Marriage is Beautiful, Divorce Ugly

by G. (01/07/2021 05:33 am)

President Hinckley said that marriage was beautiful (giving his due to its difficulties) and then had this to say about divorce

Some of you within the sound of my voice could recount family sorrows in your own experience. But among the greatest of tragedies, and I think the most common, is divorce. It has become as a great scourge. The most recent issue of the World Almanac says that in the United States during the twelve months ending with March 1990, an estimated 2,423,000 couples married. During this same period, an estimated 1,177,000 couples divorced. (See The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 1991, New York: World Almanac, 1990, p. 834.)

This means that in the United States almost one divorce occurred for every two marriages.

Those are only figures written on the pages of a book. But behind them lies more of betrayal, more of sorrow, more of neglect and poverty and struggle than the human mind can imagine.

We live and have lived in a country that is free for many practical purposes. The downside is that to date the greatest persecutions inflicted upon us as a people have been inflicted by ourselves. True, we live in a society that encourages and facilitates divorce. But no one made us do it.

I sometimes wish we excommunicated for more divorces, though that would not cure the ugliness that led to the divorce in the first place.

Other Posts from the Sunday Morning Session of the April 1991 General Conference