malaise wrote:I do not think that the fact a man was abusive to his wife means that the sealing is invalid.
I certainly do.
I believe that you fundamentally misunderstand the nature of covenant, in the Latter-day Saint conception of it.
Consider the archetypal covenant between God and human. God, in our view, will never violate his covenant. But the human co-covenanter might well, and often does. In that case, the covenant is null and void:
"I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise" (Doctrine and Covenants 82:10).
In other words, the unfaithfulness of one party to the covenant nullifies it, even if the other party is perfectly faithful.
Covenants are not automatically and mechanically binding regardless of the faithfulness and behavior of those who entered into them:
"All covenants, contracts, bonds, obligations, oaths, vows, performances, connections, associations, or expectations, that are not made and entered into and sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise . . . are of no efficacy, virtue, or force in and after the resurrection from the dead" (Doctrine and Covenants 132:7).
Here is Bruce McConkie, of all people, on "the Holy Spirit of promise," as cited in, of all things, the Church's
Eternal Marriage Student Manual:
“The Holy Spirit of Promise is the Holy Spirit promised the saints, or in other words the Holy Ghost. This name-title is used in connection with the sealing and ratifying power of the Holy Ghost, that is, the power given him to ratify and approve the righteous acts of men so that those acts will be binding on earth and in heaven. ‘All covenants, contracts, bonds, obligations, oaths, vows, performances, connections, associations, or expectations,’ must be sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise, if they are to have ‘efficacy, virtue, or force in and after the resurrection from the dead; for all contracts that are not made unto this end have an end when men are dead.’ ( D. & C. 132:7 .)
“To seal is to ratify, to justify, or to approve. Thus an act which is sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise is one which is ratified by the Holy Ghost; it is one which is approved by the Lord; and the person who has taken the obligation upon himself is justified by the Spirit in the thing he has done.
“The ratifying seal of approval is put upon an act only if those entering the contract are worthy as a result of personal righteousness to receive the divine approbation. They ‘are sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, which the Father sheds forth upon all those who are just and true.’ ( D. & C. 76:53 .) If they are not just and true and worthy the ratifying seal is withheld.
“When any ordinance or contract is sealed by the Spirit, it is approved with a promise of reward, provided unrighteousness does not thereafter break the seal, remove the ratifying approval, and cause loss of the promised blessing. ( Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 1, p. 55; vol. 2, pp. 94–99.) Seals are placed on contracts through righteousness.
“The operation and power of the Holy Spirit of Promise is best illustrated by the ordinance and contract of baptism. An unworthy candidate for baptism might deceive the elders and get the ordinance performed, but no one can lie to the Holy Ghost and get by undetected. Accordingly, the baptism of an unworthy and unrepentant person would not be sealed by the Spirit; it would not be ratified by the Holy Ghost; the unworthy person would not be justified by the Spirit in his actions. If thereafter he became worthy through repentance and obedience, the seal would then be put in force. Similarly, if a worthy person is baptized, with the ratifying approval of the Holy Ghost attending the performance, yet the seal may be broken by subsequent sin.
“These principles also apply to every other ordinance and performance in the Church. Thus if both parties are ‘just and true,’ if they are worthy, a ratifying seal is placed on their temple marriage; if they are unworthy, they are not justified by the Spirit and the ratification of the Holy Ghost is withheld. Subsequent worthiness will put the seal in force, and unrighteousness will break any seal.
“Even if a person progresses to that state of near-perfection in which his calling and election is made sure, in which he is ‘sealed up unto eternal life’ ( D. & C. 131:5 ; 132:18–26 ), in which he receives ‘the promise . . . of eternal life’ ( D. & C. 88:3–4 ), in which he is ‘sealed up unto the day of redemption’ ( D. & C. 124:124 ; Eph. 1:13 )—yet with it all, these great promises are secured only if the ‘performances’ are sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise” ( Mormon Doctrine, 361–62).
http://institute.LDS.org/manuals/eterna ... l-holy.asp
All humans are imperfect, of course. No marriage is perfect. But surely there is a point beyond which bad behavior nullifies the marriage covenant. And surely wife-beating and spousal abuse, barring repentance and reform, is a pretty good candidate for doing so.
The idea that a covenant, once entered into, binds both parties no matter how badly one of them behaves and no matter how much one of them may want out of it is thoroughly foreign to me, and to my understanding of temple marriage. Whether or not the sealing has been formally cancelled in such an instance is essentially a matter of bookkeeping. Such a sealing is already "of no efficacy, virtue, or force in and after the resurrection from the dead." Whether the Church has formally noted the reality of the situation is immaterial, almost anticlimactic.
malaise wrote:I think that Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and McConkie would tell you that a man has the right to discipline his wife.
Where is the evidence that Joseph Smith or Brigham Young (nineteenth-century Americans though they were) endorsed wife-beating?
Where is the evidence that Bruce McConkie endorsed spousal abuse?