The Westminster Catechism

CHAPTER XXIV

Of Marriage and Divorce

Marriage is to be between one man and one woman: neither is it lawful for any man to have more than one wife, nor for any woman to have more than one husband; at the same time.

Gen. ii. 24; Matt. xix. 5, 6; Prov. ii. 17.

II. Marriage was ordained for the mutual help of husband and wife, for the increase of mankind with a legitimate issue, and of the Church with an holy seed; and for preventing of uncleanness.

Gen. ii. 18; Mal. ii. 15; 1 Cor. vii. 2, 9.

III. It is lawful for all sorts of people to marry, who are able with judgment to give their consent. Yet is it the duty of Christians to marry only in the Lord: and therefore such as profess the true reformed religion should not marry with infidels, papists, or other idolaters: neither should such as are godly be unequally yoked, by marrying with such as are notoriously wicked in their life, or maintain damnable heresies.

Heb. xiii. 4; 1 Tim. iv. 3; 1 Cor. vii. 36, 37, 38; Gen. xxiv. 57, 58; 1 Cor. vii. 39; Gen. xxxiv. 14; Exod. xxxiv. 16; Deut. vii. 3, 4; 1 Kings xi. 4; Neh. xiii. 25, 26, 27; Mal. ii. 11, 12; 2 Cor. vi. 14.

IV. Marriage ought not to be within the degrees of consanguinity or affinity forbidden in the Word; nor can such incestuous marriages ever be made lawful by any law of man or consent of parties, so as those persons may live together as man and wife. (The man may not marry any of his wife's kindred nearer in blood than he may of his own; nor the woman of her husband's kindred nearer in blood than of her own.)*

Lev. xviii chapter; 1 Cor. v. l; Amos ii. 7; Mark vi. 18; Lev. xviii. 24, 25, 26, 27, 28; Lev. xx. 19, 20, 21.

V. Adultery or fornication committed after a contract, being detected before marriage, giveth just occasion to the innocent party to dissolve that contract. In the case of adultery after marriage, it is lawful for the innocent party to sue out a divorce; and, after the divorce, to marry another, as if the offending party were dead.

Matt. i. 18, 19, 20; Matt. v. 31, 32; Matt. xix. 9; Rom. vii. 2, 3.

VI. Although the corruption of man be such as is apt to study arguments unduly to put asunder those whom God hath joined together in marriage; yet nothing but adultery, or such wilful desertion as can no way be remedied by the Church or civil magistrate, is cause sufficient of dissolving the bond of marriage; wherein, a public and orderly course of proceeding is to be observed; and the persons concerned in it not left to their own wills and discretion, in their own case.

Matt. xix. 8, 9; 1 Cor. vii. 15; Matt. xix. 6; Deut. xxiv. 1, 2, 3,