http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/lifestyle/51631455-80/lds-says-marriage-mormon.html.csp?page=2
It’s articles like this that make me wish more Mormons would open their eyes. Maybe they really need to look at what their leaders are saying objectively and collectively say no. Unfortunately, most Mormons wills just unfailingly follow what these old relics from the 1950s say and rush off to get married. It’s not important to find your soulmate? I’m sorry, but yes, yes it is. I don’t want to spend time with someone I am not compatible with. Especially if I’m going to have children with that person. Like it or not, if you have children with someone, you will have a life-long connection to that person. If you don’t have someone you can at least get along with, you are condemned to a lifetime of misery. Even if you get divorced. You will still have parental duties and those will overlap with your partner. Just getting married to get married is just a recipe for unhappiness.
In my process of leaving Mormonism, I came to realize that Mormon leadership views men only in terms of being free labor and ATM machines. A Mormon man is only as good as his wallet. Without a formal clergy, Mormon leaders tend to be chosen from those who are the most successful monetarily. Growing up, the bishops of the wards, the stake presidents, and especially mission presidents were always those who had money. For women, it’s even worse. Women in Mormonism are only as good as the output of their uterus. Mormonism hold people hostage to the belief system by tying everyone’s salvation in the hereafter to the salvation of their families. This makes it really hard for those who question to leave, as the entire family structure is then threatened.
I can see why Mormon leadership is becoming even more adamant that young Mormons get married. As the Soviets well knew, family members left in make really good hostages. The wallets are not going to defect as long as the uteruses are still at home and still stuck in.
7 Comments
Amen and AMEN, Donk!
I didn’t get married until I was 28, and years off my mission, because I really did want to meet my soulmate. Along the way there were false engagements and broken hearts, but all these years later both I and those poor girls are none the worse for it. We have all found our true loves, are on friendly terms today, and VERY glad we didn’t end up marrying each other at the time just our religion convinced us we should.
It took a few trial runs before I found Connie, but she has proven to be the one I’ve been looking for. What a pity so many others take to heart counsel from men who have not been inspired to give that counsel on any kind of individual basis.
I say take your time and find The One. Don’t get married because you feel it is your religious obligation.
People should really think about that, you are correct. You should also think of things before you mess with others emotions and hurt others. Emotions are not ment to be played with.
unfortunately, thinking is not something encouraged by LDS leadership. If you think too hard, you’ll realize they are doing nothing but telling you lies. Then you have the choice, do you live the LDS lies and keep your family happy, or do you be honest with yourself, leave, and then have your family all over you for that. I know way too many that left that lost their families as a result of not wanting to live the lie anymore.
Unfortunately it seems that few people understand what the LDS leadership is actually advocating.
No leader of the LDS church has ever advocated getting married out of religious obligation.
They do say that one should not delay marriage because of some fantasy about a soul mate.
This article says “I don’t want to spend time with someone I am not compatible with.”
This seems to ignore the fact that this is exactly what President Monson advocated. The article cited even quotes President Monson as advocating men finding a woman “with whom you can be compatible.” But being compatible is not the same as being a Soul Mate.
I agree that the idea of a Soul Mate is a fantasy created by a society dedicated to self-serving ideas.
Now, before anyone yells at me let me say that I am married (six years now) with three children. I could not love my wife any more than I do, and I do not believe anyone could love their wife or husband more than I love mine. But she is not my “Soul mate.” She is a woman with whom I was compatible, and thus allowed myself to fall in love with her.
She was 23 three when we married, and I was 20. I did not marry her out of any sense of obligation, nor was it some sense that we were meant to be together or that she was the other half my being (or a soul mate). It was because I felt that I wanted to spend my life with her, and that I want her to be the mother of my children.
As to the last post, I have never felt discouraged to think for myself. In fact I have felt a great encouragement to think everything out and seek to understand all the teachings of the LDS leaders. I think, therefore I am a Mormon. It is those who do not think, but intellectualize that create the illusion of lies within the doctrine.
Well written response. I will not, at this time, get into a debate about thinking about LDS doctrine and searching it out as the comments here are too limited to really get into that discussion. I guess I’m too intellectual/academic and in that academic environment where I see some that have been run out because of thinking about the doctrine. Look no further than the September Six, especially D. Michael Quinn. Again, I won’t get into that here.
As for soul mate, I found mine. We are quite happy and compatible. Yes, we married a bit young, we did get a lot of pressure about it and going back, I probably would have done it a bit different, but still, we would have been married anyway. I personally experienced much pressure from LDS leaders to just get married. That is my personal experience.
Shemawater, I felt exactly as you do about the idea of a “soulmate.” Until I found mine.
There is a spritual depth to our relationship that tells us we agreed to seek each other out in this life. Is it possible that might not have happened? Sure, and it would not have been a tragedy had we never met.
But I do now believe that the concept of soulmate is not the idea of men. It even happens that, when she was twelve and I was twenty, and though she lived in Provo and I lived in Anaheim, we came into brief contact for a few moments at Disneyland. There is exists photographic proof of that. We think that was kind of cool.
I would not disagree that there were certain people who made plans before coming here. However, I do not think that everyone did, nor does such constitute a “soul mate” in the sense that most people think of it (at least in my experience).
I have never felt pressure to just get married, unless I had found a women with whom I was compatible and was worthy to join me in the Temple. Even them I have always felt the need to give throughtful prayer to the dicision. God will not lead us astray, and if we follow his counsel in not getting married until we are older I do not believe any leader of the church would have any problems with this.
If we did make such a plan with another before coming here it must ahve had the seal of approval from God and he will guide us to the one with witch we made that agreement.
What the President and other leaders are speaking against is people who seek for this soulmate without real guidance from the Spirit because they know that when they find them it will just hit them. This is the false concept that they are addressing.
I can just as easily describe my wife in the same terms as anyone else posting here, with the exception of “soul mate.” I never had any great epiphany, nor do I think that we made any arrangements before this life. But that does not make our love any less than those who might have experienced either of these things.
To make it simple: Seek your “soul mate” if that is what the Spirit is truly telling you to do. Otherwise, don’t be so picky.