Marriage and divorce

I have three sisters and three step sisters. Each of them married young. The mormon culture is built around marriage: girls have classes on their eternal companion, on how to attract a young man, on how to date, who to date, when to date, on how to keep young priesthood holders righteous (a thing that is the responsibility of the women. I don't know what the men's responsibility is).

My oldest sister got engaged once, broke it off, met another guy the next year (or so) and was engaged within 5 weeks. She was married 2 months later (apparently the ideal engagement period). They had their first kid within a year... he was always kind of obnoxious, from a very mormon (like, buy munitions and food and property in Missouri for the second coming kind of mormons), but he was always a good father and husband, if a little bit of a misogynist. My sister (we shall call her Pink), now has 4 kids with the fifth on the way, and remains a very active mormon.

My second sister dated a lot (this sister is Yellow). She loved dating, and dated so many incredibly fun people (all mormon). She was beautiful and popular and unabashedly herself. She had her first date on the fourth of July and was married by Halloween. She then went thru 11 moves in nine years, bankruptcy and not having insurance (I think ever). She left her husband once after five years, but then went back to him for another 4, before finally leaving him for good. She is now a single working mom with two kids and a messy divorce still pending. She still loves dating, and doesn't attend church.

My third sister (Red), got married when she was twenty. I can remember her crying to me when he proposed cuz she didn't get the ring she wanted. She had two years of a rocky marriage, divorced him, and married a guy she had known before the marriage. She is nominally mormon.

I have one step sister happily married with 3 kids, one unhappily divorced with two kids, and one still single (and the black sheep of the family for being the only one who is not a good mormon).

I can't help but think that many of the marriage problems in the church stem from the fact that the church suppresses all expression of sexuality before marriage: masturbation, oral, petting, immodest clothes. You are not allowed to know anything about your own body or sexuality, much less anyone else's. The result is that hormone driven marriages happen all the time, and two young virgins are confronted with reality and unrealistic expectations, from within the relationship and from the church.

A desire to have sex is not the basis for long term happiness and compatibility. The church teaches that as long as you put the church first, you can have a happy marriage: "any righteous young man and any righteous young woman." The marriage vows even include vows to the church, and the marriage is often seen as a triangle with the man, the woman, and the church (god).

I can't help but think in a culture that wasn't so driven by conformity in rushed marriages, my sisters would have had the chance to make better decisions in their husbands.