A long time ago, I listened to a podcast where an Orthodox priest talked about the theology of divorce in the Orthodox Church. One Cardinal, Cardinal Kasper, made a statement arguing for the admiting of divorced and remarried Catholics to communion, and he appealed to the eastern tradition of allowing divorce to show some historical precedence in the church. The Orthodox priest objected to this, because he the two churches understand marriage and divorce completely differently. The west views it as a contract, that can be annulled when needed and broken(which would be bad). The eastern church says that that Yes, you can fail a marriage and be forgiven of that. And you can have a second one along with that. The ceremony for a second marriage service is a penitential ceremony, wherein the two people basically beg God to forgive them for entering into a second marriage.
Now sorry for the theologizing. I imagine that's rather unpleasant to this secular audience.
How did these two understandings develop? What happened? when did they diverge? Was there always such a division between the east and the west?
I am a Catholic converting to Orthodoxy, so I have some perspective here.
In the West, the sacrament of marriage is conferred by the spouses, whereas, in the East the Priest is the one conferring the sacrament. So, it's important to understand that an annulment is a declaration that there really was NO marriage at all. It looked and smelled like a marriage, but, there was NO marriage. An annulment is not “Catholic divorce” – it’s a declaration that a marriage is and always has been null. The Latin Church can also dissolve true marriages (NOT annulments) in cases that were not specified by Christ; death of a spouse and the "Pauline Privilege". The Orthodox Church teaches that marriage is for all eternity. Even marriages that "end" in civil divorce or death are technically still marriages for all eternity. Eastern Catholics share the Orthodox belief that marriage is for all eternity.
In the West, death dissolves the sacrament of matrimony, which is why you can have more than one sacramental wedding in the Western Church. However, in the Eastern Church, there is only one sacramental marriage. Any other remarriage, even remarriage after the death of a spouse is non-sacramental. The oldest stratum of Tradition in both the East and the West saw marriage as an eternal bond that transcended death. For that reason, the early Church refused to bless second marriages for any reason. In the West, the view of marriage as a life contract eventually emerged, probably because remarriage was a virtual necessity at a time of low life expectancy. In the East, until the 9th century, the Church did not bless second marriages, but civil marriage was available for those who wanted to remarry after divorce or widowhood, and the Church focused instead on reintegrating those who did into the Body of Christ. In the West, with the collapse of civil authority, civil marriage did not exist, and the Church became the de facto regulator of marriage.
In the 9th century, the Emperor Leo VI abolished civil marriage and made the Eastern Church responsible for all aspects of marriage. The Church now had to deal with the social and legal aspects of marriage, as well as the sacramental aspect. It had to recognize that marriages do break down, and that men and women may feel the need to remarry, either after divorce or widowhood. But it did not want to compromise its understanding of Christian marriage as a sacrament that perdures in the divine kairos. The compromise solution was the "Rite of Second Marriage", open to those who are widowed and the innocent parties in a divorce, which was not sacramental but merely contractual, and highly penitential in nature. There is no crowning, there is no Dance of Isaiah, there is no sealing with the Eucharist. In fact, those who remarry are excluded from communion for a period of 3-5 years, which in itself means that second marriage ceremonies are not sacramental.