Covenant Marriage Requires Total Commitment

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/topics/marriage-and-family?lang=eng

What is the LDS perspective of the covenant of marriage. Elder Bruce C. Hafen quotes, “Marriage is by nature a covenant, not just a private contract one may cancel at will. When troubles come, the parties to a contractual marriage seek happiness by walking away.” That is not a way for marriage. In a covenant marriage, the husband and wife work through things that might be hard. Marriage is a give and take relationship. Most of the time, we give to each other.

Elder Hafen mentions what “Jesus taught about contractual attitudes when he described the ‘hireling,’ who performs his conditional promise of care only when he receives something in return. When the hireling ‘seeth the wolf coming,’ he ‘leaveth the sheep, and fleeth…. because he…careth not for the sheep.” This not the way the Savior acted. The Savior was the good shepherd who watched over his sheep and would have given his life for his sheep. Many people that marry today, are like the hireling. When something goes wrong, they leave.

Covenant marriage requires a total commitment. “Every marriage is tested repeatedly by three kinds of wolves. The first wolf is natural adversity.” (Elder Hafen, 1996) I have an example of this. I longed for another child and Heavenly Father did give us another child. He was born with Downs Syndrome, which is not what we expected, but he has been such a joy to our family. Some people told me, “You don’t want a child like that, abort it.” I did not, I felt my child deserved a right to life, as much as anyone else.

“Second, the wolf of their own imperfections will test them.” (Hafen, 1996) In this, an example is given of a husband who constantly riduled his wife. Compared this to a husband that constantly built up his wife. The wife’s self-esteem soared because of her husband.

“The third wolf is the excessive individualism that has spawned today’s contractual attitudes.” (Hafen, 1996) In this example, a little girl came crying home and wanted to know if her Mother was really, her mother? Her teacher at school told the children that “nobody belongs to anybody.” This teacher and so many others, today, feel the bonds of “kinship and marriage are not valuable ties that bind, but are, instead, sheer bondage. Ours is the age of waning of belonging.” (Hafen, 1996)

We, as people today, need to reestablish the awareness of marriage as a covenant. So, when the wolves come, we will be prepared and “be as the shepherds, not hirelings, willing to lay down our lives, a day at a time, for the sheep of our covenant.” (Hafen, 1996) Then, we will continue to have joy in our marriages.

Hafen, Bruce G., (1996). Proceedings from General Conference. October '96: Covenant Marriage.