Mar 10:11 Whosoever shall put away his wife...
Mar 10:11 Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, commits adultery against her.
Alternative: Whoever releases his own wife and takes another commits adultery on her.
In the Greek, it isn't clear whether the final "her" is the wife that has been divorced or the new wife, but the effect is the same. The sense is that divorce is the equivalent of murder.
In virtually every ancient culture going back to the Code of Hammurabi 1,800 years before Christ, adultery was the equivalent of murder, punishable by death. Infidelity was a death-sentence both for men and women, though it was more often enforced against women. Ancient people were very pragmatic. They saw sexual infidelity as the destruction of an institution, marriage, on which survival depends. If a man couldn't trust his wife to bear children that were his, the whole family was at risk, not only the immediate family but the kinship ties that were the basis of economic survival for everyone.
Today's more casual attitudes about marriage and infidelity are the history exception. Throughout history, every culture that experimented with various forms of sexual license eventually fell apart. Possibly because a culture of people who cannot be trusted by their spouses cannot be trusted by anyone. Of course, this doesn't prevent new geneations from thinking that they are the exception to the rule and trying the experiment again.
However, many cultures, such as the Jews, allowed divorce that allows a specific marriage to be dissolved while preserving the institution itself. Divorce was a socially acceptable an alternative to infidelity.
However, Christ saw it as a cheat, the type of formal legalism which his entire teaching is directed against.
The purpose of the body, the mind, and our relationships is to transform us, to bring us back to our spiritual nature (discussion of Christ's tranformation cycle here). Our purpose is not merely to seek gratification in this life: physical gratification, mental gratification, or even gratification from our relationships. If we get stuck on any of these things, we lose track of the fact that our current lives our temporary, part of an eternal purpose.
From the perspective of that purpose, rejecting a relationship that isn't gratifying misses the point of our existence. The challenges we face--physical, mental, and emotional--are designed to perfect us. Running away from those challenges is both unlikely to make us any more happy in this life and, in the larger sense, a denial of our eternal nature.
"Shall put away" is from apoluô (apolyo), which means "to loose from" and "to set free."
"His" and "her" are from autos (autos), which means "the same," and the reflexive pronouns, "myself," "yourself," "himself," "herself," "itself," or the oblique case of the pronouns, "him," "her," and "it." It also means "one's true self," that is, "the soul" as opposed to the body and "of ones own accord."
"Wife" is from gunê (gyne), which means "woman (as opposed to man)," "wife," "spouse," "mortal woman (as opposed to a goddess)," and "female mate (among animals)."
"Marry" is from gameô (gameo), which mean "to marry" and "to take a wife." For a woman, it means "to give yourself in marriage." It can also mean to "take a lover."
"Other" is from allos (allos), which means "another."
"Commits adultery" is from the Greek moichaô (moichao), which means " to commit adultery" or "to have an affair."
"Against" is from epi, (epi) which means "on," "upon," "at," "by," "before," "across," and "against."
