[Photo: Oscar Wilde, “An Ideal Husband”]
By Emily Belanger
When I heard about the changes to the language of temple ceremonies, I made plans to attend as soon as possible. Curious, with only a vague sense of what to expect, I made the 3-hour trip with family members.
There were positive changes in both the Endowment and Initiatory, to the point that I longed for a do-over. The “hearken to the counsel of your husband” covenant had taken me by surprise when I received my own Endowment, and it hadn’t helped that I was only given a split second to decide whether to agree or make a scene by refusing. The only way I could handle it in the moment was to add a mental qualifier in my silent conversation with God: “Only if my future husband is equally obligated to hearken to my counsel.” With the new language, I feel like that prayer has been answered.
So yes, hearing for myself that the covenant is indeed gone was a healing balm. I’m grateful for the change and even more grateful that God softened the hearts of the men capable of making that change, giving them the humility to change something they may not personally object to and the confidence to challenge more than a century of tradition.
And yet, when I participated in a proxy sealing, that healing balm lost a good part of its power. As I’d heard, a bride no longer gives herself to her groom. Like the groom, she receives her spouse, and that change makes the ceremony feel egalitarian. But the uneven giving/receiving was subtle compared to a new addition: the groom now covenants to preside over his family.
Honestly, I can’t decide which version troubles me more. I didn’t notice the giving/receiving disparity during my own wedding (it was the first temple wedding I’d ever attended), and if I had noticed I don’t know what I would have said.
But there’s no missing this new covenant, which takes a word that’s already outdated and hammers it home in the highest ordinance that any member of the Church can receive. It helps that the bride doesn’t covenant to follow, but if I were engaged today and faced the choice between marrying outside the temple or having that word in my new husband’s covenants, I’m still not sure what I’d choose.
Oddly, it almost seems like the Brethren are uncomfortable with that word as well, given how far they went out of their way to modify it in the vows. Husbands promise to preside “with gentleness, meekness, and love unfeigned.” Given those words, I honestly believe that they were trying to communicate something other than “The husband is in charge.”
But no matter how many times we spin “preside” and insist it’s a part of equal partnership in marriage or that presiding in a marriage doesn’t mean the husband is in charge, we go to church week after week and see in our Sacrament Meeting program that the man who presides over the meeting is the man who’s highest in the Church totem pole. To see how fathers presiding in the home was originally taught in the Church, we don’t have to look too far into the past. Some of the recent examples I linked above both insist presiding is part of an equal partnership and imply that the father governs the entire family.
Even today, look in any dictionary, and you’ll find a definition that reinforces an authoritative understanding of the term:
to be in charge of or to control a meeting or event
1: to exercise guidance, direction, or control
2a: to occupy the place of authority : act as president, chairman, or moderator
b: to occupy a position similar to that of a president or chairman
Be in the position of authority in a meeting or other gathering.
to be in charge of an official meeting, ceremony, or other event
The consensus is painfully clear: the person who presides is in charge of whatever or whomever they preside over. And that is the exact meaning the Church once used in reference to fathers. The reason we teach that husbands “preside” is because the Church once openly taught that husbands were in charge of their families. It’s the same reason the directory software still lists my husband as the head of the household and the reason that home teachers and missionaries visit us for the first time and make the mistake of inviting my husband to call on someone to say the prayer.
Yet the Gospel teaches that spouses should work together in an equal partnership. That they have equal authority in the decision-making process. In short, the Gospel teaches that husband and wife are co-presiders over their family, if we’re using the definition of “preside” that every reputable dictionary uses. So why do we cling to the term “fathers preside” when it’s not at all what we mean? Perhaps today’s leaders are clinging to tradition. But why not just admit we see marriage more clearly today than we did several decades ago, thanks to the miracle of modern revelation?
We spent decades pretending that “hearken” meant “obey” in every context other than marriage. That game of pretend caused immense pain. How long will we pretend that “preside” doesn’t really mean “preside”?
It’s high time we cast off the false language of our fathers.
Notes:
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A few of the dictionaries I cited also list definitions relating to music, but that’s clearly not what the Church is talking about when they say that husbands preside over their family.
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Yes, I do mean to say “the false language of our fathers.” The mothers of Mormonism have never had a chance to shape the temple language.
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I took a course from Brent Barlow (one of the linked authors above) in the early 2000’s. For what it’s worth, he candidly admitted that he had previously been mistaken in his belief that the husband made all final decisions in the marriage. He even chastised male students who refused to marry a woman who wanted to work outside the home.
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The temple is sacred and a sensitive topic to most members of the Church, so in this piece I have shared no current quotes from the Endowment ceremony and have made no allusions to any information that the ceremony instructs members not to repeat. I think sealing language is a different matter and something that prospective brides and grooms should know ahead of time.
Emily received an MFA in Creative Writing from Brigham Young University in 2012. She is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Georgia.
This is definitely a problem. I’m going to have a difficult time not glaring at that point in the next sealing I go to.
If anyone cares to entertain a man’s perspective, I’ll offer mine for the sake of perspective. If not, just ignore what I have to say and move on. To me, and honestly as a man in the church this is how we are taught and how it is beat into our heads over and over, it’s all about accountability, not authority. This is how any covenant works. We don’t have to be baptized to follow Christ and keep his commandments, but once we’re baptized, we become accountable for doing that. The sealing covenant is the same. It doesn’t give the husband the authority to preside, and it doesn’t say that the wife doesn’t preside, but it does make him accountable to do it “with gentleness, meekness, and love unfeigned.” If the husband shirks his responsibilities in the home or does it without gentleness, meekness, and love, he will be held accountable for that. The same accountability is not placed on the wife. So we don’t see the sealing covenant as egalitarian either because more accountability is placed on us than is placed on the woman.
Like I said, if you don’t want to agree with this, that ok, but if you want to understand a man’s perspective, here it is.
Interesting perspective! I wonder if they could word the accountability in a different way, so that women aren’t made to feel less-than. Perhaps they could change the wording to say that both spouses are accountable to having an equal partnership.
What, tell men that they are no longer the accountable party in their marriages and families! That the eternal salvation of their wives and children doesn’t rest solely on their shoulders! That their wives will be just as accountable for their screw ups as they are for their wives’ screw ups! Are you trying to upend the entire priesthood paradigm!?
Response to DB: I don’t view “preside” as the same as “accountable.” I’ve always learned that I’m accountable for my own choices, and everyone else is accountable for their own choices.
I’ve definitely heard that parents are accountable for their children’s choices, to some extent, but I’ve never heard that the husband is accountable for the wife’s choices. That seems very strange to me.
I don’t view preside as the same as accountable either but in the theology of the church (from a man’s perspective anyway, at least me and most other men I know, because this is how we are taught) men are responsible for presiding because we are the ones who are accountable for the marriage and family. Yes, everyone is accountable for their own actions but men are also accountable to preside over their family. In other words, if I don’t preside (lead, teach, provide, protect, etc.) over my family in righteousness like i should and my family (wife and children) go astray because of my failures, I will be held accountable for that. The same accountability is not placed on the women, at least not in regards to their husbands. Since we are the ones who are responsible or accountable for our marriages and families, we are the ones who covenant to preside in righteousness.
And I believe this is the harm with the current patriarchal system we have. Men shouldn’t feel this accountability for his wife. It should be a shared accountability. I would love to see a more egalitarian system where men and women both covenant to come together as equals with the goal of following Christ and nurturing, leading, and providing for their families in whatever way that makes most sense for that individual family. There shouldn’t be so much pressure on men and there shouldn’t be such inequality of opportunity in leadership, authority, and decision-making capability for women. I think we have been ever so slowly moving in that direction (toward a more egalitarian system) in the church and certainly in society.
The church really needs to stop using the word ‘preside’ in conjunction with ‘equal partners.’ You cannot have it both ways. Would the earth stop spinning if the wording was ‘together, husband and wife are accountable for presiding over the family?’ They absolutely could have found a way to word it so it’s egalitarian, but they insist on hanging on to male authority with a Jedi hand wave saying it’s equal.
“Given those words, I honestly believe that they were trying to communicate something other than ‘The husband is in charge.’ ”
Nah. They are just trying to soften it enough for women to continue to put up with it. I saw this play out in other Christian marriage ceremonies when women began refusing to vow to “obey” their husbands and if it wasn’t taken out, they’d write their own with a JOP. Eventually, it was dropped.
Yes, using the word “preside” makes no sense. I like the hymn “Love is spoken here” because there’s a line that says “with father and mother leading the way.” Both spouses preside, not just one. Otherwise, it makes it seem as if the husband is promoted and the wife is demoted in a marriage. This is how I felt when I got married. Seeing how some members treated me as opposed to my husband is what really opened my eyes to inequality.
“in the highest ordinance that any member of the Church can receive”
Sealing isn’t the highest ordinance; the second anointing is. It’s probably even more sexist, but us ordinary members will never know.
The church does not officially recognize or disclose the second anointing and much on the internet is speculative. Although some people claiming to have received it do write about it. Again, this is all speculative so should not be relied upon. But it is claimed to be made available only to married couples. Apparently the wife washes the husband’s feet and then pronounces a blessing upon him.
I wonder how much the lowering of the missionary age has played a role in the changes. With an influx of young sisters going through the temple, before getting married, there were probably more women out their who weren’t “getting trapped” on the eve of their wedding days, and then- being able to speak directly with mission presidents, had a ear higher to the top to provide their concerns to… now, however, it feels like the inevitable has only been delayed… still pushed back to their weddings. What are we doing to make sure that women don’t feel “trapped” or “surprised” when they get married? Candace Bure, a non-Mormon Christian, opening speaks of having her husband be at the head of her home as Christ is at the head of the church. If this is what we believe, we need more inspiration on how we can prepare both our young men and young women to handle that responsibility. We need to be able to teach and preach against unrighteousness dominion in all forms. If we truly believe the words of the temple sealing ceremony, we need to prepare our young men and young women for it in all forms.
Adding… the word “preside” is in the family the proclamation. I don’t know if it will be as much of a “surprise” as some of the wording of the previous covenants.
The problem is that it is partially true. Men ideally ought to be leaders and presiders in a marriage–as the head of the masculine sphere.
What is missing is that women equally ought to lead and preside over the feminine sphere as the head. The masculine and the feminine ought to be seen as equally valuable and essential spheres to the family makeup. And by combining the energies both husband and wife are meant to grow in both spheres (whatever their natural propensities in the masculine and feminine spheres) that all power, growth, and love may belong to the both of them.
Specialization is not meant to be separation forever, but a means of complementarianism that leads to the growth of both parties that they both might obtain the greater whole than if they started the same.
I believe the main issue is that when words like lead, provide, and preside are used in our culture, I think more often than not we imagine things in the masculine sphere from a symbolic perspective. By this limited view, the natural conclusion is that the husband leads and presides because it is actually true he should lead and preside over the things being imagined more often than not (or I believe those things our leaders are contemplating on more commonly). But I believe they are not imagining more fully the feminine sphere and what it means to lead and preside in that sphere. And we are missing that important doctrine and emphasis because of it. It’s part of the further light and knowledge we will one day get, parts of the next steps in our growth. Our leaders already partly understand this intuitively, which is why equality in marriage is rightly emphasized while at the same time we are left with this confusing presiding language.
Liz, I am the same Steve who commented on your Mormon Priestess piece years ago and told you I had seen in vision the changes coming to the endowment ceremony. Many of those are now here, and I am very grateful for that like many others here. At the same time there is still much more to come, things I believe most human hearts have not even considered, and I am very excited for that day, and I hope that faith and hope prevail in the mean time over understandable fear and angst that can lead to bitterness, resentment, and anger which I do not wish on anyone.
“Seek and ye shall find…”, so make sure you are not seeking offense. That said, maybe you should consider a better definition: to preside means to be responsible for or accountable to. In a world full of fatherless children, God would have his sons do better. The individual covenants are directed to those who make them, but made in a joining covenant to help us all be accountable to God and each other. So let’s work on what specifically God has asked us to do and worry less about others.
My wife and I, having been Temple Ordinance Workers for 15 years and having been proxies for hundreds of our ancestors, were humbled and emotionally moved by the expanded obligations in the matrimonial covenant of the sealing of a man and woman according to God’s law.
It is more meaningfuland places a superior obligation upon both the husband and the wife to love each other in unity.
This is a continuation of the restoration of ‘all things’ as mentioned by a president Nelson.
Civil legislation under the subtle influence of Satan is corrupting marriage and families.
Thank you for your article. You articulated what I was thinking and feeling after attending a sealing ceremony recently. I cannot understand how one person can “preside” within an “equal partnership.” I’m glad that I am not alone in my struggle to reconcile this. I repeatedly go to the temple with a hopeful and reverent attitude seeking an uplifting experience. However, usually when I go, I am disappointed by these terms and phrases that glare out and make me feel inferior purely because of my gender. It is not the kind of experience I aspired to growing up in the church as a child, young woman, or missionary. I hope that either I can learn something to reconcile these things or that they will change.
Hi,
I wanted to take a minute to answer this question of yours (because I’ve seen several others with the same question). I’m hoping this will simply help you, and any others who read this, with understanding and give you something to ponder. In your comment you said, “I cannot understand how one person can “preside” within an “equal partnership.”
I’m going to give you a legal example of how this works, and hopefully it will also make sense to you. When two or more people set up a legal entity called a “General Partnership”, or a “Limited Partnership”, or some similar entity, the percentage of ownership is spelled out in the legal organizing documents, AS IS the responsibilities, powers, and authority of specific individuals within the partnership. If these powers and responsibilities are not clearly defined, there is a much higher likelihood that the venture WILL FAIL.
For simplification, let’s say there are only two individuals in the partnership. When the legal entity is formed, let’s say both partners own 50% each (this can vary in any partnership, but to liken it to marriage, I’m using 50% each, which also happens to be a common thing in business partnerships as well).
Under this legal structure, these two individuals are completely EQUAL partners. However, when these two organize their business, they can put into their organizing document SPECIFIC powers, authorities, assignments that they alone have responsibility for. For example, one person could be (and often is) designated as the CEO/President, and the other may be designated as Vice President/Treasurer/Financial Comptroller, etc.
This is done to create ORDER in the operation of the company. The CEO presides, and the Vice President/Co-partner has other duties. Ultimately, BOTH of them, LEGALLY and in terms of their self-interest, are without question EQUAL PARTNERS. Yet, they have AGREED to different roles, responsibilities, etc.
The fact is, God’s house is a house of order. All the Children of God, both male and female, ultimately must agree to submit to the priesthood authority of a MAN (our Father in Heaven) in order to receive all that He wants to give us. There is no other authority, no other path, no other source we can turn to that will produce the same end result. This is clearly spelled out in many scripture verses, and there is no reference ANYWHERE in the Gospel that by appealing to our “Mother in Heaven” we can accomplish the same desired end.
There are many men who “have a problem” with submitting to authority. Some men secretly wish it was themselves who are presiding on the stand at Church. They grumble within themselves that Brother So-and-so “has the power” at that given moment while they do not. ALL of us men are taught and trained since at least Deacon age to SUBMIT to and SUSTAIN those who are in authority over us…those who PRESIDE over us. The greatest example of a man who had a problem with authority, and who would not submit, was the story of Lucifer. It is a truly SATANIC attribute to fight against the authority of the Father, and Jesus gave us the perfect example of 100% submission to the Father, even when he acknowledged that he really did not want to do the atonement (…nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done).
Personally, I believe we all (male and female) have the same challenge in that regard (i.e. the challenge to submit to some man who holds the priesthood, which is ultimately Jesus Christ, who is ONE with the Father).
Generally, we men practice this discipline within the priesthood structure, and sisters do it within the Relief Society, and to a degree, within marriage. It’s all about ORDER, which produces the optimal means of making progress in our ultimate goal of becoming Fathers and Mothers in Heaven. The Proclamation on the Family is a wonderful document, clarifying and defining to a large degree, the roles that the Father has assigned to male and female in the family structure, while at the same time giving lots of leeway for individual circumstances.
Many business entities who form as “equal partnerships” FAIL bigtime because they do not begin their venture by defining their roles and powers adequately. The result is a fight for control between two or more “partners” and the eventual loss of trust and collapse of the business.
I believe ONE of the main reasons for an ever-growing increase in the divorce rate in these last days is because the Adversary is doing everything he can to weaken the marriage covenant, blurring the clarifications/definitions and muddying the waters of the roles of husbands and wives. This has also led to an increasing number of men and women (I’m speaking mostly of non-members, but it can be seen to a degree within the Church as well) who are simply deciding that there is no point in marriage, that true “freedom” is found in being “strong and INDEPENDENT”. Sigh. Marriage is truly about being CO-DEPENDENT, NOT independent.
Anyway, I didn’t mean to go into preaching mode. Please forgive me for that. I just wanted to help you understand that yes, both legally and in all other relationships, two (or more) people CAN be EQUAL PARTNERS, while having distinctly separate powers and authorities, such as the power to preside.
As in business, the venture really can only succeed by everyone learning to work together toward the common goal without abandoning ship (ha, a ship is another great example where all the passengers on the ship could literally be equal partners in the ownership of the vessel, with an completely equal interest in arriving at the desired destination, YET, they must agree at the outset WHO is to be the CAPTAIN. If there is fighting over who gets to be Captain, or a mutiny of some kind, chances are, once the storms hit, THAT VESSEL and all of its passengers will parish).
Best wishes.
Do you ladies really think that God has made a mistake with his temple ceremony verbage? Get real. You are trouble makers and frankly, the fact that you are discussing the verbage on the Internet, your covenants should be nullified through excommunication. Hopefully, he will continue your menstrual cycle punishment for eternity because of discontent seeded in your hearts.
You are in violation of the blog’s comment policy, specifically items 3 and 4:
“3. No mudslinging: Stating disagreement is fine — even strong disagreement, but no personal attacks or name calling. No personal insults.
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[…] so much in practice. The same year the women’s temple covenant was changed, church authorities added a reference to male “presiding” to the marriage […]
[…] in observe. The identical 12 months the ladies’s temple covenant was modified, church authorities added a reference to male “presiding” to the wedding […]
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Please approve my comment….
My Ex-boyfriend is back after he broke up with me….
Thanks for restoring my relationship,
He made everything possible…
I am the happiest lady on earth,
Never too late to fix your broken heart.
You can still get your lover back…
Fix broken relationship/marriage…
________________________ ro binson bu ckler11 {{ gmail }} com
Stop Infidelity.
Stop Cheating.
Stop Betrayal.
Stop Mistrust.
Stop Divorce.
Stop Poor communication.
Stop Long-distance woes.
Stop No emotional connection.
Stop Lover from breaking-up
Stop Toxic or abusive behavior.