Literary Deconstruction and The Family
I’ve been always
told I think differently, and I’ve also always joked that I’m an A+
rationalizer, but the reality might be that I’m just an extreme English nerd.
When I first
learned what deconstruction meant, in English 251, I hated it. Talking about
the incongruencies of signifiers over signified from individual to individual was
as frustrating as the classic question: how do we know we actually see the same
colors? As my English career continued, I persisted in being annoyed with
deconstruction…while developing my already very deconstructive mindset. Because
the thing is, literary interpretation is all about deconstruction. According to
Wikipedia, literary deconstruction “generally tries to demonstrate that any
text is not a discrete whole but contains several irreconcilable and
contradictory meanings; that any text therefore has more than one
interpretation; that the text itself links these interpretations inextricably..."
Even
if you aren’t into that specific philosophy, deconstructing in the form of
taking things apart (and putting them back together in a new way), is exactly
what English majors do. And it’s what I’ve always done, from the first time I
argued with my parents about the justice of being grounded—from the doorway of my
room, of course. But why am I talking about literary deconstruction on my
gospel blog?
Here’s the thing:
as members of the church we are expected to engage in literature daily. The
entirety of our theology as it’s developed so far is contained in literature.
And, I’m sorry, but literature is almost never as straightforward as you think.
If it was, there would be plenty of English professors out of a job. It
involved interpretation. And interpretation can range from plain wrong,
insightful but inaccurate, to enlightening. Have you ever argued with anyone
over the constitution and come to opposite ideas? I laugh when protestants cling
to their Bibles as infallible but fail to realize that they are interpreting
them fallibly.
An illustration of
this has probably been experienced by many a missionary. You and your companion
have both read “The White Handbook” many times. You then find yourself in a
position controversial to what you read therein. Your companion insists that
they are dead certain three words mean you should not proceed, but you are dead
certain that the handbook is on your side of the argument with those same three
words. How do you decide who is right? What about when you both make valid
points with proper cross-references? It happened to me over and over again, and
I even got told I was disobedient for following both my mission president’s
direction and my companion’s interpretation of it to the letter. This is where
I’m tempted to go off into Herman Melville’s concept of the isolate, the inability
to truly understand a person and their viewpoint, but the point is, sometimes
you have to accept that nothing is clear except the spirit, and even then, you
have to analyze your interpretation of the spirit for fallibility.
Before I go on, I
do have a warning. I’ve known many an amateur English teacher (to my
frustration, even in middle school) try to pull deep meaning from the famous “Red
Wheelbarrow” poem, talking about death and regret and farmers. However, this is
a strictly imagist poem (meaning that intentionally has no meaning but the
image). There might be more meaning you can pull from what it means for
imagism, but to bring in dead wives and tragic farmers is at the very least
going to make your well-read poets out right laugh. So, it’s possible to take
deconstruction and literary analysis too far without properly considering the context
or going to the source of the information, which for us would be God.
Now, if you’re on
my Facebook, you’ve seen me go into analysis mode before when I felt like
everyone was seeing meaning in speech of an apostle that didn’t exist. Well,
this happened again, but this time I spent a lot of my life with my own
culturally influenced understanding—causing me to expect words that weren’t
actually there. Not to get literary again, but another thing I learned about in
my English 251 theory class was about lenses. When you want to interpret a
novel in a new way, you often bring to it a lens. Critics will pick and choose a
specific lens in order to add something new to the school of thought
surrounding the literature. I had issues with this concept as well because, as
they say, you’ll always find what you’re looking for, and often lens-oriented
analysis hit me as even more beyond the mark than some other types of criticism.
I think, though, that most people don’t choose their lenses when met
with literature, but have cultural lenses imposed on them. Based on this, I
suspect that several people were reading the prior mentioned speech with a defensive
lens. I’ve begun to suspect as well that my and other’s confusion over the
signifiers in “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” might come from reading
the document with a culturally encouraged lens of patriarchy.
The lenses we
unintentionally bring to interpretation are often lens of experience, implicit
bias, beliefs, and so on. Because we live in a world where several people are
influenced and inhibited by a certain masculine superior precedence, a lot of
people approach the world with a patriarchy lens. And honestly, it’s a little
strange for me to use that word seriously, patriarchy, but I do recognize the
issues involved with it (particularly toxic masculinity and other unhealthy
male-oriented narratives.)
Analyzing The Family: A Proclamation
to the world
First, let’s
consider context. I believe everyone who reads this understands that there is a
certain amount of context involved. However, there are actually two main
contexts to sort through. Most people consider the context of when it was written,
meaning the 90s, prior to a cultural revolution that changed the way people
thought about gender and sexuality. Focusing on this context leads some to
believe that the document is now outdated or based on cultural and erroneous
premises. It’s easy to get caught up in authorial intent and the culture influencing
that, but a lot of people diving into this end up creating wheelbarrows, so to
speak.
But you see, I
don’t actually think that context is relevant when the second context is
considered. This second context is the
doctrinal context of the document. This is not just someone’s talk or advice; this
is a signed document considered by many to be scripture. If you believe
President Gordon B. Hinkley to be called of God, it gives the document a lot of
weight. There’s also the historical-doctrinal context of the order God has set
for families from the beginning. We are missing a lot of information on that
context, but this document, if considered inspired or if the writers are
considered spokesmen for God, it is a part of what we do have. It’s part of the
guidelines in what I’ve come to call the Multi-Thousand year war over skewed
perceptions of gender. My favorite scripture to quote on these issues is “From
the beginning it was not so.” And the beginning is the context that I think is
most important to consider, back when men walked with God. I further think authorial intent is irrelevant
here because even if the writers were writing it with a sexist lens (heaven
forbid, but culture happens), through the prophet, I believe God approved the
words (not necessarily the interpretations people made afterward.) And just one
more thing about context, before you complain that God should have expected you
to interpret it wrong based on your cultural context, remember that inspiration
isn’t always meant for the present. After all, very little Moroni ever said
meant anything to the people of his day.
To continue, there
are plenty of lines in this document that could be considered controversial.
(Since I’m known for my obsession with revolutions, I teasingly told people
that the ‘obey and honor the law’ line was difficult). But for our purposes,
let’s look at what I think is most people’s least favorite paragraph. So here
it is, the troublesome paragraph:
“The family is
ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal
plan. Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be
reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity.
Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the
teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are
established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance,
forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational
activities. By divine design, fathers are to preside
over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide
the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are
primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred
responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as
equal partners. Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate
individual adaptation. Extended families should lend support when needed.”
Despite being a
revolte, I adhere to plenty of traditional values. I have no problem with many
of them. They fit my lifestyle and personality. But I understand where a lot of
people can’t fit a mold sometimes made to look so black and white. And I can
empathize with that because I may fit into traditional values, but I almost
never feel like I fit into the world’s expectations for me, though I sincerely
do my best not to care. But in my ever-questioning spirit and search for
knowledge, I wanted to know what was really said as well as how I should form
my paradigm or question it. So, when I went to read this proclamation during my
“Come Follow Me” reading last year, I was prepared to be open to revelation on
how to feel about it. I was prepared to question prescribed gender roles, to seek
if God really had some plan for women to be in the home and men to be out
working or so on. I admitted to myself that that seem like an unjust alignment,
but I was also willing, if the spirit confirmed it to be the truth, to accept
God’s plan knowing he knows a little more about that multi-thousand-year war
than I do. So, yes, I too had a bit of a cultural lens which I tried to set
aside for the experiment.
Then, with this in
mind, I was stunned when I read the above paragraph and found nothing to
wrestle with. I wondered, and I often wonder, what on earth other people were
reading. I’ll try to summarize my
findings below. I’m not going to discuss marriage between a man and a woman
here (though even that can be taken apart at word value if you really want to),
but I want to look at the lines some people see as sexist:
Read it again.
Does a single line in there say, “fathers go to work?” Does a single line say,
“Mothers stay at home?” Does it even say the word women or men? Then why was
that what I expected to read? I sat back
in confusion wondering what strange bias had led me to think that that was what
it said. Then, I read the next line.
“In these sacred
responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as
equal partners.”
I hope we have
enough of a mutual understanding of the word “equal” to see how suddenly the
separation of gender “roles” decays right there. So, my question for each of
you is, why are you reading this with a patriarchy lens? Why are you choosing
to interpret this in the way some sexists want you to read it? Just as they have
been free to interpret this wrong and impose their interpretation on their families,
you are free to choose not to read it that way. You are free to try and put
aside your biased lenses and rely on the spirit to help you interpret what’s there,
so you aren’t making dramatic death scenes out of the simple image of a
wheelbarrow. Take it apart reread it, just make sure you go to the right source
for study, or you’ll be making the same but opposite error of the sexist
interpretations you so despise.
Now, we come to my
favorite institute class, Women in the Scriptures. One of the first lessons in
that class was Eve. I’ve talked about that class before and it was mind-blowing,
and the spirit confirmed a lot of what I learned there. On the subject of Eve,
we talked a lot about how there was once a time where men didn’t go somewhere
else to work, that all their work was at home or in the fields near the house.
That women played a huge part in that process and much of the work was done
together as a family. That when industrialization caused men to leave home more
and more often, it was once considered negative and a sacrifice. I don’t know
about you, but I was awestruck in realizing that togetherness and unity was the
ideal. That last line is essential. In life we can’t always have the ideal, but the better family unit was one where both parents stayed home with their
children. Which simply isn’t possible in an industrialized society, except that
some of us have beautifully gotten a taste of that (and sometimes hectically)
with the pandemic allowing more time at home. I think it’s important to have
this in mind when interpreting the rest of the paragraph.
To turn back to
the lines above that last one, let’s take it apart. I’m not discussing “preside”
here, because I think there are too many cultural barriers to really understand
that word, and I’m going to trust with that word my understanding of God’s
perfect justice in his design, but I encourage anyone wanting to dissect it
themselves. But as for the rest, at face value, God has designed that “fathers
are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible
to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families.” If your
immediate thought is that fathers must leave the home and get a job, I want you
to take a moment and interrogate why you think that. Is it the word “provide?” One
definition of the word “provide” is “to give something wanted or needed to
(someone or something): to supply (someone or something) with something.” That
could mean a lot of things. It could mean being the breadwinner. Or not. When
you insist that that is what it means, are you saying that materialistic income
is the only way to provide anything for your offspring? Technically, the old
sexist joke about women in the kitchen is providing since it’s offering
food to someone, isn’t it? Is that wrong? Should members of the church have
only men prepare meals and clothe their children? How are you interpreting this
sentence and what is making you think of it that way? Is there another way of
looking at it that is just as valid? What does it say to provide? “The
necessities of life and protection.” That can be physical, spiritual, monetary,
or a million different things.
On to mothers. “Mothers
are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children.” Again, there is
no prescribed way of doing things. No direct action listed under “nurture.” Nurture
can be defined as to “supply with nourishment,” “educate,” or “to further the
development of.” Notice that first definition is sometimes almost synonymous
with “provide.” I’m sure it has other interpretations as well. Again, why are
you choosing the interpretation you are choosing? If you think this means that
a mother must stay in the home and not do anything to contribute to the family
income, I want you to consider why you think that. Is it possible you’re
reading it with a sexist lens pushed on you by a messed-up society? You could
say that encouraging growth and development might include attending sports
games, and yet I’ve seen no argument saying that it should primarily be women
showing up at their children’s athletic achievements. (In fact, I think we usually
stress the opposite.)
Then, there’s the
problem of exclusivity. Nowhere does it say “only,” and yet people act like the
roles are separate sometimes. It says “equal,” and frankly if the cultural
interpretation I see so many of you make of this paragraph is any indication of
your understanding of the word equal, it isn’t a wonder that we’re still struggling
with civil rights. To me, the ideal is clear: unity.
But if the phrases
can mean a million different things, and we’re supposed to be unified anyway,
then why say anything at all? Or is there something God is trying to tell us
about our divinity? I find it interesting that rather than focusing on “men” or
“women” this paragraph is about “mothers” and “fathers.” And who are the ultimate examples of motherhood
and fatherhood? I think God isn’t only trying to tell us something about ourselves,
I think He might be trying to tell us a little more about how He sees His role
as a father. That includes the characteristic of providing for our daily
spiritual and physical needs as well as protecting us from the effects of sin. So
many of you yearn for knowledge of Heavenly Mother, but we are in Her image.
She is there in our reflection. So instead of getting mad when someone says
mothers are nurturing, maybe consider the design behind it and learn a little
more about the Mother of all Mothers who loves you more than anyone else and likely
plays a greater hand in your development than you could ever guess.
After studying
this document, I believe I have learned more about my divine parents. As for
the roles? I believe, and I know some of you may disagree, but I think that
there are inherent values and abilities that are different in the way
God designed us and that some of those are specific to gender. I believe that these
differences make us stronger together, and I believe some of the differences
are confirmed by medical science. But I do not believe there is a prescribed
one-size-fits-all set of actions and life choices, and I do not see that
written in the above words either. I hope we can create a culture that leans on
faith and not fear, love over judgment, and gives people the space to grow and learn
of God’s specific and individualized design for them.
One of the best sections
of the troublesome white handbook, is the section that states that, above all
and any other obligation, our loyalty is to the Lord. This helped on my mission
whenever we had a disagreement on policy. If the spirit directed us to an
interpretation, we knew we could rely on that as a valid way to proceed. Of
course, you still have to be humble and be wary of wheelbarrows because it’s
so easy to take a spiritual confirmation and twist the interpretation, but God
only expects us to do our best. If you are humbly and with a heart of love
trying to do the right thing, I believe you will be guided to paths best for
you and your family and the holy and eternal relationship meant to be therein.
And I absolutely guarantee that that’s not going to look the same, even for two
letter-of-the-law families.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction#Literary_criticism
Matthew 19:8
Definitions are from the Merriam-Webster
website
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