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Dear Bálint —
There were two stages to a Jewish
marriage.
- The first step was called
betrothal; this is when vows (troths)
were exchanged. This is the stage
that Mary and Joseph were in. After
betrothal, the man would go and build
a home for the two to live in and
establish himself.
- Some time later,
the marriage proper occurred. He
would then take her into his house
and consummate the marriage.
Joseph and Mary were not engaged in our sense of the word. They were
betrothed, which meant that they
had legal obligations to one another
but did not have conjugal rights.
A divorce was required to get out
of a betrothal. We still have betrothals,
but they occur in the context of
the wedding liturgy. (it's the exchange
of vows.)
Jewish divorce, whether married or
betrothed, was a pretty simple affair.
Jesus prohibited remarrying even
if someone had confessed his sins
because confessing sins doesn't invalidate
or dissolve the original marriage,
it only addresses the sins.
Look
at it this way: If you marry someone,
commit adultery, then obtain a civil
divorce and marry the person you
committed adultery with, you are
not really repentant of your adultery
if you continue to commit it, that
is, have relations with the second
woman. Nothing changes the state
of your marriage with the first woman,
which lasts until death.
I'm not sure I understand your last
question.
- Are you asking why the Church
allows the original couple to
divorce (if the remarrying spouse
and his new spouse have not had
sexual intercourse before the
divorce)?
I think the answer here is that divorce
is a civil action. The Church does
not really approve or have control
over it, except she tolerates it
as a way of securing crucial civil
rights, such as protection from abuse,
visitation rights. or so forth. Morally,
she simply does not recognize it.
She treats marriages as valid until
the death of either spouse or until such time as they
(the marriages) are demonstrated
in a Church tribunal to have been, for
some defect occurring at the point
of the marriage, invalid from
the beginning. (This is called a declaration of nullity.)
Eric
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