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In our ward they are doing a 6 week course to introduce people to the new.familysearch.org website. My husband and I are attending it. During the discussion someone brought up that their grandmother was sealed to her first husband and he passed away. The grandmother has asked that the children perform the sealing to her 2nd husband after her death since she had kids with both men. I had no idea that women could be sealed to 2 men after they were dead, just not here on earth. Can someone explain this to me? It doesn’t make sense that we can’t be sealed to more than 1 guy before we die but then it is OK for after.
Not that I am planning on getting rid of my husband or anything.
I came across the exact same question in the same class that you are attending. It seems like a double standard to me also. The best reason I can come up with is the policy is to protect the feelings of the living, but that obviously doesn’t apply in all cases. It would make sense to me to address each situation individually, but then additional problems could come up when different people get different answers (and not the one they want). I guess that’s why a blanket policy may be the best – and then the work can always be done after the parties have passed. That’s my best guess, I really don’t know. The part about being sealed to every spouse they had on earth does make sense to me — that way they would “have the choice” or “the Lord can work it out.”
It is a very good question, one that I’m not sure we have a “for sure” answer for. When I think through it, I think that the policy allows men holding the priesthood to be sealed to more than one woman in this life, because it supports the teaching of priesthood line of authority for families (the Patriarchal Order).
However, I thought that the church has backed off a strong stance of not allowing a woman to be sealed to more than one man. Under circumstances like death or divorce, I am pretty sure a woman can request to be sealed to her 2nd husband, and the church will allow it if the woman asks for that.
When I hear a response from some leaders like, “Well, the Lord will sort it out on the other side of the veil” – it makes me glad we accept that belief … and then makes me wonder if that will happen more often than we think sometimes.
I believe the sealing ordinance is a promise to be sealed based on how the family works for that promise…not some magical spiritual super glue that is binding right there and then, whether the family wants to be together for eternity or not.
I believe the sealing ordinances are symbolic representations of universal promises to all – and I think it actually is important for the vast majority of people to have physical, symbolic representations of eternal commitment. So, with that opening, I am glad the Church now allows women to be sealed to every husband – even if it’s only after death right now. I don’t believe so much in “God will sort it out” as I do in “we have no freaking clue what interpersonal relationships will be like in the hereafter, so let’s perform the ordinances for everyone in every relationship that existed on earth”.
I also believe in a sexual-intercourse-less “Council of the Gods” concept of heaven, with my wife and I (and, hopefully, only the two of us) as one component of that council – so I’m WAY out there in ultra-heterodoxy with this one.
😯 
It is good that they allow it. I guess it is part of my “feminism” that it annoys me that I can’t choose to be sealed eternally here like men can choose it. Don’t get me wrong, I am not an extreme feminist (the kind that wants the priesthood or things like that). I just think it is lame that some things are not equal. And just to avoid anything, PLEASE don’t tell me how amazing it is to be a mother and that you (as men) would rather have that than the priesthood.
🙄 I have told my husband, in jest (but there is always some truth in jest), that in the event of my passing he is to wait until I visit him and tell him that he can marry for eternity to another one because
Ineed to give approval on that kind of thing. 
Old-Timer wrote:So, with that opening, I am glad the Church now allows women to be sealed to every husband – even if it’s only after death right now. I don’t believe so much in “God will sort it out” as I do in “we have no freaking clue what interpersonal relationships will be like in the hereafter, so let’s perform the ordinances for everyone in every relationship that existed on earth”.
So, is it that while living, a widow could not be sealed to another man? It is only after the widow dies the family could do a sealing to the 2nd husband?I had a missionary friend who was married in the temple a few months after he returned home, and died 2 years after that of a disease. Does that mean that the young 20-something woman couldn’t be sealed to another man in this life?
Yep, Heber – unless she petitioned for it and it was approved. Frankly, I think it probably would be approved – but it’s not a certain thing. I have no problem opening that particular Pandora’s box, but I can understand why more conservative, traditional members aren’t. It really is a radical alteration of their view of the next life – unless they take it symbolically, that is.
I agree it is a double standard, and I wish it would change. If we go back to JS time didn’t they seal everyone to everyone. Men to men (I’m not sure about women to women) etc so I’m not sure why there is such red tape when it comes to sealings but for me sealings are very symbolic and while I hope to be conscious of my relationship to my husband in the afterlife I haven’t a clue what things will really be like. Ray, if there isn’t sex in the afterlife I truly hope there is something equal to or better because I will miss it terribly!!!
😆 What about sealing ordinances involving living children and deceased parents, how does that work? Is a full TR needed, and are the parents by proxy? canadiangirl, yes, Joseph sealed just about everyone to just about everyone in just about every reasonable form. It’s one of the things that leads me to believe that the concept of being sealed together as an entire community is vitally important – a practical embodiment of Zion, if you will – every bit as much as a specific form of marriage sealing. No, there’s no source for my view on sexual relationships in the next life. It’s just me being me and considering lots of possibilities until I find one I like for now. There’s no guarantee I will feel this way in the future.
Most members don’t really even think about it. They read body of flesh and bones (a Biblical teaching) and can’t picture anything except sexual activity as we know it now.
I believe DEEPLY that there will be ‘intimacy” of an even higher form than we know now, but I absolutely don’t believe in pregnancy in heaven, for example, and it just makes more sense to me that any “physical intimacy” will be different than what happens here (from a biological perspective) primarily to propogatge the species. After all, we won’t be creating Beings that share all of our physical characteristics, since we will be resurrected and they will be spirits. I just think the creative process for that won’t be sexual in nature. That’s all total speculation with nothing but my own thoughts and feelings to support it. I’m a high priest; I can do that and be totally orthodox.
🙄 Totally independent of Ray, I have had similar thoughts as him. I was surprised the first time he mentioned it here, thinking I was a bit crazy. Now I know I am
😆 I arrived at those kind of thoughts based on a fuzzy sort of intuitive leap from taking a lot of information in as a whole. I can’t think of any “authoritative” LDS source that speaks of this more transcendent view of “celestial” relationships, and of “sealing” being a symbolic ritual.
SamBee- I don’t know how it would work for small children. I imagine the children wouldn’t need a recommend unless they were past the age of 8 and then the family would stand in as proxy for the deceased parents.
Brian/Ray-
You actually bring up something that I have thought a lot about (procreation in the afterlife). I have always been troubled by the idea that we would be Gods/Goddesses of our own worlds and that we would be like God to those worlds. Here is why: I have never liked the idea of us coming to earth with no memory of the pre-existence, allowed to flounder and find our way. Hoping that we were not sent to some 3rd world country where we would starve to death or something. As a mother, I can’t imagine being a “heavenly mother” and sending my children down to experience such a life with no memory of being loved and wanted. Of sending my children off to something unknown to them and just hoping they made it back to me.
So then, that brings me to the afterlife and becoming Gods/Goddesses. If you look at the whole mind blowing eternity idea if we are to pro-create in the afterlife and have spirit children and we create a world. By the time we create a world and whatever else it involves then we have a gazillion spirit children. Since these spirit children are just spirits and live in heaven they really don’t know what is joy or sadness so they are just content. Then we decide that for them to have joy they must go to our world and have a body and thus the cycle repeats itself. The same cycle that we are in. Maybe this is what happened to us.
And that is why I don’t want to pro-create in the after life. I don’t want to create this for others. Personally, I like the idea of living in contentment with those that love me and are around me. I don’t want to be the missing Heavenly Mother figure. That just doesn’t make sense to me and makes me very sad to think that is what happened.
What are your thoughts on that?
In answer to the question about sealing kids to parents and temple recommends, I think it all depends on age. I think if a child is under age 12, no recommend is needed. After age 12, I think a recommend is needed (just as it is for baptisms for the dead.) Proxies can fill in for the deceased parents. I’ve been to sealings where young children have been sealed to newly sealed parents, and I am pretty sure the young children did not need recommends.
Old-Timer wrote:I believe DEEPLY that there will be ‘intimacy” of an even higher form than we know now, …it just makes more sense to me that any “physical intimacy” will be different than what happens here (from a biological perspective) primarily to propogatge the species. After all, we won’t be creating Beings that share all of our physical characteristics, since we will be resurrected and they will be spirits. I just think the creative process for that won’t be sexual in nature. Kind of like Odo and the Changelings in Star Trek, Deep Space Nine? Hell, and people call me crazy when I get excited watching those shows.
:ugeek: I’m quite sure that Gene Rodenberry was a NOM in his former life.
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