What is the Mormon position on unmarried adults? Are they unwelcome members?

Question

Dear Gramps,

I have gone around in circles about joining the Mormon Church, and I keep coming back to one obstacle (an obstacle in my mind, you might feel). Brigham Young said something to the effect that an unmarried man over the age of 21 was a great menace to society (words to that effect). Doctrine & Covenants 131 says that only a man who has gone through the ordinance of temple marriage can attain exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom, and those who have not married become servants (ministering angels). I’m not married. Even if someone like me were to earn a temple recommend, I feel I would still be excluded. My Mormon friend said, “get married, then.” What’s the Mormon position on unmarried adults? Unmarried = unwelcome? In your own experience, did your mom ever address this question? (as your dad was not a member of the Mormon Church until later in life). Any thoughts or suggestions you have to help clarify my thinking on this point, I would appreciate.

Hane

Answer

Dear Hane,

Do you plan to never be married? If that is the case, it would merit some censure. If you are not against marriage, but have not found someone yet to be your wife, there is always hope. If that anticipated possibility does not materialize during your mortal life, there is yet hope. The Lord will not condemn us for anything that was not in our province to comply with. Were that so, God would be an unjust God. It is specifically for that eventuality that the Lord has provided holy temples wherein the essential saving ordinances of the gospel may be performed by proxy for those who have passed from mortality without the opportunity to comply with the requirements of the gospel. That great vicarious work has been established as part of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are conjoined to identify their ancestors and perform the saving vicarious ordinances for them by proxy in the temples.

The Lord will soon come to initiate his great millennial reign and that great, essential work will have just been begun. Imagine how many of our Father’s children have lived and died without leaving any record of their existence? One of the great purposes of the Millennium is to provide opportunity for all that work to be completed. Since the saving ordinances are designed to be performed in mortality, a strain of mortals will live all during the millennium, so that great work may be completed.

When the Lord comes in glory all the wicked who are living at that time will be destroyed, and their spirits will be remanded to the custody of Satan until the end of the millennium, at which time they will be rescued and resurrected. All of the good people of the earth, regardless of their faith or religion, who are living when the Lord comes, will continue to live in mortality “until the age of a tree” and then will pass from mortality to immortality in the twinkling of an eye. They will continue to procreate, so the strain of mortals will continue until the end of the millennium. Among them, there will be those who hold the holy Melchizedek priesthood who will be called to officiate in the temples to perform the saving ordinances for all who will accept them.

So if you don’t find a wife in this life and are living in a manner to be worthy of those high blessings of the Lord, you will be provided for. So unmarried does not mean unwelcome! It means that one should live the gospel to the fullest with complete faith in the Lord that He will guide your path, either in this life or in the next, to that person who is designed and waiting to be your eternal companion.

Gramps