Civil Marriage and Couple Sealing

The progression toward exaltation begins with lawful civil marriage. Civil marriage belongs to the civil order and must be completed before a Couple Sealing may be received. An accountable man and woman may freely choose to enter civil marriage according to law and prayerfully consider before the Lord the marriage they are establishing.

After they have been lawfully civilly married, a husband and wife who have received the preceding ordinances and covenants of the covenant path and are worthy and prepared for eternal marriage may complete the required interview and receive a Couple Sealing, joining them to one another as husband and wife for eternity. This same order applies whether they were married recently or have been civilly married for many years before seeking the sealing.

The Couple Sealing establishes their permanent marital union and the household relationship that will continue through mortality, the Millennium, resurrection, and eternity. Husband and wife begin proving fidelity, sacrifice, unity, service, parenthood, household responsibility, and covenant faithfulness together.

Husband and wife govern their own home and remain fully responsible before the Lord for its ordinary management, including their family, property, finances, children, labor, residence, and temporal affairs. No Bishop, Prophet, counselor, or other presiding authority governs those household matters in their place. Household stewardship belongs to the husband and wife themselves.

Although they possess the priesthood rights and powers received through their initiatory and endowment, the Couple Sealing does not yet authorize them to independently preside over the priesthood administration of their Household Kingdom. They may give blessings and exercise priesthood in those matters that do not require separate presiding authorization, but saving ordinances and other ordinances requiring presiding authority must be administered under the authority of the Bishop, Prophet, or other presiding authority appointed over them according to their place within the Kingdom of Zion.

For this reason, they are not yet authorized to establish independent sacrament worship within their home solely by virtue of their Couple Sealing. They continue to worship and administer such ordinances under the established presiding order, including by attending church or gathering with other couples as appointed.

Interview Questions

After a man and woman have been lawfully civilly married and before they receive the Couple Sealing, they are to be interviewed together by the Bishop, the Prophet, or one of their counselors who has been given authority to conduct this interview. This same interview is required whether the couple has been married only recently or has been civilly married for many years. The existence or length of a civil marriage does not remove the need for preparation or establish worthiness for eternal sealing.

The questions required for baptism and confirmation and for the initiatory and endowment remain in force and are to be reviewed before proceeding to these additional questions. This interview determines whether both individuals understand the covenant standard of marriage, are presently living worthy of it, and are prepared to make and keep the promises required of them. Each question is to be answered honestly before God, and both individuals must be able to answer yes before proceeding.

Entering the Covenant Freely

The Couple Sealing must be entered by choice. Neither spouse should proceed because of coercion, manipulation, fear, dependency, pressure from family or religious authority, or an unwillingness to disappoint another person.

Are each of you freely and willingly choosing to proceed with the Couple Sealing, with a clear mind and without coercion, manipulation, pressure, fear, or compulsion?

One Heart, One Mind, and a Permanent Marriage

Husband and wife are to cleave to one another and become one in heart, mind, purpose, loyalty, labor, stewardship, and the life they build together. They are not to establish two parallel lives that merely share a home, nor permit parents, extended family, friends, work, personal interests, private agendas, or outside loyalties to divide their marriage.

The civil marriage they have established is now being prepared for eternal sealing and is intended to continue through mortality, the Millennium, resurrection, and eternity. Weakness, disagreement, disappointment, offense, or hardship do not make the marriage disposable. When difficulties arise, husband and wife are expected to seek truth, repentance, forgiveness, communication, reconciliation, healing, and repair.

Are you willing to cleave to one another, become one in heart and mind, and protect the unity of your marriage from divided loyalties or competing interests?
Do you understand the permanence of the marriage you are preparing to have sealed for eternity, and are you prepared to preserve and repair it when difficulties arise?

Headship, Counsel, and Unity

Jesus Christ is the true Head of the household. Under Him, the husband bears the ordinary responsibility to preside and lead within the home. His headship is a responsibility to seek the Lord, provide, protect, preserve order, carry the burdens placed upon him, and lead his family in righteousness. It is not ownership, superiority, domination, or entitlement.

The wife stands beside her husband as his helpmeet, counselor, companion, and joint heir. She is not lesser in worth, covenant standing, spiritual capacity, priesthood, or eternal inheritance. She is expected to make her understanding known, offer counsel and revelation, ask questions, express needs, and help the household seek the Lord. Her husband is required to listen seriously to her counsel.

After counsel has been heard and a lawful and righteous direction has been established within the husband's stewardship, the wife is to support and cooperate with his leadership rather than compete for control, undermine the decision, or establish a competing government within the home. Submission is not subjugation or blind obedience and never requires cooperation with sin, abuse, unlawful conduct, unsafe direction, or action outside the husband's rightful stewardship.

For the Husband: Are you prepared to preside and lead your household in righteousness, listen seriously to your wife's counsel, and exercise headship through love, wisdom, restraint, provision, protection, and service rather than control?
For the Wife: Are you prepared to counsel openly and support your husband's lawful and righteous leadership without competing for control or undermining the order of your home?

Shared Household and Financial Stewardship

Being one in heart and mind includes the whole temporal stewardship of the household. Husband and wife are responsible together for their family, property, finances, children, labor, legal obligations, residence, and the other responsibilities entrusted to their home.

Income, accounts, savings, debts, property, possessions, and other household resources are not to be divided into private kingdoms of "mine" and "yours." Both spouses are to know the true financial condition of the household and have the access necessary to participate fully in its stewardship. Neither may conceal money, debt, accounts, property, spending, obligations, or other material matters from the other. The financial stewardship of the household is to be held and governed as belonging to both husband and wife together.

Are you prepared to accept and faithfully carry the shared temporal responsibilities of your household according to the order established between husband and wife?
Have you fully disclosed to one another the financial and legal matters affecting your household, and are you willing to hold and govern its income, accounts, savings, debts, property, possessions, and resources as a shared stewardship belonging to both of you, with full transparency, awareness, access, and joint responsibility?

Love, Fidelity, Intimacy, and Protection

Husband and wife are to love, honor, cherish, serve, protect, comfort, strengthen, forgive, sacrifice for, and seek one another's temporal, spiritual, emotional, physical, and eternal welfare.

Marriage establishes the covenant boundary in which sexual intimacy becomes lawful and holy. Both spouses are to remain faithful in thought, desire, affection, and conduct. Marital intimacy is to be governed by charity, mutual consent, tenderness, patience, holiness, and sincere concern for one another.

Violence, threats, sexual coercion, intimidation, manipulation, exploitation, deliberate humiliation, unrighteous dominion, destructive speech, or the use of affection or intimacy as punishment or control have no place in the marriage. Husband and wife are also responsible to guard their marriage from relationships, media, habits, secrecy, divided loyalties, or other influences that weaken fidelity, trust, dignity, affection, or spiritual unity.

Are you willing to love, honor, cherish, serve, protect, forgive, sacrifice for, and care for one another throughout your lives?
Are you willing to remain completely faithful to the covenant boundaries of your marriage and govern marital intimacy by charity, mutual consent, tenderness, patience, holiness, and love?
Are both of you presently free from violence, threats, sexual coercion, intimidation, manipulation, exploitation, deliberate humiliation, and other forms of abuse, and are you willing to keep your marriage free from these things?

Children and Parental Stewardship

Children entrusted to the household are sacred stewardships before God. Husband and wife are responsible together to provide them with love, protection, stability, teaching, righteous discipline, temporal care, and a home ordered toward Jesus Christ.

Within that shared work, the husband bears primary responsibility to preside, protect, establish righteous order, and provide long-term direction. The wife bears primary responsibility to nurture, teach, and cultivate emotional, relational, and spiritual safety. These responsibilities are complementary rather than competing, and both parents are required to labor together for the salvation and welfare of their children.

If children are given or appointed to your household, are you willing to receive them as sacred stewardships, fulfill the parental responsibilities given to each of you, and raise them together in unity, righteousness, love, protection, and truth?

Repentance, Forgiveness, and Peace

Neither spouse will live the covenant perfectly. Both must therefore be willing to repent when they are wrong and forgive when the other sincerely repents. Repentance requires honest acknowledgment, forsaking the wrong, restitution where possible, changed conduct, and repair. Forgiveness does not remove accountability, righteous boundaries, or the rebuilding of trust, but it does require the release of vengeance, scorekeeping, prolonged resentment, and the repeated use of matters that have honestly been resolved.

Are you both willing to repent honestly when you are wrong, repair the harm you cause, forgive sincere repentance, and seek reconciliation and peace according to the law of Jesus Christ?

Final Readiness

Having reviewed these responsibilities, do you both consider yourselves worthy, willing, and prepared to receive the Couple Sealing and have your civil marriage sealed as husband and wife for all eternity?