We live in times where romantic intimacy begins at school and where family structures have depleted leading to a sea of social change where ideas of relationship and romance have been customized based on an individual make depending on their own circumstances. Today, nations are in conflict with the idea of marriage as an institution, child rearing, same sex marriages, LGBTQ and faced with tough policy decisions, often in conflict with the interpretations of the Church.

Globalization, industrialization and 21st century freedom has led to marriages crumbling and divorces sky-rocketing. Marriage is no longer viewed as a serious feature and the hype of marriages have faded away, as today men and women have several relationships prior to entering marriage and often marriage is reduced to a social contract if not a business deal, at times becoming a playground for making wealth at the expense of another. Today matrimonial alliances are looked at based on wealth, salary, asset, inheritance and status, rather than a pure form of love which has disappeared into thin air. People are quick to pass judgements at the drop of the hat, yet do not realize their own piled up mess among their very own. Never before has any generation or society come closer to achieving absolute independence yet been so fragile in their thought process and driven so deeply by greed and calculations, peddled with special interests, if not outright hate.

While, the Holy Bible teaches us values and virtues of building a family, there is enough material in the Holy Bible which justifies divorce for a person when the other is filled with acts of immorality and unchastity which often arrives in different forms. This also serves as an encouragement to people who have been stuck in broken or empty marriages, often due to parental pressure or social status or because they have not been able to seek inspiration from the Bible, possibly at times being guided by those who may want to look at a social doctrine often from a limited lens. The often-quoted statement in defense of marriage is Mark 10:9 which says “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” But viewed from a social lens, God doesn’t join together any alliance built on social and commercial calculations, much less built on opinion of multiple family members. It is said in Isaiah 55: 8-9, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,neither are your ways my ways,declares the Lord.As the heavens are higher than the earth,so are my ways higher than your waysand my thoughts than your thoughts.” It is the same very God, through Jesus Christ who shows the way, either for a life in marriage, or an exit from a toxic relationship warranting a divorce. When righteous men and women are caught in places they should not be at, that is a sign where God is preparing them for better things, and using that occasion as a learning curve and to teach God’s holy people the right path forward. So, when God is altering a course, hardline social doctrines of the Churchbecome increasingly irrelevant before God, because as Psalm 37:23-24 says “the Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble, they will never fall, for the Lord holds them by the hand.”

Jeremiah 29:11-13 says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” No doubt, Christian theologians and historians will say this was meant for the people in Babylonian exile, but our world today is no different from a Biblical Exodus. Further, if the Lord could delight in his people in ancient times, imagine, how much the Lord delights in us today, as we are a chosen generation which so firmly believes in Christ as the light of the world,although we have never seen Christ physically, yet believe. The Lord has shown so many signs and miracles even to this day, so that we don’t remain blinded by intellectual reasoning, but walk by faith alone.

Extrapolating the Bible teachings, serves to conclude that divorce is justified when filled with acts of cruelty and immortality and lacks basic elements of fraternal love. The basic doctrine central to Christianity stems from the timeless creed inspired & taught by Jesus Christ as documented in John 13:34, which is “A new commandment I give to you, love one another as I have loved you.”

This commandment holds critical to the foundations of marriage and the sacrament in the true sense of the term. However, when someone’s path in this world is marked by acts of cruelty, hate, fraud, greed and immortality, they have failed the first test as a human being, beyond their primitive make. Today’s environment has fostered men and women who have lost their ability to think clearly on their wants and needs and goals in life. This has led to a weak thought process devoid of honesty, values, integrity and above all, decency of any standard.

In Mathew 19:9, Jesus approves of divorce on grounds of unchastity and immorality. In fact, in the Letter of Paul to the Romans 13:8, Paul highlights that love alone is the fulfilling of the law. This naturally teaches us that be it a friendship, a courtship or a marriage where intimacy of any form is involved, love must reign through the Sovereign will of Christ. Thus, in anti-thesis when hate guides the relationship on foundations of immorality whether sexually, whether behaviorally, whether mentally, whether physically, whether incidentally, whether motivated by sinful intentions, the right thing for a person to do is exit such toxic relationships. Sexual immorality stems from moral turpitude, behavioral bankruptcy, acts of cruelty, adultery, bigamy, absence of faith, absence of love, acts of hypocrisy & consistent pathological lying and violence of any form.  At the end of the day, marriage is just a piece of paper, it takes love, trust, honesty and faith to make it work, that holds good for any relationship as a matter of fact. The beauty of a marriage thrives on the fraternal teachings of Christ, centered solely around acts of love and the infinite abundance of God’s divine providence. Thus, siding on the paths of righteousness through faith remains integral as in Romans 3:22 it is said, that “For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. They are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

While Christ’s sacrifice saves all, Sirach in 26:7 highlights that “a bad wife is a chafing yoke, taking hold of her is like grasping a scorpion.” Likewise, there is ample narratives to suggest how a marriage must be pursued with the right partner as a wrong partner can be a scorpion. Nevertheless, it is a given that God’s fraternal love protects the righteous always through Isaiah 54:17 which states “No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against you in judgment you shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, says the LORD.”

For too long, customized and wrongful interpretations have pushed God’s holy people on guilt trips and many have refrained from taken decisions that are morally necessary. Many have suffered silently at the hands of scorpions who have twisted the Law of Love and the Sovereign Will of Christ to suit their narratives. The sky-rocketing trend of divorce today is a direct off-shoot of a broken generation that has deviated from Christ, who no longer value families, whose priorities in life are misplaced& misguided, who indulge in pathological lying to establish a union and who enter into marriage more from a business perspective rather than an act of love and grace. A marriage simply cannot work when one partner is driven by acts of cruelty and greed & the other partner made to belief that’s a match made in heaven, wherein fact it’s a disaster made by man for man and heaven had no role to play. The hardline imposition by the Catholic Church to pursue marriage when the commandment of love is absent, calls for re-thinking meaningfully drawing inspiration from the Holy Bible, besides aligning jurisprudence to modern times. In Galatians 5:19-21, scripture mentions the sinful works of the flesh, which includes the sins “immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing and things like these” all such things become a natural ground for divorce when such stressors remain a constant in the life of anyone. No doubt, relationships must be kept respectful and integrity must be retained. But when a person has pursued paths of evil, walking out of such relationships becomes morally necessary to uphold the work of God, diligently. Even Christ surrendered to the will of God, when his own Disciple Judas Iscariot betrayed him. Christ was crucified upon this betrayal, but God’s chosen people today have the ability to walk out of toxic and combative marriages and relationships. The Church must serve to facilitate exits when the writing is on the wall.

The Holy Bible in too many places in the Old Testament and New Testament has clearly highlighted a way of life that Christians are called to live. When this way of life has been hijacked by external preferences and circumstances, it naturally gets reflected in the person’s conduct and character. A deviant character perverted by the influences of the times, has already gone far too away from God. For such deviant characters’ to pursue a partnership in marriage is beyond moral consciousness.

In Galatians 5:22 the fruit of the Spirit and the general dictum of any relationship remain impressed upon, which says, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,peace, forbearance,kindness,goodness, faithfulness,gentleness and self-control.” When anyone in any relationship has deviated from this fruit of the Spirit, the Heaven’s will rejoice when wisdom prevails on the victims of time and circumstance and God’s chosen people take the right decisions to walk out, fully inspired by prayer, faith and Christ’s eternal embrace.