Another argument on the interpretation of Matthew 5:32 and 19:9

Mark (10:11-12) and Luke (16:18) have rather simple and
straightforward statements on divorce and remarriage: if you divorce and
remarry, you’re in adultery. A standard interpretation is the Strict
View:

(SV) Divorce does not actually remove the marriage, and so if you
remarry, you’re still married to the previous party, and hence are
committing adultery.

It’s usual in the Christian tradition to restrict this to consummated
Christian marriage, and I will take that for granted.
However, Matthew has a more complex set of prohibitions:

Matthew 5:32: Anyone who divorces his wife, except on account of
porneia, makes her commit adultery, and anyone who marries a
divorced woman commits adultery.
Matthew 19:9: Anyone who divorces his wife, except due to
porneia, and marries another commits adultery.

There are several puzzles here. First, unlike in Mark and Luke, we
have exceptions for porneia, a generic term for sexual
immorality. There are two main interpretations of this exception:

Except when the wife has committed sexual immorality (most
commonly, adultery).
Except when the “marriage” constitutes sexual
immorality.

Reading (1) supports the Less Strict View:

(LSV) Except when your spouse has committed adultery, divorce does
not actually remove the marriage, and so if you remarry, you’re still
married to the previous party, and hence are committing adultery.

Reading (2) is based on the observation that not every legal marriage
is genuinely a marriage: the Romans, for instance, might have allowed a
couple to marry despite their being too closely related from the
Christian point of view. In such a case, their “marriage” is not a real
marriage but incest, a form of sexual immorality, and divorce is not
only permissible, but a very good idea. Note that on reading (2), we can
but need not suppose that Jesus verbally included the exception—the
inspired author might have added it for clarification because the issue
came up for converts, much as we put things in square brackets within a
quote to clarify the author’s meaning (there were no brackets in Greek,
of course).
Reading (2) has the advantage that it explains how all three Gospels
can be inspired, even though Mark and Luke have unqualified statements
of SV, since on reading (2) it is true that divorcing one’s
wife and remarrying is never permitted, but it is permissible,
of course, to divorce one’s partner in an immoral sexual relationship
that non-Christian society may call “marriage”. Note that the Greek for
“his wife” can literally just mean “his woman”, which makes the
disambiguation especially appropriate.
But I want to turn towards a different and more complex argument for
SV. Notice that in Matthew 5:32, instead of us being told that the man
who divorces his wife (or woman) commits adultery, we are oddly told
that he makes her commit adultery. But being a betrayed spouse
does not constitute adultery! What’s going on? Well, the good
interpretations that I’ve seen note that the social context is a society
where it is very difficult to be a woman without a husband. There will
thus be significant social pressure to marry or become a concubine,
either of which would constitute adultery against the first husband. The
realities of the day were such that very likely she would
succumb to the pressure, and the first husband would have caused her to
commit adultery, and thereby he would have earned himself something
worse than a millstone about the neck (Matthew 18:6). This reading also
nicely explains why Matthew 5:32, unlike the three other texts, does not
mention the man marrying another. For the woman is going to be exposed
to the social pressure to join herself to another man whether or not her
(first) husband marries another.
Note that this reading of “makes her commit adultery” prima
facie works on both readings of the porneia exception. On
the reading where the porneia is the wife’s adultery against
her husband, obviously if she is already committing adultery, by
divorcing her he isn’t making her commit adultery. On the reading where
the porneia is constituted by the immorality of the first
“marriage”, because the woman wasn’t really married to the man, if she
goes and marries another, she isn’t committing adultery.
Nonetheless, there is a serious problem for this reading of “makes
her commit adultery” on the Less Strict View and reading (1). While
Matthew 5:32 does not talk of the man marrying another, often the man
will marry another. So now imagine this story. There is a valid marriage
between Alice and Bob with no adultery, but Bob divorces Alice, and
marries Charlene. At this point, Bob is committing adultery
against Alice on both SV and LSV. Thus, if LSV is correct, then Alice is
entitled to divorce Bob and marry another, say Dave. But if she avails
herself of this, she isn’t committing adultery. In other words, if LSV
is correct, in many cases the first wife will be able to avoid
committing adultery without going against social pressures: she need
only wait for her first husband to marry, and then the “except on
account of porneia” clause on interpretation (1) frees her (and
since he’s already legally divorced her, she doesn’t need to do any
legal paperwork). (Of course, there will still be less common cases
where she is stuck, namely when the man fails to remarry. But such a
case wouldn’t be the rule, and Matthew 5:32 implies that leading the
woman to adultery is the rule rather than an exception.)
On SV, the problem for the reading of “makes her commit adultery”
entirely disappears. Whether or not the man remarries, there is social
pressure for the divorced wife to marry, and in doing so, she would be
committing adultery against the man.
Interestingly, there is a historically represented view that
avoids the Strict View, allows our interpretation of “makes her commit
adultery” and avoids the above interpretative problem, namely the quite
awful Asymmetric View:

(AV) A woman is not permitted to remarry after a divorce, whether or
not the first husband committed adultery against her, but a man is
permitted to remarry after a divorce if, and only if, the first wife
committed adultery against him.

Additionally, AV also explains why neither of the texts in Matthew
has an exception for porneia in the “anyone who marries a
divorced woman” clause, a minor weak point for LSV. (On SV and reading
(2) of porneia, we just note that one need not repeat a
parenthetical clarification every time.)
In fact, while there was controversy in the early centuries of
Christianity over remarriage and divorce following adultery, I
understand that it was mainly a controversy between advocates of SV and
AV, not between advocates of SV and LSV. However, AV was rightly
lambasted by St.~Jerome for being sexist, and I assume almost nobody
wants to defend it now.
Thus to sum up my argument for SV:

One of SV, AV and LSV is true, as they are the historically
plausible Christian views on marriage.
The right interpretation of “makes her commit adultery” is the
social pressure interpretation.
This interpretation is incompatible with LSV.
AV is false.
Therefore, SV is true.


https://alexanderpruss.blogspot.com/2024/10/another-argument-on-interpretation-of.html