Women’s Salvation Dependent on the Man?

Here’s a BRM quote:

What we say for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob we say also for Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel, the wives who stood at their sides and who with them were true and faithful in all things. Men are not saved alone, and women do not gain an eternal fullness except in and through the continuation of the family unit in eternity. Salvation is a family affair.

If you take the sealing as a requirement to be exalted to its extremes we’d probably say it goes both ways. “Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.”

If you wanted to parse the language even more you could draw distinctions between “exalted” and “saved.” If exalted means receiving the highest degree of glory in the highest kingdom I’d say that we are dependent on one another, we can’t go it alone. If saved means we receive some sort of glory in the afterlife then we can apparently be single for that.

I believe that the LDS teaching is that Exaltation and Godhood is something that single people cannot attain. Therefore if a woman does not get married she seems to be significantly stunted in her eternal growth/progression prospects.

The good news is that we believe that these impediments will be removed in the afterlife/resurrection where a worthy husband will be made available for all worthy females in need.

Interestingly, men who never marry do not seem to have the same assurances.

At first this seems rather charitable that worthy women will have an eternal husband, but then that moves into a discussion of eternal polygamy. Yuck.

Ezra Taft Benson said, back in 1988,

“I also recognize that not all women in the Church will have an opportunity for marriage and motherhood in mortality. But if those of you in this situation are worthy and endure faithfully, you can be assured of all blessings from a kind and loving Heavenly Father—and I emphasize all blessings.

I assure you that if you have to wait even until the next life to be blessed with a choice companion, God will surely compensate you. Time is numbered only to man. God has your eternal perspective in mind.”

While the Church’s doctrine has stated that neither man nor woman will be able to be exalted without an eternal companion, those who have the righteous desire to an eternal marriage will be blessed with it in the next life. You could really flip the quote, and it would be just as true.

“…[Man’s] eternal salvation and exaltation depends on marrying a righteous, priesthood-honoring woman.”

I swear there have been dozens of priesthood talks, telling all single men to put themselves out there, and find themselves an eternal companion. And there have also been dozens of talks telling single LDS women not to lose heart, but to be patient and trust in the Lord, and they will find their husbands. If a righteous woman is not married, it is the fault of the men. The weight is 90% on us.

The assumption of the generation our leaders belong to is that women are the passive ones who are asked and men do all the asking. That’s not always the case, but it certainly is 100% the case in all their minds (and experience).

Let’s talk about the situation where a woman marries a man in the temple. The man falls off the wagon and does not qualify for celestial kingdom. Is the woman out of luck in terms of getting the highest level of exhaltation?

I think many people worry that is the case. Even if that isn’t doctrine, many people feel that way as it is not unheard of for people to be told, “Your husband is an apostate? You MUST divorce him and find a righteous husband that you can go into the highest level of heaven.” But that advice is fraught with issue both from it being wise to break up a family over that and the prospects for the wife (see The LDS Dating Crisis)

Let’s talk about the situation where a woman marries a man in the temple. The man falls off the wagon and does not qualify for celestial kingdom. Is the woman out of luck in terms of getting the highest level of exhaltation?

For the time being we have our wives, children, farms and other possessions, but unless we prove ourselves worthy, what we seem to have will be taken from us and given to those who are worthy, consequently we need not worry with regard to the defects, you need not have the least concern in the world about meeting a man in the celestial kingdom that you, if you are worthy and are so happy as to get into the celestial kingdom, can not fellowship; and if you should happen to be the one that is in fault and you cannot pass the sentinel, and your neighbor or brother does, he will not see you there, you need not be concerned in the least about being joined to any person by the holy sealing power, that will not do right in the next world.

I say to my sisters in the kingdom, who are sealed to men, and who say, “We do not want this man in eternity if he is going to conduct himself there as he does here” – there is not the least danger in the world of your ever seeing him in eternity or of his seeing you there if he proves himself unworthy here. But if he honors his Priesthood, and you are to blame and come short of doing your duty, and prove yourself unworthy of celestial glory, it will be left to him to do what he pleases with you. You will be very glad to get to him if you find the fault was in yourself and not in him. But if you are not at fault, be not troubled about being joined to him there, for no man will have the privilege of gathering his wives and children around him there unless he proves himself worthy of them.

JD 17:120, Brigham Young, June 28, 1874

Never were a people upon the face of the earth since the Priesthood was among men, so bound together as we are being bound; and this is the glorious feature of the tie that binds us together; it can only operate upon those who are righteous; it can only have effect when righteousness prevails and where people live in such a manner as to receive the promises of God. A man who practices wrong may have all these blessings pronounced upon him; he may have been baptized and have had hands laid upon him; he may go through the Temple and have wives sealed to him and have every blessing promised unto him that is promised to the most faithful of the children of God, and yet if he does not live so as to be worthy of these blessings he will not receive them; he will, sooner or later, be bereft of them and left destitute.

JD 26:251 – p.252, George Q. Cannon, October 18th, 1884

“A Few Words on Doctrine,” speech at tabernacle, October 8, 1861; “The Second Way in which a wife can be separated from her husband, while he continues to be faithful to his God and his priesthood, I have not revealed, except to a few persons in this Church; and a few have received it from Joseph the prophet as well as myself. If a woman can find a man holding the keys of the priesthood with higher power and authority than her husband, and he is disposed to take her he can do so, otherwise she has got to remain where she is… there is no need for a bill of divorcement…” – Brigham Young

It seems that (at least according to BY and GQC), if a man is not living worthy, then everything he has will be taken from him and given to another. So, the man’s wife and children will be sealed to another worthy man. If a woman is not living worthy, then it’s up to the husband what he wants to do with her: forgive and welcome her in, or cast her off. Wow… Typical BY… However, the other way that a woman can leave her husband is to ‘trade up’. Even if a husband is worthy, the wife can leave him for a husband with higher priesthood authority. How convenient for him that he was the highest priesthood authority at the time! It’s stuff like this that really pushes me away. I almost lost my marriage after my FC, because my wife completely believes that I am not worthy and she was being told by the granddaughter of one of the Q12 (since deceased) that she should leave me and find somebody who is worthy to be with her for eternity. Just one of the reasons that the temple doctrine is one of my big hot buttons.

the phrasing and concepts in question mirror pretty closely what Paul writes in Corinthians.

Many Biblical scholars don’t consider the sexist stuff his authorship but rather the work of other unnamed writers using his name or modifying his work with their anti-women statements.

I have both heard and read that a worthy wife/child will be taken away from the slothful servant and grafted into the great patriarchal chain in a more appropriate location.

Convenient that polygamous church leaders saw this as such a fantastic solution. They could have their pick of the “less worthy” men’s wives. Color me skeptical.