Is it lawful for widows or widowers, or divorced men or women to remarry?

The answer

For the early Church Fathers, it was undesirable for the divorcees to remarry, even if it was due to adultery, while the divorced partner is still alive. They also did not encourage widows or widowers to remarry, even though the Church never condemned this second marriage. It was not prohibited but was never encouraged. A widow or widower ought to give her life to God. In the year 150 A. D., the number of consecrated widows serving in Rome was 150.¹⁷⁷³

Shepherd of Hermas says, “If a wife or it may be, a husband fell asleep, and one of them marries (another), does the one who marries sin? He sins not, but if he remains single, he invests himself with more exceeding honor and with great glory before the Lord; yet even if he should marry, he sins not.”¹⁷⁷⁴

St Jerome says, “The Samaritan woman in the Gospel, when she declares that her present husband is her sixth, is rebuked by the Lord on the ground that he is not her husband. For my own part, I now once more freely proclaim that digamy (second marriage) is not condemned in the Church — no, nor yet trigamy (third marriage) — and that a woman may marry a fifth husband, or a sixth, or a greater number still as long as it is a lawful marriage; but while such marriages are not condemned, neither are they commended … ‘All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful’ (1 Cor. 6:12).”¹⁷⁷⁵

Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty