Exodus 21:7-11 ESV “When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broken faith with her. If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.

1 Corinthians 7:15 ESV But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace.

A Christian woman was married to a wicked man for 25 years. Although the husband had vowed to love and cherish her until death parted them, he never did. His abuse of his wife might be called mere passivity. He just did not care. He was not available for a real relationship, focused himself on his own pleasures, ate the meals she cooked with unthankfulness and assumed he was as good as the next guy.

Is this abuse? “Well, yes.” Does this man’s wife have biblical grounds to divorce him? “Well, no,” you say? “No adultery. No desertion = no divorce. It’s that simple.”

Then let me complicate it for you.

A Christian woman was married to a wicked man for 25 years. He too had vowed to love and cherish her until death parted them, but neither did he. He was more active in the abuse of his beloved. He regularly used cutting words until her sense of self had almost died. He mocked her efforts to beautify the home and told her she was a pathetic mother (though he never lifted a hand to help with either the house or the children). Well, at least with the unpleasant aspects of child-rearing, like discipline or helping with schooling. He was not a drunk. He went to work regularly, but he controlled and begrudged every dollar she spent. And sometimes he would rage. Throw things. Smash a wall. Scream and yell about how stupid she was to do….whatever.

Is this abuse? “Well, yes, of course it is!” Does this man’s wife have biblical grounds to divorce him? “Hmmmm….no. No adultery. No desertion. No divorce. Still pretty simple.” And would you be willing to explain that to her? That GOD has bound her to this man and that if she divorces him she will be guilty of a most heinous sin? “Boy, that wouldn’t be easy, but I would have to do it. What God says about all of this is really very plain.”

Let me muddy up the waters for you some more then.

A Christian woman was married to a wicked man for 12 years. He turned from his vows to love and cherish her just about the time they left the church after the wedding ceremony. The honeymoon was actually a crime of rape. Three months later he choked her almost unconcious in a rage over, what was it now – his beer being warm. He told her that if she ever called the police on him he would kill her. You could write the script of the next 11+ years of hell, after which this woman barely knew who she was and she wondered – how can God let this happen to me and my children? Why doesn’t He send someone – a rescuer? But, of course, her Christian friends all reminded her many times that God hates divorce and that since all of us are sinners, she needed to look closely at herself to see where her faults were that contributed to the marriage “problems.”

It was in the 12th year of this marriage that final events occurred. Having realized that she just could not permit her children to be exposed to this evil man any longer, she resolved to leave. She developed a plan that would involve telling her husband in a public place that she was taking the children and leaving him that day. And so she did. She picked a restaurant. She and the two girls and their father ate a meal first – it had been a normal “walk on eggshells” day – after which this brave lady told him of her decision. After staring at her with those familiar cold eyes for what seemed like forever, he got up, went outside, and she thought it was over.

It wasn’t. He returned with a shotgun – right there in the restaurant – and without saying a word or making a sound, pumped a shotgun blast into each one of them. Just as cooly, it seemed, he turned and walked out. He was arrested and put in jail later that same day. The wife alone survived, though it was months before she recovered from her physical wounds. The other wounds, well – that is another story.

Is this abuse? “But of course! And of the most devilish kind!” Does this poor lady have grounds to divorce this beast called her husband? That is to say, what does God command her? I’m sorry, I can’t hear you very clearly. Could you speak up? Does this lady have biblical grounds to divorce this ‘man?’ Didn’t God say that the slave wife could go free from the marriage if her husband failed to provide food, clothing, and marital rights? Is murdering children and nearly killing their mother not a rather clear example of failing to provide life? So what do you say? What are you going to tell this lady? Does she have a right to divorce this murderer? And if your answer is no, then are you going to be the one to tell her so? Are you going to tell her that if she divorces the murderer of her children that she is guilty before God and that you will be forced to announce her sin to her church?