Why does the Church say marriage is permanent when the court says I can end it with a divorce?

The answer to this question is actually quite simple: because Jesus said so.

We must remember that since Jesus is our Lord, the Church can never change or contradict His teachings. That said, we still might be wondering why Jesus teaches this about marriage. What if they don't love each other anymore or what if the marriage just simply isn’t working?

Let's look at Scripture. We find Jesus talking about marriage and divorce in Matthew 19 and Mark 10. Here, the Pharisees ask Jesus if a man can divorce his wife for any reason. At this time, there was a debate among the Jews. Some said that a man could only divorce his wife if she committed certain sins, while others said he could divorce her for simply burning his food!

Jesus then asked them what the Torah said. When they told Him that Moses permitted bills of divorce, Jesus said that this was for the hardness of their hearts. But, as Jesus says, "from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate.”

So here we see that Jesus is reestablishing His Father's intent for marriage. What this means is that when a couple has married, God has joined husband and wife together in a bond that cannot be dissolved. This means that once the bond is formed, it is impossible to break it. Once the couple is married, they are married, for better or for worse, until death do they part. This is why Jesus then goes on to say that whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery (and vice versa). 

Applying this to today, we all too readily abandon things when they don't make us happy (don't get me wrong on this point, happiness is important, but we, ironically, often make big mistakes that make us, and others, less happy in the name of pursuing happiness). That said, many couples will abandon their marriage at the first sign of difficulty, whereas previous generations would have worked through it and grown from it. We need to remember that words have meaning, especially those said by a couple at their wedding.

Jesus knew what he was doing when he made marriage indissoluble, let us follow Him.