Likely the most misunderstood and sometimes debated phrase in “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” is “In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners.” Most Mormons seem to believe that the division of labor between mother as nurturer and father as provider is a form of “separate but equal” each in their own sphere providing for the needs of children and family. The debate in that phrase comes from those who hope that it suggests each partner working equally in each “primary” responsibility, and that those tasks are shared equally. Maybe there is a chance that the church and its leadership is moving to a time where women are encouraged and supported in President Hinckley’s declaration “The whole gamut of human endeavor is now open to women” where they can do just as the prophet said which is to: “Set your priorities in terms of marriage and family, but also pursue educational programs which will lead… to a sense of security and fulfillment in the event you do marry.” (1)(2)
If there were to be a way where mothers could work and continue in their ever important role as the nurturers of children, it seems that Equally Shared Parenting would be that way. The basic premise is that fathers and mothers share all family responsibilities equally: about half and half with childcare, household upkeep and employment. Families live within their means, love and nurture their children with little reliance on outside childcare, and find personal fulfillment and unity as parents and partners. In fact, it has recently been said that this concept of equally shared parenting is a close cousin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
Likely, this concept appeals to feminists since both husband’s and wife’s all around needs are taken in account, with each helping the other in all aspects. Its a far cry from the feminist agenda of the 1960’s where feminists advocated for women to assimilate into the male workforce and keep the same rules expected of male employees while at the same time being the mothers their children needed (or never becoming mothers at all) and doing the majority of the housework and daily living responsibilities of a household and family. Feminists of the era have since admitted that their ideas caused a great disservice to women who heeded their call
Its not a matter of women being in or out of the workforce now, however. Just like Apostle Quinten L. Cook counseled members, “we should all be careful not to be judgmental or assume that sisters are less valiant if the decision is made to work outside the home. We rarely understand or fully appreciate people’s circumstances.”(3)
In a time of economic downturn with husbands unemployed for long stretches at a time, many mothers find that they must work to meet the needs of their families. Stay at home dads are learning what many stay at home mothers have known: something vital is missing from a parent’s life when his/her education and skills are removed from the workplace. Betty Freidan called it “housewife’s syndrome” and perhaps now, many house husbands are feeling it too.
The Women’s Service Mission has covered this topic in a couple of different ways in the past. The review of Radical Homemaker’s found gospel principles in the idea of husband and wives sharing household responsibility by cutting consumerism and creating families that produce more than they consume–what the author called “units of production.” On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, WSM featured the book The War on Moms: On Life in a Family Un-Friendly Nation which called for national reforms to the employment system to create jobs that allow families to provide for their needs and contribute to their overall well-being rather than continue to enslave them to a workforce that stretches parents too thin and places children in the care of people other than their parents for the majority of the time. Another book on this topic, written by the advocacy organization MomsRising, entitled The Motherhood Manifesto, outlines the MomsRising platform that calls for flex time work options for men and women in additional to supplemental (not primary or full-time) child care for families who need to make use of it.
The book Equally Shared Parenting takes a step back from the policy debate and tells stories of families who are living the lifestyle they love without waiting for society to change for them. The authors interviewed 40 families most of whom have two parents working part-time to full-time, with little to no outside childcare needed. Many families are homeschooling their children. Fathers are just as capable of preparing lunches, soothing owies and teaching school lessons while mothers did their share of nurturing and homemaking and later being an integral part of their workplace. (4)
It sounds idealistic and it is, unabashedly so. Families across the country are making this work, even without the family friendly public policy advocated by feminists and apostles. (5) As more and more families embrace this way of living and enjoying life, these policies will be in greater demand and Mormons may learn exactly what “equal partners” really look like.
Have you heard of Equally Shared Parenting? Are you or any one you know living this arrangement? What does the phrase “equal partners” from the Proclamation mean to you? Please respond in the comments.
Are you involved in advocacy for family friendly policies? Tell us about your efforts by writing a guest post. Email to service@ldswave.org.
Since this topic is focused women with children, the quoted was edited to leave out women who are do not marry or have children. If you are a single woman or are married but do not have children yet, would you consider the concept of equally shared parenting in your future family?
Gordon B. Hinckley “Ten Gifts from the Lord,” Ensign, Nov. 1985, 89.
Quentin L. Cook “LDS Women are incredible!” Ensign, May 2011.
You can hear from the authors of Equally Shared Parenting in their interview with KRCL Salt Lake’s RadioActive.
In Quentin L. Cook’s address linked above, he counseled, “I would hope that Latter-day Saints would be at the forefront in creating an environment in the workplace that is more receptive and accommodating to both women and men in their responsibilities as parents.”
Thanks so much for posting this resource. I’m teaching the Gospel Principles lesson that covers “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” and suggests a fairly traditional division of labor along gender roles. As a feminist, the lesson material makes me feel somewhat uncomfortable. Although I never called it an “Equally Shared Partnership,” I would say that my husband and I have been successful at achieving a more egalitarian marriage such as the one you describe. I love my marriage and I’m really grateful for the balance we’ve been able to achieve. I wanted to find a way to talk about the value of an egalitarian marriage but didn’t quite know how I could do that without offending anyone or sounding like I was contradicting the church’s teachings. Your opening paragraph and your link to the Equally Shared Parenting website will be most helpful. Thank you.
Alyssa, so glad that this has been helpful to you. Is this lesson being prepared for Relief Society? It will be most interesting how that lesson will turn out. I know that I would have very much appreciated a lesson that described an equal partnership marriage when I was in Young Womens and before getting married as a Relief Society sister. You’ll have to tell us how it goes. You are welcome to write up your experience giving the lesson and submit it to the HOPE Blog. Just email your text to hopeideas@ldswave.org
Doctrine & Covenants
“What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself; and though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same.” (D&C 1:38)
New Testiment
“In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.” (2 Corinthians 13:1)
The Family, a Proclamation to the World
“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. Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation.”
President David O. McKay
“The home is the first and most effective place for children to learn the lessons of life: truth, honor, virtue, self-control; the value of education, honest work, and the purpose and privilege of life. Nothing can take the place of home in rearing and teaching children, and no other success can compensate for failure in the home.” (Family Home Evening Manual [1968], iii).
President Harold B. Lee
“The most important … work you will ever do will be within the walls of your own homes” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Harold B. Lee [2000], 134).
Sis. Camilla Kimball
“The role of the successful mother is a lifetime of dedication. It is the most exacting and difficult of all professions. Anyone who would say apologetically, ‘I am only a homemaker,’ has not fully appreciated the importance and intricacy of her profession”. . . .
“I would hope that every girl and woman here has the desire and ambition to qualify in two vocations–that of homemaking, and that of preparing to earn a living outside the home, if and when the occasion requires”. (“A Woman’s Preparation”, Ensign, Mar. 1977, 58)
President Spencer W. Kimball
“[Wives], you are to become a career woman in the greatest career on earth—that of homemaker, wife, and mother. It was never intended by the Lord that married women should compete with men in employment. They have a far greater and more important service to render” (Faith Precedes the Miracle [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1975], p. 128).
“No career approaches in importance that of wife, homemaker, mother— cooking meals, washing dishes, making beds for one’s precious husband and children. Come home, wives, to your husbands. Make home a heaven for them. Come home, wives, to your children, born and unborn. Wrap the motherly cloak about you and, unembarrassed, help in a major role to create the bodies for the immortal souls who anxiously await.
“When you have fully complemented your husband in home life and borne the children, growing up full of faith, integrity, responsibility, and goodness, then you have achieved your accomplishment supreme, without peer, and you will be the envy [of all] through time and eternity” (fireside address, San Antonio, Texas).
President Ezra Taft Benson
“It is divinely ordained what a woman should do. . . . The divine work of women involves companionship, homemaking, and motherhood” (“In His Steps,” BYU Fireside, Mar. 1979).
“Beguiling voices in the world cry out for ‘alternative life-styles’ for women. They maintain that some women are better suited for careers than for marriage and motherhood.
“These individuals spread their discontent by the propaganda that there are more exciting and self-fulfilling roles for women than homemaking. Some even have been bold to suggest that the Church move away from the ‘Mormon woman stereotype’ of homemaking and rearing children. They also say it is wise to limit your family so you can have more time for personal goals and self-fulfillment” (“The Honored Place of Woman,” Ensign, Nov. 1981, 105).
Sis. Barbara B. Smith (Former Relief Society General President)
“Women, who through marriage share in the responsibility of building the household of faith, must recognize that the help and partnership of heaven is only available on heaven’s terms. If we would have marriage for eternities, we must abide by the laws of heaven. And the laws of heaven are supremely just.
“He who told Adam to eat his bread by the sweat of his brow and Eve to bring forth children has instructed us that the husband shall be responsible to give sustenance to his wife and children during the tender years: “Women have claim on their husbands for their maintenance, until their husbands are taken; … All children have claim upon their parents for their maintenance until they are of age.” (D&C 83:2–4.)
“Clearly, this shows the importance God puts on the work he has given to women to bear and rear children. He has not ranked the role of provider ahead of the role of bearing and nurturing, but has wisely divided these highest, most essential duties equally between men and women. There may be exceptions but the pattern is clear: an ideal home has both a mother-homemaker and a father-provider.” (“Makers of Homes”, Ensign, Mar. 1979)
Sis. Julie B. Beck (Relief Society General President)
“Mothers who know are nurturers. This is their special assignment and role under the plan of happiness. . . . .“Another word for nurturing is homemaking. Homemaking includes cooking, washing clothes and dishes, and keeping an orderly home. Home is where women have the most power and influence; therefore, Latter-day Saint women should be the best homemakers in the world.
Sis. Kathleen Slaugh Bahr (Associate Professor, School of Family Life – Brigham Young University)
“Family work provides a common ground that brings husband, wife, children, the very old and the very young together. And families that learn to work together and care for each other are more likely to extend a helping hand to others in need, extending their good works beyond their home into their community and beyond.”
“Take away the work that once brought us together, and what means are left to help us relate to one another? What do families do together today? Not much, it seems. Most watch television. Some play together, but play does not provide the opportunities for service and sacrifice that work does.” (“WORK IN THE HOME: BUILDING ENDURING RELATIONSHIPS”, World Family Policy Forum – Brigham Young University, Jan. 1999)
Elder M. Russell Ballard (Quorum of Twelve Aspostles)
“Father and mother are callings from which we will never be released.” (“Let Our Voices Be Heard”, Ensign, Nov. 2003)
“Even though men and women are equal before God in their eternal opportunities, they have different, but equally significant, duties in His eternal plan. We must understand that God views all of His children with infinite wisdom and perfect fairness. Consequently, He can acknowledge and even encourage our differences while providing equal opportunity for growth and development.”
“Our Heavenly Father assigned different responsibilities in mortality to men and women when we lived with Him as His spirit sons and daughters. To His sons He would give the priesthood and the responsibilities of fatherhood, and to His daughters He gave the responsibilities of motherhood, each with its attendant functions.” (“Equality Through Diversity”, Ensign, Nov. 1993).
Elder Dallin H. Oaks (Quorum of Twelve Aspostles)
“A woman’s righteous and appropriate desires to grow, to develop, and to magnify her talents … also have their extreme manifestations, which can lead to attempts to preempt priesthood leadership, to the advocacy of ideas out of harmony with Church doctrine, or even to the abandonment of family responsibilities.” . . .
“We are not blessed for magnifying our calling with someone else’s time or resources.” (“Our Strengths Can Become Our Downfall“, Ensign, Oct. 1994)
“Some years ago Elder Neal A. Maxwell taught how we can be guided by this standard of ‘wisdom and order’ and be comforted by the assurance that we are not required to run faster than we have strength (see ‘Wisdom and Order,’ Ensign, June 1994, p. 41). In describing how we can ‘manage ourselves wisely’ he quoted Anne Morrow Lindbergh, who said, ‘My life cannot implement in action the demands of all the people to whom my heart responds.’ Elder Maxwell taught that ‘some choices are matters of preference, not principle,’ adding that ‘wisdom and order [will] help us to separate preferences from principles’ (p. 43).”
“We are wise to conclude that we can’t do it all and that we are not required to. When we feel overwhelmed with all that presses upon us, we should pray for inspiration to guide us in identifying what is required by eternal principles. These things command priority. We do them first. Then, in the time that remains, we pray for wisdom to exercise our preferences among those things that are merely good but not essential. Finally, when inspired wisdom has guided our choices, we proceed, as President Hinckley has taught us, to just ‘do the very best [we] can.’” (“Be Wise”, Brigham Young University–Idaho Devotional, Nov. 2006)
Elder David E. Sorensen (Of the Presidency of the Seventy)
“Some of you may know that Sister Sorensen and I spent a few years in Asia. While living there we heard an old adage: ‘Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.’ For the most part I believe that is wishful thinking. I do not want to sound dismal. But the reality is that work is not always naturally appealing. I think a more appropriate maxim might be President Thomas S. Monson’s counsel. He said, ‘Choose your love; love your choice’ (in Conference Report, Oct. 1988, 82; or Ensign, Nov. 1988, 71). He was actually speaking about marriage, but I would submit that this advice applies to your chosen vocation as well. Choose the job you love, then love your choice.
“What I’m getting at here is many people get stuck in the rut of thinking their work ought to be more rewarding or more glamorous or at least less monotonous! When the going gets tough—as it inevitably will—they start thinking that perhaps their chosen work isn’t really all they thought it would be. They begin believing the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. You’ll find these folks saying, ‘If I only had decided to study medicine instead of the law, I could have been a great doctor.’ Or perhaps, ‘I wish I had his high-power job. If I were the boss like him, I’d work at it really hard and treat people well and be successful.’
“People who can’t get out of this rut often have difficulty achieving excellence in any profession. They fall in love with a career but then become disenchanted with the small and simple things and end up quitting to pursue their fantasy over the next horizon. They drift from job to job, never settling long enough to truly achieve excellence. (If my remarks are bothering some of you, I invite you to repent.)
“Once you have chosen your work, love it! No job is perfect. Every job has its challenges and its days of drudgery. Just like marriage, success and excellence at your work will likely require years and years of dedicated and persistent effort.” (“The Blessing of Work”, CES Fireside, Mar. 2005)
Gospel Principles Manual
“It is also the father’s duty to provide for the physical needs of his family, making sure they have the necessary food, housing, clothing, and education. Even if he is unable to provide all the support himself, he does not give up the responsibility of the care of his family.” (Chapter 37: “Family Responsibilities”)
It is pretty clear from more that “two or three witnesses” what has been revealed through the Lord about the divine roles of husbands and wives in the home.
We may not understand why, since the understanding and ways of man are not equal to the ways of the Lord (Prov. 2:5, Isaiah 55:8), but have faith in Elder Ballard’s words that He will provide “equal opportunity for growth and development”.
The problem may just be that the opportunities may not happen at exactly the same time, or in the same “season”. Elder Faust and Elder Nelson both talk of women having different careers in the different “seasons” of their lives, where as men usually have the charge of being providers for as long as they have the calling of Father, (and from Elder Ballard’s words, that’s pretty much forever…).
From the Gospel Principles manual and the Family Proclamation, we can learn that when a Father cannot himself meet the obligations of his primary responsibility to provide for his family and “adaptations” must be used to meet the needs of his family, he may shift the execution of the providing for his family to someone else, but the unique responsibility and ultimate accountability still remain with him – there is no release from that duty.
It has been revealed by the Lord that the primary responsibilities of the Mother in the home are that of nurturing / homemaking / housekeeping, and as Elder Ballard mentioned, those responsibilities are inseparably linked to a calling for which there is no release. Even if the husband and wife work out some “Shared Parenting” agreement and shift some of the execution of the nurturing / homemaking / housekeeping duties to the Husband, the Wife is still uniquely charged with the responsibility and accountability of those obligations.
I’ve heard many women speak of the recent counsel to gain in education in case they are called to work outside the home, and see this as some sort of “shift” in Doctrine from the older teachings of past prophets. I personally do not believe this is any sort of release of any of these duties, but instead an urging to adjust the time and priorities after the primary obligations of the Wife are met. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and I’m pretty sure that the central roles and duties of Mother in something as sacred as the home isn’t something that is suddenly going to change, although I know of many women who see these duties as “bondage”, and are hoping for their own Moses to show up and free them from slavery, or for the Church to come out with another official declaration similar to when the Blacks received the Priesthood. I seriously doubt that will occur.
Hugh B. Brown once said, “Someone has said that prejudice is a vagrant opinion without visible means of support.” (BYU Devotional, 1958). I think the biggest thing fueling the argument if inequality is that many women have been taught to be prejudice against the down-and-dirty work of nurturing / homemaking / housekeeping as having very little value or opportunity for personal satisfaction, and judge their husbands (or men in general) as having duties that are much more rewarding and fulfilling, and therefore not equal. However, if you take Elder Sorensen’s words and apply them to the career of a Mother, then what I see is a lot of people complaining that their job is not fulfilling enough, but is they try to escape those duties without persisting and fostering gratitude and humility they will never know the greatest joys that will be available to them. Given, it is often drudgery and monotonous, and we all have found things that are much more immediately powerful and rewarding, but as Elder Holland once told the students at BYU, we must postpone our “gratification” so that we don’t postpone our “graduation.”
So, to answer the initial question, “Equal Partnership” looks like each spouse performing their divinely appointed primary roles, giving assistance to each other as time and resources permit, both understanding the sacrifices that are asked of themselves and their partner, dedicating their lives to the Lord, holding nothing back, and learning to love the work that the Lord has given them with parience and gratitude.
It is not splitting things down the line, 50 / 50.
In the book “Without Offense: The Art of Giving and Receiving Criticism” by Dr. John L. Lund, he talks about the different levels of stewardship.
There is the Parent -> Child and Child -> Parent relationship, where the child is subservient to the parent and the parent has a stweardship over the child, and then there is the Child Child relationship, where where neither is subservient to the other. This is the relationship that a husband and wife have.
As President Gordon B. Hinckley has taught: “In this Church the man neither walks ahead of his wife nor behind his wife but at her side. They are coequals.” Since the beginning, God has instructed mankind that marriage should unite husband and wife together in unity. Therefore, there is not a president or a vice president in a family. The couple works together eternally for the good of the family. They are united together in word, in deed, and in action as they lead, guide, and direct their family unit. They are on equal footing (L. Tom Perry, Ensign, May 2004 p. 71).
Equality looks like the husband and wife walking side by side, doing the work that the Lord has uniquely charged them with, and assisting your eternal companion with their labors.
Elder Neal A. Maxwell writes, “Our afflictions brothers and sisters often will not be extinguished, they will be dwarfed and swallowed up in the joy of Christ. That’s how we overcome, most of the time. It’s not their elimination, but the placing of them in that larger context.” So it is with the labors of marriage and family – each partner is not to be there to “extinguish” the burdens of the other, but rather to help them to work in the eternal pattern, side-by-side, that the burderns of both are “dwarfed in the joy of Christ.”
If one doesn’t see this as the answer to perceived gender inequality, then they had better do some deep study and soul searching…
We reject the term “preside” in our home. We simply don’t see a way to have an egalitarian marriage where one person presides over the other. Thanks for sharing this resource.