The plan of happiness requires the righteous union of male and female, man and woman, husband and wife.14 Doctrines teach us how to respond to the compelling natural impulses which too often dominate how we behave.
A body patterned after the image of God was created for Adam,15 and he was introduced into the Garden.16 At first, Adam was alone. He held the priesthood,17 but alone, he could not fulfill the purposes of his creation.18
No other man would do. Neither alone nor with other men could Adam progress. Nor could Eve with another woman. It was so then. It is so today.
There is nothing in the revelations which suggests that to be a man rather than to be a woman is preferred in the sight of God, or that He places a higher value on sons than on daughters.
All virtues listed in the scriptures—love, joy, peace, faith, godliness, charity—are shared by both men and women,25 and the highest priesthood ordinance in mortality is given only to man and woman together.26
After the Fall, natural law had far-reaching sovereignty over mortal birth. There are what President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., called “pranks” of nature,27 which cause a variety of abnormalities, deficiencies, and deformities. However unfair they seem to man’s way of reasoning, they somehow suit the purposes of the Lord in the proving of mankind.
The following of every worthy instinct, the responding to every righteous urge, the consummating of every exalting human relationship are provided for and approved in the doctrines of the gospel of Jesus Christ and protected by commandments revealed to His church.
Except Adam and Eve by nature be different from one another, they could not multiply and fill the earth.28 The complementing differences are the very key to the plan of happiness.
For Time and All Eternity
Boyd K. Packer
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