Phil, were the Pharisees under the Law?
Only death can end a marriage. Romans 7:1-3 and 1Corinthians 7:39 makes that very clear. 1Corinthians 7:10-11 the Lord commands not to depart from her husband and there are no exceptions made, but if she does depart, she must remain unmarried or reconcile with her husband.
Luke 16:18 Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery. In this text we have a man that puts away wife and marrieds another woman. Jesus says that whoever marries her commits adultery. She's the innocent party and yet Jesus still considers her the man's wife. The husband is the one that divorced her and marry another and yet Jesus says, if she marrieds another man other than her husband, she is an adultery's. She's not the one that committed adultery. She's not the one that divorced her husband and married another man. Yet, she's not allowed to remarry. Now, people like to use Matthew 5:31-32. Notice that Jesus use the word fornication and not adultery. Fornication in this context is used in the traditional sense. In other words, sex between unmarried couples.
1 Corinthians 6:9 9Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
Here we see a distinction between fornication and adultery, because the two are not one and the same. Adultery can only be committed by people that are married. Married people can't fornicate because they are not single. Nowhere in scripture is fornication used to mean adultery.
This is what Jesus was referring when He spoke of fornication. If the woman fornicated before marrying the man she was engaged to, he could annul the marriage. It was the only exception allowed.
In Deuteronomy 22:13-28
13 If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her,
14 And give occasions of speech against her, and bring up an evil name upon her, and say, I took this woman, and when I came to her, I found her not a maid:
15 Then shall the father of the damsel, and her mother, take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel's virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate:
16 And the damsel's father shall say unto the elders, I gave my daughter unto this man to wife, and he hateth her;
17 And, lo, he hath given occasions of speech against her, saying, I found not thy daughter a maid; and yet these are the tokens of my daughter's virginity. And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city.
18 And the elders of that city shall take that man and chastise him;
19 And they shall amerce him in an hundred shekels of silver, and give them unto the father of the damsel, because he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel: and she shall be his wife; he may not put her away all his days.
20 But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel:
21 Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the harlot in her father's house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you.
22 If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the woman: so shalt thou put away evil from Israel. Here we can read clearly what the penalty was for adultery and it wasn't divorce, it was death. That allowed the innocent spouse to remarry because the other spouse was now dead. The penalty for adultery was death by stoning, not divorce.
