Single Sisters: a theologically created grief distraction

Growing up in the mormon faith, I can remember many a time that the sanctity of the nuclear family was preached from the pulpit. The shape of a family is an aspect of the human experience that mormon theology is obsessed with. And inevitably, within each congregation, there are single sisters - women older than child bearing age that are not publicly attached to a man - and the indoctrination the collective receives creates a cloud of mourning about their singleness. In the mormon faith, this also includes women who are attached to men who - gasp - are nonmembers. 

As a young girl, I was captivated by these women. I’ve been thinking a lot about them lately now that I’m 41, single, and certified in religious trauma. As a kid growing up in an abusive home, I marveled at the peace these sisters must have felt in their daily lives, and didn’t understand why we weren’t celebrating them instead. To me, the women unattached to men in their thirties and beyond seemed wiser and more powerful than the girls married at nineteen with a brood of babies on the pew. I’ve had a lifelong penchant for rebels, and it seemed so bold to sit confidently amongst people that were grieving the way you walked through the world due to your relationship status. 

I wonder if Beth knew that Lizzy was destined for this club. 

Now that I know what I do, it seems reckless for theology to create collective grief around someone's relationship status and not on the way we treat each another as result of it's teachings.

This is not to ignore the multi-faceted grief that colors everyone’s experience. I carry immense grief, which certainly impacts my ability to interact in relationships, as I’m sure is relatable for at least some of the single sisters I admired, but the aspect of human behaviour those responsible for encouraging congregations should be focusing on is the mourning of toxic behaviours born by patriarchy that cause(d) unnecessary pain, tragedy, and trauma. Not the relationship status of the single woman sitting in the pew beside your family.

We’re witnessing an awareness rising to the surface of our collective knowing, what with the epstein files, the how to rape your wife website from a couple months ago, and now the cornell case.

Join me in mourning these events.

Join me in mourning how we’ve all been socialized to behave and aspire to under a patriarchal system. Join me in mourning the violence. Join me in mourning the consistent disconnection that has been created between men and their hearts and souls. Join me in mourning how the church has blocked access to truly knowing Jesus for so many. Join me in discussing why some choose silence over the safety of another. Join me in entertaining that perhaps the second coming of spiritual carpentry is the reawakening of divine femininity. Join me in understanding that the divine feminine exists in every human. Join me in protecting all the Jane Does, by focusing the discussion on why the predators are predatory. Join me in making change.

Join me in the healing.

Before we heal? We dismantle,

E