Two grounds are named outright. Understanding why those two are named is what tells you how to read the situations Scripture does not list by name.
The biblical reasons for divorce stated outright are two. Sexual unfaithfulness in Matthew 19:9, and desertion by an unbelieving spouse in 1 Corinthians 7:15.
But a list is the wrong thing to take away. Both grounds describe a covenant the other person has already broken or abandoned. Understanding that shape is what tells you how to read situations Scripture never names.
And one more thing before anything else. These texts were given to protect people who had no protection. Using them to trap somebody reverses them.
Not a permission but a regulation of something already happening. A certificate is required, which in that world was a document protecting the woman's status. The phrase some indecency is left undefined, and that vagueness starts an argument that lasts centuries.
Addressed to men discarding the wives of their youth. The Hebrew of verse 16 is genuinely difficult, and many modern translations now render it as the man who hates and divorces does violence rather than I hate divorce.
In the Sermon on the Mount, with the exception for porneia included. Jesus notes that a man divorcing lightly makes his wife the one who suffers the consequence, which is a comment on who bore the cost.
The test question, the appeal to Genesis, the hardness of heart, and the exception clause in Matthew. Mark records it without the exception and adds that a woman may divorce a husband, which was not a Jewish legal option.
Paul repeats the teaching, then addresses a case Jesus never spoke to: a believer married to an unbeliever who leaves. Let them go, he says. The brother or sister is not bound in such circumstances.
Paul is already applying the teaching to a case Jesus did not address, and the New Testament records him doing it. That is the pattern the church has always had to work with.
Matthew 19:3 is not an innocent question. It is the exact phrasing of one side in a live dispute, and Jesus is being asked to take a position.
One school held that the some indecency of Deuteronomy 24:1 meant sexual misconduct and nothing else. A high bar, and the minority view.
The other school read it so widely that trivial domestic complaints qualified. This was the popular position, and it was in practice a permission slip.
Matt Skinner notes that for most women in that culture “survival depended upon being a member of a household”.
Refuses their frame and goes back to Genesis 2. He answers a question about grounds with a statement about what marriage is, which is a different kind of answer entirely.
That last move is the one people miss. Jesus is not tightening the rules on people in bad marriages. He is confronting men who were discarding wives casually in a system where a discarded woman had almost no way to eat. Read it as a protection and it makes sense. Read it as a trap and it does the opposite of what it was for.
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Manage My Giving"Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."2 Corinthians 9:7
Every article on this subject gives you the two grounds. Almost none of them address the situation that actually sends people looking.
Scripture does not name abuse, and that is not because it approves. Scripture does not name it because it never sets out to enumerate cases at all. It gives two grounds with a shape: one where the covenant has been broken and one where it has been abandoned. Then Paul, in the New Testament itself, applies that shape to a situation Jesus had not addressed. The method is right there in the text.
So we will say it directly. A person who is being physically, sexually or emotionally abused is not obligated by God to stay. Abuse is a covenant broken and a covenant abandoned at the same time. Whatever vows were spoken, the person doing the harm stopped keeping them first. A church that answers this with instructions to submit harder, pray more, and go home is not being faithful to Scripture. It is failing somebody in its care, and it should be said plainly rather than implied.
Two texts get misused here and both deserve correcting. The first is Malachi 2:16. Set aside the translation question for a moment: even on the traditional reading, that passage is aimed at men discarding wives who had no means of support. Quoting it at a woman trying to escape a dangerous house points the verse at exactly the person it was written to protect.
The second is the idea that God is unalterably opposed to any covenant ending. Jeremiah 3:8 has God describing Himself as giving faithless Israel a certificate of divorce. That is God's own chosen image for what He did with a covenant partner who would not stop betraying Him. Whatever else it means, it rules out the claim that ending a broken covenant is always and only a human failure.
None of this is a case for divorce being light. It is not light. Jesus takes marriage more seriously than the culture around Him did, and so do we. What we will not do is take a teaching given to stop the powerful from discarding the vulnerable and turn it into a device for keeping the vulnerable in place.
What do the two named grounds have in common?
Sexual unfaithfulness breaks the covenant and desertion abandons it. Paul then applies that shape to a case Jesus never addressed, which shows the New Testament itself reasoning from the grounds rather than reading them as a closed list.
Christians disagree here and we are not going to flatten it, because people's lives are downstream of the answer.
Where the divorce was on grounds Scripture names, the marriage has ended and remarriage is open. Matthew 19:9's exception clause is read as covering both halves of the sentence.
Mark 10 and Luke 16:18 carry no exception, so remarriage while a former spouse lives is out. This is an old and serious position, not a fringe one.
1 Corinthians 7:15. Not bound is read as releasing the believer entirely. The disagreement is over how far beyond desertion by an unbeliever that reaches.
Toward the first, and we read not bound as meaning what it says. We hold it as a considered position rather than a settled one, and we say so.
What we will not do is treat a remarried person as permanently second class. There are congregations where somebody's second marriage is quietly held against them for thirty years, and whatever that is, it is not the gospel.
People do not research this topic out of curiosity. If you are reading it, something is happening.
So the useful thing is probably not another list. It is this: the texts you are worried about were written into a world where a woman could be discarded over a burnt meal and left with nothing. Jesus stepped into that and made marriage weigh more, on purpose, for her sake.
That same intention is what should govern how anybody applies these verses now. The question is never only what does the text permit. It is who is this text protecting, and am I using it in that direction or against it.
And if your marriage is in trouble and nobody is in danger, that is worth real work with real people. Most marriages that end did not have to, and most of the ones that survive went through something that looked final at the time.
For related ground, see what adultery is, fornication, sexual immorality, seventy times seven, mercy, grace and the new covenant.
Two grounds named outright, both describing a covenant already broken or abandoned, set inside a first century argument about men discarding wives who had no other means of support, with Paul himself extending the principle to a case Jesus never addressed, and with nobody obligated by God to remain where they are being harmed.
If someone in your home is hurting you or frightening you, that is the thing to deal with first, before any question about what is permitted. You have not failed, and you are not being disobedient by getting yourself somewhere safe. Reach out to us and somebody will pray with you and help you find the right support, and nobody here will tell you to go back.
It deserves more than a page, and more than advice from people who do not know the situation. Send it in and somebody at Sound of Heaven will talk it through with you.
Two are named outright. Sexual unfaithfulness, in Matthew 19:9, where the Greek word porneia covers sexual betrayal broadly rather than one act. And desertion by an unbelieving spouse, in 1 Corinthians 7:15, where Paul says the believer is not bound in such circumstances. Those are the two the New Testament states. What matters as much is why those two: both describe a covenant that the other person has already broken or abandoned.
A partisan question in a live rabbinic dispute. The Pharisees ask whether it is lawful to divorce a wife for any and every reason, which is the exact phrasing of one side of a running argument about what some indecency meant in Deuteronomy 24:1. One school read it narrowly and the other read it so broadly that almost anything qualified. Jesus does not pick a side in their terms. He goes back to Genesis instead.
Scripture does not give a list of exceptions and then stop, and it does not name abuse because it does not enumerate cases at all. What it does is describe two grounds that share a shape: a covenant broken and a covenant abandoned. Abuse is both. Nobody is obligated by God to remain where they are being harmed, and a church that sends someone back into danger is not being faithful to Scripture, it is failing a person in its care.
That is one reading and it is disputed. The Hebrew of that verse is difficult, and a number of modern translations now render it as the man who hates and divorces his wife does violence, which changes the sentence considerably. Whichever way it goes, the passage is addressed to men discarding wives who had no other means of support, so using it to keep a person in a dangerous marriage reverses the direction of the text.
Christians genuinely disagree and we are not going to pretend the matter is closed. Some hold that remarriage is permitted where the divorce was on the grounds Scripture names, others that any remarriage while a former spouse lives is out, and others that 1 Corinthians 7:15's not bound settles it more broadly. We lean toward the first and read not bound as meaning what it says. It is worth working through with people who know your situation.