Many relationship conflicts are conflicts of virtues.  Virtues come in opposing pairs.  If a man is particularly alive to a virtue, it is likely to be the case that he has a harder time recognizing the vice that distorts the virtue.  If he is particularly alive to a virtue, it is likely he can see even the faintest hint of the opposing vice, and reacts in horror.  Which means  he has a harder time seeing the opposing virtue.

So when a husband and wife have opposing virtues–and they will, somewhere–each one is particularly likely to stray into the vice that is paired with the virtue, and each one is particularly likely to sound the alarm at the opposing virtue even when there isn’t much of the vice in it if at all.

Because our  natural virtues and natural vices are often the results of some character trait that is  neither good nor bad in itself.   The angel in the Great Divorce asks the man who carries his sin around with him in the form of a whispering reptile for permission to kill it.  The man is terrified, there is dialogue, and finally the man agrees in a whimper.  The angel slashes . . . but when the lizard falls dead, it transforms into a unicorn that the man rides off on.  The virtue is the redeemed face of the vice.  The vice was the corrupted form of the virtue.

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Like many Mormon missionaries, I was the catalyst for a fair number of overdue weddings.

Been together for years, have several kids together*, can’t imagine living their lives separately, just never got around to an actual wedding. Indeed, it was usually impossible to tell which domestic arrangements were official until you asked them at the end of the fourth discussion. Happily, the goal of preparing for baptism was all that some of them needed to take the plunge (no pun intended).

Then there were the others, with the common refrain: “Why does it matter if we get married? We’re already together. It’s just a piece of paper.” (more…)

Our esteemed JG co-blogger John Mansfield has a theory that Mormons are retreating socially into their extended families, and worries that the Church is turning into something like a confederation of clans (have I got it right, JM?). He goes so far as to posit that the custom of cousin marriage might make inroads in a more insular Church.

I don’t really see the trend of extended families becoming more important than other Church associations, possibly because I live in a far-off land where most Mormons are transplants without extended family around. But I do observe a trend that might be related. (more…)

Love is not best considered as a feeling, it is not necessarily something at the forefront of consciousness. For many people, their deepest love is something which structures their life, rather than being at the front of our conscious deliberations for most of the time. Some (I am one of them) are very expressive of love – but this is not a necessity; and some very loving cultures and families and marriages do not go in for statements, hugs or tears.

*

My understanding of the absolute necessity of loving God above all else is metaphysical rather than psychological – that without this, all other loves (including the love of Jesus) lose their meaning and function.

The supremacy of our love for God is that it makes all other loves possible – it makes other loves a matter of eternal significance.

-thus Bruce Charlton.

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So school teachers’ lesson plans are “trade secrets” exempt from the various Freedom of Information statutes? In a Sith’s eye!

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His Majesty has found a new way to eat his porridge: Flavored with shredded ham and Swiss cheese, with a fried egg on top.

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[Editors–we hope that this unusual account of a Church-run focus group, along with the ensuing discussion, will be of general interest]

The church was mostly quiet last night. Brother and Sister Markoff were in the cultural hall with their two younger children planning the stage arrangement for the Christmas program Sister Markoff has been rehearsing with Primary children for the past month. There was no sign of anyone downstairs around the bishop’s and clerks’ offices. Back upstairs, outside the Relief Society room, a few middle-aged parents sat waiting and talking. More arrived. Brother Fletcher joked that we were going to find we had came for a half hour presentation encouraging us to prepare for senior missions. Some continued along that theme that we had actually been summoned to discuss lowering the age for senior missionaries. A quarter before eight, the Relief Society door opened, and four priests and six laurels walked out. In we went, where a man in his young thirties sat dressed in a long-sleeved white shirt and tie.

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Reading complaints a few weeks back that too many Latter-day Saints marry before completing courses of higher education, I felt concerned that a natural corollary of that is that people who don’t complete a college education shouldn’t marry at all. Perhaps the unfolding 21st Century for many will be less like the 20th Century abounding in middle-class families and more like earlier ages when bunk houses, barracks, brothels, servants’ quarters, convents, and monasteries absorbed many whose economic limitations put marriage and children out of reach, and those who want a different future will have to choose paths of their own bucking prevailing trends.

The National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia has put out “Knot Yet: The Benefits and Costs of Delayed Marriage in America” There is such discussion of the Great Crossover (mean age at first marriage passing age at first child), and a running theme is that delayed marriage plays out differently for the two-thirds of the nation that doesn’t complete a college degree.

A summary can be found at Washington Post: link. Coming at the topic from another angle, perhaps you’ll enjoy “Settle Down” by Kimbra. Or perhaps you won’t, if your tastes in song and dance don’t run that way.

See here. But against the stupidities of our culture, even Santa struggles in vain. (more…)

And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.

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Maggie Gallagher tells me that this study shows that married biological parents blow all other parent categories out of the water when it comes to not burning the little tykes with cigarettes. (more…)