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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Women In Islam Versus Women In The Judaeo-Christian Tradition: The Myth & The Reality Divorce The three religions have remarkable differences in their attitudes towards divorce. Christianity abhors divorce altogether. The New Testament unequivocally advocates the indissolubility of marriage.

It is attributed to Jesus to have said, “But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.”(Matthew 5:32) This uncompromising ideal is, without a doubt, unrealistic. It assumes a state of moral perfection that human societies have never achieved. When a couple realizes that their married life is beyond repair, a ban on divorce will not do them any good.

Forcing ill-mated couples to remain together against their wills is neither effective nor reasonable. No wonder the whole Christian world has been obliged to sanction divorce. Judaism, on the other hand, allows divorce even without any cause.

The Old Testament gives the husband the right to divorce his wife even if he just dislikes her: “If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man, and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies, then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled.”(Deut.

24:1-4) The above verses have caused considerable debate among Jewish scholars because of their disagreement over the interpretation of the words “displeasing”, “indecency”, and “dislikes” mentioned in the verses. The Talmud records their different opinions: “The school of Shammai held that a man should not divorce his wife unless he has found her guilty of some sexual misconduct, while the school of Hillel say he may divorce her even if she has merely spoiled a dish for him.

Rabbi Akiba says he may divorce her even if he simply finds another woman more beautiful than she.”(Gittin 90 a-b) The New Testament follows the Shammaites opinion while Jewish law has followed the opinion of the Hillelites and R. Akiba[^1].