Note 6 — Chapter XI · HISTORY OF SEPARATION AND DIVORCE UNDER ENGLISH AND ECCLESIASTICAL LAW

"When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her; then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife."—Deut. 24:1, 2. The Hebrew Ervath Dabar, here translated "uncleanness," literally "the nakedness of the matter," or "something unseemly," are the doubtful words. The school of Hillel, or the "broad constructionists of the Bible," held "that the husband need not assign any reason whatever for his divorce, and that he may, for instance, if he please, divorce his wife for spoiling his food." On the other hand, the school of Shammai, or the "strict constructionists," held that sexual immorality was the only scriptural ground of divorce: Amram, op. cit., 32 ff. Some writers who accept the view of the school of Shammai for the ancient law admit that, in consequence of moral degeneration, the broad constructionists were right for the days of Christ: see Duschak, op. cit., 83 ff.; Lichtschein, op. cit., 86; Mielziner, op. cit., 118-20. Cf. Geffcken, op. cit., 74; Woolsey, op. cit., 15 ff.; Tissot, op. cit., 49; Tebbs, op. cit., 28-30.