Matthew 19:10

‘The disciples say to him, “If the case of the man is so with his wife, it is not expedient to marry.” '

This comment was probably made by the disciples after the Pharisees had left the scene, the latter no doubt justifying their own position loudly as they went. It may well actually have been based on what the Pharisees were arguing, although out of earshot of Jesus, for they would not want to give Him another opportunity of showing them up. Indeed the Pharisees may well have considered this a clinching argument against what Jesus had said, that if people took Jesus seriously marriage would cease. Thus Jesus must be wrong, for marriage was God's ordinance and there was no alternative.

They were, of course, not able to cite any alternative, for, to a respectable Jew, apart from celibacy, there was none. ‘Living together' without marriage would not have been acceptable. And as most of them saw marriage and childbearing as a duty from God (some Essenes were an exception, but that was precisely because they saw the times as so threatening) that meant that in their eyes marriage must be encouraged, while they saw what Jesus was teaching as discouraging marriage. The disciples also clearly saw the logic in this and wanted to know what Jesus' answer to this problem was.

The importance that male Jews placed on their right to divorce their wives, even if they did not often do so, comes out in this reaction of the disciples. It appeared to the disciples also that this statement of Jesus would make it inexpedient to marry, something that went against all that they had been brought up to believe. For the idea of marriage being a binding and lifelong commitment clearly appalled them. This was, of course, a reaction based on the ideas that they were used to (and demonstrates how male Jews looked on marriage as something under their control. They did in fact consider that the woman's commitment should be lifelong unless ended by the man). So the idea that divorce was not acceptable to God put a whole new perspective on marriage, and gave it far greater substance and permanence. And yet for that very reason it appeared to be going too far (they did not consider the fact that for the woman it had always been so). Surely then what Jesus had said would make marriage unattractive to men and something best avoided. It was only a theoretical argument, for it was unlikely that many would abstain from it, but it sounded logical.