Pauline privilege

The Pauline privilege (Privilegium Paulinum) is a Christian doctrine drawn from the apostle Paul's instructions in the First Epistle to the Corinthians.

Origin

In Paul's epistle it states:

The first section, "not I but the Lord", roughly matches Jesus' teaching on divorce, found in an antithesis (Matthew 5:32) with parallels in Matthew 19:9, Luke 16:18, and Mark 10:11. The second section, "I say, not the Lord", gives Paul's own teaching on divorce.

In the Catholic Church and in some Protestant denominations (although most Protestants allow divorce in all circumstances), this is interpreted as allowing the dissolution of a marriage between two non-baptized persons in the case that one (but not both) of the partners seeks baptism and converts to Christianity and the other partner leaves the marriage. According to the Catholic Church's canon law, the Pauline Privilege does not apply when either of the partners was a Christian at the time of marriage. It differs from annulment because it dissolves a valid natural (but not sacramental) marriage whereas an annulment declares that a marriage was invalid from the beginning.