Annotation CCLX
”I command — not I, but the Lord — that the wife depart not from the husband; but if she depart, that she remain unmarried.” — 1 Corinthians 7:10-11
Whether it be lawful for a husband to repudiate an adulterous wife, and for a wife an adulterous husband.
Ambrose, bishop of Milan [Ambrosiaster], in the commentaries, sifting this passage, has two opinions not received by the Church: the first, that it is lawful for a man to dismiss an adulterous wife, and, while she lives, to take another; the second, that the rights of matrimony are unequal, and on that account it is not lawful for a wife to dismiss an adulterous husband, nor to depart from him. Both propositions he expresses in these words: “IT IS NOT permitted to a woman to marry [again], if, for the cause of [her husband’s] fornication or apostasy, or if — lasciviousness illicitly impelling [him] — he seek the use of [his] wife [in an unnatural way]: because the inferior [the wife] does not altogether use this law [right], which the superior [the husband uses]. If, however, the man apostatize, or seek to invert [pervert] the use of [his] wife: the woman can neither marry another, nor return to him. And [that] ‘the husband [is] not to dismiss the wife’ — but there is understood [as implied] ‘except for the cause of fornication.’ And therefore he did not subjoin, as concerning the woman, ‘But if he depart, let him remain thus [unmarried]’: because it is lawful for a man to take a wife, if he has dismissed a sinning [adulterous] wife;
—because he [the husband] is not so bound by the law as the woman [is].” Of these opinions, the one which is the latter [second], Jerome reproves in the Epitaph of Fabiola, saying: “THE LORD commanded that the wife be not dismissed, except for the cause of fornication; and, if she has been dismissed, [that she] remain unmarried. Whatsoever is commanded to husbands, this consequently redounds to wives. For an adulterous wife is not to be dismissed [while] an adulterous husband is to be retained. For with us [in the Christian law], [that] which is not lawful for women is equally not lawful for men; and the same servitude is reckoned by an equal condition.” The same [thing] Augustine holds, [in] the first book On the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, chapter 26. Following whose authority, the pontiffs, and all the scholastic theologians, decree that in the cause of divorce the condition of husband and wife is equal. The former opinion, too, was lately condemned in the ecumenical Council of Trent, session 24, canon 7 — concerning which we have written copiously above, [in] Annotation 81 of this book.
Thomas Cajetan, in the exposition of this passage, follows the former opinion of Ambrose [Ambrosiaster]. See [there] in the same place.
Ambrose, bishop of Compsa, in the commentaries, expounding these [words], embraces the same opinion. See [there] in the same place.