Besides the seventh commandment forbidding adultery, the Law of Moses addresses marriage in other ways. It forbids certain kinds of marriage: to people outside of Israel, to close relatives, and for priests to prostitutes or divorced women. The Law prohibits remarriage to a wife after divorce, marriage to another man, and divorce from that man (De 24:1-5). This was the passage the Pharisees cited when they asked Jesus about divorce (Mt 19:3). A third rule in the Law of Moses was that a newly married man could not be sent to war for a year after his marriage. He was to stay at home and make his wife happy. Finally, the Law aimed not only at a happy wife but a free one, who could make her own vows without asking her husband first (Numbers 30), but her husband could annul her vows on the day that he heard of them. In that way, the wife’s freedom did not undercut family unity. In sum, the Law protected marriage by putting it above war’s demands for the first year of marriage, by prohibiting incest, and with a frown on divorce. It aimed at love, loyalty, and unity between husband and wife. |
