Arranged Marriages

March 8, 2009


When I lived in San Antonio, one of my church callings was as Laurel Advisor. There were only 2 or 3 laurels at church every week, and so our classroom usually had more leaders than girls in attendance. Besides the girls, I was there, Sherri Warner (YW Pres) and Lindsey Cossen (YW sec).

One week, Sherri Warner taught the lesson about marriage. The start-off activity was to ask each of the girls to make a list of qualities that she would like to find in a companion someday. Sr. Warner asked us leaders to make a list of qualities we’d like in a future daughter-in-law.

How surprised I was, when each of us read our lists out loud, to find out how different we all were! I expected the girls to have unique lists, but somehow, I expected the leaders to all paint a similar picture. Sherri’s dream daughter-in-law was gentle, a skilled and contented homemaker, kind and loving. Lindsey’s dream daughter-in-law was athletic, independent, confident, and organized. My dream daughter-in-law was cheerful, grateful, deep-thinking, curious, and well-read.

Last week for Family Home Evening, I decided to have my boys try this same activity. They looked at me with completely blank faces when I first explained. Anyway, Noah seemed to “get it” after a few minutes, and the other boys played along with some skepticism. Here’s what I got:

Oak:
Nise [nice]
Fridly [friendly]
Good wheth kdis
Mormon
Not fat
Gose to chech [goes to church]
Likes the Book of Mormon

I think Oak’s first three entries are tellings: nice, friendly, good with kids. This gives me hope for Oak - I hope he marries a nice person! He lets Mercy boss him around so much, and loves her through it all, that I had imagined him married to a demanding and opinionated woman.

Danny:
Athletice
Good at cooking
Talkeative
Conservative (Danny says that this means “someone who doesn’t buy too much stuff”)
Happy
Mormon

Danny wrote “talkative” because he told me that he is quiet. This surprised me initially, since he doesn’t seem very quiet at home, but maybe he is at school. I hosted his Bear cub scout troop last week for the first time, and I was surprised at how quiet he was.

Athletic. Good at cooking (Danny does like to eat). Conservative. Danny has always been fascinated by earning money and by business ideas. He thinks of ideas for stores, and often notices when he sees a business that seems like it would make good money. He is the most motivated out of all our boys to do his daily jobs so he can get paid. Yet, he also spends the least.

Noah
Kind
Helpful
Truthful
Healthy
Tall
Likes animals
Sports
Likes hiking
Funny
Optimistic
Smart
Good grades/jobs
Big Family (comes from a big family)

Noah has an interest in animals. It started in the first grade with “My Side of the Mountain” and falconing, and has never gone away.

Truthful: Noah is very literal, and does not like it when other people generalize, estimate, or exaggerate. Kind, Helpful, Funny, Optimistic. This sounds like a great person.

Mike and I have joked about arranging our kids’ marriages over the years. We’ve met other families who we really like, and who are raising their kids in a fashion that we relate with. We feel less sure of our own kids’ abilities to pick a spouse as we’ve seen other “ideal” marriages fall apart in recent years, in particular the Rohrers and Mike’s cousin, Heidi.

But, in the end, our kids will be choosing for themselves. I remember Dad’s comment after meeting Mike for the first time, “He seems like a BYU boy.” It didn’t exactly seem like a compliment. I think that if my parents had picked out my husband, they would have picked someone calmer and more scientific than Mike, and, honestly, our marriage might have been easier. . . but less fun. If Mike’s parents could have picked out his wife, they might have picked someone more talkative and cheerful, and someone who would never want to move out of Utah.

I knew a great couple in Wuerzburg, the Pindars. Connie is Bavarian, and a convert to the church as a teenager, thanks to a Mormon friend in her neighborhood. Her husband, Kenyatta, was also a convert as a teenager, raised in Germany by an African mother. They both had served missions, have strong testimonies and a desire to make a difference for good. They had two little kids the last time I saw them. Connie told me one time what a hard decision it had been to marry Kenyatta, once her parents had made it clear how upset they were with her marrying a black man. Her father, in particular, wanted nothing to do with her if she went through with the marriage. She told me that her deciding moment was when she pulled out a list that she’d made in YW, a list of characteristics of her future husband. She said that she looked over her list and Kenyatta was everything she’d ever dreamed of, and more. And, what’s more, she realized, no where on her list had she written, “white skin.” That’s when she decided that she’d marry Kenyatta.

Listing of characteristics I’d like in a daughter-in-law makes me want to be a better person. I want to be happy, cheerful, friendly, grateful, truthful, healthy, tidy, nice, and love the Book of Mormon, so that this is the kind of person with whom my kids will feel comfortable.