In the first BYU-Hawaii devotional of the 2006-07 school year, President Eric B. Shumway pled with single students "to acquire those personal attributes that will sustain a happy marriage. If you learn all this school has to offer, but fail to acquire these qualities that sustain a marriage and family, your education will be sorrowfully incomplete."
Speaking in the Cannon Activities Center on September 7, President Shumway, who is also an Area Authority Seventy for Hawaii and California, spoke of the alarming decline of traditional families — "that is, a father and mother married with children" — and "the hesitancy for a variety of reasons of many young people to enter into formal marriage."
Referring to the Proclamation on the Family, he stressed "marriage and family is not a human invention or a social construct merely, developing or evolving out of human necessity. It is a heavenly order and a path to eternal life and eternal happiness."
He also added a number of single adults have told him "the basic reasons young people postpone marriage [are] fear, fun, and focus elsewhere."
"By fear is meant they are apprehensive about having the ability to provide for a family. They lack confidence," President Shumway said. "Others postpone marriage because they are perpetually enchanted by their own carefree life of fun, eating out, hanging out, surfing, parties, sports, and video games. Like Peter Pan, they want to stay young and adventuresome with other lost boys. They are fundamentally self-focused and self-indulgent."
Other marriage impediments he listed included negative examples of dysfunctional families, the trauma of divorce, "rebellion against well intentioned people who are always asking, Aren't you married yet?'...[and] others, especially girls, [who] may become disillusioned by the sexual advances of male predators, with lust and self gratification being the goal, disregarding chastity, responsibility, and true love."
"Date boys who keep the commandments and honor their priesthood," President Shumway said, pointing out pornography is "another formidable foe of a happy and healthy marriage."
"Pornography has taken a hold on many young imaginations with a terrifying grip that strangles, indeed chokes off the normal, protective, affectionate feelings towards the opposite sex. Pornography, like crystal meth, can rewire your brain. It objectifies women. It is calculated to arouse sexual desire, titillate, absorb and addict. Normal human chemistry, especially male chemistry, cannot be involved with pornography without being profoundly affected," he said.
President Shumway then outlined the following qualities singles can work on and achieve now in preparation for marriage:
"First, love God with all your heart, might, mind, and strength. The more you can love God and Jesus Christ, the more you will be able to love your future spouse and children."
"Second, in looking forward to marriage do not assume a wait-and-see posture. Fill your life with all the things that will improve the head, the heart and the hand."
"Third, cultivate a cheerful attitude, the ability to laugh, even at yourself," he continued, adding that those who perhaps come from abusive, alcoholic, or other dysfunctional situations "can be what is called a cycle breaker, the pioneer who through faith in Jesus Christ and covenant keeping, cuts a new path of goodness and stability."
He encouraged those thinking about marrying someone of a different language and cultural background "at the very least, before marriage, you need to visit and spend time where your boyfriend/girlfriend grew up, learn his or her language, meet the family. Nail things down; talk to your priesthood leaders; talk with people who are interculturally married but who have created a gospel marriage and can point out pitfalls to avoid."
On a practical note, President Shumway urged the students to be tidy. "A man or a woman who can't keep a clean or tidy room or their own clothes off the floor and hung up properly comes into marriage a cripple, severely handicapped. Regardless of what else is going well or how patient your spouse might be, your messy room and careless attitude toward order will weigh heavily on your relationship."
"A most critical preparation for marriage is a striving for moral purity, reserving sexual intimacy only for a covenanted loved one in the sacred bonds of marriage. The law of chastity, I testify, is a law of happiness. It's a law that protects the sacred powers of procreation, and magnifies the lyrical joys of romantic intimacy in a way that is God created, God ordained, and God blessed."
President Shumway added that "total fidelity after marriage also ensures the quality and trust that magnifies the romance in marriage"; and he used the example of his daughter, Emily Pfeifer ('98), whose husband, Jon ('02), quietly led her out of a stage play they had been anticipating when the heroine became vulgar and skimpily dressed in the third act. "Witnessing my husband's regard for me and the Lord in this way was truly one of the most romantic moments of my life and made me fall in love with him even more deeply," she wrote.
"We at BYU-Hawaii are very blessed to live within the light and the spiritual force of the temple," President Shumway said of the Laie Hawaii Temple. "The garment of the holy temple is a sacred reminder of the virtues and covenants that will allow us into the presence of Heavenly Father."
"You brothers and sisters who have been endowed, live worthy of all of the temple's promises. Go back to the temple regularly. I cannot think of anything that will prepare a person better or more for the wonderful adventures and prospects of a happy marriage than regular attendance at the temple."
"You young men who are endowed, returned missionaries, the temple should be your haven, a priesthood training site, almost like a school of the prophets in which the Holy Ghost is the instructor. And those of us who are not endowed, let the temple be the focal point of our longing and our preparation."
Link to the complete devotional address...