“Till death us do part.”
Those who say that the oath “to have & to hold, to love & to cherish & (in the case of the woman) to obey … till death us do part,” makes re-marriage after divorce sinful, have the “a priori” argument in their favour, no doubt. I shall here set down two points, which seem to me to favour the view that the universal law has exceptions.
The case where the marriage is pronounced null & void is hardly an exception, because (most would agree that) an oath taken under circumstances where its fulfilment is impossible even at the time of taking it (e. g. in the case of bigamy) is, in God’s sight, no oath, & can entail no obligation. Some might go to the extreme of saying that the oath is binding even then: such people would maintain that if a usurper deceives me into thinking him the true heir to the throne, & and so gets me to swear allegiance to him, I cannot escape that allegiance: but such assertions are hardly worth discussion.
The first of the two points is that where an oath is of mutual obligation, & where its purpose can only be effected when both parties observe it, the failure of one of the parties releases the other. A fair illustration of this would be the case of two travellers who are passing through a hostile country, & swear to help each other, & to supply each other with food, weapons, &c. If one turns traitor to the other, & plots against his life, he must be an extreme casuist who would say that the other is still bound to supply him with food & weapons. Applying this to the case of marriage, it certainly seems a very strong argument to say that the oath to have & hold, love & cherish, presupposes that both have taken the oath; that the thing becomes unmeaning when one side has ceased to observe it; & that so, by the act of the one (which of course is a breach of the oath & is sinful), the other is released from further obligations.
The other point is perhaps only another way of putting this point: it is that when the fulfilment of an oath becomes impossible, the oath is no longer binding—in other words, that it is no sin God’s sight not to do a thing which we cannot do. Now if one of the two parties in a marriage contract has broken it, & has ceased to have, hold, love, & cherish, it seams impossible that the other can continue to do these things: at any rate, to have, to hold, & to cherish, have become impossible, and to love (in the sense intended in the oath) is also impossible.
But the other side may urge that at least the other party can forbear marrying again, & that to this extent the fulfilment of the oath is still binding. It seems to me a fair question to ask how far the purpose, for which the oath was taken, is thus carried out: the answer must surely be that it can have no effect of the kind. Granting this, the only thing to be settled seems to me to be this: in which way is the will of God most fulfilled? A and B have entered into these mutual obligations. A has (sinfully, no doubt), broken & abrogated them: B’s further fulfilment of them has thereby become impossible: B has two course to choose between—either to remain unmarried for life, or at least till the death of A, even though the remaining so has no effect whatever on A—or to consider the oath as at an end, & that a second marriage is allowable. The latter course seems to me one that I should not dare to assert to be displeasing to God.
Those who object to all re-marriage, even after the death of a husband or wife, take a view that seems to me at variance with Scripture as well as with common sense.
July 22, 1877.