[OBW]

I also have learned that some of the things we all thought were elder-initiated were actually things we presumed and acted on without thought. There was a lot of thought that everyone had to have elder's permission to date/marry. Seems that while they might provide advice if asked, they had much less to do with it than we thought. (At least in Dallas.) Doesn't mean there was no involvement. And probably different leading ones were different in approach. But the young couple that suddenly got married back in '73 was not ordered to either marry or quit even seeming to date. They did it on their own. And many years later it ended poorly. Not the elder's fault.

May have been the fault of the environment though. An environment in which almost everyone assumed that the edict of leadership was to marry or get far apart. That assumed that every marriage was vetted and passed on by the leaders or it didn't happen. So the natural thing to do was to go ask for permission to sneeze, and to ask which side of the nose to blow first. And to ask for permission to even talk to sister so-and-so and possibly take her to the Dairy Queen for a shake. And in some cases, I heard that if a brother asked a sister about going on any kind of sort-of date, she would ask if he had gotten an OK from the "brothers."

We were really trained well without a word being said. And possibly well beyond what they wanted responsibility for.

But no one ever said anything about it. And it continued. And probably even the elders were somewhat afraid to change things because anything reported negatively back to Anaheim was bad. Most of us had little idea about that then. But we know it now.

Some years back, someone from another place told of the percentage of failed marriages from a period just about 10 years after that. He was counting well over 50% if I recall correctly. Yet that was not seen uniformly everywhere.

So let's try to know the connection to the practices of the LRC rather than just the errors of individuals. Even in the latter, there is probably some "help" from the LRC practices, although not so direct.