(While this essay can be relevant to people who do not understand and accept the doctrines of the restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), I am particularly speaking to LDS readers. So some passages below may be less meaningful to non-LDS readers.)
Here I put questions about gender, fairness, and power into a faith/science context that will enable us to understand them better. Please be patient with this progression of concepts which you may already understand. They are a logical train leading to the conclusion I would like to illuminate. I note that for men to talk about women’s issues is considered by some women to be just condescending “mansplaining.” No disrespect is intended, my views are informed and sincere and I believe the truths here are profound. Also, both genders occupy this terrain, and can have legitimate perspectives, which are not necessarily the same.
Equivalence: My first and most important point is that women and men are equal in profoundly significant ways. However, we are also different. Our differences span the spectrum of our attributes: physical, mental, emotional, and possibly spiritual, with the differences being differences of flavor, not quality. On average, we are complementary in many ways. Together we span the operational space of life: survival, reproduction, nurturing, salvation, and exaltation. Every person is specifically and uniquely themselves, sometimes with great differences in physical and mental attributes. Real differences exist. That is the nature of this universe. I do not intend to get into any discussion variations from male-normal and female-normal people in this discussion. (I will address variations from these standards of normalcy elsewhere.)
Women have unique and irreplaceable attributes and capabilities that are undervalued by society, but are highly valued by God (and by genuinely intelligent people). When we understand God’s value system and objectives, then we can meaningfully evaluate the roles, accomplishments, and attributes of women. Bearing and nurturing children is dangerously undervalued by society, but is of transcendent importance to God’s purpose. If society does not believe in God, but values fashion, high society, and conspicuous consumption, then it will error in guiding women to their highest value and highest reward.
Access to God’s power and priesthood:
Recently President Russell M. Nelson, Prophet and President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), used teachings from the very beginning of the Restoration to underscore the value and trust God places on women, and their parity with men before God:
The Lord instructed Emma (Smith) to expound the scriptures, to exhort the Church, to receive the Holy Ghost, and to spend her time “learning much.” Emma was also counseled to “lay aside the things of this world and seek for the things of a better” and to hold fast to her covenants with God. The Lord concluded His instruction with these compelling words: “This is my voice unto all.”
Everything that happened in this area has profound implications for your lives. The restoration of the priesthood, along with the Lord’s counsel to Emma, can guide and bless each of you. How I yearn for you to understand that the restoration of the priesthood is just as relevant to you as a woman as it is to any man. Because the Melchizedek Priesthood has been restored, both covenant-keeping women and men have access to “all the spiritual blessings of the church” or, we might say, to all the spiritual treasures the Lord has for His children.
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The heavens are just as open to women who are endowed with God’s power flowing from their priesthood covenants as they are to men who bear the priesthood
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Every woman and every man who makes covenants with God and keeps those covenants, and who participates worthily in priesthood ordinances, has direct access to the power of God.
When you are set apart to serve in a calling under the direction of one who holds priesthood keys—such as your bishop or stake president—you are given priesthood authority to function in that calling.
Similarly, in the holy temple you are authorized to perform and officiate in priesthood ordinances every time you attend. Your temple endowment prepares you to do so.
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As your understanding increases and as you exercise faith in the Lord and His priesthood power, your ability to draw upon this spiritual treasure that the Lord has made available will increase. As you do so, you will find yourselves better able to help create eternal families that are united, sealed in the temple of the Lord, and full of love for our Heavenly Father and for Jesus Christ. Spiritual Treasures, October 2019 General Conference, Woman’s Session
I believe that these important teachings show that while women’s and men’s roles in this world are divided into two areas of emphasis, that God values each gender the same and has profoundly important work for both to do.
We make assumptions that the values of our current society reflect eternal standards. However, we see that human society has a wide range of accepted values and norms. We did not see God making strong statements about societal standards across the history of the prophets and the New Testament, except for the standards of treatment of the poor, widows, and orphans. He could have addressed ideal social relationships between men and women, marriage standards, etc., but He only chose to speak of immorality and divorce. The fact that His first visit announcing His divine mission was to a (socially rejected) woman in Samaria, who was not in a standard marriage relationship, and how He taught her, should be thought provoking.
Pioneering a dangerous universe: In the following discussion, I elaborate on why there is a division of responsibilities between the sexes and where appropriate boundaries might exist between them. This essay will not explore God’s cosmic purposes, but it is important to assume that God’s purposes transcend the minutiae of our individual or aggregated concerns.
First- I believe that God is a just and good entity, in a universe that is dangerous, challenging, and impersonal. I will go so far as to refer to Him as the “Great Civilizer”. This view is particular to the doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and may not be understood from other religious philosophical perspectives. I believe it is also a rational view, consistent with what we know of science. However, it is worth asking: What do “just and good” mean? More on that shortly.
Our observations of the cosmos show it to be a very dangerous, uncaring, and impersonal environment. We see through the eyes of science:
- The solar system coalescing over tens of billions of years, from the collapse of a nebula into bodies so massive, dense, and hot that they spark into a nuclear furnace, orbited by colliding planets, belts of asteroids. This sequence is replicated across a billion-trillion of star systems, which make up a trillion or so galaxies, as the James Webb Space Telescope now tells us.
- The Earth, comprising billions of years of geologic activity, colliding tectonic plates, ebb and flow of glaciers, huge oceans, violent volcanism building continents, continents torn apart, or colliding together to form vast mountain ranges.
- The world of living things is also dangerous and impersonal. Of many seeds produced, few germinate. Few formed embryos survive to viability. A large fraction of living offspring do not live to adulthood. Of those that survive, predators and prey compete. The gazelle and the cheetah are both vying for life, and on any given day, the gazelle survives by staying hidden, keeping distance, or running faster than the cheetah. The cheetah survives by finding a way to locate, get close to, and then killing and eating the gazelle. This dichotomy is played out across all living things from diatoms to blue whales. Living things feed each other and feed on each other. It is rare that any malevolence is manifest in the process of predators harvesting other living things for food. The business of living involves something else dying, day to day. Only plants eat inorganic food: sunlight and rocks. Everything dies, even if not killed for food, and everything is eventually consumed, if only by bacteria.
Philosophers have debated the term evil, but star formation, colliding continents, or predators harvesting prey might be considered to be either “good” or “bad” outcomes depending on the perspective of those affected, but these objects, inert or living, each are really just following an impersonal and uncaring trajectory.
So what is “Good” and what is “Evil”?
Of primary importance to our discussion, we are told that God gave Adam and Eve a commandment to marry and to be faithful to each other. I presume that they were also told to abide by all of the commandments which He later gave through Moses, and later by Jesus to the people of His time. If you see my lecture: Adam’s Origins and Purpose, (YouTube video of a Los Alamos Faith and Science Forum presentation) I explain there that while actions and circumstances can result in benefits or challenges, and might be viewed as good or bad depending on the outcomes, that it is only in disobeying the commandments of God that mankind commits “sin.” Depending on circumstance and intent the same actions may be considered blessed or sinful. Sometimes, God makes suggestions, with outcomes that are more or less beneficial, where His counsel is intended to guide, not condemn. Some overly enthusiastic people want to condemn those who do not follow their preferred path. I have found it interesting that the Church chose to convert a “Word of Wisdom, … for the benefit of the … saints in Zion…To be sent greeting; not by commandment or constraint, showing forth the order and will of God in the temporal salvation of all saints in the last days— Given for a principle with promise” into a set of commandments with penalties, addressing a few of the proscriptions, but not all. There are clearly degrees of seriousness in alignment with God’s wisdom. There are few humans today that do not know that they are not living as healthy as they know they could be living.
God’s commandments are intended to align us to Him, enabling us to understand a higher purpose in our existence, to know of our foundational relationship with Him, and to build a peaceful, cooperative, and productive social relationship with other humans. He repeatedly tells us that if we obey His commandments, we will prosper.
I believe that while He is attentive to our individual needs and requests, that the bulk of His blessings to mankind come as the natural consequences of the social harmony and productivity that result from keeping those commandments. When we do, we are more peaceful and productive, not distracted and disabled by contention. Our families function well, blessing all participants- father, mother, children!
Human cooperation, communication, and socially-enabled creativity have undoubtedly sprung from living the basic social commandments of Christ, disseminated throughout humanity through various means and initiatives since Adam. These have brought us to the current level of social cooperation, government, literacy, science, business, and technology that provides us the current amazing array of prosperity. Because of this, many humans today enjoy wide varieties of food, spacious and healthy shelter, technological blessings of transportation, communication, etc. Better social alignment with God’s commandments and suggestions will further advance our societal wellbeing. Turning from them will result in disruption of families, failure to reproduce and support future populations, contention and violence that will disrupt productivity and commerce and destroy the peace of our communities. It will even destroy the credibility and cooperation of scientific and technology.
Good or evil represent the acts of obedience or disobedience, and the different outcomes for these opposing courses of action. God understands the paths and process to outcomes and gives us commandments guiding us to His desired end state.
Genders in the animal world- female and male provide genetic diversity and enhance survival
Job One of living things is to survive. Job Two is to reproduce and propagate the species into succeeding generations. Any historical beings who were not fully committed to both of these jobs are now unknown to us for obvious reasons. They died out, not leaving any imprint. They are not represented in the genetic pool that has survived into the present. Any persons, nations, or societies today for whose these are not priorities, will also not be represented in the future. To the extent that life and experience has meaning, that meaning is enabled by successful reproduction, by leaving an imprint on the future. (Here it is worth noting that according to the paleontological fossil record, 99% of terrestrial species have not survived to the present world.)
We know that some living beings reproduce asexually by cell division (mitosis), budding, etc., but these do not enable the diversity of genetics that allows the exploration and conquering of different difficult environments, habitats. However, with sexual reproduction, genetics are mixed and matched, allowing for adaption.
The division of functions between male and female, where the genetic signatures are combined in diverse ways, have been a key structural feature of reproduction, which has enabled diversity of genetic material as life has propagated. It is worth noting that in general, physical males are produced by modifying a foundational female design during gestation. Across the mammalian species, to create a male, genetic triggers within the fertilized egg modify a basic female design to produce a penis, testicles, and other male attributes. This reproductive diversity has enabled adaptation and optimization of genetic features to varying environments. (While I say this, I do not support the unscientific concept of random un-directed evolutionary engineering. When I have prayed about how this is done, I heard these words, “We call it adaptive engineering”, which tells me that it is a mechanism for design and development within the requirements of the environment, but utilizing established engineering options, not an undirected, random, process.)
Within species which use heterosexual reproduction, the males provide fertilization and the females gestation. However some species diversify some aspects of the roles, with some males shepherding the eggs, providing food for the young, or sometimes after copulation, being eaten by the fertilized female to provide needed nutrients for the eggs. The size and appearance between males and females vary, facilitating the most successful reproduction and survival strategy of the offspring in that particular environment. Sometimes the male is larger and sometimes smaller, sometimes brighter or drabber. In mammals the division of labor is mainly that, in addition to the males inseminating the females, they provide foraging or protection, while the females gestate the embryos, lactate to feed them, provide care, protection, training to the growing young, until they are ready to set off on their own. Both genders have critical reproductive roles, with the details of other survival processes varying with species and environment. Both are essential.
Mammalian species in which the males provide protection, or for which opportunities to breed with females is competitive, the males often exhibit greater physical size. Many species operate with the dominant male having harems of females, all of whom bear his offspring. This propagates the genes of dominant males, making for a stronger species.
Females appear to socially dominate in some species. There are group hierarchies in some social species: hives, herds, coveys, flocks, colonies, packs, pods, etc. Physical size often dominates, but not always.
Up to this point, we do not really debate which of these sexes of the animal kingdom is better treated or has a better life experience: the protected cow elk who gets to bear and suckle young, or the “loser” bachelor bull elk who has to wait for future years, or the dominant bull elk who gets to propagate but who is exhausted by keeping his herd together and continually inseminating his cows during the rut. He is always the target of the next generation of bulls. And all of them eventually die and are eaten by predators, including by human hunters, but hopefully after reproduction. Mice, or elk, or whales, or beetles, we do not consider their gender roles to be special. Rather we see a necessary division of biological function for successful species propagation. Both genders play critical roles to enable species survival.
The point of this discussion of gender across non-human living things is to emphasize that both genders are necessary, have critical roles for their existences, and that neither one is specially favored of God. The experiences of individual living things vary with their circumstances: provident or marginal.
Gender within Humanity:
Throughout human history of families we see a two-way division of responsibility in reproduction: in defense, sometimes in food production, and in family nurturing.
Women bear the children, often in a traumatic and painful experience (those big baby heads!), lactate to feed them, nurture them as little children, and cultivate them into adulthood. The physical and mental requirements of gestation are always underestimated. Just because gestation happens without cognitive effort does not mean it is not miraculous, complex, and profound. Nurturing is a highly empathetic and cognitive activity, requiring the mother (and father) to be mentally fully engaged, alert, and effective.
Men inseminate—a simple task— but then with marriage, bind together with the mother into a couple companionship in which they reinforce, protect, and provide: for the woman and her children, and then serve as a companion and teacher for their children as they prepare to transition away from the incubation of the family.
This intact family maybe the most important innovation leading to civilized human society.
The Family: a Proclamation to the World is an exquisite expression of commandment, suggestion, and explanation of the nature and intent of family relationships, opportunities, and responsibilities from God. Some elements of it communicate commandments, other elements indicate paths to optimization of the desired objectives of happiness and success of individuals, their spouses, and their offspring. Diversity along those paths is explicitly acknowledge, but with the encouragement to align as much as possible.
God states that marriage is the dominant mechanism for human propagation and success. Science observes and documents the measurable benefits of marriage, including intact families, of the long-term care of children, protection of the wife, and elevation of the husband’s productivity.
Earlier cultures embedded the “nuclear” family within a clan of relatives, affording greater protection, and a stable food production environment.
I cannot overstate the importance of mothers to the development of healthy and effective human children. Only those who are distant from the child-nurturing environment (which has become common in academia) can discount the intensity, dedication, attention, persistence, and intense commitment that exists, and that is essential to not only the survival, but the success of our offspring. For humanity, to be mentally and emotionally attentive to the needs of the infant/teen is a long-term commitment. Though it rarely occurs, a lack of intense commitment and affection by a mother to her children is considered to be highly abnormal, perhaps even a mental defect. Though many men deeply love their children, I know of few men who are triggered with a similarly-high level of emotional involvement in their children as the mothers.
In today’s society, there are many people who have not grown up in, or who, because of culture and propaganda, discount the value of the nurturing of both mother and father in a nuclear family structure.
If we look at the human enterprise through God’s eyes (to the extent that is possible) we see that He is accomplishing here a large scale project, which He told Joseph Smith He had replicated many times across the cosmos:
37 And the Lord God spake unto Moses, saying: The heavens, they are many, and they cannot be numbered unto man; but they are numbered unto me, for they are mine.
38 And as one earth shall pass away, and the heavens thereof even so shall another come; and there is no end to my works, neither to my words.
39 For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. Moses 1:37-39
God makes worlds to provide human premortal spirits the opportunity to gain physical bodies and to obtain eternal life by faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, and obedience to His commandments. So, these are His priorities. Thus, when He told Adam and Eve that they were to:
28 … Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over (everything on it) Moses 2:28
we can understand that this was His Prime Directive! He is not only populating this world with His children, but He is providing bodies and mortal experiences necessary for the eternal lives of His children, who are waiting anxiously of this opportunity to attain this great advancement. All other priorities are secondary. This is done through reproduction, preferably within protected families. Sacred families are intended to be the greatest blessing of mankind, the most powerful mechanism to launch these premortal spirits into morality.
It is in this context of developing and protecting sacred families that we must consider our social and religious treatment of gender. We must also apply this perspective to His instructions concerning marriage, chastity, and His prohibitions concerning immorality, pornography, adultery, divorce, etc. It is important to note that while women are generally physically less strong, these commandments from God are clearly to benefit women and their children.
With this same perspective, we may also understand the enigmatic reference to a curse prophesied, an Abomination of Desolation, (Joseph Smith-Matthew 1:32) in which the Earth would be cursed in the latter days. I believe that this curse refers to the destruction of sacred families across nations. We can also understand the modification of the prophecy of Malachi made by Moroni to Joseph Smith,
39 And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers. If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming. Joseph Smith History 1:39
Who is the Boss?!
Like all other species, there is reason to think that within humanity, being male or female are both equally advantageous and necessary to the purpose of reproduction, and establishing our genetic imprint on the future. However, physical size and strength have dominated important aspects of all human society.
Humanity is a particularly social species, and within our cultures there are many hierarchies of relationships, within families, clans, communities, nations, etc. These have included examples of great leadership, solicitous and engaging leaders, as well as blatant oppression by the powerful of the weak. Slavery, oppression, and abuse are as old as mankind and still exist today, though I do not believe that God wants us to do these things.
Historically, we have evidences that humanity has practiced both patriarchal and matriarchal society structures. I believe that where marriage is practiced and the fatherhood of children is reliably established, a patriarchal structure has been viable. The mother of a child is never in doubt, and thus a matriarchal structure is a solid fallback where stable and intact families are not the custom.
In my experience, every one of us sit somewhere within a power structure, and maybe several different power structures, and those positions evolve with our life experiences. However, I have also observed that even within formal power structures, influence and power may be manifest upwards as well as downwards, with either cooperation through encouragement, initiative, and support or conversely, resistance in the form of sabotage, fragging, withholding love or support, deception or withholding information, infidelity, etc.
In my experience with families—unless physical violence is present (I do not believe anyone is obligated to stay within an abusive relationship)— women are very powerful to accomplish what they want, and often dominate from positions of less physical strength but wielding strong social, emotional, intellectual, and persuasive power: I have seen that in my grandparent’s and parent’s families, in my own marriage, in my children’s families, and in my associate’s families. The tools of influence available to women within couple relationships are very diverse and powerful.
As the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and the Cyber Revolution have changed human society, machines have amplified the strength and negated the size requirements of workers in many home, farm, industrial, and business roles, so that women can now manage machines to do needed work. As more of our work has become cerebral, women’s minds and academic skills have proved to be equal to men’s. When women have gone into the workplace during times of war, when men were required on the battlefield, many women did not return to the hearth, but competed in the workforce on a par with returning warriors.
One can think that these advances in the relative power and influence of women in human society “just happened”. That view does not credit the planning and execution of God’s plan for mankind, which the Savior and His prophets have expressed very clearly. If we believe in Him, then we may also believe the increase of women’s power in modern society is part of His plan. To what end? Is it to increase the standard of living, to have wonderfully diverting and entertaining vacations, to cease reproducing, to become manly physically and in power and influence? I do not think so. What do you think?
In spite of this technological disruption of relative workplace strengths, we have seen in modern practice that women do not necessarily have the same appetite for the workplace as men. Even when they have become qualified with outstanding academic and business credentials, a large fraction of these powerful women leave the workplace within a few years to bear and raise children. This is significant frustration to feminist ideologues, universities, and elite businesses who hire and cultivate powerful women, only to lose them to family and motherhood! Thankfully, many women want to marry, bear children, and raise families. Remember, producing the next generation is the prime requirement of all living things.
Still, the usual division of labor within the family capitalizes the nurturing power of women and the providing power of men. The “Proclamation on the Family specifically speaks of fathers having primary responsibility for presiding, providing, and protecting, while mothers have primary responsibility for nurturing. Adapting to varying circumstances is not a sin in LDS doctrine. Husbands and wives are helpmeets, cooperating across different responsibilities. My mother went into the workplace to successfully assist my father when he had a career change requiring several years of retraining, and then later to provide for her children after his death. She was very competent. I learned to expect female intelligence, competence, and initiative from her.
Within my own family, my wife Rebecca, is also very intelligent and competent, though she entered the workplace only for a short time at the very beginning of our marriage. Subsequently she was fully occupied with raising our nine children. (By the way, the decision to have this many children was always by mutual agreement between us, and she always had the veto option.) I highly respect her ability to receive revelation from God for herself and for our family. She has pointed out to me that if she and I were the same, one of us would be redundant. I found in my marriage, from the beginning, that presiding did not mean being bossy, that being bossy did not bring as good outcomes as finding out what my wife wanted to do and cooperating with her to accomplish that. I think that she has found that the reverse is true for her too. She has been smart, caring, insightful, industrious, and competent in many areas.
All of my daughters are intelligent and powerful, as are my sons. Two of my four daughters are breadwinners in their families with full-time jobs out of the home, and where their husbands do a great deal of nurturing and child care. The wonderful thing is that they have families where those roles are worked out by mutual agreement.
Much of my work life at Los Alamos National Laboratory and DoD has been under the direction of female bosses. They have generally done as good or better jobs as my male bosses.
So, while women’s roles in government power, or workplace authority, may be viable and often fulfilling, if this interferes with God’s Prime Directive of the sacred family–bearing and nurturing children–it can undermine God’s intent. It is not that God sees women as just “breeding stock”. They are essential partners in His program to provide bodies and nurturing for the needs of His individual children. This is critical to the success of His primary mission.
Women’s roles and responsibilities in the Church
We are told in “The Family: a Proclamation to the World” that gender was established pre-mortally. “Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.” As I think deeply about our possible premortal progression and history, though we have no idea what those previous experiences entailed, I wonder whether at some point we specialized in our pre-mortal development to take a male or a female path.
Pre-mortal Gender-
It appears to me that the gender attributes are primarily for genetic diversity in mortal physical reproduction, and I do not know if such a diversity-generating function was needed pre-mortally. If only needed as we came to mortality, we would have needed to gain the physical skills and attributes that would enable us to live effectively as male or female humans, to bear and nurture families.
I believe that there is a lot of learning that must have been necessary pre-mortally to be able operate a female body, that is different than what is required for operating a male body. (Any perception that we are born “just knowing” how to operate is unscientific. We do not know “how we know” how to live!) That is my explanation for why we were pre-mortally designated as male or female. We are taught that our physically resurrected families are to continue after mortality with male and female identities in family relationships.
In Mortality:
We have seen above that within the animal kingdoms that the most important aspect of living beings was reproduction, with both genders having critical roles. We may deduce from revelation that God’s power and value structure are not necessarily aligned with the social power and value structures of humanity in mortality. It also seems short-sighted to me, to assume that contemporary social values are necessarily honored by God in His planning and direction of humanity. Human social structures and values, all of which fall short of His Celestial standards, have been variable though human history. In His revelations to His prophets, He has not demanded that we stop all inequity, and non-heavenly practices, but has taught us fundamental principles of “good” and tried to persuade us in that direction.
I believe that from the perspective of His value structure, neither males nor females are particularly favored for the functions and outcomes He cares about. In the statements of President Nelson above, citing revelation given to Emma Hale Smith, God clearly values her (and other women’s) intelligence, leadership, intellectual ability to learn and to instruct, and lead.
In the scriptures concerning the promises and rewards to mankind, God does not give credit for social dominance. If we were to look at His tally sheet for each one of us, our positions of command or influence only enter His evaluation equations in terms of how we exercise His principles of righteousness in our roles. In Section 121 of the D&C, vs 39-40, He is explicitly disapproving about the prevalence of “unrighteousness dominion” by those who exercise power and influence over others. It is my opinion that when we move beyond the veil of mortality, to the resurrection, to see God’s work in its full expression into the eternities, there will be real equality of treatment between genders, and that the family structures will be more for relationships, organization, and voluntary coordination than for bossing anyone around.
I see the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints appropriately moving to be more inclusive of women in its power structures. In my opinion, the revealed role of deliberative Councils, established by Joseph Smith, was one of the most profound evidences of the divinity of the Restored Church. It was not just another religious power structure dominated by a powerful personality. There, the combined intelligence, experience, and perspectives of all of the individuals in the council, and the role of the Holy Ghost in inspiring each of them, was put to powerful use. The fact that Joseph Smith did NOT act like a dictator to the Church was amazing.
Recently there has been motion to include women leaders more fully in these church councils. In spite of this, we as a people retain the residues of the cultures we come from and of the people around us, and those residues include the exercise of power, discrimination, misogyny, and racism. It takes time and effort to refine those things out of the Church, and to inspire and educate individuals who come from society into the Church with each generation.
Ancient practices:
I hear questions about why God did not treat men and women the same, anciently and in the latter days. I think part of the answer may be that there has been a long-established biological male dominance in human society stemming from the physical differences and our reproducing and nurturing roles, that is imprinted through our genetics and biological structures. Men’s and women’s powerful, but different sexual appetites are real, and without the discipline of obedience to God’s moral commandments, put women at a powerful disadvantage and undermine family structures. Men’s greater strength and size; the requirements of women’s gestation and nurturing of her family, both point to men’s external focus in the ancient world. Hunting, laboring, warfare all are enhanced by greater strength and size. Undoubtably humanity has many instances of men acting unjustly and unkindly toward women. God has taught us to be just and kind, but He did not tell us to reverse these gender roles.
Our frame of reference is our own experience and culture in today’s society. We judge the past by our values and experience. However, our time and experience is transient and ephemeral. We do not know what the order of Heaven is beyond the Resurrection. God has not told us about that future. However, He has been very clear that He does not tolerate abuse of women in mortality and that He values them. I believe that God considers His daughters to be honored for their prime role in preparing their (His) children for mortality, developing their bodies, and nurturing them into successful lives, even if that role does not dominate physically or politically.
Plural Marriage or Polygamy
Many have questioned the practice of polygamy, a man having multiple wives, anciently, and in modern times. This is rare today in the industrialized countries, but worldwide, about 2%, or 157 million people live in polygamous relationships today. This is particularly interesting to Latter-day Saints, for which the practice of plural marriage, from the early years of the Church in the 1840s, to the 1890s when it was discontinued, touched 25%-56% of the members. I have a few observations:
1) the Prophet Jacob, early in the Book of Mormon (Jacob 2: 23-35), decried the licentiousness and immorality that was expressed through having multiple wives and concubines among his people, and declared that God valued the chastity and protection of women. Multiple wives could be required temporarily in circumstances where God wanted to multiply the people more rapidly. However, when plural marriage was for licentiousness of men, it was considered reprehensible by God.
2) The vast number of plural marriages in my family history, and in the early LDS church, were to provide family protection in a dangerous wilderness for women and their broken families, who were alone. There were certainly cases of men acquiring younger, sexually attractive women, as plural wives, and leaving the older wives with families on their own. Unquestionably, all marriage relationships are fraught with misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and immaturity. When another wife was acquired to as a substitute for resolving existing marital difficulties, opportunities for growth and godliness within the first couple were lost. The same observation applies to modern divorce and remarriage.
3) What about eternal relationships? Is sharing a spouse tolerable? Would men tolerate their wives having multiple husbands? I will merely observe that mortal relationships are limited and relationships beyond the resurrection are unknowable to us, but projected to be different (see John 17). I don’t know.
4) The “Principle” was to have been practiced by mutual agreement by the husband and wife, but there is evidence that such did not always (or even usually) occur in practice. I think that it is hard to “unbreak” a betrayal of an exclusive relationship. Would a plural marriage relationship be different if the wife and husband were unified in inviting another wife? (One of my female ancestors supposedly invited her niece to come into her marriage. That relationship did not work out, and the niece left after a few years.)
5) It is worth noting that many of the Latter-day Saint women practicing “The Principle” were very loyal to it and protective of it. Many of these “sister wives” build strong bonds of friendship, support, and love, such that the husband was sometimes on the outside! I know of NO reports that LDS plural marriages were exercised in licentiousness, or immorality. I do know that when women found the arrangement not to their liking, they could and did petition for divorce. There are such a number of strongly contrasting views on this subject that it seems impossible to draw confident conclusions.
Gender Roles
We can quibble with God’s program and wish something were different. However it appears that for many of those who doubt, the alternative for Latter-day Saint women who disagree with the gender roles given by God, that their alternative is not some other religion, but to disbelieve in God altogether!
This path is really incomprehensible, particularly for the many, many of us who have personal experience with God, have felt His spirit, and who have received revelation of His reality, and of the authenticity and truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, and of the divine mission of Joseph Smith. We have historical examples of powerful women of faith and accomplishment in history, particularly Deborah the prophetess and judge who led Israel against the Canaanite’s in as recorded in the book of Judges. Also Joan of Arc, who with visions had the courage to lead French forces against their enemies. Why did God choose Joseph Smith instead of a woman?
As discussed by Pres. Nelson in the remarks cited at the beginning of this paper, we know that women have been given priesthood power and authority in the temple ordinances, though they are not ordained to priesthood office in the management of the Church. Many women in the Church know the strength and worthiness of women, and want that capability to be recognized by organizational position and authority. I do not know the mind of God, when or whether that will happen. I do know that God requires our obedience, and that rebellion results in chaos.
As we play “King of the Hill” in our social relationships: in marriage, the Church, business, or government; or as we often find ourselves occupying supporting roles, the critical metric is how we interact with each other for a constructive outcome, not who is giving commands, particularly as all of us have access to God and direction from the Holy Ghost.
I have found in my marriage and in relations with my children, that encouragement and persuasion are the most effective methods to accomplish the good that is needed. When I have had the role of a “boss” in the home, laboratory, or government, the times where I actually needed to command someone were rare, and sometimes backfired. The best bosses organize, facilitate, and encourage the creative and intellectual energies of willing subordinates.
It is true that there exist oppressive organizations, and we do not always get the option of being free of such structures. However, the better jobs in the workplace or the home include latitude of decision and freedom of action.
So my bottom line is that, after careful consideration of all that we see in this world, that the important thing is not whether women are allowed to “rule”, but whether men and women work together, marshaling all of the power of all of us, to accomplish God’s objectives of providing abundant and productive lives for His children in mortality.
Women are as highly valued by God as men are, and should be well treated in society and in the Church. On the longer time scale of the eternities, these mortal powers and positions are surely going to be much less important than in mortality. In fact the eternal objectives identified in the Temple provide precisely equal promise and standing for women and for men. If God wants to make adjustments to the management and administration of His Church today, as the gender norms of society change, He may do so, and that would be fine with me.
Where is the world going? What might “Abomination of Desolation come to mean?
Transformation of world cultures: The world has changed in some fundamental ways that transform gender roles and reproduction. As discussed above, technology has made production of foods, living materials, tools, and toys enormously easier than ever in history, particularly for the industrialized part of the world, but this wealth is transforming the third world as well.
Jobs that pay better than rural subsistence farming and crafts are now available in cities across the third world, sharing in production roles for first world economies. These jobs are generally available equally to both sexes, drawing rural populations into high-density cities, simultaneously transforming cultures from traditional to urban and reshaping gender roles from traditional societies.
However, it is notable that while cultures have been quick to load additional wage-earning responsibilities onto women, there has generally been no (or little) change seen in the women’s roles of mother, home maker, and nurturer of children. Food preparation, shopping, cleaning, laundry care, and child care remain largely in the woman’s domain, while also taking on full-time wage-earning responsibilities outside of the home.
This is seen to put negative pressure on marriage and childbearing across many societies, but most sharply in France, Russia, China, Japan and Korea. Many women do not see the value of marriage or childbearing. Consequently reproduction rates across these nations is plummeting. The US is only spared this statistic because of the higher reproduction rate in our immigrant communities. We see reduced marriage and pregnancy rates within the well-to-do core cultures of the US.
Social sexual values- trends:
Sexual morals have been in debate from time to time across the history of human civilization. It is tempting to say that these are generally static, but there is evidence that these values are not constant, but fluctuate strongly up AND down with cultural trends, and may change dramatically over short periods. Prostitution, slavery, and infanticide of the undesired infants have been recorded in human society from the beginning of recorded history.
In Western society it is clear that social/culture for the last hundred years has been pressing hard in opposition to the instructions from God for sexual morality, specifically celebrating sexual experimentation and liaisons outside of marriage. This is easily seen in the evolution of entertainment: popular music, literature, dance, art, and video. The popularization of these forms of communication: with the printing press, radio, audio and video recording and distribution technologies, including computers and the internet has made these images/ideas/and expressions ubiquitous and ever present in modern society. Any discipline toward obedience to God’s instruction then has to be as resistance to this ever-present enticement to succumb to physiological and mental sexual attractions, for the stability of family structure, marriage fidelity, and personal morality.
Reproductive Technology:
For much of human history, sexual relations resulted in pregnancy and birth. Health risks for the mother and child have always been large, until recently, and that improvement is primarily in the First World. However technology has supplied contraceptive options: the condom, IUDs, contraceptive medications that alter the female reproductive process to make her non-fertile, etc. Amniocentesis and abortion have made possible the identification and killing of undesired fetuses. These technologies have been adopted wholesale to enable women and their men to defer pregnancy or to terminate undesired pregnancies.
Conclusion-Our Values:
So, women and men may choose in today’s cultural, medical, and technological circumstances to marry or not marry, to have children, or to not have children. I think that those choices are individual, but result in personal and societal consequences. The joys, successes, and satisfactions as well as the challenges, disappointments, and struggles of families are the experiences of those who marry and reproduce. Their communities benefit by continuing generations of well trained, healthy citizens. There is no reason for women to be oppressed, but I hope that they, and the society in which they live, will recognize the overwhelmingly greater value of the work women perform with their families, than in external service industries.
Where marriage and childbearing is discouraged and disregarded, and where women and men choose other alternatives, the richness and joys of lasting relationships, the satisfactions and rewards of close personal relationships with spouses and children are not gained.
I note that your mileage in marriage and family experiences may vary. Some standard two-parent households have been contentious or abusive. Many, many people have had some combination of alternative family circumstances. For many these have been sub-optimal, and painful. None are perfect. Some marriages have been disasters. Some parents have been abusive.
Some heroic women have borne and raised wonderful children alone. Some wonderful men have raised their children without the presence of a wife. In both of these cases, the single parent has operated at much greater disadvantage financially, emotionally, and temporally that a faithful two-spouse marriage.
However, sociological research shows clearly that marriage and family provide significantly better outcomes on the whole for the children, for the women, and for the men: happiness, sexual satisfaction, stability, housing, financially, heath-wise, longevity, education, safety, level of advancement in career, etc.
I will not address the issues of gender confusion and homosexuality here, except to say that long-term commitment, fidelity, and application of other Godly principles between partners should generate some of the benefits seen in the previous paragraph.
©Gary Stradling 2024
Faith Illuminating Science--Science Illuminating Faith 