Do temple oaths really help?

[deacon blues]

I have become aware, in my friend's live's, and from reading posts on this and other forums, that it is not uncommon for those who have been to the temple, to break their vows of chastity. Do you think making such vows really helps where the rubber meets the.....road? (Sorry if that seems tasteless, I couldn't resist.)

[Corsair]

I suppose we could find somebody who stayed faithful in the face of temptation due to temple covenants. My feeling is that the chastity covenant is undermined by the other three covenants which are really self-serving to the institutional church. The other three are obedience, sacrifice, and consecration which have very few defined ways they are implemented in a person's life other than to obey your leaders, be reverent in church, and pay your tithing. Chastity seems to be the only one that the average Mormon can precisely define how to apply it in their everyday life. The covenants don't feel directly consequential unless you are already "church broke" to begin with.

[wtfluff]

I doubt the "temple oaths" "help" t any more than the "till death do us part oaths" that folks who marry outside the temple make.

[Hagoth]

Well, as you pointed out to me the other day, wtfluff, when we make an oath in the temple we are really making it with a trademark. Maybe the still small voice isn't very well projected by a trademark.

I think the law of chastity oath only works when the other person involved in the covenant breaking isn't LDS, in which case the sight of garments might immediately terminate the negotiation.

[wtfluff]

I think the law of chastity oath only works when the other person involved in the covenant breaking isn't LDS, in which case the sight of garments might immediately terminate the negotiation.

Ha! Brilliant!!!

To add a bit to my previously of-the-hip comment: Anecdotal evidence shows that the divorce rate among "temple married" folks is pretty much the same as folks not married in the temple. I'd imagine the "cheating rate" among temple married folks follows the same lines.

Not cheating on your spouse probably has a lot more to do with personal integrity than it has to do with "where" the actual "oath" to your partner is made...

[Meilingkie]

To me it did, not the oaths in itself.
But the realization that my wife, gave herself to me.

Who was I so send her away after her sacrifices, her help, her supplications etc. etc.

So yes, it did help us, or me, to keep trying in our marriage.