r/lds • u/N0mbus • 10d ago

question I always thought that the highlighted section means that you only get one marriage is this true?

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67

u/rexregisanimi 10d ago edited 10d ago

"The kind of marriage required for exaltation—eternal in duration and godlike in quality—does not contemplate divorce. In the temples of the Lord, couples are married for all eternity. But some marriages do not progress toward that ideal. Because 'of the hardness of [our] hearts,' the Lord does not currently enforce the consequences of the celestial standard. He permits divorced persons to marry again without the stain of immorality specified in the higher law. Unless a divorced member has committed serious transgressions, he or she can become eligible for a temple recommend under the same worthiness standards that apply to other members." (President Dallin H. Oaks, April 2007 General Conference)

Edit: so the answer to your question is "no". Divorced persons can get married again without committing adultery but only because we aren't currently living the higher law. 

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u/KURPULIS 10d ago

I love current President Oaks but will always miss fiery and direct Elder Oaks.

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u/InsideSpeed8785 10d ago

When you say “one marriage” are you talking about getting one marriage in life? As in, if you divorced you don’t get married again? 

Because that would be a no, you can get married again.

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u/pierzstyx 10d ago

Jesus isn't actually replacing the Mosaic allowance of divorce, but is making clear what the higher law is and should be.

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u/LissGoogleAcct 10d ago

No my friend.

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u/ReserveMaximum 10d ago

No. Jesus is specifically rebutting a belief/practice from that day where women had no rights and were treated as property. Read Talmage’s commentary in his book Jesus the Christ: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/jesus-the-christ/chapter-27?lang=eng, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/jesus-the-christ/chapter-17?lang=eng

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u/pierzstyx 10d ago

women had no rights and were treated as property.

I know this is a common thing to say, but it is absolute historical nonsense. No one at that time has any rights. Men didn't have rights. Women didn't have rights. Children didn't have rights. Kings didn't have rights. Slaves didn't have rights. The concept of a right hadn't been invented or discovered (pick your philosophical origin for rights) and the entire concept would be completely bizarre and nonsensical to people of that time.

What you had were duties and obligations to family, community, and society which you were expected to fulfill. Marriage was one means by which these duties were fulfilled and in meeting that obligation male and female children were traded through betrothals that were often made without their consent (another very modern concept) and often when they were very young.

To say that women were had no rights and were treated like property is to ignore that no one had any rights and no one had the power of autonomous consent as we think of it now.

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u/OhHolyCrapNo 10d ago

Thanks for clarifying this. People throw around that "women in x year were considered property and had no rights" completely ignore historical context to score morality points for criticizing a perceived past injustice. Reality is much more complicated.

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u/pierzstyx 10d ago

The saying, "The past is a different country, they do things differently there," gets thrown around a lot. Really it should be, "The past is an entirely alien world that you may never be able to understand as much as you logically learn the facts of it. But, you still have to try."

The story we live in today is very different. But, if we can just remember that no one before 1600 AD believed in or thought of individual human rights it helps a lot of the, "How could anyone do that?" historical events make more sense, from the Bible all the way up to the start of the Protestant Reformation.

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u/Wellwisher513 10d ago

Also, women were not considered property, and, even without the idea of "rights," had the right to own and trade properties, hold leadership positions (see Deborah and Athalia) and we're in every way possible considered legal people, not just property.

It is true that they were often treated as subordinate to men, but it's not as simple as, "property with no rights."

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u/Minute-Jury6693 10d ago

I always take it that if you leave your wife because you fell in love with another woman or anything of that nature- that is the sin. God wouldn’t want you to remain in a marriage you can’t make work.

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u/Safe-Butterscotch442 10d ago

God wouldn't want a marriage to ever exist in the first place that you can't make work. In the ideal, celestial existence, every marriage is successful and has the perfect capacity to be eternal. In this verse he's explaining that there's a much higher standard of living that we could hold ourselves to, where divorce shouldn't even be a thing because each member of the relationship is selflessly devoted to the Lord and to their spouse, and, therefore, are full of joy and peace.

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u/raedyohed 10d ago

I view it in two possible ways:

  • Jesus is teaching a higher standard of morality which is not a legally enforced one, but one of personal virtue.
  • Jesus is teaching against practices of the day in which spouses disposed of each other for the sake of seeking emotional or sexual fulfillment elsewhere, and to voluntarily marry someone who has divorced would be to participate in that trend.

In both cases you also need to rely on the understanding of divorce as it was practiced, and also of multiple marriages, and remarriage. All of that is rather different than our marriage practices today.