The LDS Church is Getting Away from the “Thou Shalt Marry a Returned Missionary” Mantra

The notion that one should marry a returned missionary became popular in the 1970s following a talk given by Spencer Kimball in a Regional Representatives seminar that was subsequently published in the October 1974 Ensign magazine. In it he affirmed that every young man should fill a mission and listed that accomplishment in tandem with a number of other things that young women were already being told made a man worthy of marriage (sabbath keeping, church attendance, temple worthy, etc.).

There were pockets of that line of thinking in some families prior to that. For example, Richard G. Scott’s girlfriend’s comment that she planned to marry a returned missionary was a catalyst to his decision to serve in 1950 (Ensign, Jan 1985, p. 34). However, limits on the number of men who were allowed to serve due to draft rules during WWII and the Korean War and the draft during the Vietnam war made the notion of universally expected missionary service impossible prior to 1974.

Various local leaders picked up on this and YW leaders began to talk about marrying a returned missionary. By 1980 articles (not written by General Authorities) in the Ensign often referred to a subject’s marrying a returned missionary as a deed worthy of praise.

I first noticed a movement in the church away from the notion of having to marry a returned missionary in 2003. After Russell Ballard’s October 2002 talk about raising the bar our stake president, realizing that some of the good young men in our stake would not be physically able to serve a full-time mission, spoke at a stake YMYW fireside in which he pointed out that there were a number of other things that a young woman should look for and counseled them not to make returned-missionary status the litmus test for marriage.

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I think the “returned missionaries who are actually creeps” have more to do with statements like these that anything else. On the whole, men who have served missions do represent a higher quality dating POOL for an active LDS young woman, but that quality is only a collective average. Forget “going bad” after one’s mission — any RM can tell you that some of the guys were highly suspect even while they were wearing the tag. And we all know men who did not or could not serve missions but who take their marriage and priesthood covenants very seriously and make fine husbands.

Statements like these seem more directed at young women who got burned because they assumed that if a young man was mission-worthy at age 19, he’d always be that way. But I don’t necessarily see the church distancing its rhetoric about the need for each young man to become mission worthy. I HAVE heard more than one talk say something about the need to stay worthy post-mission.

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I think it all depends on your perspective. For an LDS young adult the mission is not just a good thing, but essential.
“The Lord wants every young man to serve a full-time mission. Currently, only a fifth of the eligible young men in the Church are serving full-time missions. This is not pleasing to the Lord. We can do better. We must do better,” (President Ezra Taft Benson, “To the ‘Youth of the Noble Birthright’,” Ensign, May 1986, 43).
This commandment is only excused by the unworthiness of the individual or his inability to serve effectively. LDS young women have been taught and should continue to be taught that a young man who is fully capable of serving a mission needs to do so before being persued for marriage. Two years of selfless service changes lives and uplifts men to a higher plane thus better enabling them to become good husbands and fathers. While it is true that in some cases a young man who cannot serve a mission will still make a good marriage partner, the majority of our male youth need the experience for the good the church and themselves.
I’m sure that was close to the mentality of the women in your college when they looked towards you after your mission differently before. They knew you could serve a mission and therefore should and didn’t want to stop you or entangle themselves in a situation that could jeopardize their faith and yours. I will encourage my daughter similarly as she grows because whether or not she marries a returned missionary she should marry someone dedicated to being the best he can be.

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