Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/472

460 of the fundamental social nature of man in both its physical and spiritual expression; and so long as it is monogamous, to be characterized by the modesty that is possible alone in such a relation; so long must it be unbreakable by statute. Divorce by Jesus is regarded as impossible, except as a formal recognition of an already broken union. As marriage gives rise to an actual union of personalities, it can be broken only by an actual severance of this union. When this is not the case, law can no more annul it than it can annul an arch. "What God has joined together let no man put asunder." In this again Jesus was in contrast with his times. The astonishing laxity which prevailed among the fashionable clique at Rome, even if all due allowance be made for the natural exaggeration of moralists and poets, is well known from the literature of the empire, to say nothing of the early Christian writers. But the same tendencies were at work among the less corrupt circles of Judea. There, too, the general laxity in regard to divorce was quite as striking. The liberal school of Hillel was here more the offender than that of Shammai. By an exceedingly broad interpretation of Deut. 24:1 (the sole ground for divorce in the Mosaic code), it was judged permissible to divorce a wife if she had spoiled her husband's dinner, and later, if we are to accept the words of R. Akiba, even if the husband discovered a woman more to his liking. Jesus was in fact opposed by his countrymen, to whom, thanks to the popular teaching, his doctrine seemed fanaticism. Moses, they objected, had allowed divorce, had even commanded that a "bill of divorcement" should be given in case of separation.