The following excerpts are extracted from a General Conference address delivered by President Joseph Fielding Smith on 4 April 1965, as printed as "Marriage And Family Are To Be Forever", The Deseret News [Church News] (10 April 1965): 7; compare the following to the same quotes as found in Official Report of the One Hundred and Thirty-Fifth Annual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ([Salt Lake City, UT]: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1965), 10-11. Note carefully exactly how Joseph Fielding Smith navigates the issue of the 'Adam-God Theory' and modifies it for his purposes; compare with how Brigham Young himself and other earlier writers actually articulated it; consider whether the underlying logic has been tweaked here in any appreciable way.
Let us remember that the first marriage on this earth, that of Adam and Eve, was performed before there was any death in the world, therefore it was intended to be forever. Marriage, if performed by divine authority, is to last forever. In the Temples of the Lord men and women are married with an everlasting covenant. Children are born to them in this covenant to be theirs forever and therefore the family union was intended to endure forever....
In this, the final dispensation, the Prophet Joseph Smith was taught by revelation that the union between a man and his wife was to endure forever. Death, while it would intervene was to be only a temporary separation and the union of husband and wife would continue on through all eternity. And then the family union would also endure forever and that each generation, in the kingdom of God, would be eternally joined to the one that went on before from the end of time back to the beginning. Thus the children of the covenant would eventually be joined together and the children of God become one grand family. Each generation would be linked to the one which went on before of all those who would receive the Gospel and become members of the Divine Family of God.
Now I would like to express another thought which is vital to us one and all. President Brigham Young has been unjustly condemned for a statement that he made to the effect that Adam is our God and the only one with whom we have to do. President Young's statement has been unmercifully condemned, but what he said is a righteous principle and in full accord with the doctrines of the Kingdom of God. It is the doctrine of primogeniture in the Kingdom of God, and a glorious principle when it is fully and clearly understood....
Thus we learn by virtue of the law of primogeniture, that all who are saved in the Kingdom of God, will be subject to Adam, for by divine appointment he holds these keys under the direction of Jesus Christ. I might carry this law a little further. According to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Joseph Fielding Smith will be subject to his father, and his father to his father in the family of God and so it will go back from the end to the beginning and we will all be obedient to Adam, whom the Prophet Joseph Smith declared holds the keys of salvation, for his posterity who are redeemed but under the "council" and direction of The "Holy One" who is Jesus Christ who stands at the head because he is the Redeemer of the world who gave us, through His atonement, the resurrection and eternal life if we will only repent and keep His laws and commandments....
Divorce was never contemplated in the Gospel plan, and, where true love exists, disharmony between father and mother and children to parents would not arise. We are all of us here in this mortal world on probation. We were sent here primarily to obtain tabernacles for our eternal spirits. Secondly to be proved by trial, tribulation as well as the abundant joy and happiness that can be obtained through a sacred covenant of obedience to the eternal principles of the Gospel. Mortality, as Lehi informed his children, is a "probationary state." It is here where we are to be tried and tested to see if we will when shut out of the presence of our Eternal Father - but still instructed in the way of eternal life - love and revere Him and be true to his Beloved Son, Jesus Christ. These principles should be laid in the foundation of every home. No prayer should be neglectful in regard to the sacred principles of the Gospel of our Redeemer. The Lord has commanded us, one and all, to bring our children up in light and truth. Where this spirit exists, disharmony, disobedience and neglect of sacred duties will not, cannot fail.
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