We remind ourselves on this day that we are charged with the transcendent responsibility of building and maintaining his kingdom in the earth. It is in the hope that I may add a word of contribution to that greatest of all causes that I bring to you a somewhat practical suggestion on this sacred day. Termites are permeating the foundation of the kingdom—the homes of the people—even more destructive and elusive than those semi-microscopic little animals that break down our walls. Corrective measures are imperative.
I have chosen to make some comment on a theme which I earnestly hope may not prove to be too provocative, and certainly not offensive, to our sisters and to other women who may listen. I lift my text, with full acknowledgment, from an article appearing in
This Week Magazine of some months ago, and recently reprinted in the
Reader's Digest, written by Judge Samuel S. Leibowitz, senior judge of Brooklyn's highest criminal court. The article is entitled: "Nine Words That Can Stop Juvenile Delinquency," and the nine words used by the Judge are these: "Put Father Back at the Head of the Family." ...
May I take a few minutes to give you our concept of home, fatherhood, and motherhood? Nothing occupies a more unique and distinctive and important position in our theology and understanding of God's purposes for his children.
We define a home as being a divinely appointed institution established on the enduring compact of a good man and a good woman, wherein spiritual children of our Eternal Father are permitted to receive mortal bodies endowed with eternal intelligence, these children so received in the home to be nurtured in health and so guided in the ways of living by loving and wise parents that they may be conditioned on completion of their lives to return to the presence of the Lord whence their spirits originally came. In this greatest of all enterprises the man and the woman are partners—co-signers, if you will, of the enduring compact which binds them together.
In this eternal compact, however, there is a feature which may not be understood by many thousands of men and women who enter into Christian marriage. It is the element of priesthood. Two things have been revealed about priesthood and marriage which are of most vital importance. First, that no marriage which is to endure forever, so that in essence a home may be projected into eternity, may be established without the authorization and sanction of divinely appointed priesthood. And secondly, that no marriage is eligible for the solemnization of divinely appointed priesthood without the man party to the compact having first received the endowment of the Holy Priesthood himself.
We call the ordinance of marriage when performed not only for time but for all eternity a sealing—a sealing of a good woman to a good man of the priesthood, with the express understanding and covenant that the priesthood of the man, if he shall be faithful and live worthy to enjoy it, shall be the supreme authority of the household, and no good woman of our faith begrudges her worthy husband of the priesthood the respect which goes with his high calling. She knows that to build him up in the esteem of their children, and thus make him conscious of the responsibility of leadership is the surest safeguard she can bring to her family in a world of temptation. The women of the Church rejoice in the priesthood of their husbands. They know that that priesthood is not expressed in autocratic or unrighteous dominion. They know that it is a divinely given power to be exercised only in long-suffering and patience, kindness and mercy, "reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him" who hast been reproved (D&C 121:43). They know that that priesthood has true virtue within it—the power to bless, the power to heal, the power to counsel, to make peace and harmony prevail.
Perhaps the saddest of all our women are they who see their husbands fall away from that priesthood with which they have been endowed. They are the wives who are filled with anxiety for the future of themselves and their, families. In the true companionship of a husband of the priesthood a good woman may pass through any trouble and have comfort, resignation, and peace. But if her husband fails her and fails his holy calling, it is hard indeed for consolation to come to her. She grieves, she prays, she pleads—sometimes seemingly in vain.
You husbands of the priesthood who have been neglectful of your covenants, I plead with you, in behalf of sorrowing wives and families, to relieve the pain you are causing those who love you, to regain manhood and strength and be worthy to assume in righteousness the leadership of your families. They want to respect you. They will if you will let them.
I think I have spoken for the great majority of our wives and mothers. There may be, however, a few who are not helping as much as they may do in the maintenance and re-establishment of respect for proper authority and leadership in the home. We have many brilliant women. I have admiration for their superior accomplishments. They are continually becoming more influential in all aspects of life and living, and I have no doubt but that their contributions will be of lasting value. If any of these brilliant women is a mother, I give it as my firm belief that however potent she may be in matters extraneous to the home, she has no higher, loftier, and more divinely given calling and obligation than to be the right kind of wife and mother in her home. And however superior her attainments may be, she owes a duty to her husband, to respect him as head of the family and adequately teach her children to do likewise. ...
It seems indelicate in an address of this character even to use the expression, "nagging wives." If I did not regard the matter pertinent to the subject I am discussing, I would not mention it. I feel that women who may be said to be in this category cannot be fully conscious, whatever their provocation may be, of the damage they do to the morale of a home. I give to women generally the credit for being long-suffering and patient, and I think that in the foreseeable future they will still be called upon for great toleration, but I hope they will still be able to show kindness and patience to those who may annoy them. I think that parental disputes before the children are one of the most regrettable and lamentable of all aspects of domestic relations. They are responsible for more disruption of domestic tranquility and inimical effects on children than almost any other occurrences in family life. I suppose inevitably parents will have some differences. For the sake of everybody concerned let them be settled privately, and of course they can be settled privately if a spirit of tolerance and a recognition of responsibility prevail. I think that "nagging wives" cannot nag their husbands into doing anything that is worth while. Nagging is futile in the main, and disruptive of any spirit of harmony and peace. In homes where the priesthood presides rebellion and devotion will not thrive together. ...
There must be clear recognition between right and wrong, and there must be sound, wise, and kindly discipline. In the midst of the somewhat confusing theories advanced by the sociologists and criminologists, it seems to me we cannot be going far afield by endeavoring to furnish to youth criteria for the guidance of their lives. There are no criteria which seem dependable excepting only those which have been tried and not found wanting, principles of righteousness and truth, coming to us from divine sources. I cannot see how any intelligent parent can feel much in the way of hazard and uncertainty in having his child brought up to recognize the traditionally divinely approved virtues and principles of conduct. ...
Sunday School teachers and others may give to the growing child teachings concerning good and evil, but who like the father of the family can teach the power of the Adversary and the resistance necessary to be built up to resist his seductive temptations to the children for whom he is responsible? Who can demonstrate to the child by the power of example the virtues and the standards of righteousness as can this head of the family?
To all who believe that order is the law of heaven and that the kingdom of God is established on the principles of righteousness, I submit these questions: Can order be maintained without acceptance of law and without discipline? Is discipline possible without recognition of authority?
(President Stephen L. Richards, The Father and the Home, April 1958 General Conference) ↗