What God has joined together let no man put asunder

What's the meaning of the phrase 'What God has joined together let no man put asunder'?

‘What God has joined together let no man put asunder’ is the part of the Christian marriage ceremony that states God’s authority over man.

What's the origin of the phrase 'What God has joined together let no man put asunder'?

The injunction is taken from the Bible, Matthew 19:6. It appears first in print in English in Miles Coverdale’s Bible, 1535:

Now are they not twayne then, but one flesh. Let not man therfore put a sunder, that which God hath coupled together.

It is interesting to note that ‘asunder’ was, in the 16th century, ‘a sunder’. Sunder meant ‘separate from’.

The two words have merged into one, in the same way that many nautical terms, like ‘aboard’, ‘amidships’ etc. have done.

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Gary Martin

Writer and researcher on the origins of phrases and the creator of the Phrase Finder website. Over the past 26 years more than 700 million of his pages have been downloaded by readers. He is one of the most popular and trusted sources of information on phrases and idioms.

What God has joined together let no man put asunder

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