Getting Married While Believing Your Spouse is Dead, Only for Them to Still be Alive?

Jonathan95

Jonathan95

Puritan Board Sophomore
Would this be treated as if the "dead" spouse abandoned the living with the exception that they would be able to remarry?

What say you?
 
Jonathan95 said:
Would this be treated as if the "dead" spouse abandoned the living with the exception that they would be able to remarry?

What say you?
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OK. Well. Let's run a scenario to flesh it out a bit. Did the spouse thought to be dead end up in a POW camp?

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Romans678 said:
OK. Well. Let's run a scenario to flesh it out a bit. Did the spouse thought to be dead end up in a POW camp?

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I was thinking along the lines of a war breaking out and separating the couple. Both just trying to scavenge and survive and never coming across each other for months, maybe years.
 
There is a vast difference between months and years. If they are unintentionally separated, i would think a faithful party would “move on” after consultation with his/her elders. In many jurisdictions 7 years missing constitutes a presumption of death. Where are the attorneys around here?
 
I would side with Ben above. Sounds like an exception for polygyny in this case. Divorce or abandonment would be a bigger sin. Both are legal wives.
 
Pergamum said:
I would side with Ben above. Sounds like an exception for polygyny in this case. Divorce or abandonment would be a bigger sin. Both are legal wives.
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Man I don't know what I would do in this situation. Honestly all of my hair went gray just thinking about it. What would I do? Only God knows for sure.

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Romans678 said:
Man I don't know what I would do in this situation. Honestly all of my hair went gray just thinking about it. What would I do? Only God knows for sure.

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Make sure one cooks real good and the other cleans real good. :) Division of labor.
 
In any situation where you don't know if your spouse is dead or not [where it isn't confirmed by a coroner/doctor/etc. from which then there hopefully is a good amount of time (months at least) before you remarry] you better go to the ends of the earth to find your spouse (/or her body). If you didn't do this you failed as a husband. If after a significant time you remarry, and then your first wife comes back alive. Notice that language you have a 2nd wife and now a first wife too. You have two wives. And God hates divorce. Have a good day.
 
This actually happened to the pastor at whose parsonage I run a clinic each Thursday. He went into the army, to the war in Eritrea. His wife was informed that he had been killed. So she remarried. Several years later he returned to his home area and discovered the fact. He wanted to remarry, so he asked the church. They gave him permission. So he remarried. I taught English to his granddaughter by his first wife. I congratulated her on the birth of her new uncle. The second wife, young enough to be his daughter, now has 7 children.
 
This is interesting.

What would people say if the it were reversed? The husband is thought dead, the wife searches high and low but cannot find him, a few years or so passes, she gets married, and then the first husband shows up.
 
J.L. Allen said:
This is interesting.

What would people say if the it were reversed? The husband is thought dead, the wife searches high and low but cannot find him, a few years or so passes, she gets married, and then the first husband shows up.
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That’s what happened in Leslie’s story above.
 
J.L. Allen said:
Oh I read it as him marrying a different woman and not the one he was married to before. Was I wrong?
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Oh, I see what you were asking. You’re right, the situation is different. Sorry, I am suffering from lack of sleep from the Greenville Conference. :)
 
Taylor said:
Oh, I see what you were asking. You’re right, the situation is different. Sorry, I am suffering from lack of sleep from the Greenville Conference. :)
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Ha! Get some sleep! I've been feeling sleep deprived, but that's from papers, exams, and poor time management.
 
My wife thought that I was dead and immediately created a profile on ChristianMingle.com only to find that I was just taking a nap.
 
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