Are Men and Women Equally Bound by the One Flesh Union?

The restrictions on divorce and remarriage are the same for either a man or woman without distinction. Let me explain why.

But let me describe why this assertion comes about first. It's held by an early church "father" by the name of Ambrosiaster. Ambrosiaster is a pseudonym given to an anonymous author who had a commentary on Paul. Most scholars note that he tends toward Pelagianism and other views that run contrary to the Fathers in general. The name given to him actually means "would-be Ambrose" because his writings were first thought to be from Ambrose. He is an outlier and does not hold to the general teaching of the other Fathers, regardless of the attempts to harmonize some of them with him. 

In his commentary on 1 Corinthians 7, he argues that a man who is divorced by a wife as an innocent party is free to remarry even though, if the situation was reversed, the wife is not. He bases his argument on the idea that male headship sees the man as the owner of the wife but not the wife as the owner of the man. Hence, if the wife throws off his headship, he is no longer obligated to her. Since he is no longer obligated once she has done so through divorce and maybe even adultery, he is free to remarry. He argues the following.

A woman may not marry if she has left her husband because of his fornication or apostasy, or because, impelled by lust, he wishes to have sexual relations with her in an illicit way. This is because the inferior party does not have the same rights under the law as the stronger one has . . .The reason why Paul does not add, as he does in the case of the woman, “But if she departs, he should remain as he is” is because a man is allowed to remarry if he has divorced a sinful wife. The husband is not restricted by the law as a woman is, for the head of a woman is her husband.

Now, here is the problem. The reasoning is not based upon Jesus' prohibition of divorcing and remarrying. It is based upon issues of ownership that ignore the one flesh union as the Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament understanding had. In other words, it sees divorce and remarriage as legitimate because it only uses the Jewish understanding of possession that existed in the Old Testament. Yet, it is precisely this interpretation that Jesus says was not the case from the beginning. God, instead, had joined the two in becoming one flesh and no man was to separate it. Hence, any remarriage is an adultery being committed. 

The husband owns the wife because the wife is his own body and he owns his own body. If she is joined to someone else, therefore, she is committing adultery regardless of the situation. So far we are all in agreement with Ambrosiaster. However, in 1 Corinthians 7:2-4 Paul states:

διὰ δὲ ⸂τὰς πορνείας⸃ ἕκαστος τὴν ἑαυτοῦ γυναῖκα ἐχέτω ⸋καὶ ἑκάστη τὸν ἴδιον ἄνδρα ἐχέτω⸌. τῇ γυναικὶ ὁ ἀνὴρ τὴν ⸀ὀφειλὴν ἀποδιδότω, ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ ἡ γυνὴ τῷ ἀνδρί. ἡ γυνὴ τοῦ ἰδίου σώματος οὐκ ἐξουσιάζει ἀλλʼ ὁ ἀνήρ, ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ ὁ ἀνὴρ τοῦ ἰδίου σώματος οὐκ ἐξουσιάζει ἀλλʼ ἡ γυνή.

But because of sexually immoral acts, each man is to possess his own woman/wife and each woman is to possess her own man/husband. The man/husband is contractually obligated to the woman/wife, and likewise, the woman/wife is contractually obligated to the man/husband. The woman/wife does not have rights over her own body but the man/husband does. And likewise, the man/husband does not have rights over his own body but the woman/wife does.

The argument Paul makes assumes the Lord's argument about the two becoming one flesh. Because they are one flesh the one owns the other. Possession is not based upon the federal headship laws of the Old Testament but upon the one flesh union built into creation, a union that makes the woman as equally in possession of the man's body as the woman's body is in the possession of the man. The marital contract that is solidified by the one flesh union of the sexual act, therefore, makes it impossible to break because it is impossible for a person to break from himself. This is Jesus' argument to the Pharisees. They are no longer two but one and subsequently cannot be broken into two again by any man. Paul adopts this reasoning in 1 Corinthians 7 as well (7:10, 39). This can be seen again in his analogy found in Romans 7:2-3.

In other words, possession is based upon the one flesh union that solidifies the marital contract whether one is male or female. If the husband cannot be separated from the wife and she owns the husband's body because it is her own, then he cannot be joined to another without committing adultery regardless of the situation. 

The old federal headship idea that Ambrosiaster appeals to is no more. Polygamy is now forbidden because the original reasoning for adultery in creation is restored by the Lord Jesus. Hence, as Paul says, a man now must have his own wife, i.e., she is not the woman/wife of another; and the woman must now have her own man/husband, i.e., he is not the husband of another. He is ἴδιον “belonging to herself" or "her's alone" and is parallel to the fact that the man must have ἑαυτοῦ “his own" woman/wife "belonging to himself." 

Because of the one flesh union and the single ownership of a man by a woman, it is impossible for him to be joined to another now without committing adultery and this cannot be changed due to any circumstance other than death, i.e., the demise of one part of the flesh union, whether it be male or female.