Under the banner of heaven

[Rain]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

I was married in 1980.  You will need to be more specific before I know whether to agree or disagree,   

 

58 minutes ago, Smiley McGee said:

It was literally part of the law of obedience, even post 1990. Women covenanted to obey their husbands as their husbands obeyed God. 

Post 1990 it was worded differently. Many felt the word only meant "listen", but if you look at the church website there are some leaders who feel the word means to listen with the intent to obey. So it depends on what you felt the phrase meant.

[Okrahomer]

1 hour ago, Tacenda said:

Funny thing, I guess they'd say obey your husband in the past with civil marriages, so it could have stemmed from that. 

Indeed!  Note the words to “Old-Fashioned Wedding” in Annie Get Your Gun!

[Frank] We'll have an old-fashioned wedding; Blessed in the good old-fashioned way; I'll vow to love you forever; You'll vow to love and honor and obey.  

[Annie] I wanna wedding in a big church with bridesmaids and flower girls;
A lot of ushers in tailcoats, reporters, and photographers; A ceremony with a bishop who will tie the knot and say:
"Do you agree to love and honor?"
Lovе and honor, yes, but not obey.

 

[SeekingUnderstanding]

4 hours ago, Rain said:

This is definitely temple related pre 1990 and sort of there up till a few years ago.  So it was probably familiar to the Lafferty's in 1984.

For example see here:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1973/02/strengthening-the-patriarchal-order-in-the-home?lang=eng
 

“

By strengthening the patriarchal order in Latter-day Saint homes, not only will the husband-wife relationship be enhanced, but the parent-child relationship will improve as well. When a wife challenges the right of her husband to officiate in the home, is it not a logical consequence that the children will challenge that right also? Furthermore, is it possible that a child will then not only challenge the right of the father, but also that of either parent to make decisions affecting his life? Again, Dr. Rydman has stated:

“Little scientific evidence is in at this time, but there is concern expressed in some quarters that the growing rebellion of youth is a logical extension of the shift toward equalitarianism. In a new way and in ever increasing numbers, the youth today are demanding a voice in education, marriage, sexual expression, and other significant areas of life. As woman challenges the authority of man, so youth challenges the authority of the family and all other related social institutions.”⁷

[Rain]

2 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

For example see here:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1973/02/strengthening-the-patriarchal-order-in-the-home?lang=eng
 

“

By strengthening the patriarchal order in Latter-day Saint homes, not only will the husband-wife relationship be enhanced, but the parent-child relationship will improve as well. When a wife challenges the right of her husband to officiate in the home, is it not a logical consequence that the children will challenge that right also? Furthermore, is it possible that a child will then not only challenge the right of the father, but also that of either parent to make decisions affecting his life? Again, Dr. Rydman has stated:

“Little scientific evidence is in at this time, but there is concern expressed in some quarters that the growing rebellion of youth is a logical extension of the shift toward equalitarianism. In a new way and in ever increasing numbers, the youth today are demanding a voice in education, marriage, sexual expression, and other significant areas of life. As woman challenges the authority of man, so youth challenges the authority of the family and all other related social institutions.”⁷

I'm glad this note is now at the top, "Editors’ note (Jan. 2022): Articles in the magazines archive may reflect practices and language of an earlier time. More current messages from the magazines on the relationship between husbands and wives include “Spiritual Treasures” and “Achieving Oneness in Marriage.” See also “Marriage” in Gospel Topics."

I've not noticed notes like that before. 

[ZealouslyStriving]

11 hours ago, Smiley McGee said:

It was literally part of the law of obedience, even post 1990. Women covenanted to obey their husbands as their husbands obeyed God. 

Which is scriptural:

"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them." (Colo. 3:17)

Symbolic penalty oaths as part of covenants are also scripturally sound.

[Smiley McGee]

11 hours ago, Rain said:

 

Post 1990 it was worded differently. Many felt the word only meant "listen", but if you look at the church website there are some leaders who feel the word means to listen with the intent to obey. So it depends on what you felt the phrase meant.

I get that the word “obey” was not used in the language of the covenant, but women used the same word to covenant to listen to their husbands as the men used to covenant to listen to God, in keeping with the law of obedience. All this to say it would be easy for a husband to find justification in the endowment for a wife’s subordinate position. I didn’t agree with that position regardless of what was in the endowment, but we can’t pretend that such a position is foreign to the church’s doctrines and covenants. 

[bluebell]

13 hours ago, Smiley McGee said:

It was literally part of the law of obedience, even post 1990. Women covenanted to obey their husbands as their husbands obeyed God. 

I'm aware of that.  In my experience though, how Banner portrays that aspect of mormon life is not how the typical members viewed their relationships.  The lafferty's, from what I understand, were not like typical members.

Though I'm sure plenty of sexist LDS men used that part of the endowment, just like sexist non-lds Christians used/use those verses in the bible, to justify sexist behavior.

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, Smiley McGee said:

We can’t pretend that such a position is foreign to the church’s doctrines and covenants. 

No one is pretending that.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Smiley McGee said:

women used the same word to covenant to listen to their husbands as the men used to covenant to listen to God, in keeping with the law of obedience.

I am trying to remember if the language that the woman had to obey righteous instruction/commands/whatever from the husband was original to the covenant or came later.  I know not everyone read that part as I did, which was if the wife thought her husband was telling her to do something inappropriate or unrighteous, she had the divine direction not to obey him (iow, she had the right to decide whether or not his commands were to be followed or not based on whether she believed they were righteous or not) but to only obey him when he was obeying God…and if he was obeying God, my view back then was why wouldn’t she want to do what he wanted her to do anyway.

Nowadays I see a much broader path of obedience to God so see there could be significant difference of opinion of which righteous behaviour was best, so I can now see that conflict could still arise and the covenant required the woman accept the man’s choice of best choice and not the reverse.

Of course, in watching how my parents operated, I have always been of the opinion that a righteous, obedient to God husband would always highly value his righteous wife’s opinions and desires and work to include them in any decision he made….but I am well aware not everyone interpreted the temple covenants in such a way back then.

Edited March 5, 2024 by Calm

[Smiley McGee]

44 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I'm aware of that.

 

43 minutes ago, bluebell said:

No one is pretending that.

You’re aware that women used to covenant to obey their husbands during the endowment but know endowed women to whom “the idea that women are taught to be obedient to their husbands and to serve them would be foreign”? 

Edited March 5, 2024 by Smiley McGee

[MiserereNobis]

Your church changed its position on race, but bringing up past issues of race is “race-baiting.”  It appears your church changed its position on gender roles, so would bringing up these past issues be “gender-baiting”? (I really wanted to write “sex-baiting” so @The Nehor could respond)

[bluebell]

30 minutes ago, Smiley McGee said:

 

You’re aware that women used to covenant to obey their husbands during the endowment but know endowed women to whom “the idea that women are taught to be obedient to their husbands and to serve them would be foreign”? 

In the context that that is presented on Banner, yes.

[bluebell]

19 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

Your church changed its position on race, but bringing up past issues of race is “race-baiting.”  It appears your church changed its position on gender roles, so would bringing up these past issues be “gender-baiting”? (I really wanted to write “sex-baiting” so @The Nehor could respond)

If people were bringing it up to incite anger and hatred, then perhaps.

[LoudmouthMormon]

13 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

“Little scientific evidence is in at this time, but there is concern expressed in some quarters that the growing rebellion of youth is a logical extension of the shift toward equalitarianism. In a new way and in ever increasing numbers, the youth today are demanding a voice in education, marriage, sexual expression, and other significant areas of life. As woman challenges the authority of man, so youth challenges the authority of the family and all other related social institutions.”

Whoo-boy, but that's a stinker of an example of antiquated thought!  And yet, at the same time, didn't it turn out to be the dictionary definition of a fulfilled prophecy?

I get thread-banned when I start talking about how youth are demanding a voice in sexual expression, so I'll not do it here.  But does anyone want to argue that those 1970's era worries didn't come fully true?

[Calm]

53 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

Whoo-boy, but that's a stinker of an example of antiquated thought!  And yet, at the same time, didn't it turn out to be the dictionary definition of a fulfilled prophecy?

I get thread-banned when I start talking about how youth are demanding a voice in sexual expression, so I'll not do it here.  But does anyone want to argue that those 1970's era worries didn't come fully true?

But was the cause the push for women’s equal rights or something else?

[The Nehor]

51 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

Whoo-boy, but that's a stinker of an example of antiquated thought!  And yet, at the same time, didn't it turn out to be the dictionary definition of a fulfilled prophecy?

I get thread-banned when I start talking about how youth are demanding a voice in sexual expression, so I'll not do it here.  But does anyone want to argue that those 1970's era worries didn't come fully true?

Prophecy requires a spiritual element. Also the kids at the time this was written were the youngest boomers and the oldest Gen Xers, both generations not particularly known for destabilizing the social order of anything.

[LoudmouthMormon]

Just now, Calm said:

But was the cause the push for women’s equal rights or something else?

Bizarre thing that sounds like a tangent, but is actually trying to answer your question:

I think the cause of that sort of thinking, was the entire history of humanity.  From first evolutionary humans until the industrial revolution, the earth and everything in it was our enemy and was out to kill us.  Weather, lack of food, animals, other humans, all trying to kill us.  And we evolved into two types of things - a bigger stronger fighting thing, and a smaller nurturing thing.  Because that gave us our best chances of passing on our genes and continuing the species.  So the bigger things called the shots, because that was life and death, and the smaller thing raised the children to adulthood, and then both died in their 30s or 40s, and the cycle repeated itself. 

After the industrial revolution, we started taming all the dangers and changing our reality.  The world managed to fail at one last massive effort to kill everyone in WWII, a bazillion people got born in the '50's, and grew into the freest richest people with the most leisure time humanity had ever produced in the '60's, and in the '70's, the old ways started falling apart.  Birth control freed women from the natural 18-year consequence of the bio urge to reproduce, so we re-tooled our societies. 

Now everyone's mad that it takes a double income just to get by.  The way to avoid all of that would have been to never legalize birth control. 

[/bizarre]

[LoudmouthMormon]

3 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Prophecy requires a spiritual element. Also the kids at the time this was written were the youngest boomers and the oldest Gen Xers, both generations not particularly known for destabilizing the social order of anything.

Lol were you alive in the '70's?

[The Nehor]

27 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

Bizarre thing that sounds like a tangent, but is actually trying to answer your question:

I think the cause of that sort of thinking, was the entire history of humanity.  From first evolutionary humans until the industrial revolution, the earth and everything in it was our enemy and was out to kill us.  Weather, lack of food, animals, other humans, all trying to kill us.  And we evolved into two types of things - a bigger stronger fighting thing, and a smaller nurturing thing.  Because that gave us our best chances of passing on our genes and continuing the species.  So the bigger things called the shots, because that was life and death, and the smaller thing raised the children to adulthood, and then both died in their 30s or 40s, and the cycle repeated itself. 

After the industrial revolution, we started taming all the dangers and changing our reality.  The world managed to fail at one last massive effort to kill everyone in WWII, a bazillion people got born in the '50's, and grew into the freest richest people with the most leisure time humanity had ever produced in the '60's, and in the '70's, the old ways started falling apart.  Birth control freed women from the natural 18-year consequence of the bio urge to reproduce, so we re-tooled our societies. 

Now everyone's mad that it takes a double income just to get by.  The way to avoid all of that would have been to never legalize birth control. 

[/bizarre]

The idea that fathers do the working to stave off starvation and mothers stay domestic and raise the children is a modern phenomenon. Having your wife not have to labor was a privilege of the ultra-rich with the Victorian era moving that to the wealthier middle-class. Then post-World War II America got rich and suddenly it was open to the majority of society. Then we back-dated that as being “the way things are supposed to be”.

You may be happy to learn that some states are heavily engaged with restricting birth control.

I think the rebelliousness of youth has virtually nothing to do with women and children not licking daddy’s boots and more to do with daddy trashing everything:

 

Edited March 5, 2024 by The Nehor

[The Nehor]

33 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

Lol were you alive in the '70's?

Yes.

Edit: If you want me to be impressed with the hippie movement and the drugs and free love of the era I am really not. Those involved in that movement were mostly the privileged youth of the era who dabbled for a few years and then ran back to respectability and drowned my generation in the dangers of “Reefer Madness” and how sex would destroy your life. Bit of a running theme. Climb up the ladder and then pull it up behind them to try to make sure no one else can benefit like they did or can try the things they try. They did it with economic opportunity too.

They are a large part of why we need two incomes. They are still screaming about sexual promiscuity when promiscuity is very low, screaming about how the kids are lazy while making sure labor is not rewarded, and warning that sexual deviants such as myself are corrupting everyone to distract everyone from real problems. Then they whine about kids not wanting to have families when young people realize that having a family is fiscally irresponsible. I think the young people these days are showing remarkable restraint in not just burning everything down in frustration.

Edited March 5, 2024 by The Nehor

[smac97]

On 3/4/2024 at 10:55 AM, Tacenda said:

I didn't think they portrayed LDS people very accurately. I thought they failed at this, even when they had former or current LDS giving advice I thought. Like former member Lindsay Hansen Park. Was hoping she would have done better at catching that. 

IMO, either she was derelict in her responsibilities, or she was a mere token whose substantive input was ignored, or she was intentionally complicit (with, I think, Dustin Lance Black) in fostering and endorsing the mischaracterizations, misrepresentations, caricatures, etc. in the narrative.

On 3/4/2024 at 10:55 AM, Tacenda said:

I was newly married in '84 and heard all about it on the news, but lacked knowing how horrible it truly was, had known it was bad, but didn't know the detailed horrific way they killed the mom and child.

The murders took place on July 24, 1984 in a duplex in American Fork, Utah.  Per this article, the victim's husband discovered the bodies at about 8:00 p.m. when he returned home from work, and he immediately called the police.

I looked up the address of the duplex and found that it is located a little more than a mile southwest of the house I was living in with my parents at the time.  I have a recollection of standing on our west-facing patio that evening and noticing flashing police lights a ways away, to the southwest, as the sun was going down.  My recollection is that a day or two later my dad told me that a murder had taken place that night, and all the flashing lights were from police cars.  Kind of a grim thing to remember.

On 3/4/2024 at 10:55 AM, Tacenda said:

I think actions like this from members of the church and other religions, is where all should be careful in how they interpret their religion.

I agree.  However, both of the Lafferty brothers had been excommunicated prior to their committing these murders.

On 3/4/2024 at 10:55 AM, Tacenda said:

Some people really go off the deep end when they insert their own thoughts and feelings in how things should be run that it's evil. Using God to harm others or making it okay. 

Yes.  "My horrible behavior is justified by God" is no more excusable than "My horrible behavior is justified because there is no God."  Both theists and atheists need to be circumspect about such things.

Thanks,

-Smac

[LoudmouthMormon]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

The idea that fathers do the working to stave off starvation and mothers stay domestic and raise the children is a modern phenomenon. Having your wife not have to labor was a privilege of the ultra-rich with the Victorian era moving that to the wealthier middle-class. Then post-World War II America got rich and suddenly it was open to the majority of society. Then we back-dated that as being “the way things are supposed to be”.

I think we're pretty much saying the same thing, sort of.   Note that the Victorian era started around the time of the industrial revolution - i.e. once we started winning against the lions and the snow.  I never said "working to stave off starvation" or "stay domestic and raise the children".  I said big thing fight, small thing not fight.  I'm not talking civilization, I'm talking evolutionary biology.  Pre industrial revolution, life was a constant never ending battle to stave off starvation and death, and few were immune from the continual expenditure of energy to stay alive.   I mean, I've read David Brooks' article about the Nuclear Family being a mistake, but my little rant was taking a broader look at humanity.

But you agree that birth control was an epic game changer though, right?

[Rain]

5 hours ago, Smiley McGee said:

I get that the word “obey” was not used in the language of the covenant, but women used the same word to covenant to listen to their husbands as the men used to covenant to listen to God, in keeping with the law of obedience. All this to say it would be easy for a husband to find justification in the endowment for a wife’s subordinate position. I didn’t agree with that position regardless of what was in the endowment, but we can’t pretend that such a position is foreign to the church’s doctrines and covenants. 

I agree. I think most thought of it as listen.  I think others thought of it as obey. I think perhaps even others like the Lafferty's thought of it thought of it as obey on steroids. So when Loudmouth said he didn't recognize "LDS women are taught to be obedient, to serve their husband, to obey" I showed where I did recognize exactly that, but (having never seen or read Banner) I assume that was not near as heavy as Banner portrays it for the majority of members.

[The Nehor]

56 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

I think we're pretty much saying the same thing, sort of.   Note that the Victorian era started around the time of the industrial revolution - i.e. once we started winning against the lions and the snow.  I never said "working to stave off starvation" or "stay domestic and raise the children".  I said big thing fight, small thing not fight.  I'm not talking civilization, I'm talking evolutionary biology.  Pre industrial revolution, life was a constant never ending battle to stave off starvation and death, and few were immune from the continual expenditure of energy to stay alive.   I mean, I've read David Brooks' article about the Nuclear Family being a mistake, but my little rant was taking a broader look at humanity.

But you agree that birth control was an epic game changer though, right?

I think casting life as a continuous battle to stay alive is a bit of a stretch and I am dubious of a lot of the conclusions about gender and evolution.

Yeah, mostly reliable birth control is a game changer. Birth control has been around since forever but a lot of it didn’t work that well. At the time Roe v. Wade was overturned and other forms of birth control were back on the Supreme Court menu in the bisexual community a lot of us semi-jokingly said we would just date our own gender for a while hoping the whole thing would blow over.

[The Nehor]

33 minutes ago, Rain said:

I agree. I think most thought of it as listen.  I think others thought of it as obey. I think perhaps even others like the Lafferty's thought of it thought of it as obey on steroids. So when Loudmouth said he didn't recognize "LDS women are taught to be obedient, to serve their husband, to obey" I showed where I did recognize exactly that, but (having never seen or read Banner) I assume that was not near as heavy as Banner portrays it for the majority of members.

According to the current prophet “hearken” does not mean to just listen.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ftsoy/2021/01/hear-hearken-and-heed?lang=eng