Question
Dear Gramps,
I have read all your posts to questions on marriage, but I would like your further opinion on children born to a second marriage. If both the wife and the husband were sealed to their first spouses, and they marry and have children, are not the children born under the covenant twice, to both the husband and the wife? Where do they belong in the eternal family tree?
Chris
Answer
Dear Chris,
There can be many different circumstances, but children are only to be sealed to one set of parents. What happens with the children if their parents are divorced and have their sealing canceled? President Joseph Fielding Smith stated:
“…these children belong to God; they are his children, sent to that home with all the rights of protection from father and mother, guidance from father and mother, to be built up and strengthened in the faith, and to go into the heavens, into the celestial kingdom with the father and mother to sit with them in exaltation and glory.” He further stated: “When a man and woman are married in the temple for time and all eternity and then separate, the children will go with the parent who is justified and who has kept the covenants. If neither of them has kept his covenants, the children may be taken away from both of them and given to somebody else, and that would be by virtue of being born under the covenant. A child is not to be sealed the second time when born under the covenant, but by virtue of that birthright can be transferred.” (Doctrine of Salvation 2: 91-92)
A woman can only be sealed to one husband at a time. If she obtains a divorce and wants to marry another man, she will need to obtain from the President of the Church, a cancellation of her first sealing prior to being able to be sealed to another man. Her children from any previous marriages that were born in the covenant or sealed to their parents are not to be sealed again as stated by President Smith. A reader of this site wrote the following comment: “I found it enlightening at the sealing of a woman to her second husband, her first having been both abusive and unfaithful, to learn from the Sealer that the first sealing was not canceled until she was able to make that covenant with another because she and the children received all of the promised blessings in spite of the first companion’s sins.”
There are certainly cases where divorce is justified, but if both parties are living the Gospel it would not be so. Spousal abuse, adultery, breaking of Temple Covenants are circumstances where divorce might be permitted if the guilty party is unrepentant. Those contemplating divorce should counsel with their priesthood leaders prior to any action being taken.
Gramps
