Elder Callister’s recent talk has been the subject of several blogs lately. One line got a lot of attention:
”Every man has the right to be married to a woman who makes herself as beautiful as she can be.”
I’m not going to comment on that line, but am going to provide a line I heard on Friday which should certainly be included in the onus of beauty. This, as reported to me, was said by Arthur Henry King: “You can tell it’s a good marriage if the woman keeps getting more beautiful.” The obvious conclusion is that if a man is married to a woman who COULD be more beautiful than she is, her unbeauty is his fault.
I don’t know about you, but I am now going to judge marriages by the wife’s appearance. I can tell you straight off that the marriage of Bruce and Margaret Young gets better after a little make-up.
Btw, where does the wife’s responsibility for her husband’s looks enter the picture? I have been told that testosterone is part of the balding process. If my husband had stayed celibate rather than marrying me, he might not be bald. Or at least he’d have a few strands for a comb-over. This is worth considering. Don’t I deserve a man with more hair? This thought has been keeping me awake at night. Not that I’d go after anyone else, but shouldn’t I at least consider investing in a really good toupee for my husband?
What do you think? Have you seen physical changes in your friends when they’ve been in good or bad marriages? Should we add a footnote to the referenced line in Elder C’s talk?
By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog 
That’s why men need the priesthood, because they can’t get by on their looks.
Here’s a link to the 2006 devotional:
http://speeches.byu.edu/reader/reader.php?id=11394
Clearly your husband had done a great work (and cannot be called down).
Steve– you haven’t seen the “before” pictures.
The blogosphere is like a Sunday School class with filled with smarty-A’s that make the teacher (the authorities of the church) a constant offender for a word. Ha ha ha!
Very very cute. Actually this post is kind of funny but the one on the other blog is not even…
#5–this post is intended to be “kind of funny.” But there is a serious side to it, and Elder Callister’s talk is simply the jump-off point. The real truth is, men and women do blossom in good marriages, and I think both become more radiant if the marriage unfolds well. If the marriage devolves to complaints, demands, and even abuse, the results will show in the spouses’ countenances.
I went through a hellish first marriage before marrying Bruce. My parents said that when Bruce and I started getting serious, it was like seeing the light come back on in me. They hadn’t seen it in awhile. But I do intend this to be more lighthearted than somber.
So celibacy results in hair retention? Does that mean the many, many scrawny, balding RM’s in their mid twenties are having tons of sex? Interesting.
This is what Johnny Lingo was banking on with Mahana.
This post is a great reminder that I have a healthy marriage to thank for that extra daily dose of confidence and that I ought to return the favor more fervently.
Count your blessings, Margaret. No hair at all is far superior to the few strands of hair combover. You’re lucky that Bruce doesn’t have those few strands to tempt him into trying it.
Ugly, fat, frumpy people can have happy marriages too!
Though I do have to agree bad marriages show in people’s faces; that kind of stress and hopelessness leaves its mark.
OH yeah. I’ve aged ten years since DH lost his job. It does show.
I’ve gained a lot of weight since I got married. For that, I (happily) blame my wife’s (excellent) cooking.
Good marriages show in the countenance. Beauty is more about how a person holds themselves than a particular look. I know that when I am in a loving relationship, I get comments on how much more attractive I look. A smile does much more than a pound of makeup.
We don’t have baldness in my family but we do have premature graying (especially among the women); pick your poison. I have a man friend who shaves his head bald. And it looks really good on him.
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” – so, abso-freaking-lutely a spouse should get more beautiful over time in a happy marriage. I know mine has.
However, I must say that Buttercup reached the status of most beautiful woman in the world without ever having been married. I’ll have to think more about that one – and maybe watch the movie a couple of times to seek inspiration. (or read the book again, since it’s much funnier than the movie)
Actually, being married and having kids lowers the testosterone level in men, so married men should keep their hair longer. (Based solely on the testosterone level, anyway. I’m sure there are additional reasons in marriage that can account for hair loss.)
Ray already said it; but let me add that for every day of our nearly 13 years my wife has grown more beautiful. I see no signs of abatement in the future. We began a two week separation last Saturday, while she is back east with our three girls visiting her family. And, her beauty has only increased exponentially with every day of separation.
Right before leaving she told me not to get fat eating a bunch of crap. Acccordingly, count both of us in agreement with Callister’s statement as a mutual right…but my wife as unsure as to whether I will live up to my end of the bargain.
Eh. I know some gorgeous folks in our ward who have gone through ugly divorces. My husband and I have both gotten fat and old, but we’re real happy together.
I have to say I’m more in agreement with C.S. Lewis than I am with Elder Callister on the “right” to particular things in marriage (other than the things which are understood to be reserved for married couples). Lewis said, “We have no right to happiness.” His article is easily found in a google search. It includes this scenario: “Mrs. B. had adored her husband at the outset. But then he got smashed up in the war. It was thought he had lost his virility, and it was known that he had lost his job. Life with him was no longer what Mrs. B. had bargained for. Poor Mrs. A., too. She had lost her looks—and all her liveliness.”
I’m sure Elder Callister did not intend to provide justification for either spouse to complain about the other’s looks, but there is a serious semantic problem. I don’t “deserve” an attractive husband–or even one who is always “clean,” but I do deserve to be treated with respect and supported in the things I enjoy. That is part of my eternal dowrey. I am happy to show my husband appreciation, and to keep a vision of him which consisgtently magnifies rather than shrinks him. (And Kevin, he did have a comb-over when I married him, and I swear within a week of our marriage, all the hair was gone. Yes, it was quite a honeymoon.) Bruce does not “deserve” an attractive wife, but he does deserve the same kind of loving support he gives me. If all of us got what we deserved, “which of us would ‘scape whipping”? (Shakespeare)
And I actually agree with Arthur Henry King, except I include husband AND wife.
My first impression of my husband was “that guy in the back with a red face and funny ears. I’ll never date him.” (He was perpetually sunburnt on his mission in Brazil and has cauliflower ears from wrestling.) After 11 years, I adore every line of his features.
My summary of the T&S discussion was “Tell me I’m beautiful, but don’t feel entitled to have a beautiful wife.” And he said that it was no problem because he does have a beautiful wife. :)
Elder Callisters’s comment keeps making me think of this post
The issue I have with the deserve language is what happens when you aren’t getting what you deserve? Divorce? Separation? Withholding affection? No more date nights? What? How does the looming threat of those things improve the quality of a marriage?
I knew a guy who made no secret of the fact that if his wife gained any significant amount of weight he would divorce her no questions asked. Just knowing that someone actually thinks that was enough to make me paranoid about my weight, which ironically led to weight gain.
I like what Margaret says here. I know that for me I become my best (kind, industrial, jovial, and attractive) self in the context of a safe relationship and unconditional love.
Since I have a really “before” picture of Margaret–when she was a sophomore in high school, no less–I could supply the evidence for the before–after challenge that Margaret lays down in #4.
(Don’t go astray speculating–same high school, two classes apart, I still have the yearbook.)
FYI, every young woman at PHS had a crush on Mark B. I’m sure I was one of them, though it’s been so long it’s hard to remember.
I had no idea that ANYONE would have access to such damaging evidence of “before.” Be careful what you post!
Out with it Mark, we want to see!!!!
Just remember, Jesus “hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, [there is] no beauty that we should desire him.” At least according to Isaiah…
i.e. don’t take stock in what anyone says about physical beauty equalling either righteousness or success in this world, or in the whole grand scheme of things.
Oh, but yearbook pictures are so unflattering…so YES! Out with it Mark!
Dan,
Speak for yourself, son. I am equal parts awesome beauty and awesome righteousness.
Come to think of it, I DO recall colleagues up and down the BYU hallways commenting on how much handsomer Bruce Young looked after he married! And he seemed wittier as well. Another mystery solved!
Seriously, this has been a rough few weeks for women on the bloggernacle: last month over at fMh, everyone was beating her breast about falling short on the nice-tablecloth
yardstick, and now here’s Margaret telling the sisterhood that in addition to Life and Liberty, Brother Everyman has an inalienable right to Charlize Theron. Mercy, has no one broken the Shrek Code?
Ah no, Elouise, it was not I who suggested that Brother E. “has a right to” Charlize Theron (though Charlize as “Monster” should give us pause); it was Elder Callister. I’m just finding the best place for assessing blame if that dubious ideal doesn’t happen. I’m with Shakespeare and think Brother Everyman deserves a good whipping. Fortunately, our God is an awesome God.
And you’re right about Bruce.
I definitely deserve an attractive, sexy husband. What on earth was the point of me trudging through all this interfaith marriage mire if I’m not getting a sexy husband out of the deal?
Sorry, but I wasn’t going to marry into the Mormon church if I wasn’t at least going to have a hot husband to show for it. I don’t like you people that much.
every man deserves to have a wife who will tell him the truth…”honey, you’re not foolin’ anyone with that long, swirly combover. i love you, now let it go…”
#10: Ugly, fat, frumpy people can have happy marriages too!
Amen, sister.
They say a lawyer should never ask a question in a deposition without already knowing the answer she’s going to get. Margaret’s hypothetical (“if I’m ugly”) is a good example of this approach; she’s a redheaded super-babe who has aged like a fine wine, and she knows it, and she knows that we all know it. And of course her poor husband is bald because of it, and now there’s hell toupee.
I’m also slowing losing my hair, which proves that Mardell is beautiful too. And I suspect that before too long, I will have toupee for this as well.
i think that women seem to get more beautiful as a GOOD marriage progresses and less beautiful as a BAD one progresses. Something to do with their emotinal setup or something that complicated. 2 some extent it is the hubby’s fault
If you’re unhappy in your marriage you’ll have stress wrinkles, over or under eat, have no money for good haircuts or spend too much money on ridiculous hair cuts in an attempt to over compensate for feeling unlovable and in the same way you’ll over do cosmetic surgery or if he doesn’t give you money you won’t even have a penny to buy tweezers to pluck your eyebrows. Or worse still, you’ll feel unworthy of having plucked eyebrows!!
http://pryankleid.wordpress.com/
Just keep going and don’t pursue yourself to anything!
“Don’t I deserve a man with more hair?”
I’ve known people who felt that way. You might want to write the Ensign and ask them about how to accomplish that as the flip side of the article you read, who knows, they might publish your letter ;)
Admins, please kill 38
The whole beauty in the eye of the beholder thing falls under here, don’t you think? I’d suggest people in a happy marriage can be beautiful while getting older, losing hair and getting wrinkles … maybe its a happy marriage that makes them beautiful? Its a two way street – two individuals should motivate each other to be the best that they can be…
My question is, how can people like Angelina and Brad Pitt get any more beautiful??!!
Maybe if Brad Pitt could lose the stupid look on his face . . .
Maybe if some really great Honda dealer from Toronto would weigh in on the question…
Kill 38 and ban poster, please Steve.
Final words for this post. (I won’t close it, but this is the last I’ll say.)
I hope it was apparent that the OP was tongue-in-cheek. Nonetheless, as the conversation shows, there is a lot of truth to what Arthur Henry King said, though it applies equally to men and women. Contentment, a knowledge that we’re loved, journeying through life with someone we like and who likes us, do make for a beauty which transcends Red Carpet images. Charlize Theron’s spray-on tan will never match the radiance of settled, joyful people.
Years ago, I attended a funeral of a woman who had died in her late sixties of cancer. She had always been beautiful, and photos were displayed attesting to that. Her brother said he found the most beautiful photos to be the more recent ones, not those of her youth. The wrinkles and gray hair framed a timeless smile, and showed a woman who loved life regardless of what trials life had delivered to her (and there had been many). He found depth, grace, and a certainty about who she was and what she believed reflected in the post-youth photos.
I am troubled when anyone SINCERELY uses the word “ugly” as a self-reference. Deeply troubled. So troubled that I wish I hadn’t introduced the word in my subject title. I haven’t met a truly ugly person yet, though I’ve met unhappy people.
In my wedding pictures, I see two sweet but insecure people beginning what will be a difficult but richly endowed pilgrimage. Now that we’ve been together for nearly 1/4 a century, I do see my husband as more attractive than when I first met him, and I know he loves me more now than he did on May 17, 1985, though the signs of my aging (despite Kaimi’s flattering words) are beginning to show. Neither of us “has a right” to any of these good things, but we do periodically take note and give thanks.
Now #38 sounds like a suicide attempt. The offensive comment has been deleted. Thanks.
Coming in the next Ensign. Helpful Tips: How to Enforce Your Right to Be Married to a Woman Who Makes Herself as Beautiful as She Can Be
Tips include:
(1) Set quantifiable beauty goals. Measure results in heavy-handed zone meeting style.
(2) Read glamor magazines for family home evening.
(3) Avoid pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting.
(4) Establish minimum “mirror time” limits.
(5) Stencil scriptures that equate beauty with righteousness on the walls of your home.
(6) As a family, critique the appearance of female general conference speakers.
(7) Plastic surgery, spa treatments, and etc. Sorry 3rd world sisters! You can’t afford to keep this commandment!
(8) If all else fails, threaten to bring back polygamy with a woman who respects your “rights.”
I think I kinda agree. If you are married to a good man, you get more beautiful. A stressful marriage wipes out your beauty and gives you wrinkles and premature white hair.
*Raises arms in agreement*\O/
So yes, the man is responsible for my beauty, seriously!
> (3) Avoid pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting.
Ha!!
lawyermommy, your comment and your moniker perplex me. Are you a lawyer to mommies? A mommy who practices law? Perhaps a child with an attorney mother? The permutations are fascinating. No matter how it shakes out, I’m gonna wager you are more mommy than lawyer, based on your comment.
I just read the talk from which the quote was taken. Elder Callister very cleary gives men the same counsel he gives to women; i.e., take pride in your appearance, and don’t “let yourself go”, as a matter of self-respect. Post #5 mentions that other blogs aren’t as kind as BCC is to Elder Callister’s remarks. I wonder if the other blogs are aware of Elder Callister’s remarks to men and the context of the speech. Without understanding those two things, the comments would sound awfully sexist and I think some uproar would be appropriate. I wonder if people aren’t taking the time to read the address and get his point because it’s so much easier to give a knee-jerk reaction and make him an offender for a word.
Steve Evans, this interest in my moniker and my comment in particular is highly unusual. But since you do not know and are fascinated. I am a lawyer and a Mommy.
From your response, you sound like someone who has entirely too much time on his hands. Here is a clue: Spend less time focusing on minutae and more time on the real stuff. You know about God and where you are going after death.
Are you Christian? Do you love God and follow his law? Do you hate evil? Do you hate sin?
If today your soul or the souls of your wife and children were required of you, do you know where they would be headed? :)
Lawyermommy–Steve is a lawyer and a daddy, and a daddy first. He’s very Christian and far too humble to answer your questions himself. I am a teachermommy–a mommy who also happens to teach at a university. I love teaching, but I consider that real life begins when my granddaughter opens her arms to me for a hug. We’re glad you’ve found our blog and hope to see you here more often. There is overabundance of lawyers at BCC, so you fit right in. Welcome.
I don’t just hate evil, I slam evil. Here is a photo of me doing so.
PS – I know this is going against your direct advice, but I couldn’t help but notice that you spelled “minutiae” wrong.
Dang, and I told her you were too humble to answer. Not only do you answer, but you provide visual aids. Aren’t we counseled to NOT provide visual aids anymore?
I am a lawyer and a daddy too, and I just have to comment on this:
“They say a lawyer should never ask a question in a deposition without already knowing the answer she’s going to get.”
Kaimi, you should know better. The saying is that a good lawyer should never ask a question at trial that he doesn’t already know the answer to. Depositions, on the other hand, are how good lawyers learn the answers to all the questions. You ask everything in a deposition. Everything.
#49–“Are you Christian? Do you love God and follow his law? Do you hate evil? Do you hate sin?” … etc.
lawyermommy, smilie icon notwithstanding, it is very rude and against our comment policy to question another’s personal righteousness. To the extent that yours may be some kind of anti-Mormon and/or evangelical questioning, it is especially unwelcome.
Lawyermommy’s questions sound a lot like the priest’s questions at the christening scene in The Godfather. Everybody knows how “good” all those correct answers were.
So, I wouldn’t put too much stock in Steve’s answers, even with the visual aids.
Thanks, MCQ, that’s what I meant.
I do denounce Satan and all his works. (Cue Al Neri.)
I threw a rock at the devil on the Hajj one year.
Elder Callister’s recent talk has been the subject of several blogs lately. One line got a lot of attention:
”Every man has the right to be married to a woman who makes herself as beautiful as she can be.”
Has anyone mentioned that this was edited out by correlation? The Ensign article is not the same as the talk, and to me, that is worth noting. (I think that was a good edit, btw.)
59. It was a good edit, but a better one would have been to print an apology for such a vulgar talk dressed in fancy words. “Heaven blushes” indeed.
“a better one would have been to print an apology”
Or, even better, the church could have forever sated all yer all lefty sensibilities by running a float in the Pride parade. Pres Monson could have dressed up as H.R. Puffenstuff and Done the Hustle. ~
PS. Do the Hustle!!
PPS. do do do do-do do-do do- do
Thomas Parkin, I would pay big, big bucks to see that.
Beauty has little or nothing to do with physical attractiveness. And yes I consider my wife of 32 years to be more beautiful than she was when we were first married.
May all your wrinkles be laugh lines..
Bob Durtschi
I’ve been trying to apply Margaret’s theory to myself, but I admit to being in an endless chicken-and-egg loop: Am I ugly because I’m single, or am I single because I’m ugly?
Ardis, you’re single because you are simply too good to get reined in by any one man.
Maybe we could put together a potential team then!
re: comment 61.
I just got a funny picture in my head and used Jami as an excuse to draw it. Apologies for misunderstanding.
I do think the talk – especially the original version – is a touch unfortunate in the language chosen. It gets under my skin at a couple points. It did inspire me to take down the black light, the velvet jaguar and elvis pictures in the living room. ~
”Every man has the right to be married to a woman who makes herself as beautiful as she can be.”
Has anyone mentioned that this was edited out by correlation? The Ensign article is not the same as the talk
Well, I didn’t hear the talk, but I did read the Ensign article, and I could have sworn that line WAS in there. I have a specific memory of seeing it there because someone brought that specific line to my attention, and I went to the actual article so I could read it in context. I don’t really have a dog in this fight–no pun intended, but I mean, up until about five minutes ago I would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that that particular line was in there, but now I can’t find this issue of the Ensign. COINCIDENCE?
Now I know who to blame when I can’t find the current month’s Ensign to look up the visiting teaching message: Correlation must have it!
Very funny Ardis. I was thinking along the same line. It seems convenient for married women to get to blame their husbands/bad marriages for going downhill, while single women can only blame themselves.
I really wish I had a wife to blame for my baldness.
What is the saying?
Single woman comes home, opens the fridge and sees there’s nothing inside and then goes to bed.
Married woman comes home sees there’s nothing in bed and then heads to the fridge.
Here’s something weirder that only proves my point. This missing Ensign issue has since “magically reappeared” on my coffee table–I wasn’t even looking for it, it was just suddenly there–and so I looked at the article again, and is the offending line in there? No, it is not. COINCIDENCE?
In all seriousness, it just surprises me that I didn’t notice the edit the first time and that I have such a vivid false memory. But I guess that’s how correlation works.
I’ve been thinking a bit about #61, and my history with internet discussion.
BCC always tempts me to be flip, and sometimes overly aggressive. I wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong impression. (You can ask my wife – this is one of my central, abiding discomforts. I’m always pushing up against this fear of being misunderstood – and kind of like the guy with fear of heights standing on the roof, very often do things that I know will be misunderstood.) I’m ironic but not cynical. The irony is for the benefit of all y’all educated folks. The lack of cynicism is because I’m true blue.
I’ve been thinking for several weeks of starting a personal blog. Some place where I could speak more directly from my actual experience, views and feelings – and at greater length. And where little digressions like this won’t be “threadjacks.” ~
This is very late in coming, and, sadly, the path from yearbook through copier and scanner has not been kind.
Now all we need are the “after” photos and we’ll be ready to test Margaret’s hypothesis.
Wow, Mark B–a godsend! I did not purchase the yearbook that year (1971), nor did I buy my school pictures, so I didn’t have a copy of this photo–until today. Thanks! But no way am I posting the “after” shot.
Wow! You were hot Margaret. I assume that if the photo were in color, we would be seeing red hair?
Gorgeous.
Mcq–yes, red hair. In the photo, I look a lot like my daughter does now, and she doesn’t like her looks at all. I remember what it felt like to be me in 1971, and it was quite a teeter-totter of emotions, many of which applied the word “ugly” to what I saw in the mirror.
This is the ongoing battle–to help our youth survive the torrents of adolescence. Songs like “For I am of worth, of infinite worth” and “You’re not alone” were written for the many teens who are as uncertain of themselves as I was back in 1971. Sadly, there are YW leaders who think a good Mary Kay makeover is the solution.
I’ve a completely different, though related problem.
My wife has always been striking (which is why my daughter, when asked what her mother’s name is, told her teacher “her name is Win, but my daddy calls her gorgeous). Animated, gorgeous and striking …
Recently she has become pretty as well. The issue is that she comes across in our new ward as someone who has always been pretty when people look at her or listen to her. That causes some issues. I haven’t been able to find a way to explain it to her (don’t worry, she never reads blog posts). I can tell her, but she can’t hear me, she thinks I’m just blinded by adoration for her.
My hope is that people, as they get to know her, will get past the physical appearance issue, but I worry about it.
The saying is that a good lawyer should never ask a question at trial that he doesn’t already know the answer to. Depositions, on the other hand, are how good lawyers learn the answers to all the questions. You ask everything in a deposition. Everything.
Well, time and patience permitting. Cost effective representation is a realistic goal, at times.
Absolutely, Stephen, and that’s why an attorney may choose not even to take a deposition. But if you’re going to do it, you better make it count by asking everything you possibly can.
RE: #64 & #69
The real reason that the illustrious Ardis Parshall isn’t married is that her incredibly sharp mind scares the crap out of most average, run of the mill Mormon men. That, coupled with a facility of thought expressed though the written word and the poor fool wouldn’t stand a chance.
Ardis is awesome and a treasure for sharing the history of “average” Mormons with the Latter-day Saints of today. But this isn’t her only strength, she is an exceptional researcher who, once on the trail, never stops until she can get the whole story. Rumor has it that she can cook too. (But I’ve heard also prone to testing exotic recipes.) That being said,
Brother Joseph, meet Sister Ardis!
Sister Ardis, meet Brother Joseph!
Now the rest is up to you!
Velikye is so far over the top that this begins to bite itself coming up from the other side.
I notice that whatever else he accuses me of, though, he doesn’t accuse me of being beautiful. /sigh/
Fine, Ardis, you are beautiful. :)
Why, Ray, you flirt, you!
In all seriousness, Ardis IS beautiful. Standard measurements (pretty eyes and hair) but also the more elusive ones: a sense of self and dignity, boldness, wit, humor… If Jane Austen had met Ardis, I guarantee, some composite including Ms. Parshall would have made it into one of the gret Austenian novels. Thinking about it, I’m almost tempted to write an Austenian novel myself with an Ardisesque character as the progagonist.
But that all proves my point–there are no “ugly” people, and if a spouse or a friend fails to see the beauty of the person they’ve entwined their lives with, or feels they “have a right” to something from a cover of _Cosmopolitan_ rather than the real person next to them at the breakfast table, they deserve whatever grief their spoiled selfishness will inevitably bring.
Amen, Margaret!
Ardis, my experiences with you tell me you are indeed beautiful.
As long as this is a thread to eulogize Ardis, I agree with everyone.
Amen, Margaret. My husband is larger and balder than when I met him and fell in love, but I love him more now than then. He’s more beautiful to me, and I know he feels the same way about me.