Answer

If Husband and Wife Are Equal, What Does "Preside" Mean?

The Proclamation says fathers preside, and in the same sentence says that mothers and fathers are equal partners. If you have seen the word used to mean a husband gets the final say, or you have simply wondered how both halves can be true, the question is a fair one and it deserves a straight answer.

It means a father carries a particular responsibility to turn his family toward Jesus Christ, through love, service, sacrifice and spiritual initiative. It does not mean he outranks his wife, casts a deciding vote, or receives revelation for the family that she does not. God did not design marriage with a president and a vice president.

Eternal Truths

The Proclamation settles it in its own sentence. Fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness, and “in these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners” (The Family: A Proclamation to the World). The two clauses are not in tension. The second defines how the first is to be done.

Priesthood gives no man authority over anyone’s agency. The Lord’s word on this is severe: no power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, love unfeigned and kindness, and the moment a man begins to exercise control or compulsion in any degree of unrighteousness, the heavens withdraw (Doctrine and Covenants 121:36-46). That verse was given to men in prison, and it forecloses the reading you are worried about.

Presiding in practice is initiative and sacrifice. Paul gave husbands the measure: “love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” (Ephesians 5:25). Someone has to start family prayer. Someone has to notice that scripture study quietly stopped. Presiding is measured by whether the family is closer to Christ, never by who was obeyed.

What Can Make This Confusing?

The word has been used badly, and pretending otherwise helps nobody. If it has been used on you to mean control, that was a misuse of the teaching rather than the teaching. It is also a word from an older register of English, and to a modern ear “preside” sounds like rank when what it describes is duty.

Questions to Think About

• In our home, who actually starts the things that turn us toward Christ?
• Have I confused presiding with deciding?
• If someone watched our marriage for a month, would they describe two equal partners?

What You Can Do

Read the Proclamation’s paragraph on fathers and mothers this week in full, out loud, with your spouse if you have one, and stop at the phrase “equal partners”. Then name one thing this week that you will start rather than wait for. The essay behind this Answer goes further into where the word came from and how it has been misused.

Jesus Christ led by washing feet, and He can teach a husband and wife to carry their responsibilities the way He carried His.