AboutDavid Gross Expertise If you are truly seeking answers or information I will do my best to answer questions related to any aspect of the LDS Church.
Experience I have been a member of the church for 27+ years after being raised as a not very active Reform Jew.
Question QUESTION: I would like to know about lds doctrine concerning women going to the temple. I understand that women can go to the temple without their husbands. Has it always been so? I seem to remember something about a man has to pull the wife through the vail? Would someone please explain this to me?
ANSWER: Women typically attend the temple for the first time when they are preparing to serve a mission or be married. A woman can attend the temple if neither of these events happen. She would consult with her bishop and they would decide together if attending the temple would be in her best interest.
If a woman is married outside the temple and her husband is not eligible to attend then she may attend the temple. Again, this would be after consulting with her bishop and husband. In the past a wife would not normally go to the temple without her husband. I really don't know any details about why or when this policy started or changed.
Part of the ceremony for a couple being married in a temple involves the husband "pulling" his wife through a veil. If a woman is not getting married then it does not apply until she is getting married.
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QUESTION: How can I find out when this policy changed? I remember my mother wanting to go to the temple for many years but could not because my father would not take her. After he died in 1975, she said the bishop said she could go then but that she would have to be sealed to my father. She agonized over that for a long time because she wanted her children sealed to her and the blessings but after all those unhappy years with my dad, she didn't want to spend eternity with him. Some years later, she did go to the temple, but she would not talk about it at all.
Answer I don't really have an answer because The Church tends to give out information on a need to know basis and any member can find out current policies by reading the "Handbook of Instructions" that they can borrow from their local leaders. You can always try writing the Church in S.L.C.
All temple blessings and ordinances are based upon personal worthiness. I also believe that everything God does will be in our best interest and for our happiness. In other words people won't be forced to spend eternity with others that they do not want to.
