How Do YOU Think Eternal Marriage/Family Should Work in the Next Life?

Stephen Fleming

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Lately I’ve heard a number of comments in church of ward members noting people of other faiths liking the idea of eternal marriage as a something of a validation of our beliefs. The recent movie release Eternity seems to play around with this idea of a woman getting to the afterlife and trying to figure out what to do with the two different men she was married to in life. This does seem like a conundrum and seems to have been the point the Sadducees wanted to pose to Christ about the woman with seven husbands.

Having been in the church all my life, eternal marriage is obviously a big deal: both something we really advertise and a conundrum over all the possible alternate scenarios like the woman with two or seven husbands. I thought Stephen Fry (2:45) mocking what he saw as the Mormon eternal extended-family Christmas dinner was pretty funny. “What happens if you’re good?”

Abundant observers have rightly noted that men being allowed to be sealed to more than one woman while women are not allowed multiple sealing is completely sexist and unfair (we have some of that in the church!) but I also wonder if some women might worry about ending up with post-mortal husbands duking it out like Olsen’s husbands in Eternity.

So that’s my question. If you were in charge, how do YOU think the eternal-family, eternal-marriage system should work? I know most would prefer nice clean monogamy for time and eternity, but what should happen in the exceptions? Deceased spouses, unpleasant in-laws, unpleasant biological family, marital struggles, etc? Some people feel that every new addition to the extended family is all pure bliss, and some feel like Stephen Fry.

As I noted in a post from 2009, I liked Tatiana’s idea and believe that Celestial people ought to know how to get along.

Comments

34 responses to “How Do YOU Think Eternal Marriage/Family Should Work in the Next Life?”

  1. REC911

    Part of the problem is that we are looking at this with our earthly knowledge/views. No freakin way my wife would want me to participate in polygamy. There are also lots of single sisters that probably would embrace it in this life so they can experience marriage. Lots of married/single sisters that would not. Lots of men that feel one wife is hard so no thanks to having more. Pretty sure there were members back in the polygamy days for each of these categories. Some embraced it and some loathed the idea. To me this is the answer.

    We dont know how/what we will feel regarding this in the next life until we actually get there. I think we will all look at this completely different then. It will all make sense and we will all be fine with the choice we make regardless of that choice or what the doctrine actually is. (live it/not live it) If the church brings this back again in this life, heaven help us all…

    I cant think of a worse time to pick an eternal spouse than how we do it. IMO the commitment in this life my wife and I made to live a celestial/eternal marriage is the “ticket” we need to recommit to it in the next life with a sure knowledge of what will be required of us to live it. I believe that we will also get to re-select if we want with that sure knowledge. I like the idea that my wife and I are helping each other as a team to get to the other side and then do it for real and have the option to re-pick or pick each other again. Regardless, whatever choice I am allowed to make in the next life, I will be happy with it. (new wife, same wife, no wife, multiple wife’s, destroying angel, devils minion, servant to my wife and her many husbands, harp tuner, temple cleaner, etc.)

    Yes I understand this is not what the church teaches and I am open to being wrong. :)

  2. Anon

    One wife is GOOD, and no, I don’t think that marriage is hard. I want nothing to detract from our relationship, in time or eternity. I want to be with and help her…. always. I don’t believe we’ll need to populate generations on multiple planets, or that anyone’s wife (or wives) will be walking, talking, spirit body factories in the next life. I think that is someone’s overactive libido played a role in those type of ideas.

  3. Stephen Fleming

    REC, your willingness to except any role should make you ready for any contingency!

    Anon, that’s my point. What about variance: spouses dying, not married, divorce etc? One way of putting it, who should Elizabeth Olsen be married to in the movie? Young husbands dying in war has been a pretty common occurrence in human history.

    The Sadducees’ question to Jesus came in context. Plato taught eternal marriage and the Greeks had been dominant in Judea since Alexander the Great over three-hundred years before. What happens in the next life with a woman with more than one husband? Again, not uncommon.

    Of course, Jesus said no marriage in the resurrection, an idea that Joseph Smith and Christian Platonists rejected. So those believing in eternal marriage like Christian Platonists did have to deal with that answer from Jesus. Thus Jacob 2 and DC 132.

  4. Neal

    The church is sexist with current practices. Better, but still sexist. No one, NO ONE knows what relationships look like in the next life. The sealing power, I believe, is to seal us in God’s family.

    Some early leaders viewed collecting wives as a competition to build their personal kingdoms. They looked forward to endless sex in the next life.

    The church should allow living women to be sealed to multiple men. It should lose short veils in the temple and the word “preside” in sealing ceremonies. I’m not holding my breath but maybe the boys in the red chairs will figure it out before they lose all the women in No America.

  5. Head Scratcher

    A few years the following language was added to the Handbook after encouraging members to seek comfort: “Heavenly Father will ensure that each person receives every blessing that his or her desires and choices allow.” What does that mean? 38.4.1

  6. Lily

    I think the hard lines we draw around our own nuclear families will disappear. I agree with Neal – this is much more about being the family of God, than your own individual families. I also have a hard time with the “grin and bear it” attitude toward polygamy. That’s not heaven. As Valarie Hudson says, heaven has to be a place women actually want to go.

  7. Head Scratcher

    The implication is that some choices and desired — other desires and choices will not be allowed. It begs the question as to which desires and choices will be allowed. I am confident that those people who dislike plural marriage would be perfectly fine with the young widow or widower with 4 kids remarrying, at which point they would be in a “plural marriage” arrangement — sealed to first spouse and either married for time or sealed to second spouse, depending on facts. Eventually someone will seal by proxy a woman to all husbands she had in mortality, so at the end of the day, all spouses will be sealed to all spouses. The questions that arise: can/will woman accept a sealing to their second husband? Will women have to choose between spouses, and if so, how would they choose? I know several older sisters who have were sealed, widowed, remarried, widowed, remarried — each time to a good husband. There is no such thing as a “marriage of convenience.” Marriage is marriage. In the end, all I know is that I could be the best husband in the world, but that will never trump my wife’s excercise of agency. If I die and she ‘moves on’ and remarries, I have to believe I will be given the same opportunity to ‘move on’ in the spirit world.

  8. John Melonakos

    The more immediate thing to ponder is how it will be in the Millennium, with a mix of resurrected and mortal beings. A 1,000 year family-building experience.

  9. Mark M

    I hope there will be same-sex couples in eternity (not for everyone, of course, just those that want it). And if those couples make it to the next life and discover they don’t want that forever, they don’t have to stay together, and at least they got to be happy in mortality.

  10. Jack

    I think we have to consider what exalted beings are really like. IMO–they are perfectly virtuous and perfectly loving. I don’t know if eros plays any part in their motivation. My guess is that it is subsumed by the love of God. And so what ever marriage “looks like” in the next world it will be based on pure love and the joy that comes from considering the welfare of others before our own.

  11. Curtis Pew

    I worry more about whether or not I’ll qualify for the celestial kingdom that about what family relationships will be like. I’m sure whatever they’re like, they’ll be good.

  12. Head Scratcher

    Jack – It seems like prophets have described our relationships as couples as being romantic love. Look at some of the “Teachings of the Prophets” manuals and other quotes throughout time. If it was going to be a generic, general or communal love, I don’t know why we would go to the trouble of sealing couples in marriage. That’s what makes plural sealings so hard to figure out. Elder Scott said he didn’t remarry because he “didn’t want to mess things up.” Yet, we have Elder Packer in a conference talk talking of a widower getting remarried as not having lost faith in marriage. I don’t know what he meant by that. I can’t reconcile the need to stay faithfull while our spouse is alive in the flesh only to abandon that faithfulness upon his or her death. It almost sounds like we don’t really believe our deceased spouse is alive and well in the spirit world.

  13. Jack

    Head Scratcher,

    Romantic love can be a wonderful thing–and it’s quite possible that those feelings will continue in the hereafter. But far greater will be the joy that we’ll have in bringing forth and nurturing new life–that’s what eternal marriage is really about. And that’s why marriage is a unique arrangement in eternity.

    And sadly, I think our modern culture has downplayed the importance of bearing and nurturing children–and exalted romantic love–to such a degree that we’ve forgotten one of the primary purposes for our being here. And that’s to learn how to be life givers! We can have all the romantic love in the world–but if we don’t participate in bringing forth and nurturing life–whether here or in the hereafter–we will not have experienced the maximum joy that is reserved for those who do the works of Abraham and Sarah.

  14. Stephen Fleming

    Thanks for the comments!

    I agree with Neal and Lily that love in the next life is about more than just biological family. I’ve often felt that our church rhetoric is that biological family is what is “eternal” and that other relationships are not. That’s not what Joseph Smith taught.

  15. Head Scratcher

    Ann and Alan start dating at 16 all within LDS standards. At high school graduation, Alan stays in home town to work and get ready for mission. Ann heads off to college. Their relationship slowly dissapates and eventually they decide to break things off right before Alan is leaving for mission at 19. Ann meets RM within a year, gets sealed. Alan gets home after mission, meets girl and is sealed. Fast forward about 30 years to their 30 year high school reunion. Ann and Alan attend, are both still married. Five minutes of reminescing and life goes back to normal. Alternatively, one of them is widowed. Again, five minutes of reminescing and life goes back to normal. Hallmark Movie Plot alternative: Both are widowed, the old flames of romance are fanned, and within 6 months they remarry each other. They spend the next 40 years happily married, visit their children and grandchildren, go on several senior missions, etc. In their old age they ask their children to seal them by proxy, which is done after both die within 6 months of one another around age 90. Per our doctrine, they have to “accept” the proxy sealing performed on their behalf. I can’t think of any reason why they wouldn’t. So, first marriages of around 30 and 28 years each, followed by second marriage of 40 years to one another. God’s standard is not monogamy — its serial monogamy in mortality followed by possible plurality in perpetuity. (But see that “choices and desires allowed” language from the handbook.) I think we’ll either be very monogamous in the next life or very plural in the next life. Either way we’ll be perfect, we’ll be happy, and we’ll be perfectly happy with how things shake out. But I think, based on all the teachings of church leaders, those relationships will be romantic. Otherwise, we’re no better than other religions that relegate relationships in the afterlife to non-spousal and non-familial love. We’re not sealed to “friends.” We’re to become “one flesh” with our spouse. What happens when we become “one flesh” with more than one is a mystery to me.

  16. Stephen Fleming

    Head, yes, I hope we all believe that couples aren’t forced into eternal relationships by our earthly sealings. And I do like to think that as we strive to be the kinds of people that have the qualities of the Celestial Kingdom, we’ll become less possessive in our love.

  17. LHL

    What ever the afterlife brings, I (in no way) believe that it will include God sanctioned polygamy. I’ve come to believe that polygamy was (and is) an abomination; and an entirely man-made practice. It is already being remembered in infamy and as a great stain on the history of the Church.

    One of my favorite LDS Hymns is “Oh My Father”, and one of my favorite lines within the song is “the thought makes reason stare”. To even attempt to believe that the loving God of all, would force his beautiful daughters into such a doctrine, truly “the thought makes reason stare”; and I for one – believe it is one horrendous stain on human kind.

  18. Stephen Fleming

    LHL, I think we’re all in agreement here that a “loving God” won’t “force his beautiful daughters into such a doctrine,” but this post asked the question about what happens in the next life when perfect monogamy is disrupted: death, divorce, singleness, unhappy marriages etc.

  19. RLD

    The question is what will make us happiest, and I don’t know the answer.

    I hate the idea of forcing people to choose between partners who made them happy. But avoiding it doesn’t lead to polygyny, but to some sort of group marriage. So will that make us the happiest? The empirical evidence from our history suggests probably not. (And if Joseph Smith got the idea from the Old Testament, he knew that going in.) Yes, we’ll be very different people by then. Yes, there will be no constraints on the amount of time and attention we can give to each partner. I’m still dubious.

    One thing I’m sure of is that no one will have to “settle.” Worlds without number implies people without number. Look at a few pictures of galaxies and ponder how big they are. Then look at something like the Hubble Deep Field images. There’s a partner for everyone out there who will make them very happy, without having to resort to unwanted polygamy.

    @Jack: Yes, in the celestial kingdom eros will at long last be subordinate to agape. But I for one will be very disappointed if eros disappears completely. (And C.S. Lewis can call me greedy, but I want chocolate in heaven too.)

  20. Stephen Fleming

    All good points, RLD, and I think they indicate a number of clashing forces in our doctrine of eternal marriage. Again, Plato taught eternal marriage and I’d argue that eternal marriage inherently brings up the question of non-monogamy since there are so many cases of spousal death, divorce, etc. That’s what the Sadducees wanted to address: what if a woman had 7 husbands? Who would she be married to in the next life?

    I have heard lots of talk in the church and on the Bloggernacle of there being plenty of unwed souls (lots of infant deaths) to fill in the gaps. That makes sense, but I’d also point about that Joseph Smith did see interlocking marriages as a way to bind loved ones together.

    Again, I’ve argued for a long time that JS’s original plan was shared marriage (men AND women being able to have multiple spouses) but that JS switched to polygyny in 1843 when he got pushback from his close followers (especially Hyrum). DC 132 was about the switch and verse 41 refers to the old system where women could have multiple husbands.

    Another issue for JS was the belief in wanting to make his close connections in this life eternal beyond the nuclear family.

    Here’s a couple of quotes I think are useful from other people since we don’t have a ton from JS himself (pretty secretive about all this). This first one is from John Bennett, a scoundrel, yes, but a close adviser for some time who did leak some correct information. I think Bennett was in the ballpark with this quote:

    “It has been revealed to him [JS] that there will be no harmony in heaven unless the Saints select their companions and marry IN TIME, FOR ETERNITY!!! They must marry in time so as to begin to form the sincere attachment and unsophisticated affection which is so necessary to consummate in eternity in order to the peace of Heaven.” “Letter from Gen. Bennett,” Hawk Eye (Burlington, Iowa) December 7, 1843.

    There was an “on-earth” aspect to what JS was trying to achieve.

    This next one is a very late quote from Benjamin F. Johnson, but strikes me as conveying similar ideas: “The Prophet taught us that Dominion & powr in the great future, would be Comensurate with the no [number] of ‘Wives Childin & Friends’ that we inheret here and that our great mission to earth was to Organize a Neculi [nucleus] of Heaven to take with us.”

    I do think JS had aspirations of a utopian society. Plato’s REPUBLIC had both shared goods and marriages. It seems to me JS’s goal was to form that utopia and have it be eternal.

    Hard to pull off, but who knows what God has in store?

  21. Stephen Fleming

    Here’s a few more quotes from JS that I think stress the point that he hoped that have his friends as part of his eternal “nucleus of heaven” in the next life.

    April 16, 1843: “More painful to me the thought of anhilitation than death, if I had no expectation of seeing my mother Brother & Sisters & friends again my heart would burst in a moment & I should go down to my grave. The expectation of seeing my friends in the morning of the resurrection cheers my soul, and make be bear up against the evils of life, it is like their taking a long journey. & on their return we meet them with increased joy.”

    July 23, 1843, Choppy notes from Willard Richards: ““frie[n]dship is the grand fundamental prin[c]iple of Mormonism. to revolutin [revolutionize?] civilize the world.— pour forth love. fr[i]e[n]dship like Bro Tulys Blacksmith shop.”

    The later editors expanded that final phrase to say: ““Friendship is like brother Turley in his blacksmith shop welding iron to iron.”

    JS spoke of baptism for the dead forming a “welding link” in DC 128:18 and seemed to want “welding” to bind friends as well. In an April 15, 1842 conference, JS spoke of a dispute between John E. Page and Orson Hyde saying, “we will fellowship Elder Page until Elder Hyde comes, and we will then weld them together and make them one.”

  22. Sute

    For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.
    …
    And worlds without number have I created;
    …
    The first man of all men have I called Adam, which is many….
    But only an account of this earth, and the inhabitants thereof, give I unto you. For behold, there are many worlds that have passed away by the word of my power. And there are many that now stand, and innumerable are they
    …
    Abraham received promises concerning his seed, and of the fruit of his loins…which were to continue so long as they were in the world; and as touching Abraham and his seed, out of the world they should continue; both in the world and out of the world should they continue as innumerable as the stars; or, if ye were to count the sand upon the seashore ye could not number them
    … This promise is yours also, because ye are of Abraham, and the promise was made unto Abraham; and by this law is the continuation of the works of my Father, wherein he glorifieth himself.
    …
    And the Father and I are one. I am in the Father and the Father in me; and inasmuch as ye have received me, ye are in me and I in you.
    …
    That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us
    …
    And he that receiveth my Father receiveth my Father’s kingdom; therefore all that my Father hath shall be given unto him.

    So if you’ll excuse the various selections of scripture, I don’t think a lot of conjecture is needed to concluded that God’s work stretches far into the past and far into the future. The creation of worlds and populating of them and propagating of humanity across the universe (whatever and wherever that may be) is essentially the work God and all who have become one with him across of eternity.

    God intends for his children to become like him. What was done here in this world will be done in others.

    I do not believe God was lying or being hyperbolic when he said what his work is and how he intends to give us the same power he has and how Abraham will carry on like God to have eternal increase in the eternities and that same promise extends to us.

    I’m not sure how much more clear I can be other than saying everything that God is doing was done before and will be done again in the future and if we are faithful we will be doing it, united perfectly as one with God through the atonement.

    Worlds without number. We have the only theology that actually looks to the eternal number of starts across the sky and can wonder, “is there even enough room for what God has planned?”

    I’m not worried about petty religious disputes with trinitarians who have their nose in the mud of this earth and try to drag our glorious theology down by insisting we can not share in our Father’s glory when the precise mission of his son was to enable exactly that.

  23. jader3rd

    I’m actually less curious about how eternal marriages will work, and more curious about what do those aren’t living a Celestial law doing. There are lots of non-members who get married and stay married their entire lives, and seem to want to continue that in the next life. Will they somehow lose interest in a super long term relationship that if they aren’t worthy of a celestial marriage?
    What is different about Celestial people in wanting or being able to maintain a marriage relationship vs the non-Celestial people?
    It seems odd that God would prevent marital relations between two willing immortal individuals who are agents unto themselves. So my best explanation is that something changes with our desires when resurrected.
    It’s not that I want to focus on non-Celestial Kingdom individuals, but I think understanding the difference will help understand how Celestial marriages will function.

  24. Dave K

    My two cents. We will have as much agency in the next life as here, even more. The sealings we perform for ourselves and our ancestors are invitations and opportunities; they never bind or force against one’s will. If I’m with my wife in the eternities, it’s because we continue to choose so each day, not because we’re trapped by a ceremony from our earthly life.

    The elephant in the room is whether spirit children are created through a similar pregnancy process in the eternities as mortality. I’ve come to reject that notion. I believe Joseph’s teaching that spirits are eternal and are found/adopted by the gods. Pregnancy is only a mortal experience.
    If I obtain godhood, I’ll be one of many parents for adopted spirits we find together, just as I have not two but many gods as my heavenly parents now – hence the title Elohim, literally “the gods”.
    I’ve also come to stop caring what eternal bodies look like or what genitalia that may have. Maybe I’ll appear as I do now – a middle age balding white dude. Maybe I’ll choose to be a falcon or a pink river dolphin. I don’t know or really care. What I do care about are the godly attributes (think beatitudes or section 121). Those are the markers of godhood – what we’ll recognize when we meet the savior.

  25. Head Scratcher

    My interest in how marriages will play out began almost 40 years ago after the birth of our second child. Somehow the topic of remarriage came up and my wife, without skipping a beat, said “Of course I would remarry. I would want someone to support me and our 2 kids and help raise them.” My witty comeback was to the effect “I’m sure that’s just what you would be thinking on your honeymoon — Hey second husband — you can sleep on the couch because I just married you for the convenience of money and help changing diapers.” When pressed further about how things might shake out, she said being married to husband two would help prepare her to spend eternity with me. Sorry, I doubt she would want to spend eternity with me after spending 20, 30, 40, maybe 50 years married to second husband. In the end, she shrugged her shoulders: I would have to take care of me and mine, and you would have to fend for youself in the spirit world. Ever since then I have asked folks to complete the following sentence, presuming you have been sealed to first spouse: “One can keep his or her covenants and remarry upon the death of a spouse because……..” The obvious temporal answer is “he or she is dead.” However, that does not remotely address the underlying committments made in the sealing ceremony. Plus, leaders have consistently said all marriages (between men/women) are meant to be eternal. If that’s the case, then it sounds like we will be plural. All I know is that at some point, most married couples will find themselves single again. The odds of living to a ripe old age and both spouses dieing at the same time are very slim. Some folks bury their heads in the sand and don’t want to think about it, but like any other life planning, they should. I am disappointed we don’t have any modern day revelation about all of this. I spend 10 minutes talking to a nonmember about sealings, the spirit world, how deceased loved ones are waiting for a joyful reunion, etc. Then it all falls apart when he confronts me with our ability to remarry after the death of our spouses.

  26. Head Scratcher

    Have friend at church whose father died in early 60’s after 40 years of marriage. Her mother remarried also widowed husband of close friend. Twenty years into second marriage, friend spent 5 minutes talking about how wonderful it was that step-father “took care” of mother. I then asked if she was going to seal them together after they both died, and immediately her attitude did a 180 degree turn. She became offended, said she would never do that, etc. So much for the good feelings of children when their widowed parents remarry. It illustrates the sense of betrayal underlying remarriage. We hear all sorts of anecdotal stories of how adult children encouraged widowed parents to remarry, but in light of our sealing doctrine and the ambiguity that exists, I think children aren’t finding the “comfort” the handbook says they should seek. Add in the “desires and choices allowed” language, and we don’t know whether men will be plural, but women will have to choose; or no will choose; or what. I wish some sisters would chime in on this discussion. Over the years, plenty of male voices have said “I can’t imagine the next life without both of my wives.” I don’t know that I’ve ever heard a female say “I can’t imagine the next life without both of my husbands.” Maybe women will have no problem singling out one of several husbands as being “the one.” I don’t know. Examples of male leaders (Perry, Oaks, Nelson) indicate men should remarry women who aren’t sealed to another man. Yet, there are plenty of rank and file widowers who marry previously sealed women. I say seal all living people to all their spouses, knowing that people are “moving on” in the next life, too, and let folks choose one spouse for the eternities at the end of the day.

  27. Stephen Fleming

    Dave K, I very much agree that the point of attaining the highest heaven is the attributes we acquire more than “the stuff we get.”

    Head S, to repeat, I do think that belief in eternal marriage does bring up questions about the potential of multiple partners because of death and other circumstances: again the Sadducees’ question to Christ. There’s a long cultural question about taking second spouses if the first one dies and even stories from the middle ages of husbands forbidding it and coming back as ghosts to punish their “unfaithful” wives for doing so.

    I really do believe that the Celestial characteristics we should be striving to acquire are about putting off selfishness and not being possessive in our love. If a husband/wife were to die and the spouse were to remarry, isn’t the “Celestial” attitude hoping your spouse will find a kind and loving person? And if the new spouse was kind and loving, wouldn’t you expect your spouse to really love and appreciate his/her new spouse? And if she/he did, then you would expect him/her to want to continue to be with the new spouse in the next life, right?

    And if we worked hard to be a good spouse to our previous spouse, then he/she would probably want our company in the next life too. I’ve only seen the trailer of Eternity, but I really do think there would be instances of people who had multiple spouses in this life and happy to see both/all of them.

    And if the spouse is happy to see both you and the other spouse and wants to spend eternity with both of you, is that really out of the question? I don’t know how Eternity ends, but in that hypothetical situation, if the various people really did work to acquire Celestial traits, is it really out of the question that they could all get along? If both men were good husbands (again, haven’t see the move) couldn’t they appreciate each other?

    And yes, I know the spouses in that situation may feel like they are being forced into a situation that they don’t see as the ideal. And yes, I come back to how I interpret DC 132:41, which to me suggests that there was a time when married spouses had the opportunity to “be sealed by the holy anointing” to additional spouses, both men and women.

    Yes, that is a mess in this life and I argue that leading Mormon men convinced JS (especially Hyrum) to switch the practice to polygyny instead of what I call “shared marriage” in 1843 with DC 132 (verse 41 is a reference to the old system, I argue).

    But in the next life, especially for those who attain the qualities of the Celestial Kingdom, can’t we attain the qualities where we CAN get along and be happy? That is, couldn’t the two husbands in Eternity appreciate each other and understand their wife wants to be with both of them (if they are all good people)? And yes, I would assume that the wife wouldn’t be possessive and would therefore be understanding of her husbands also loving other holy people too.

    I do see DC 132 as a “lower law” like tithing instead of consecration. The early Mormon leaders felt they were too possessive to be able to practice shared marriage. They were probably right, but I don’t think the Celestial Kingdom will have such possessiveness over love.

    Perhaps we can come to “think Celestial.” :)

  28. Jack

    On the one hand, I’ve wondered if there might be some profound meaning to verse 41 that I don’t understand. But on the other hand, I can see how it might be referring to those situations where women who were legally married–but separated–were not in a position to terminate their marriage. And so the “anointing” which is eternal marriage — under the hand of one with the sealing powers — would trump the former temporal marriage in those instances.

    That said, I think we will all be sealed together into the family of Christ–and that in some sense we will be well acquainted with each other. And within that overall framework there will be “nodes” of marriage (for lack of a better way of putting it) where new life emerges. But in saying that I’m not suggesting that there is a different kind of love in eternal marriage (as compared to our other connections) so much as there is an added function to the relationship–albeit, very sacred.

    It’s kinda like a tree–with the Savior as the trunk and us as the branches. While there is only one lifegiving substance that flows through the entire organism (the love of God) there is a distinct difference between the branches and the canopy–the latter being where the elements of new life emerge.

  29. REC911

    Most people who experience an NDE will see spouses and loved ones who have died and recognize them as such. So if we are dead and know the person next to us is our spouse then there is some kind of relationship between spouses, at least in the spirit world, no ordinance/membership needed. What happens after the resurrection could be the same but with bodies. My guess is those who want and are worthy for CK status will need to also want to create. A creator only kingdom. I dont mean just kiddos but a real live game of sim universe. Eternal progression.

    So, everyone who wants to be around their earthly spouse/spouses/family will do so for eternity but they are not playing sim universe together. Their eternal progression is damned.

  30. LHL

    Long story short – we really know nothing about the afterlife; we think we do, we convince ourselves we do….we interpret scriptures in such a way as to affirm our own personal beliefs, but (ultimately) no one knows. It’s just one grand leap into the Cosmos….

  31. Stephen Fleming

    Jack, I do see 132:41 as referring to women being able to have multiple living and eternal husbands and think it gives context for JS marrying a number of married women. He wasn’t taking away the wives in time or eternity, it was sharing as a way for them all to be bound together. It didn’t work and DC 132 was given to change the system to polygyny. I agree with those who say that lots of 132 is pretty ugly and I see the previous system as a superior one to the polygyny that DC 132 imposed.

    REC, I like that formulation. I think we have a general sense that those in lower kingdoms will not be in solitary confinement (that would be pretty harsh) and thus will have the ability to interact with others. I’d imagine that a number of married couples will recognize each other and want to hang out. I can’t imagine God would send around the angel police to break up such associations.

    LHL, sure, but I also very much understand the those who love each other will want to be together in the next life. I really like what Plato says about that: https://juvenileinstructor.org/plato-on-deification-and-eternal-marriage/

    A pretty common impulse including Death Cab for Cutie “I’ll Follow You into the Dark.” Seems to express a rejection of organized religion, but still wants to be with his love in the next life, “the dark.”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iV_1ESMHaI

  32. REC911

    LHL – look into NDEs. There are members of the church who have written/posted/vlogged about them if you dont trust just anyone’s experience. Some are very detailed and share lots of info about the afterlife.

  33. RTP

    I think marriage in the next life can be compared to a conversation I had with my 5 year old. He wanted to know how much money I had. What he really meant was how much physical money I had in my wallet right at that moment and was I going to buy him a treat. He did not know or could comprehend my bank account, my financial investments, or the value of my home. He just wanted to know, with his limited knowledge, if I was capable of getting him what he thought he wanted right then.

    I think eternal marriage is the same. I don’t think we can comprehend it any more than my 5 year old could understand my retirement account, even if I had tried to explain it to him. We mostly want to know what we are going to get out of it, just like the treat my son wanted. But I think there is so much more to it than we can comprehend right now. God is compassionate in not giving us more knowledge than we can understand, just like not trying to explain to my young child my entire net worth.

  34. Head Scratcher

    Last thought on plural sealings: perhaps I have misunderstood the phrase “time and eternity.” I once heard that “time” meant mortality, spirit world and millennium. I don’t think that definition is accurate. We stopped doing “time only” sealings in the temple 8 or 10 years ago. Per HB 27.3.3, the purpose of the temple is to administer ordinances for eternity, and therefore marriages “for time only” are no longer performed in temples. “For time only” clearly refers to mortality, which is why we’re free to remarry upon the death of our spouse. We aren’t “married” while we’re in the spirit world or during the millennium. Lots of choices and courting and relationship forming will be going on during that time. Then, presuming both parties choose to stay together, they will go forward as husband and wife in eternity. That’s the only way to reconcile plural sealings. Not sure why we don’t alter the sealing language a bit to reflect this, and it certainly does take away the romantic nature of the ordinance. However, I think it explains why we’re okay with serial monogamy.

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