divorce

Everyday

1. The legal ending of a marriage, so the husband and wife are no longer married. tree →
2. To end your marriage to someone by law. tree →
3. To separate two things completely (formal: you can't divorce sport from fun). tree →

In the lessons

In everyday life many children have parents who are divorced or separated; families can still love and care for children after a divorce. In health and well-being lessons pupils learn that divorce is never a child's fault, and that it is fine to feel sad or angry and to talk to someone. In stories it can be a change the character must get used to. Phrases: get a divorce, get divorced, divorced parents.

Examples

• My parents got divorced when I was five. tree →
• A divorce is when a marriage ends by law. tree →
• After the divorce, I stay with Dad at weekends. tree →
• It is never the child's fault when parents divorce. tree →
• Lots of my friends have divorced parents. tree →
• They divorced but stayed good friends. tree →
• If your family changes, talk to someone you trust about how you feel. tree →
• The Voyvode waxed wroth, and demanded a divorce. tree →

Note

Say «get divorced» or «divorce someone» (She divorced him); not «divorce with someone». «Separated» means living apart but still married; «divorced» means the marriage has legally ended.

In Jewish tradition

In the Torah it means the legal ending of a marriage, and a divorced woman has special rules, such as for priests' marriages.

Interpretation. Tradition reads these laws as the base of Jewish divorce law, which needs a written document, the get.

Examples

• But the vow of a widow, or of her that is divorced, even every thing wherewith she hath bound her soul, shall stand against her. (Torah NUM.30.9, JPS 1917) tree →
• A widow, or one divorced, or a profaned woman, or a harlot, these shall he not take; but a virgin of his own people shall he take to wife. (Torah LEV.21.14, JPS 1917) tree →
• But if a priest's daughter be a widow, or divorced, and have no child, and is returned unto her father's house, as in her youth, she may eat of her father's bread; but there shall no common man eat thereof. (Torah LEV.22.13, JPS 1917) tree →

Note

Say «get divorced» or «divorce someone» (She divorced him); not «divorce with someone». «Separated» means living apart but still married; «divorced» means the marriage has legally ended.