Deuteronomy 24:1 asserts that men could divorce their wives for trivial reasons, leaving women vulnerable and without support. Tired of her? Kick her to the curb. There was no such thing as alimony, and women couldn’t get jobs or even an education. Divorce really could be fatal, but only for women. So, while Jesus’s rule may appear harsh, at the time he was being extremely progressive. He calls out Moses’s divorce laws as “hard-hearted” and announces that men shouldn’t be able to casually dump their wives anymore. He was standing up for women’s rights and safety, and trying to keep them from
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