Dist. 35, Art. 1, Q. 4
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/4/d/35/q/bon-sent-IV-d35-a1-q4
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### Question IV. *Whether, once a divorce has been celebrated, the man may take another wife, or the wife another husband.*

Fourthly it is asked whether, once a divorce has been celebrated, the man may take another wife, or the wife another husband. And that he may not, seems [to be the case].

1. First to the Corinthians, chapter seven: *I command, not I but the Lord, that the wife depart not from her husband; but if she depart, that she remain unmarried.*

2. Likewise, Augustine *On the Good of Marriage*: « Between the living there remains the conjugal bond, which neither separation nor union with another can take away ».

3. Likewise, *by reason* it seems [so]: because, if one [party] could marry [again]; since matrimony does not limp [i.e. is not one-sided], both could marry: therefore, as often as some woman wished to have another man, she could have [him] by fornicating; which is foolish to say.

4. Likewise, if on account of fornication the matrimony were wholly dissolved: then if someone knew [carnally] his wife, from the fact that she has fornicated, since there would no longer be matrimony between them, he would sin mortally; which is unfitting to say.

**On the contrary:**

1. Hosea, chapter two: *She is not my wife, and I am not her husband;* the Gloss: « Because she has not left her former errors »: therefore the soul which does not leave its errors is not the wife of God: therefore by a similar [reasoning], if it is so in the thing signified and in the sign, the woman who does not leave her fornications is not the wife of [her] husband; and if this [is so]: therefore the man may marry another.

2. Likewise, Matthew, chapter nineteen: *Whoever dismisses his wife and marries another, except for the cause of fornication, commits adultery:* therefore, if the exception is correct, it is permitted, for the cause of fornication, to dismiss a wife and marry another.

3. Likewise, *by reason* it seems [so]: because by committing adultery she divided her own flesh; but the Sacrament of matrimony is that they be *two in one flesh*: therefore the Sacrament is dissolved through fornication: therefore there is no longer matrimony there.

4. Likewise, after a divorce the man is bound to the wife in nothing, neither as to paying the debt nor as to cohabitation: therefore someone is loosed from the law of the wife; and if this [is so]; since a man loosed from the law of the wife can contract [marriage], it seems, etc.

> **Conclusion.** A divorce made on account of adultery does not separate the matrimony — provided it was legitimately contracted — as to the bond, but only as to the debt and cohabitation.

**I respond:** It must be said that a divorce can take place in two ways: either because the persons were *illegitimate* for contracting with one another simply — and then either may marry the other, as was distinguished above. It can also take place *on account of the crime of fornication* — and then neither the man nor the woman can contract [marriage]; because, since the persons were legitimate, there was between them a Sacrament, which is an indissoluble bond. Hence a divorce is not a separation as to the sacramental bond, but as to the debt and cohabitation.

*To 1.* To that, then, which is objected, that the soul of a fornicator is not the wife of God; it must be said that matrimony is not principally the Sacrament of *this* [union], but of the *conjunction of the divine and human nature,* which is in no way dissolved; therefore it is not similar.

*To 2.* To that which is objected concerning the Lord's exception, it must be said that the exception does not refer to both acts, but to *one* only, namely to the act of dismissal; hence that saying has three grounds of truth; hence, since it proceeds to one [act] only, it becomes [a fallacy of] the *consequent.*

*To 3.* To that which is objected, that the Sacrament is dissolved: it must be said that this is not from the *necessity* of the Sacrament — that the flesh be undivided — but from [its] *nobility* and dignity. For although the flesh of one is divided, nonetheless they are *two in one flesh*.

*To 4.* To that which is objected, that after a divorce the man is bound to the wife in nothing, nor conversely; it must be said that although he is bound to render nothing, nonetheless he is still sacramentally bound; and since he is bound to her as long as he lives, therefore he cannot be bound to another.