The Bible shows that husbands and wives have different roles in marriage to reflect the great redemptive theme of God and his people in mankind's story. Recently published research into Old Testament divorce practice shows that the different roles of husbands and wives gave different rules in the Old Testament for divorce as well as marriage. Divorce (and remarriage) was permitted when these respective roles - and rules - were broken. This was the situation Jesus addressed in the gospels, where it can now be seen that he addressed husbands and wives separately. There is not the discontinuity between the Testaments seen by virtually all commentators.