Theme:
The Dignity of Marriage
It
was not quite long ago that a friend was narrating to me, the difficulties her
sister was passing through in her matrimonial home. After revealing a lot of
horrible experiences the sister had undergone, I asked her what she would do if
she had been in her sister’s shoes. She said she will know what to do but never
gave me a specific answer. I further asked her what advice she gave to the
sister and she said “to divorce him”. It was an interesting chat but I was
eager to know her sister’s disposition in the marriage. From what I learnt, the
said sister accepted her condition in good faith and prefers to die in her
matrimonial home to a divorce.
In
our society today, it seems to me that most of the divorce cases are not
championed by the spouses themselves but by relatives and friends of the
spouses. A closer look at the present society will also reveal an increasing
rate of divorce. As a matter of fact, the dignity and sacredness of marriage is
fast washing away. This is because marriage is regarded as a social or business
contract that could begin or end whenever and anyhow one pleases. This was
perhaps the concept of marriage in the minds of the Pharisees who came to
question Jesus in the gospel reading (Mark 10:2-16). It was a test because they
wanted to know Jesus’ concept of marriage and know if it was in opposition to
popular tradition or the Mosaic tradition. The popular tradition held that a
Jewish husband could divorce his wife by pronouncing a divorce formula three
times in the presence of two male witnesses (called the triple express system).
But the Mosaic tradition held that the husband could only divorce his wife with
a letter of divorce (writ of dismissal).
