Essay

Five Witnesses of the Pattern for Marriage

You might be wondering, Why does God teach that marriage is between a man and a woman? If two people sincerely love each other, why does being male and female matter? Did Jesus actually teach a particular pattern for marriage? And how do our bodies, children, the Creation, the temple, and eternal life fit into the answer?

Those are important questions, especially because you might have family members who have strong feelings about these questions. It can be helpful to first understand that marriage is connected to who we are as sons and daughters of Heavenly Parents, why God created us male and female, what our bodies are designed to do, why families are central to His plan, and what Heavenly Father intends His children ultimately to become.

One helpful way to see that larger pattern is through five R’s:

• Rooted in Creation: God created humanity male and female and established the first marriage with Adam and Eve.
• Reiterated throughout Scripture: The pattern of husband, wife, and family appears repeatedly throughout the scriptural record.
• Repeated by Jesus and His Prophets and Apostles: Christ reaffirmed the Creation pattern, and His authorized servants continue to teach it.
• Represented in Christ and His Church: Scripture uses the relationship of bridegroom and bride to teach about Christ’s covenant relationship with His people.
• Reinforced in the Temple: Temple ordinances and covenants place Adam and Eve, marriage, family, and eternal life within one connected plan.

Let’s take a look at each of them so you can better understand why The Family: A Proclamation to the World teaches that “marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God.”

Why Love Alone Does Not Define Marriage

Love is essential to marriage. But if love alone defined marriage, then any deeply loving relationship could become a marriage.

You can deeply love parents, siblings, close friends, roommates, or people you serve. Those relationships can be loyal, meaningful, and life-changing, but we do not call all of them marriage. In God’s plan, marriage has a particular purpose involving the union of male and female, sexual faithfulness, the creation and nurturing of life, covenant, and the possibility of an eternal family.

This helps explain why the question is larger than whether two people love each other sincerely. The deeper question is: What did God create marriage to be?

The world today often teaches that “love is love” or that “love makes a family.” Scripture gives us a deeper starting point: “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Because God is perfectly loving, His commandments are not designed to keep happiness away from us. They teach us how our love, desires, bodies, relationships, and choices fit within His eternal purposes.

Trusting God’s teaching about marriage never gives anyone permission to be unkind. A disciple of Jesus Christ can hold firmly to revealed doctrine while treating every person as a beloved son or daughter of God.

Jesus Points Us Back to “the Beginning”

Jesus gave us an important place to begin.

When the Pharisees asked Him a difficult question about marriage, He did not begin with the customs of His own society. He took them back to the Creation:

“Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?” —Matthew 19:4–5

The phrase “at the beginning” matters. Jesus was referring to God’s creation of Adam and Eve. He connected God’s creation of humanity as male and female with the marriage of husband and wife.

Jesus therefore placed marriage within the Creation itself rather than treating it only as a legal arrangement or personal expression of love. That gives us the starting point for the first of the five R’s.

1. Rooted in Creation

Marriage is rooted in the Creation.

Genesis teaches that God created humanity “male and female” in His image. He blessed Adam and Eve and commanded them to “be fruitful, and multiply” (Genesis 1:27–28).

The restored gospel gives us an even wider view. We are sons and daughters of Heavenly Parents. We have a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother, and our identity as male or female is part of our eternal identity and purpose. The family pattern established with Adam and Eve therefore points beyond mortality toward the kind of eternal life our Heavenly Parents desire for Their children.

Our Bodies Are Part of the Pattern

The human body also helps us understand why male and female matter in marriage.

A man’s body and a woman’s body are different, but those differences fit together in a purposeful way. Together, a man and a woman can participate in creating life, something neither can do alone. Their union can become what scripture calls “one flesh” (Genesis 2:24), both through their physical relationship and through the new life that may come from that relationship.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland explained:

“Physiologically we are created as men and women to fit together in such a union. … They are as nearly and as literally ‘one’ as two separate physical bodies can ever be.”

This does not mean a marriage matters only when a couple can have children. Some couples experience infertility. Some marry after their childbearing years. Some will not have children during mortality. Their marriages are still real, sacred, and capable of fulfilling important purposes in God’s plan.

The point is that the overall pattern of male and female bodies is directed toward union and the creation of life. Even when individual circumstances prevent conception, the marriage still follows the male-and-female pattern God established.

The Earth Was Created So Families Could Be

This relationship between Creation, marriage, and family helps explain a remarkable teaching from President Russell M. Nelson:

“Grand as it is, planet Earth is part of something even grander—that great plan of God. Simply summarized, the earth was created that families might be.”

He later taught:

“The earth was created and this Church was restored so that families could be formed, sealed, and exalted eternally.”

That is why The Family: A Proclamation to the World teaches:

“Marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.”

The word ordained means established or appointed by God. Governments make laws about marriage, but governments did not create its eternal meaning. And the word central tells us that family is not a secondary part of the plan of salvation. It stands at the heart of what God is accomplishing for His children.

2. Reiterated throughout Scripture

The same pattern is reiterated throughout scripture.

The scriptures repeatedly describe husbands and wives forming families within God’s covenant plan: Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel, Lehi and Sariah, and many others.

Their lives were not always easy. Scripture honestly records infertility, grief, waiting, disagreement, family conflict, and serious mistakes. Yet throughout those very different circumstances, the underlying pattern remains: husband and wife, male and female, marriage, children, covenant, and family.

The Bible begins with Adam and Eve together in Eden. Near its conclusion, the relationship between Jesus Christ and His covenant people is described through the image of a bridegroom and a bride (Revelation 19:7–9). Marriage is woven throughout the scriptural story from beginning to end.

3. Repeated by Jesus and His Prophets and Apostles

This doctrine is also repeated by Jesus Christ and His prophets and apostles.

When Jesus was asked about marriage, He quoted the Creation account. He said that God made humanity male and female and taught that a man should cleave to his wife so the two could become one flesh (Matthew 19:4–6).

You may hear the claim that Jesus never addressed the definition of marriage. Matthew 19 shows that He did speak about its fundamental pattern. He pointed to male and female, husband and wife, and one flesh. Rather than introducing a new definition, Jesus reaffirmed what His Father had established “at the beginning.”

Modern prophets and apostles continue to teach the same underlying doctrine. The Family: A Proclamation to the World does not stand apart from scripture or Christ’s teachings. It expresses in our day the same pattern found in Creation and reaffirmed by the Savior.

4. Represented in Christ and His Church

Marriage is also represented in the relationship between Jesus Christ and His covenant people.

In the New Testament, Jesus is described as the Bridegroom, and His covenant people are described as the bride. Paul used marriage to teach about the Savior’s love, sacrifice, faithfulness, and covenant relationship with His people (Ephesians 5:25, 31–32).

This symbolism works because marriage joins two people who are different but become united. A husband and wife do not lose their individual identities. They bind their lives together through covenant, loyalty, sacrifice, and love.

A faithful marriage can therefore teach us something about Jesus Christ. Over time, it can show what covenant love looks like: remaining faithful, forgiving, repenting, sacrificing, growing, and learning to become one.

Marriage is not merely represented by romance. In scripture, it becomes an image for covenant—the kind of faithful, enduring relationship Christ offers His people and asks His people to offer Him.

5. Reinforced in the Temple

Finally, marriage between a man and a woman is reinforced in the temple.

The temple initiatory teaches about marriage and having children. The endowment teaches the story of Adam and Eve and places their marriage within the larger account of Creation, the Fall, redemption through Jesus Christ, and eternal life. The sealing ordinance joins a husband and wife for time and eternity.

That matters because the temple shows where the Creation story is ultimately headed. Adam and Eve are not simply two ancient people whose story begins the Bible. Their experience helps teach the larger purpose of mortality: men and women coming to earth, receiving bodies, entering covenants, forming families, being redeemed through Jesus Christ, and preparing for eternal life.

A temple sealing points toward what marriage can ultimately become through the Savior: an eternal covenant relationship that continues beyond the grave.

When we put all five R’s together, the pattern becomes difficult to separate into unrelated pieces. Marriage is rooted in Creation, reiterated throughout scripture, repeated by Christ and His servants, represented through the Bridegroom and bride, and reinforced in temple covenants because marriage and family belong to God’s larger purpose for His sons and daughters.

Questions for Personal Reflection

1. When I think about marriage, am I starting with God’s purposes in the Creation—or mainly with the way marriage is described in current culture?
2. Have I come to believe that sincere love by itself defines marriage? What parts of marriage’s purpose—bodies, children, covenants, and eternal life—might that view leave out?
3. Which voices are shaping my first reaction to this doctrine: scripture, prophets, prayer, and the Holy Ghost—or social media, entertainment, friends, fear, and the desire to be accepted?
4. Do I sometimes assume that compassion requires changing revealed doctrine, or that defending doctrine requires becoming harsh? What would it look like to follow Christ in both truth and love?
5. Are my questions about marriage connected to a personal hurt, fear, attraction, family experience, or disappointment? How could I bring that concern honestly to Heavenly Father rather than allowing it to quietly shape what I believe?

Seeing the Pattern for Yourself

During the coming week, consider studying The Family: A Proclamation to the World alongside the five R’s. Read the Creation account in Genesis, then read Christ’s words in Matthew 19 and notice why He deliberately returned to “the beginning.” As you worship in the temple or prepare to return, pay attention to how often God teaches His plan through Adam and Eve, covenants, marriage, and eternal family relationships.

You may still have questions after studying these things. Some questions touch deeply personal experiences and may take time, prayer, scripture study, temple worship, wise conversations, and the influence of the Holy Ghost to understand. Faith does not require pretending difficult questions are simple. It does ask us to let the Lord teach us from what He has revealed while trusting Him with what we do not yet fully understand.

The five R’s ultimately help us see why God’s teaching about marriage is about much more than drawing a boundary around one relationship. Marriage is rooted in His Creation, reiterated throughout His word, repeated by Jesus Christ and His prophets, represented in Christ’s covenant relationship with His people, and reinforced in the temple because marriage and family are part of what Heavenly Father is preparing His children to become.

And Jesus Christ is at the center of that becoming. Through Him, imperfect people can repent, heal, learn to love more purely, make and keep sacred covenants, and receive strength for sacrifices that may feel beyond their own capacity. As we come to Him, He can help us not only know what God has taught about marriage, but gradually understand why it matters in His eternal plan for His sons and daughters.