'Accounts' in the Bible

"For this reason the Kingdom of the Heavens may be compared to a king who determined to have a settlement of accounts with his servants.

This accounts for the fact that if during her husband's life she lives with another man, she will be stigmatized as an adulteress; but that if her husband is dead she is no longer under the old prohibition, and even though she marries again, she is not an adulteress.