I think the whole sealing children to parents is overblown. Section 132 doesn’t mention it–it only talks about sealing husband to wives. Frankly, if a child is sealed to a parent, but never gets baptized, never participates in the endowment, and never gets sealed to an eternal mate, the child-parent sealing seems relatively useless to me.

I think sealing children to parents is a little like the Catholic practice of infant baptism. If the child dies before age 8, our religion teaches they can’t sin anyway and go to heaven, whether they’ve been sealed to a parent or not. If they die between 8 and marriage age, then our religion says if they’re worthy, they’ll be able to find a mate in heaven and I assume get sealed to each other then anyway. Perhaps that sealing to parent will help them get into heaven some but I think it is overblown.

I really don’t see the purpose of sealing children to parents, so I don’t get that worked up about it. It seems like Bushman made the case that Joseph was trying to bind families together in a super-family, and i guess I support that, but I think there is too much hubbub about sealing children to parents. It’s not really a saving ordinance. I know we say “Families are Forever”, but really it is the marriage sealing ordinance that is the new and everlasting ordinance. I don’t see parent-child sealings as very significant.

As for Zina, that whole story bothers me. I’m sure she’ll get to choose who she wants to be sealed to, and I doubt it will be Brigham.

Daynes has some interesting quotes about marriage, and many leaders said that we shouldn’t love our spouses more than God. Marriage (and especially polygamy) isn’t about love, it’s about a saving ordinance. I find these quotes odd, but they definitely had a different mind-set back then. However, after reading these quotes, I think a pretty strong case can be made that since these were “loveless” marriages, then it wasn’t the men who just wanted to have sex willy nilly. Polygamy was highly regulated, and courting when one was married was highly forbidden. If a man wasn’t deemed worthy of multiple wives because of lasciviousness, he wasn’t allowed to participate. Daynes also outlines several cases where the women initiated the marriage. She also indicates that if a women wanted out of a marriage, she got out. Men couldn’t get out of a polygamist marriage nearly as easily as a woman could. So, the stereotype of harems of women is really inaccurate when viewing polygamy in the church.

I tend to hope/believe that sealing ordinances performed here on earth won’t be set in stone in the next and are not as rigid as they seem to be here. In the case of non-member parents signing over their kids to another for eternity, it would seem unfair to me that that decision (which is most likely based on the fact that they don’t believe in it, which is perhaps a result of never having heard the Gospel, or not receiving a spiritual confirmation of its truth) would make it too late for that individual to ever be with his/her kids in the next life. Also, in cases like Zina Jacobs Smith Young, whose husband basically lost his wife and children to BY for eternity. It just seems way too rigid and unfair to be true to me.

I was reading recently in another forum about an LDS couple who was fostering the children of a dysfunctional non-member woman and they were looking into trying to get the mother’s permission to allow her kids to be sealed to them for eternity, which apparently is possible. That just seems to go against the whole spirit world doctrine to me. If this mother has been born into certain circumstances and therefore made poor choices, or simply hasn’t felt any spiritual prompting or confirmation to go get baptized and go to the temple in this life, then why would we rob her of the chance to be sealed to her own kids when, according to what the LDS Church teaches, she may have that opportunity in the next life? It would seem absurd to one day do the temple work for such a person and then let her kids continue to be sealed to their foster parents. I just have to believe that God will be much more flexible and understanding than that. This life seems way too complicated to have everything in the eternities so cut and dry.

I remember my Baptist friend quoting me that scripture Matt. 22:30. I think perhaps they imagine that the next life will be like this one in the sense that we’ll be with our families and loved ones, even though we may not necessarily be married to them in the earthly sense. At first I thought that sounded depressing, but now that I think about it, in my case of being married to a non-member, it probably sounds much more appealing to be together with my husband in the eternities, married or not, than to not be reunited with him in the next life because we weren’t married in the temple (Elder Nelson’s conference talk from last year that I ranted about comes to mind).

I guess I look at sealings like this: I think it’s a beautiful doctrine and I don’t doubt that it will have some power in the next life. Perhaps it will be more of a symbolic thing, perhaps it will strengthen eternal love. Much like the marriage covenant is to us here on earth, I don’t think it will be worthless. However, if God is fair and just, he will make it possible for everyone to be sealed to their rightful spouse and their rightful children. I just find it hard to believe he will deny any good, loving human being the opportunity to be with his/her most beloved just because for whatever reason, they couldn’t live up to expectations on earth. Love has to mean something.

Incidentally, Zina had something to say about love, according to Wikipedia:

In later life, Zina commented that women in polygamous relationships “expect too much attention from the husband and . . . become sullen and morose. . . .” She explained that “a successful polygamous wife must regard her husband with indifference, and with no other feeling than that of reverence, for love we regard as a false sentiment; a feeling which should have no existence in polygamy.”

It seems that to Zina (and presumably Brigham and others who entered into these loveless eternal “marriages”), that love wasn’t an important ingredient and even a detriment to the relationship. Sure, reverence is important, but I feel reverence for any human being. Doesn’t mean I want to be married to them for eternity.

I guess I just don’t believe that piety is worth more in the eyes of God than love.

I fully look forward to visiting with my dog Fella again (can not be heaven without puppies and kittens — right, FD?)

But, remember, I’m the guy who thinks that there is a real physical correspondence revealed by modern cosmology to the “worlds without number” in the Book of Moses. I think that “spirit is to person as mind is to neuron”, that Spiritual life is as rich and complex as is physical life, and that the human part of heaven is as relatively small as it is in the physical realm.

FireTag, I don’t know that all of Christianity believes that husbands will be with wives (or other loved ones) in the eternities. I can think of a few people I spoke with on my mission who quoted the same scripture I used above in Matthew 22:30 “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.” I remember that they said there will be no family relationships. I can remember saying, “so you think we’ll just hang out on a cloud and play harps?” They replied basically that they didn’t know exactly what would happen, but that the righteous would constantly praise God. I don’t know about you, but I think there’s going to be more to do than praise God and play harps day after day.

I do think some Christians are coming around to the idea of eternal families, and some believe they can be “eternally with our loved ones … without ceremonies in a Temple”, but I really believe that they have borrowed this idea from the Mormons and simply reject temple worship. I can remember saying to them, “but doesn’t the marriage ceremony say ’till death do us part’?” I never got a very good answer to that question… (OK, I was probably a little too aggressive–blame that on 19-year old immaturity.) So, I think this concept of sealing is quite a revolutionary concept that was revealed to Joseph.

I remember watching “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”, and noticing the cords they used at the wedding to signify a binding together in marriage. That’s the closest thing I’ve seen in another church which is similar to this sealing (or binding) concept. I don’t know if you saw my posts on Eastern Orthodoxy, but I think there are some interesting similarities between their church and the Mormons.

The yearning to be eternally with our loved ones can be realized without ceremonies in a Temple — or so practically everyone else in Christianity (and other major human religions believes.)

I definitely wouldn’t want to be anyone’s polygamous wife, especially not my stake president. I agree with you that eternity-only marriages should never have been encouraged, but I think that there would be some today who would gladly be sealed to Joseph Smith if they had the chance.

And if you chose to be a polygamist wife of Joseph, do you really think you’d be happy in the next life as a polygamist wife? The book says that there were a significant number of Mormon women who married non-members or “bad” mormons specifically because they didn’t want any part of polygamy. I just don’t think you would be happy to be wife #36 to Joseph, or wife #4 of your stake president.

I think these issues are sticky, which is why the church doesn’t encourage eternity only marriages any more. I don’t think these ever should have been encouraged.

“Eternity Only Marriages – From page 82, Daynes said these marriages, “conferred no earthly rights or responsibilities.” They were sealed only in the next life, the couple didn’t live together, didn’t have any sexual relations, the wife didn’t take the husband’s surname, and the husband did not provide for the wife. It seems the purpose of these marriages was merely to confer salvation to the participants who participated in the “new and everlasting covenant.” Often the women were past child-bearing age. Fifteen women in Daynes’ Manti data set had this kind of a marriage.”

I’m not saying that I’d be interested in doing this if I had the opportunity (because I wouldn’t), but why can’t this be practiced today? Since there is no civil marriage, there’s no conflict with the law. And we have a lot of singles in the Church that never find an earthly mate, as well as many like myself who are married to non-Mormons. What’s stopping the modern Church from offering temple-worthy singles or those with only civil marriages from being sealed to one another? Theoretically speaking, I could be sealed to a brother at church and have my exaltation secured that way, since my husband is very unlikely to ever join the Church. And if we had kids, they would follow with me. Who knows, maybe there are some members out there, such as those who were already married when they joined the Church and whose spouses have never joined, who would be relieved to have the opportunity to be sealed to a righteous Mormon. To us it seems weird, of course, but it seems like it was common sense back then.

How things have changed from the urgency that these early Mormons obviously felt to have to be sealed in this life to someone that they would only live with in the next life, to the current teaching that as long as they’re righteous, there’s no need to worry about it and the perfect mate will be provided for them by the Lord. It’s not like we abandoned polygamy altogether, since men are still sealed to multiple wives. But many of these old practices appear to have been mostly abandoned. What changed?

E, I don’t know if you’re male or female, but would you have a problem introducing a 3rd person into your marriage in order to conceive a child? Your indifference is shocking to me, especially in light of the fact that with artificial insemination, it is an artificial act, rather than natural sexual relations to conceive. I can’t imagine a good Latter-Day Saint having no qualms about having a spouse have sex with a person outside of the marriage.

I’m a Utah Mormon too, but I think most of us are pretty prudish when it comes to that kind of thing. Are you saying you’d be open to the idea in your marriage if that was the only option to conceive, and you don’t think your spouse would object either? The Richardsons and Frederick Cox had more qualms than your comment indicates.