Introduction to Successful Marriages and Families - BYU Studies ...

Introduction to
Successful Marriages and Families:
Proclamation Principles and Research Perspectives
Alan J. Hawkins, David C. Dollahite, and Thomas W. Draper
In August 2000, two significant events took
place in the School of Family Life at Brigham Young
University: the publication of Strengthening Our Families:
An In-Depth Look at the Proclamation on the Family
(Dollahite, 2000) and the introduction of a new foundational
course, “Strengthening Marriage and Family:
Proclamation Principles and Scholarship.”
These related events were a response to an apostolic
charge. On September 10, 1998, President Boyd K.
Packer spoke to the School of Family Life. He read to us
“The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” charging us
to use it as our charter, and gave us an apostolic blessing.
He urged us to produce textbooks that were worthy of
the wisdom generated by secular scholarship as well as
faithful to the moral and spiritual values revealed in the
holy scriptures and through latter-day prophets. Furthermore,
these texts should not only impart information,
but should also be practical, capable of preparing
our students to be good spouses and parents. President
Packer acknowledged that writing such texts would be
difficult. But his charge and blessing then were a powerful
source of strength in the difficult task of producing a
text and course that honored his charge to us.
We relied upon that strength to produce Strengthening
Our Families, our first effort to bring together
sacred principles and relevant secular scholarship to
help readers understand proclamation principles. A few
years later, the School of Family Life faculty produced a
second volume, Helping and Healing Our Families: Principles
and Practices Inspired by “The Family: A Proclamation
to the World” (Hart, Newell, Walton, & Dollahite,
2005). Though grounded in proclamation principles,
this second volume covered a wider variety of familyrelated
topics not explicitly linked to the proclamation,
and it was intended more for the general Latter-day
Saint reader.
But while proclamation principles are timeless, these
two texts are not. The chapters for Strengthening Our
Families were written in 1998 and 1999, and those in
Helping and Healing Our Families in 2003 and 2004.
Prophets and apostles have spoken often on the family
proclamation and its principles over the ensuing years.
Moreover, secular debates and struggles over marriage
and family issues have accelerated and intensified since
the publication of these earlier volumes. Recent family
research has provided even more perspective on proclamation
principles. Over the past decade or so, family
life worldwide has been subject to significant challenges
and change. Consequently, a more up-to-date treatment
of the proclamation was needed. Successful Marriages
and Families: Proclamation Principles and Research
Perspectives is our attempt to provide a current and more
comprehensive exploration of “The Family: A Proclamation
to the World” for a new decade of instruction
and insight.
The overall objective for Successful Marriages and
Families remains the same as it was for the earlier
volumes:
1. Strengthen readers’ testimony in the principles of
the restored gospel of Jesus Christ as they relate
to family life.
2. Increase readers’ confidence in their abilities to
live and implement proclamation principles.

x • Successful Marriages and Families
3. Help readers share and defend proclamation principles
more effectively in their various spheres of
influence.
This work includes new chapters of topics not
addressed in the original text (chapters 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,
11, 14, 15, 17, 19, 25, 28, 34). It also includes new treatments
of topics addressed in the original text (chapters 2, 4, 10,
12, 13, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 27, 32, 33). In addition, we commissioned
a few new chapters that provide a broader
perspective on the proclamation itself (chapters 29, 30,
31). Readers familiar with the original text will recognize
only a handful of chapters in Successful Marriages
and Families as updates (chapters 21, 23).
It is important to point out at the outset of this volume
that the views expressed in each chapter are the
views of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the
position of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints or the editors. As editors, we worked with authors
to provide a text that would be aligned with proclamation
principles and consistent with the restored gospel
of Jesus Christ. Yet our knowledge is imperfect, our
wisdom limited, and on many topics there is room for
reasonable differences. The reader then shares responsibility
for determining whether the authors’ views are
well aligned with gospel truth.
The title of this new volume comes directly from
paragraph seven of the proclamation, which states,
“Successful marriages and families are established and
maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance,
forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome
recreational activities.” There are no quick or easy
paths to a successful marriage and family life. Rather it
takes work and patience and constant effort. Of course,
there are no perfect marriages or families. In our view,
successful marriages and families are those in which
family members are striving to live the gospel of Jesus
Christ and apply gospel principles in their family relationships.
This volume contains both prophetic counsel
and perspectives from social science research to help
readers establish and maintain those principles in their
marriages and families.
A reader comparing this work to the previous volumes
will likely notice an even greater emphasis on
social science research. President Brigham Young (1983,
p. 247) proclaimed that “all wisdom, and all the arts and
sciences in the world are from God, and are designed
for the good of his people.” While social science evidence
has its limits and must be interpreted carefully,
we are convinced that much of the social science evidence
supports proclamation principles and not only
helps us to understand these principles better but also
to share and defend them more effectively. As a result of
an increased attention to social science scholarship, we
thought it appropriate to ask BYU Studies Press, as an
academic publisher, to publish Successful Marriages and
Families. We are grateful to BYU Studies for their support
and particularly to John W. Welch for his valuable
guidance. Also, we are grateful to the Religious Studies
Center at Brigham Young University for a small but
helpful grant to assist us in completing this project.
In addition, the reader will notice that this new volume
gives somewhat more attention to families outside
of North America. President Gordon B. Hinckley
noted: “Why do we have this proclamation on the family
now? Because the family is under attack. All across
the world families are falling apart” (Hinckley, 1997, p. 5,
italics added). Individuals and families everywhere are
experiencing serious challenges. Still, the vast majority
of research on family life samples North American
families, and as a result, the dominant lens in this work
remains focused on family life in North America.
As an editorial team, we express our gratitude to
Dr. Rick Miller, Director of the School of Family Life
at Brigham Young University, for his support of our
efforts to produce this new volume. In addition, we are
grateful to the contributing authors for their efforts to
make this volume successful; many of them are recognized
as national and international leaders in their
respective fields. And they are faithful and devoted to
the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. We also express our
gratitude to our student editors, Courtney Dixon and
Sarah Pierce, who in many ways were equal partners in
this endeavor with three seasoned social science professors.
They provided valuable suggestions and unique
perspectives to virtually every chapter. We are indebted
to Lisa Hawkins and Kimberly Reid for their exceptional
editorial skills and to Marny K. Parkin for layout
design and indexing. Finally, we thank the students in
the family proclamation classes over the last decade or
so who have shared with us their bright faith in proclamation
principles and eager dedication to living, sharing,
and defending these principles. They are the reason
that we undertook this challenging labor to produce an

Contents • xi
up-to-date text. We hope it will aid them and all who
read it in their study and application of “The Family:
A Proclamation to the World.”
Alan J. Hawkins is a professor in the School of Family Life at
Brigham Young University. He and his wife, Lisa, are the
parents of two children and they have two grandchildren.
David C. Dollahite is a professor in the School of Family
Life at Brigham Young University. He and his wife, Mary,
are the parents of seven children and they have two grandchildren.
Thomas W. Draper is a professor in the School of
Family Life at Brigham Young University. He and his wife,
Linda, are the parents of four children and they have nine
grandchildren.
References
Dollahite, D. C. (2000). Strengthening our families:
An in-depth look at the proclamation on the family.
[Provo, UT]: School of Family Life, Brigham Young
University.
Hart, C. H., Newell, L. D., Walton, E., & Dollahite,
D. C. (Eds.). (2005). Helping and healing our families:
Principles and practices inspired by “The Family: A Proclamation
to the World.” Salt Lake City: Deseret Book.
Hinckley, G. B. (1997, August). Inspirational thoughts.
Ensign, 27, 2–7.
Young, B. (1983). Discourses of Brigham Young. Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book.