Marriage. By Elder Boyd K. Packer. ACU Sunday Series.
Marriage. By Elder Boyd\xa0K. Packer. ACU Sunday Series.\nOf the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles\nhttps://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1981/04/marriage?lang=eng \nThe prophet Jacob foretold the destruction of a people because they were blind to ordinary things, \u201cwhich blindness,\u201d he said, \u201ccame by looking beyond the mark.\u201d (Jacob 4:14.)\nWe often seek for things we cannot seem to find when they are within easy reach\u2014ordinary, obvious things.\nI wish to talk about an ordinary word. I have tried for months\u2014really tried\u2014to find some way to hold this word up in such a way that you would be very impressed with what it means.\nThe word is\xa0marriage.\nI have wished that I could set before you a finely carved chest, placing it where the light is just right. I would carefully unlatch it and reverently uncover the word\u2014marriage.\nPerhaps then you would see that it is priceless!\nI cannot show it to you that way, so I will do the best I can using other ordinary words.\nIt is my purpose to endorse and to favor, to encourage and defend marriage.\nMany regard it nowadays as being, at best, semiprecious, and by some it is thought to be worth nothing at all.\nI have seen and heard, as you have seen and heard, the signals all about us, carefully orchestrated to convince us that marriage is out of date and in the way.\nThere is a practice, now quite prevalent, for unmarried couples to live together, a counterfeit of marriage. They suppose that they shall have all that marriage can offer without the obligations connected with it. They are wrong!\nHowever much they hope to find in a relationship of that kind, they will lose more. Living together without marriage destroys something inside all who participate. Virtue, self-esteem, and refinement of character wither away.\nClaiming that it will not happen does not prevent the loss; and these virtues, once lost, are not easily reclaimed.\nTo suppose that one day they may nonchalantly change their habits and immediately claim all that might have been theirs had they not made a mockery of marriage is to suppose something that will not be.\nOne day, when they come to\xa0themselves, they will reap disappointment.\nOne cannot degrade marriage without tarnishing other words as well, such words as\xa0boy, girl, manhood, womanhood, husband, wife, father, mother, baby, children, family, home.\nSuch words as\xa0unselfishness\xa0and\xa0sacrifice\xa0will then be tossed aside. Then self-respect will fade and love itself will not want to stay.\nIf you have been tempted to enter such a relationship or if you now live with another without marriage, leave! Withdraw from it! Run away from it! Do not continue with it! Or, if you can, make a marriage out of it.\nEven a rickety marriage will serve good purpose as long as two people struggle to keep it from falling down around them.\nAnd now a word of warning. One who destroys a marriage takes upon himself a very great responsibility indeed. Marriage is sacred!\nTo willfully destroy a marriage, either your own or that of another couple, is to offend our God. Such a thing will not be lightly considered in the judgments of the Almighty and in the eternal scheme of things will not easily be forgiven.\nDo not threaten nor break up a marriage. Do not translate some disenchantment with your own marriage partner or an attraction for someone else into justification for any conduct that would destroy a marriage.\nThis monumental transgression frequently places heavy burdens upon little children. They do not understand the selfish yearnings of unhappy adults who are willing to buy their own satisfaction at the expense of the innocent.\nGod Himself decreed that the physical expression of love, that union of male and female which has power to generate life, is authorized only in marriage.\nMarriage is the shelter where families are created. That society which puts low value on marriage sows the wind and, in time, will reap the whirlwind\u2014and thereafter, unless they repent, bring upon themselves a ho