Deuteronomy 24 again in the context of polygamy rather than monogamy and see if you don’t begin to see how problematic the passage is. “Displeases?” What does that mean?
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(Read this series from its beginning here.)
The culture when this law was written was predominantly heterosexist and deeply patriarchal. Only men could have multiple wives; there was no egalitarian practice here. And only men could divorce their wives. Under this law, a woman could be divorced by her husband for any reason. Women under this law were vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, and they had precious little recourse.
So deeply ingrained was this patriarchal way of practicing divorce that even the otherwise economic justice minded prophet Jeremiah describes Israel’s God as also participating a patriarchal form of divorce (see Jeremiah 3:8).
After the Jewish people began returning from Babylonian exile, monogamy began gaining prominence over polygamy in Jewish society (see Monogamy, Jewish Encyclopedia).
Monogamy later became further reinforced within Jewish culture through both Greek and Roman occupation. Both cultures socially enforced martial monogamy. The Romans defined marital monogamy as policy (sexual monogamy was a separate, personal matter).
While divorce was only permitted for husbands in Jewish society, in Roman law, divorce was more egalitarian. That is, a woman could divorce her husband just as readily as a man could divorce his wife. In telling Salome’s story, Josephus contrasts the Roman and the Jewish practices of divorce:
“But some time afterward, when Salome happened to quarrel with Costobarus, she sent him a bill of divorce and dissolved her marriage with him, though this was not according to the Jewish laws; for with us it is lawful for a husband to do so; but a wife; if she departs from her husband, cannot of herself be married to another, unless her former husband put her away. However, Salome chose to follow not the law of her country, but the law of her authority [Roman], and so renounced her wedlock;” (Josephus, Flavius. The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged, Delmarva Publications, Kindle Edition, Location 18908)
Josephus also gives us some insight into how a man divorced his wife in his own society and the time in which our reading this week is set:
“He that desires to be divorced from his wife for any cause whatsoever, (and many such causes happen among men,) let him in writing give assurance that he will never use her as his wife any more; for by this means she may be at liberty to marry another husband, although before this bill of divorce be given, she is not to be permitted so to do: but if she be misused by him also, or if, when he is dead, her first husband would marry her again, it shall not be lawful for her to return to him.” (Josephus, Flavius. The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged, Delmarva Publications, Kindle Edition. Location 5363)
Within Jesus’ society, the Pharisees hotly debated the subject of divorce. This is the context of our reading this week. We’ll consider elements of this debate and what they may reveal to us in our context, next.
(Read Part 3)
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