You’ll find recently posted on the Facebook page a link to a legitimate and frequent Mormon event in which young girls, some below the age of 10, are dressed up in wedding gowns and led to sing a song entitled, “I Love to See the Temple.”

They are encouraged to imagine the shining husband and family they will have in less than a decade who will, of course, cheat biology and survive well beyond the grave. A few parents performed a delightfully weird musical number called, “The Men in my Little Girl’s Life,” which I assume originated with Helen Mar Kimball, who was 14 when her life got its first man, among the flock of pubescent children wrapped in prophet’s sheets. Full stop.

Needless to say, non-Mormons might differ on what’s wrong with this picture, but the  reason it’s important to mention is that it addresses a very crucial bigger issue: the moral rights and wrongs about educating children on things like marriage.

If children are being educated wrongfully, is it the business of society?

I can already hear mumbling and grumbling about who gets to say what’s “Right or Wrong,” in a situation involving another person’s children’s education. (Secularists hold a belief in the separation of church and state – that everyone has the freedom to think for themselves about such things. My opinion, however, that child-brides and pedophiles are vile and hard to look at will remain the same.)

So why do we educate children about marriage, or anything else?

I think we’ll all agree that the purpose of education is to protect children, to guide them, and to ensure they have a safe, successful and happy future. I’m hopeful that anyone, whether secular or Mormon, would agree with this claim.

The next claim I will make is that there is a certain point in life when children stop being children, and they are adults who make decisions for themselves based on the information they have available, in order to have that same safe, successful and happy future. This, too, I hope all sides agree upon naturally.

Could the purpose of education on matters such as marriage  be described, “To ensure that future adults have enough information so they can make responsible, informed decisions that lead to safe, successful and happy lives?”

If I’m not wrong here, my next proposal is that anything which willfully and needlessly removes safety or threatens the success or happiness of another person could be described as morally wrong, similar to my earlier post about the golden rule. I hope this makes enough sense that we can agree.

So, if parents are purposefully withholding a rightful education from children, they are committing an act that could be described as wrong, since it threatens the ability of their children to have a safe or successful life.

What would you say a rightful education about marriage actually entails?

 

I’ll get the ball rolling by pointing several things that, being absolutely essential information to having any sort of good education about a thing like marriage, should not be withheld from a child’s education before her encouragement to get married.

•   An academic Religious Studies understanding, in which all religious systems are discussed and appreciated on a neutral level.

•   An understanding of Women’s Rights, feminism and gender roles in America and around the world.

• An understanding of the difficulties involved in child-birth and marriage.

• Thorough and non-biased church history.

This is the only way to protect these children from the dangers of rushing into marriage.

What else am I missing on this list?

What do children need to know to make safe, successful decisions before marriage?