There is an interesting phenomenon happening in the LDS Church at the moment. I write "at the moment" lightly, because this problem has been gestating for years. I'm sure the Church is aware of what is happening, but since there haven't been any concrete steps made to solve or alleviate the problem, I am assuming they haven't figured out what to do yet.
The problem is what to do with an entire group of men and women who have "aged-out" of their Young Single Adult wards. I call them the Lost Generation. Not only is this group delaying marriage or not getting married, they are having trouble with the Church culture and its norms, and often they are simply giving up.
I'm sorry I have no estimate for how large the Lost Generation is. I only know that it is getting larger every day. Since its inception, the Church has enjoyed a higher-than-average marriage rate. And compared to national averages, it still does. But as the world has increasingly delayed marriage or gotten rid of it altogether, the same has started to happen inside the Church. I have some theories on why this may be, which I'll get into later.
For years, the Church's solution has been to impose an age cap of 30 in YSA wards. When you turn 31, you either go back into a Family Ward, or, if you're lucky, you go into a Singles Ward comprising people of ages 31-45. For many, the 31st birthday looms like a dreaded apparition that slowly rises over your shattered prospects for happiness and normalcy. Luckily for those who live in Utah, transitioning into a Singles Ward isn't totally awful, since at the very least, you can be sure that everyone else there has gone through the same transition. "You aren't young anymore. Deal with your exile. Get married," this move seems to imply.
Labels matter. Not being labeled or included in the "young" crowd anymore can be hard. Or maybe not. I'll let you know if I get there. But I can imagine that many take it hard. I can't speak for the women, but I know that many of the men respond by going to their new Singles Ward, taking one look around, and then simply finding a new place to live where they can attend a YSA ward that won't force them out. If getting people married is the goal, dividing the singles arbitrarily at 31 won't work because the men are in denial and there are simply too many of them. I get that it would be weird having 45 year-olds and 18 year-olds going to the same ward. But since there are so many young thirty-somethings who are single, there needs to be a better place for them. As a person who is almost aging-out, I would feel just as uncomfortable attending a ward with people in their forties as I would going to a ward filled with teenagers. As I approach 31, the age range I am most comfortable with is a ten year range around mine, meaning 25-35.
Kicking people out of wards sends a weird message. And maybe that is on those of us who have to deal with it. Obviously we can choose how we react, but the culture needs to change. Being single in your thirties is a normal thing now. It used to be weird, but it isn't anymore. The Church can keep preaching about the importance of marriage constantly, but it isn't that these people don't understand marriage, it's that they simply haven't gotten married. A part of me still thinks that leaders believe that if we just understood marriage's importance well enough, that we would go out and get married. But that isn't it. We get it. Believe me, we do. The "just pick one" method of courtship and marriage is over. This is something that leadership hasn't quite understood yet. I have been told countless times just to "pick one and get it over with." President Kimball's words are repeated often:
"'Soul mates' are fiction and an illusion; and while every young man and young woman will seek with all diligence and prayerfulness to find a mate with whom life can be most compatible and beautiful, yet it is certain that almost any good man and any good woman can have happiness and a successful marriage if both are willing to pay the price."
But many who quote this leave out the next paragraph, which is one source of the modern difficulty with marriage: "There is a never-failing formula which will guarantee to every couple a happy and eternal marriage; but like all formulas, the principal ingredients must not be left out, reduced, or limited. The selection before courting and then the continued courting after the marriage process are equally important, but not more important than the marriage itself, the success of which depends upon the two individuals—not upon one, but upon two."
Getting the "two" to match up during the courting process has gotten infinitely harder over the last 20 years. Dating culture has seen a massive shift. Courting now involves an element of constant, instant communication with cell phones and the internet. And yet, leadership still looks back in fondness on the days when men wore suits and women wore dresses and you called each other on the rotary phone to go to the soda shop and a drive-in movie only to leave at the end of the night and not hear or see the person for another few days. Things were simpler back then, but being nostalgic for how things used to be, or pretending that that outmoded form of dating can still work is foolish.
There are now a myriad of ways to stay in contact with the opposite sex, and dating has become an intricate dance of communication and non-communication that would make adults' heads spin. Yes, dating has certainly changed. But so has the culture. Most of us have also grown up in an era with rates of divorce that are much different than they used to be. Everyone knows you've got basically a 50/50 chance nowadays. And that is terrifying. When salvation and livelihood are on the line, it sucks to be told to "just have faith" that it will all work out. Frankly, anyone who gets married nowadays should be congratulated on their bravery. As someone who took that chance and had it backfire, I can say that I would never tell anyone to "just pick someone." I know all too well what kind of emotional and spiritual fallout that kind of decision can have if it goes haywire.
There may also be a demographics problem that is exacerbating the issue. There was an article printed in Time magazine that examined Mormonism's marriage issue by chalking it up to demographics problems in the Church. "According to the ARIS study, there are now 150 Mormon women for every 100 Mormon men in the state of Utah—a 50 percent oversupply of women." And according to the article, this causes men to wait to find "the next best thing." This delays marriage longer and longer until we end up with the current situation of more unmarried 30-somethings. I could see this as a big contributing factor. I know many great guys who waited a very long time to get married. But I don't see this as a bad thing. If that is how long it took them, then who is to say they did it the wrong way? Different, yes. Wrong? Not necessarily. (http://time.com/dateonomics/)
Another contributing factor may be what I like to call the Disney Paradox. If men's reason for delaying marriage is to find the perfect woman, then many women expect to ride off into the sunset Happily Ever After once they do get married. This of course never happens, they become disillusioned, get divorced, and end up getting thrown back into the dating pool, sometimes years later and sometimes with children in tow. This also increases the number of singles and delays marriage because men are often reluctant to date these women if they already have a large pool of women to choose from. Both occurrences feed into one another and create a cycle where marrying gets harder and gets put off for longer.
Next is the outright rejection of Church social norms. Whereas the term "Menace to Society" was once regarded with nervous chuckles, it is now derided as coercive. Our generation is fed up with being told how to live our lives outside of the gospel. We are educated, and more of us than ever are returned missionaries. It is easier for us to detect what is doctrine and what is culture. We are in the midst of creating a new culture. This desire to create a new culture has created a divide. On one side are those who are more orthodox in their beliefs, and on the other is a growing number who believe the Church needs to get with the times and adapt to the changing world. In response, the Church has tried to become more transparent by publishing its essays on controversial topics, but many feel that it is too late and they have lost confidence because they had to go to other sources to find out about issues in the Church's past that it is uncomfortable with. What does this have to do with marriage? Well not a whole lot, other than there are more issues than ever when examining a potential partner's value systems during courtship. 30 years ago, the only question was: Is he/she LDS? Whereas now you may have to find out what that person actually believes within the Church. This is absolutely unprecedented. And it makes it that much harder to get married.
I don't know exactly how I feel about all of this. Maybe I should be more worried than I am. But honestly, since I'm divorced, I feel like so much of it is out of my hands, that as long as I am trying to be the best person I can be, things will work out. If that approach takes a little longer, so be it. Hopefully this time around it really will be "for Time and all Eternity." I do know one thing. Pretending we are living in the 50s isn't doing the Lost Generation any favors. If the Church wants to fix this, level with us, tell it to us straight, and give us better options in our ward divisions for dating people we actually want to date. Waiting until 31 to sift the singles makes it feel like a punishment. An earlier division would help it feel normal and remove the stigma that exists. And who knows? It might actually help us find the right people. Because at the end of the day, that is what is most important.
[Keep Following.]
