Given the unfolding scandal of abused women being coerced by Bishops to stay married to their abusers, it’s interesting to revisit what the Bednars said to young people about selecting a marriage partner.
“People don’t fall in love,” said Sister Bednar. “You pick someone with whom you can create the love that you desire . . . . We’ve spent years being married and creating that love, and I can honestly say we’re more in love today than we were 40 years ago.”
Sister Bednar described their own courtship and marriage as a growth of mutual love and respect rather than a whirlwind romance. “We didn’t just fall in love at first sight,” she said. “And many people think that’s how it’s done—that you just look at someone and you know they’re the right one and that you’re going to fall in love and get married, but it took some time.”
She then proceeded to impart this advice: “I encourage youth not to just go on a date with one person one time and say, ‘oh, that person’s not for me.’”
So, marry someone you don’t know you love, like we did. Great advice.
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')
It isn't the first time I've heard this kind of unromantic type of advice from Mormon leaders. I think some of them long for a return to arranged marriages.
"Religion is about providing human community in the guise of solving problems that don’t exist or failing to solve problems that do and seeking to reconcile these contradictions and conceal the failures in bogus explanations otherwise known as theology." - Kishkumen
Hopefully this isn't tainted by the recent allegations, but Aziz Ansari actually wrote a really good book about the history of "love" and relationships in different generations and societies and how technology is impacting things.
A hilarious thoughtful and in depth exploration of the pleasures and perils of modern romance from one of this generation's sharpest comedic voices.
At some point every one of us embarks on a journey to find love. We meet people, date, get into and out of relationships, all with the hope of finding someone with whom we share a deep connection. This seems standard now, but it s wildly different from what people did even just decades ago. Single people today have more romantic options than at any point in human history. With technology, our abilities to connect with and sort through these options are staggering.
So why are so many people frustrated? Some of our problems are unique to our time. Why did this guy just text me an emoji of a pizza? Should I go out with this girl even though she listed "Combos" as one of her favorite snack foods? Combos!?
My girlfriend just got a message from some dude named "Nathan." Who's Nathan? Did he just send her a photo of his penis? Should I check just to be sure?
But the transformation of our romantic lives can't be explained by technology alone. In a short period of time the whole culture of finding love has changed dramatically. A few decades ago people would find a decent person who lived in their neighborhood. Their families would meet and after deciding neither party seemed like a murderer they would get married and soon have a kid, all by the time they were twenty four.
Lots of interesting research and anecdotes that show the different ways people have approached love and marriage. The Bednar's suggestion might not be the most common one today and may sound odd, but we shouldn't pretend the "fall in love" approach so popular today has always been the preferred method of finding the mate, or is objectively the best one.
The youth or young adults they like to talk to like they're youth? I honestly don't think they want to encourage youth to date much at all. It kind of sounds like they are trying to talk to young adults who they want to go out and get married. But maybe they feel like they're losing that battle and are trying to convince the teenagers to get married young.