When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan.  Large crowds followed him, and he cured them there.  Some Pharisees came to him, and to test him they asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?"  He answered, "Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'?  So they are no longer two, but one flesh.  Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."  They said to him, "Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?"  He said to them, "It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.  And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another commits adultery."

"What God has joined together let no one separate."  Is the prevalence of divorce a sign of the loss of the sacred, the loss of the sense that it is God who joins a man and wife together, not themselves?  Marriage is so sacred that the prohibition of adultery is one of the ten commandments.  Adultery sounds so similar to idolatry which is prohibited by a commandment also.  Indeed the mystery of marriage is so great because it represents an even greater mystery: the union of Christ with the Church (Ephesians 5.32)  Idolatry is the severing of that relationship, adultery is the severing of the human relationship of which it is a sign.

Is the requirement to remain married to the same man or woman for life restrictive?  Is the requirement to have the same God for life restrictive?  The commandments can be seen as restrictive or liberating, depending upon one's spiritual state.  God would never give his children laws if they were not for good; all his actions are based in love.

"Let no one separate."  "Everyone who looks at another with lust has already committed adultery." (Matthew 5.28)  Therefore the lustful eye is one which separates.  A married couple separates themselves by gazing lustfully at others.  The movement of the eye betrays the heart.  In the same way the one who gazes with longing at the gods of the world has already committed idolatry in his heart.  Neither of these actions are the way to freedom.  (See Psalm 119.37)