I’m a feminist. Not a bra-burning, perpetually angry feminist, just the garden-variety “equal pay for equal work, nobody grope anybody else in the workplace” kind of feminist. You know, the lazy kind.
Still, a feminist, is a feminist, is a feminist, which is why even I’m not sure how it took me so long to get flustered at the LDS church over its doctrines concerning women. I suppose I was fairly placated and passive until I started learning more about Brigham Young, but we’ll get to that in a minute.
I remember sitting in a primary class and asking why women didn’t have the priesthood. I received the very enthusiastic response “Because they don’t need it!” This idea was based around the belief of a woman’s divine status being obtained through bearing and rearing children. Here is the idea most of us were raised with (in one form or another) in the LDS Church:
By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners. – “The Family: A Proclamation to the World”
This is a warm fuzzy replacement for a doctrine from Brigham Young that isn’t quoted in the 2010 lesson manuals:
“True there is a curse upon the woman that is not upon the man, namely, that ‘her whole affections shall be towards her husband,’ and what is the next? ‘He shall rule over you.” – Journal of Discourses, Vol. 4, Sept 21, 1856
That men preside over the family, but are equal partners with their wives is something that has never made sense to me. My teachers always told me, “They’re equal, just with different responsibilities.” Yes, but that still doesn’t explain why the husband presides. Nor does it explain why, in the endowment ceremony, Eve (and subsequently all the women) once covenanted to obey the law of her husband while her husband obeys the law of God. Shouldn’t equals be serving the same entity, rather than one making a one-way promise to submit to the other? (She “hearkens to his counsel” now, by the way.)
This is an issue the LDS Church seems to glaze over with the aforementioned idea that husband and wife are equal “partners,” blatantly ignoring that whole “presiding” thing. As an added bonus, the women of the modern church spend much more time telling each other what they should be doing, rather than leave it to the men. My personal favorite (sarcasm) is Sister Beck.—The requirement that LDS women “should the best homemakers in the world” and know better than to work outside the home is baaad news for school-addicted tomboys like me.
But I suppose this IS better than the days when the men did all the talking. Anyone remember Brigham Young being quoted extensively in Sunday School? Me neither. Here’s just one reason why: some women were unhappy sharing their husband with 55 other women and Young found that uncalled-for and annoying.
“[M]y wives have got to do one of two things; either round up their shoulders to endure the afflictions of this world, and live their religion, or they may leave, for I will not have them about me…I want to go somewhere and do something to get rid of the whiners (emphasis added).” – Journal of Discourses, Vol. 4 p55-57
For the women who were unhappy in polygamous marriages (10 of Young’s own wives divorced him), Young “set [them] at liberty” and gave them the option to leave. I need not remind you that women had no legal standing in those days. Oh, and did I mention his sermon included this?:
“[I]f the women will turn from the commandments of God and continue to despise the order of heaven, I will pray that the curse of the Almighty may be close to their heels, and that it may be following them all the day long.” – Journal of Discourses, Vol. 4, p56-57
Men being “punished for their own sins and not for Adam’s transgression” doesn’t say anything about women.
Author’s note: I highly recommend reading the entire sermon referenced from the Journal of Discourses, it offers some under-appreciated insights into the early church’s views on women and polygamy. It also makes a few mentions of Young’s nearly forgotten doctrine of “Blood Atonement.”
My pseudo-mom (a mom of choice rather than birth) grew up mormon in Utah but left the church and Utah both when she was a teenager. She returned several years later when her brother suffered a brain injury and for the five years they lived here she worked on a battered woman help line. She has recounted how utterly frustrating and despairing it was to have women in terrible and sometimes life threatening situations call in but be unwilling to act for their own safety because their church told them that it was their duty to remain loyal and obediant to their husbands, and that the abuse they suffered was likely because they weren’t doing a sufficient job making their husband happy. By church I don’t mean that docterine obliquely said this, but rather that bishops would come to their homes if they found out the women were thinking of leaving and put the full weight of guilt and damnation into the women.
Now granted, this was the 80s, there could have been a dramatic sea change in the attitude of the church, but Utah ranks number 1 in anti-depressant still, the bulk of that being among housewives. That is pretty telling. In many ways it seems the church is just better at masking their attitude towards women than Islam is in the Mideast, but ultimately share the same viewpoint.
Josh,
I had a few thoughts about the mideast when I was researching stuff for this. HRC and American feminist groups would like Brigham Young even less than they like Boyd K. Packer:
“Sisters, do you wish to make yourselves happy? Then what is your duty? It is for you to bear children,…are you tormenting yourselves by thinking that your husbands do not love you? I would not care whether they loved a particle or not; but I would cry out, like one of old, in the joy of my heart, ‘I have got a man from the Lord!” ‘Hallelujah! I am a mother–…” (Journal of Discourses, vol. 9, p.37)
Granted, it was indeed a different time, but Young also said with regard to his wives, “I know how to rule.”
I would definitely say the mentality is still present, even if it has been diluted down a little. I have a friend who is in the early stages of divorce. Her husband is verbally and emotionally abusive (putting it mildly), among other things and she’s been trying to stick it out for 2.5 years. The Bishop has been chirping continuously “remember the covenants you made in the Temple.” Thankfully, she pretty much told him to stuff it and he shut up.
Courtney,
I don’t know who you are, but I like your post. My favorite line: “I’m a feminist. Not a bra-burning, perpetually angry feminist, just the garden-variety “equal pay for equal work, nobody grope anybody else in the workplace” kind of feminist. You know, the lazy kind.”
I feel the same way. Anyway, thank you for educating me further on something I might be just a little too lazy to research more myself.
Dan,
Glad you enjoyed it
I’m new to writing posts for the site, but I’m a recent USU alumnus and I love the discussions here.
Also, if you’re bored, I really do recommend reading that sermon from the JoD–lots of info and perspective in one read.
So a never-mormon Christian tried to explain why my husband is my protector as his Christian duty (he’s not a Christian) and his duty as a man, and when I argued that that was stupid and sexist, he said, “You only think that because you’re a feminist.” His argument was that I believe women are equal … because I believe women are equal. Well, duh?
This sounds all too familiar. I remember sitting in Relief Society during the testimony portion and listening to the president, who is a very dear woman and a friend of mine, cry while she proclaimed, “I have heard it said within the church that men have the ability to govern and women have influence. I am so grateful for that influence!” It made me so mad to think that all she could do is be grateful for what little she had!
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WOW – loved your post, and SO HAPPY to find another JoD chronicler. I’ve been tracking some similar LDS absurdities on a little blog of mine… I think there might be a few posts over there that the garden-variety feminist in you might appreciate:
Mothers’ employment outside the home
http://queerstones.com/women/mothers-employment-outside-the-home/
Prop 8 protects women’s SPECIAL STATUS
http://queerstones.com/women/prop-8-protects-womens-special-status/
Thou shalt NOT wear sports bras
http://queerstones.com/women/thou-shalt-not-wear-sports-bras/
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