Essay

Equal Worth, Distinct Strengths: Men and Women in Covenant Partnership

Young adulthood brings decisions that can shape much of the rest of your life. You may be deciding whom to date, whether and when to marry, what kind of family you hope to build, and what you should be looking for in a future husband or wife. At the same time, you hear many different ideas about gender, equality, marriage, and what women and men should expect from each other.

That can raise an important question: If women and men are equal before God, why do their differences matter? Should equality mean that those differences become less important, or did God create male and female for purposes we need to understand?

The restored gospel of Jesus Christ teaches that women and men have equal divine worth, but equality does not require them to be identical. You are a beloved son or daughter of Heavenly Parents, and being male or female is part of your eternal identity and purpose. God created women and men to share the blessings of salvation through Jesus Christ and, in marriage, to unite different strengths and responsibilities as equal partners in building a family.\

God’s Pattern for Men and Women: Equal Worth, Distinct Roles, and Covenant Partnership

The pattern begins with the Creation. After Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden, God declared, “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). Eve was then created as his equal partner, and together they entered the marriage covenant and began the human family. From the beginning, men and women were designed to rely on one another; neither is meant to fully live or fulfill divine purposes in isolation (1 Corinthians 11:11).

The Family: A Proclamation to the World places these truths within our eternal identity. It teaches that every person is a “beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents” and that gender is “an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.” It also affirms that fathers and mothers have divinely appointed responsibilities and are to help one another “as equal partners.”

Taken together, these teachings reveal an important balance. God does not assign greater eternal worth to one sex over the other, nor does He define equality as sameness. Instead, His pattern unites difference and equality within a covenant relationship where men and women strengthen, support, and complete one another.

Compatibility Is Not the Same as Complementarity

There is also a practical way to think about this when you are dating. Arthur Brooks, New York Times best-selling author and neuroscientist, makes a helpful distinction between compatibility and complementarity in men and women in this Instagram clip about dating and choosing a spouse:

This gives us a useful way to think about dating. Shared faith, character, values, and hopes for marriage and family matter enormously. But a good marriage does not require two people to approach everything in exactly the same way.

Elder Bednar: God Designed Men and Women to Complement Each Other

The restored gospel takes the idea of complementarity much deeper. Elder David A. Bednar taught in “Marriage Is Essential to His Eternal Plan” that male and female differences belong within Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness, and that women and men bring distinctive capacities, perspectives, and experiences into marriage. They contribute differently but equally to a unity that God designed them to build together.

This does not require us to create a rigid list of personality traits that every man or every woman must possess. Individual women and men differ enormously. The revealed doctrine is larger than personality: male and female are eternally meaningful, and God designed marriage so that a woman and man can learn from, strengthen, and bless one another.

That changes an important question in dating. Instead of only asking, Do I like being with this person? you can also begin asking, Could we build a covenant life together? Do you share faith and important values? Can you respect each other’s differences? Can you counsel together, learn from one another, repent, forgive, sacrifice, and allow another person’s strengths to enlarge your own?

When Equality Begins to Mean Sameness

You can understand why some modern messages about gender are appealing. Women have sometimes been treated unfairly. Men have sometimes abused authority. Cultural expectations have sometimes been presented as though they were eternal doctrine. Wanting women and men to be treated with equal dignity and respect is good.

The problem comes when equality gradually begins to mean that meaningful differences between women and men must be unimportant. If you hear that message often enough, gender itself can begin to seem arbitrary, dependence upon another person can look like weakness, and different responsibilities can automatically feel like evidence of inequality.

Elder Bednar taught that Satan works specifically to “confuse understanding about gender” and to hinder righteous marriage because gender, marriage, and family are central to Heavenly Father’s plan. That deception can be especially persuasive when it attaches itself to a legitimate concern about fairness. Rather than rejecting equality, the gospel gives it its proper foundation: women and men have equal divine worth while also having an eternal identity and purpose that God did not intend us to erase.

What Research Shows About Carrying Stress Together

Research can help us understand something very practical about marriage. One idea researchers talk about is called “dyadic coping.” That simply means how a couple handles stress together—talking about problems, supporting each other, and working as a team instead of one person carrying everything alone.

One large study that looked at 72 different research projects with over 17,000 people found that couples who handle stress together well tend to be happier in their relationships. This doesn’t explain gospel doctrine or why God created men and women, but it does show something simple and helpful: marriages are stronger when two people communicate well, support each other, and treat life’s challenges as shared responsibilities.

In everyday terms, a strong marriage isn’t about keeping score of who does more. It grows when two people learn to face life together and help carry each other’s burdens.

What If Your Circumstances Are Not Ideal?

Some of you are not married, though you want to be. Others have experienced divorce, infertility, widowhood, painful family relationships, or a home where healthy marriage was never modeled. Perhaps you are not sure whether marriage will happen for you in this life.

Those circumstances do not make you less important to God, nor do they make the doctrine irrelevant to your life. Even if the distance between the ideal of eternal marriage and the circumstances of mortal life can sometimes feel large, Christ invites every one of us, regardless of present marital circumstances, to understand the doctrine with hope and prepare faithfully for what God has promised.

A Few Questions Worth Thinking About

1. Who or what has been shaping the way I think about the differences between women and men?
2. Have I begun assuming that equality requires women and men to be essentially the same?
3. When I think about dating, am I looking only for similarity, or also for shared values and complementary strengths?
4. Have unhealthy relationships I have seen caused me to distrust something God actually designed to be good?
5. What kind of husband or wife am I becoming through the choices I am making now?

What You Can Begin Doing This Week

Pay attention for a week to the messages you receive about women and men. When a post, video, or comment treats the opposite sex mainly as a problem, or assumes that every difference must be inequality, pause before letting that assumption shape you. Compare it with what God has revealed.

If you are dating, think about the distinction Arthur Brooks makes between compatibility and complementarity. Shared discipleship, character, values, and desires for family matter deeply. At the same time, consider whether you are learning to appreciate someone whose strengths and way of seeing life may not be identical to yours.

And whether you are single or married, ask yourself what you could do this week to become better at partnership. Listening more carefully, apologizing sooner, keeping a commitment, serving without keeping score, or learning from someone whose strengths differ from yours can all prepare you to build stronger relationships.

Elder Bednar taught that Jesus Christ is the focal point of a covenant marriage. As a woman and man individually come closer to the Savior, He teaches them how to become closer to one another. That is ultimately why God’s pattern matters. He is not asking His sons and daughters to compete over who matters more or to erase the differences He gave them. Through Jesus Christ, He is teaching us how to bring those differences into a life of covenant, service, unity, and love—and how to become the kind of people who can build an eternal family together.