Family Leader

by Linda Nuttall

We have a wedding coming up.  Mostly, this has been cause for rejoicing.  But it has also demonstrated the cultural state of marriage and its affect on our LDS youth.

“Ben” is a young man with a great attitude and full of potential who turned his life around a couple of years ago, much to his parents’ relief.  “Jenny” had a temple marriage that ended in divorce; she remained temple worthy.  She’s self-sufficient and fun.  And there’s a slight family resemblance:  she looks a bit like Ben’s sister; he looks like her son.  Happy story.

The culture clash became evident when Ben started occasionally staying the night at her house, when convenient.  The adults who care about them had a serious little talk, and offered advice, as best one can to other adults.  First, get married soon.  And second, Ben can’t stay the night.

They were puzzled by that.  They hadn’t done anything sinful.  They hadn’t even gotten close or tempted yet.  Seriously, it had not occurred to life-long church members that unchaperoned sleepovers are a bad idea.

I think this summarizes their beliefs, which are common:  They are adults and can therefore do what they want.  However, as adults with temple marriage as an eventual goal, that means they can do whatever they want except commit moral sins.  And it is the obligation of friends, neighbors, family to assume they are remaining chaste and true (or be labeled judgmental). 

They are expecting more from people who care about them than they are expecting from themselves.

Their story illustrates what we’re up against.  We live in a culture where sex outside of marriage is so common as to be expected.  If you love each other and intend to commit to one another, and are willing to face the responsibility of the consequences, then that is more than enough.  It is even considered repressive to hold back.  Jenny’s neighbors will simply not bat an eye at Ben’s staying there (they will assume there is sex going on, but they won’t care).

That is the world view.  The Church view is, and always has been, that sex is appropriate only within the bonds of marriage.  It is a crucial doctrine, because entire families and their posterity depend on our keeping the commitment of marriage.

Except our young people grow up not just in the Church, but in the world.  Stray from the path at all, and what guidance do you have?  Young people of Ben and Jenny’s generation have a growing challenge-wanting to keep the commandments, but not having the how-to handbook written in their culture.

The world culture has deleted the notion of preserving a reputation of purity.  Even for young singles in the Church, if you don’t spell it out for them, they don’t know why they should care what people think.  They don’t know that it’s to protect them from giving in and making foolish, possibly life-altering mistakes.  And they don’t know that acting as if purity doesn’t matter to them degrades the sacred status of marriage. 

Ben and Jenny aren’t unique.  I’ve known more than one adult woman, fully active in the Church, who has taken in a male roommate to help pay the rent.  They did not know that some living arrangements are inappropriate until someone told them.

I had roommates after college, Church members, who invited boyfriends to sleep over.  Always I was the one put in the prudish position of saying that’s unacceptable in our apartment.  One roommate, engaged, would sit up late with her fianc, and they would fall asleep on the sofa for the night.  I explained to her, shortly before her temple marriage, that not only had she broken a legal agreement with her roommates, she was putting us in a position that we couldn’t vouch for her worthiness.  Bless her, she took that criticism with humility, wrote a nice apology, and went ahead with her temple marriage, which continues well beyond two decades.  Her mistake was stupid, but it wasn’t something she knew better than to do. 

Wisdom Lost

A generation earlier it was natural to know better.  Everyone knew.  The culture provided that common knowledge.  Today we as keepers of the meaning of marriage struggle to grasp the concept and pass it on.

We have experienced a generation of no-fault divorce and the “sexual revolution” of the 60s and 70s, followed by presidential leadership in decadence in the 90s.  A lot of damage has been done to the culture of marriage.

The culture of marriage used to mean sexual purity before marriage, faithfulness in marriage, and lifelong commitment-because that is what children need in order to be raised in security and happiness.  The culture used to match our doctrine.

When culture loses the meaning of marriage, how can we expect our children to grasp the concept that seems so plain and clear to us?

Let me add that our marriage culture, in America, is still stronger than in Europe and much of the rest of the world.  We can watch, almost as if in a petri dish, what happens to a culture that separates sex from commitment, separates commitment from marriage, and separates marriage from parenting.  This will tell us our future if we follow that trend.  And it is, indeed, a worldwide trend.

Sweden, for example, began removing the stigma from sex outside of marriage about a generation earlier than America.  They have the same benefits for cohabiting couples as for married couples.  The only benefit of marriage is a nice ceremony, if you’re into that kind of traditional thing.  They do not have “gay marriage” by name, but they have “registered partnerships,” which we would call “civil unions,” as in Vermont.  That means that homosexual couples are afforded the same benefits as cohabiting couples-which are the same as married couples.  It is a semantic difference only (something Massachusetts should note as it proposes the name difference as a compromise).  According to Swedish law, marriage, cohabiting, and gay civil unions are equivalent.  All are easily ended, which happens so often that it isn’t even considered tragic.  After all, marriage has nothing to do with family, only with two adults choosing whether they prefer each other’s company.  And children are born out of wedlock in Sweden over 70% of the time, so the connection of parenting to marriage is just not there.

There’s been a long indoctrination period to get to this point.  Because the definition of marriage had been so significantly twisted in Sweden as to be unrecognizable, when they added homosexual legal status, there wasn’t much left of marriage to lose, so you can’t measure a dramatic change.  Gay marriage is more like a final nail in the coffin than a main causative factor.

By the way, it is now considered a hate crime in Sweden to speak out against homosexuality or gay marriage, so if you plan to teach your children the truth there, you’d better be pretty hush-hush about it.  (This is also becoming law in nearby Canada and a number of other places.)

In next door Norway there are pockets where you can make comparisons.  The meaning of marriage hasn’t yet been totally abolished, because people remain more religious.  But in certain areas gay marriage is pressed upon the culture against the popular will.  Gay marriage detaches marriage from reproduction and parenting, and reinforces the detachment from faithfulness and commitment.  The result:  in the areas where gay marriage has been established, parents abandon their children at surprisingly higher rates than in areas where it is prohibited. [1]   Heterosexuals are indeed harmed by homosexual marriage.

Where parents abandon their children, children grow up with significant mental and emotional problems.  These are documented in studies following up the folly of divorce over the last 30 years in our country. [2]   The social problems created are so serious for society as to be called calamitous, a word you might recognize from the family proclamation. [3]

Absolute Monogamy

Early in the previous century a social anthropologist, J.D. Unwin, who believed himself to be a progressive thinker, set out to prove that marriage was a useless, even harmful institution.  Repressive to human nature, he thought.  He compared data about numerous cultures around the world and throughout history, wherever significant data was available.  He found the evidence so overwhelming that it completely changed his personal philosophy concerning purity before and faithfulness in marriage-what he termed “absolute monogamy.” [4]   He said,

This type of marriage has been adopted by different societies, in different places, and at different times.  Thousands of years and thousands of miles separate the events; and there is no apparent connection between them.  In human records, there is no case of an absolutely monogamous society failing to display great [cultural] energy.  I do not know of a case on which great energy has been displayed by a society that has not been absolutely monogamous. (pp.31-32)

Unwin also said a society’s loss of marriage culture could predict future downfall.

If, during or just after a period of [cultural] expansion, a society modifies its sexual regulations, and a new generation is born into a less rigorous [monogamous] tradition, its energy decreases… If it comes into contact with a more vigorous society, it is deprived of its sovereignty, and possibly conquered in its turn. (p.21)

He even went so far as to say that you could control a society by controlling its sexual regulations.  Weaken it if you want it weak, for instance.  “The results should begin to emerge in the third generation.” (p. 45)

Sweden is nearing its third generation of relaxed sexual regulation.  Norway is well into its second.  America is entering its second. 

That means we are on the verge of losing the opportunity to raise our children and grandchildren in a culture where marriage as we know it exists, and where people are expected to protect and raise their own children.  Even where we successfully teach the gospel, parent to child, it will be difficult for our children to find mates who understand about sexual purity and commitment.  Already it is difficult to find a mate who grew up with committed parents.  Many young people have never had an example to follow.  To the next generation marriage culture will seem foreign, because the culture around them will be so drastically different.  Mormon was able to raise Moroni in such a culture, but not his grandchildren.

I know this is scary stuff.  But worrying and lamenting the loss of better days is not an effective use of energy.  Instead, do something.  Teach your children.  But also express yourself publicly, in print and in conversation.  Contact lawmakers, frequently, repeatedly.  Praise them when they are persuaded to the truth.  Vote them out as necessary.  Make it known what you hold dear and what you refuse to tolerate.

Do it now, because the situation is dire, despite a strong majority of Americans agreeing with us.  At this point, if you are a silent majority, you are failing to provide an essential protection for your children.

If you don’t feel you know enough about protecting marriage, start with Defend Marriage (www.defendmarriage.org) and United Families International (www.unitedfamilies.org), organizations designed to provide you with information and to help you know what to do.  They will have links to even more sources.

There are, I imagine, two ways to hasten the Lord’s second coming:  increase evil so that He can no longer stay His hand; or increase righteousness so that He can no longer stay away.  I expect both are happening at the same time.  I plan to fight on the side of righteousness; and saving marriage-as an institution as well as my own private commitment-is a righteous battle to be engaged in.  It’s a battle we can’t afford to lose.