Easy Divorcism

Just how easy do you think divorce should be? A walk in the park, or years of torture?

Over the years I have coined a term, “Easy Divorcism'“, for the idea that we should make divorce ‘as easy as possible’, or even ‘as painless as possible’. One milestone in this path was ‘No fault divorce’, but it is far rom being the only one. One of the worst phrases in life right now is, “Whatever you decide, we will support you.” What a blasphemous repudiation not only of leadership but of morality.

It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement:

But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.

Matthew 5:31-32

The false teaching of Easy Divorcism is made more palatable to moderns by the fact that our society has undergone the death of shame. No, I’m not merely talking about what people wear in Walmart. The rot has gone far deeper than that.

It used to be that society as a whole enforced social mores. That when someone did something wrong, not rising to the level of illegality nor staying at the level of mere bad taste, society as a whole would react by shaming the individual concerned.

The book ’The Scarlet Letter’ took aim at this practice but it was nothing new to that age. From time immemorial society as a whole shunned, or at least looked askance, at people who violated their norms.

Divorce was such an action. From time immemorial there have been divorces, but for most of that time they were considered highly embarrassing. And high on the list of ‘actions to be disapproved of’. Along with similar actions such as out of wedlock childbearing or ‘living together’, people involved in divorce were frequently shunned, or at least cast out of the best society.

And on the other side of the equation the people themselves considered what they had done to be shameful. Or, more to our point here, they considered it shameful to contemplate doing it. A woman thinking of sleeping with a man not her husband would not only consider the difficulty of raising the child that might result, but would even more take into account her own feeling of shame for having done such a thing.

Similarly the person contemplating divorce would weigh their current circumstances not only against the possibility of a life alone, but a life under a crushing burden of shame. Self-produced shame.

Our current society reels with horror away from such a concept. The very idea that someone would feel shame is horrifying to them. Well, except for certain right wing people who should feel ashamed…

But what of the Scriptures? Let us consider the the story of Miriam. She was involved in a blatant act of disobedience against God, and was forgiven. But, God tells us, she still needs to be shamed. “If her father had spit in her face,” God asks us, “Would she not have stayed outside the camp in shame?” (Paraphrased).

And then let us look at the story of Tamar. Lured by her brother she was then raped by him… and she considered herself shamed! She ripped her clothes and went away wailing!

These examples, as well as the witness of history, tell us not only that God believes that shame is an important principle, but looking at the societies that practiced it we can see that the end result of our modern policy is that when people are not ashamed by their actions, they proceed into even worse actions. Our society accepted ‘no-fault divorce’, and we ended up with rampant divorce. Sodomy came ‘out of the closet’, and is now bringing in a whole host of other perversions all demanding to be recognised as ‘good’.

The death of shame is a bad thing. We need to work on bringing it back

Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints?

Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?

Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?

If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church.

I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren?

But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers.

Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?

Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren.

I Corinthians 6:1-8

One huge problem with easy divorcism is the resulting destruction it causes:

Husband

One of the easiest to see of the people destroyed in easy divorcism is the husband. Particularly in his relationship to his children.

One odd way in which the husband is destroyed is a descent into juvenility. The husband that, before, worked and came home to a family, now comes home to X-box. Sitting around talking with the guys at work, instead of talking about how his family is doing, he now talks about his latest high score or his newest game. Marriage was designed to encourage a man to ‘man up’. Divorce destroys that, and destroys him.

Wife

In modern divorce more often than not the wife is seen as the ‘victor’. She gets out from under an oppressive husband, gets alimony, child support, custody of the children…

But that is largely an illusion. Alimony and child support don’t make up for a man in the house, and custody of the children means that she is the one who gets to deal with destroyed children on a daily basis.

Children

Much has been written, and still needs to be written, on the destruction that divorce (and unmarried motherhood) does to children. In pretty much every measure children of divorced parents do worse than children of intact marriages.

Other marriages

One frequently ignored destruction caused by easy divorcism is the knock on effect on other marriages. For every one marriage that goes through an easy divorce (so called because of how easily the society and church and family allow it, not because it was easy to accomplish legally and financially, and certainly not because it was easy on the family) there are dozens that are negatively affected by it.

How so? Well, first and foremost easy divorcism is contagious. Many a marriage that would have survived well in earlier days jumps into divorce nowadays.

Conclusion

The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?

And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,

And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?

Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

Matthew 19:3-6

The above were some semi-random thoughts that I have had over the years. The point being that divorce is evil, and we need to treat it as evil. We need to stop excusing it and making it ‘easy’.

---

Thank you for reading Von’s Substack. I would love it if you commented! I love hearing from readers, especially critical comments. I would love to start more letter exchanges, so if there’s a subject you’re interested in, get writing and tag me!

Being ‘restacked’ and mentioned in ‘notes’ is very important for lesser-known stacks so… feel free! I’m semi-retired and write as a ministry (and for fun) so you don’t need to feel guilty you aren’t paying for anything, but if you enjoy my writing (even if you dramatically disagree with it), then restack, please! Or mention me in one of your own posts.

If I don’t write you back it is almost certain that I didn’t see it, so please feel free to comment and link to your post. Or if you just think I would be interested in your post!

If you get lost, check out my ‘Table of Contents’ which I try to keep up to date.

Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,

Von