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CELESTIAL MARRIAGE
Eternal Relationship of the Sexes
"NEITHER is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord." (1 Cor. 11:11.)
This scriptural epigram loses much of its significance if restricted to the period of mortal life. Admitting the actuality of individual existence after death, both during the interval of disembodiment and beyond in the resurrected state, we must in consistency accept the fact of the eternity of sex. Man will be man and woman woman in the hereafter as here.
Marriage as regarded by the Latter-day Saints is ordained of God and designed to be an eternal relationship. The Church affirms it to be not only a temporal and legal contract, of binding effect during the mortal life of the parties, but also a solemn covenant that shall endure beyond the grave. In the complete ordinance of marriage as administered within the Church, the man and the woman are placed under covenant of mutual fidelity and union not until death does them part, but for time and for all eternity.
A contract as far-reaching as this, extending not only throughout the period of earth-life, but beyond death, requires for its validation an authority superior to any that can be originated by human enactment; and such authority is found in the Holy Priesthood, which, given of God, is eternal.
Only as God delegates authority to man, with promise that administration under that authority shall be acknowledged in heaven, can any contract be made in this world and be of assured validity after the death of the parties concerned. Marriage is properly authorized by legal statute; and every contract of matrimony entered into as the law provides is honorable, and unless dissolved by the operation of law is effective during the life of the respective parties thereto. But it is beyond the power of man to legislate for eternity.
This is made plain in a revelation given to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1843, part of which follows: