I am sorry to be slow, but I don’t really see any difference in the way Elder Scott talks about his wife vs. Elders Perry, Nelson or Oaks. Elder Scott has thus far not remarried, and that’s a good thing for the rest of us in that it disproves the frequently spouted notion that GAs have to remarry in a certain time, and shows that we are all different. But just because they have done different things does not make one choice better or worse.

But I can speak from a sort of ancestral experience (my sisters-in-law, my mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother, my great-great-grandmother were all second wives): a past marriage cannot be allowed to govern a current one. The past belongs to the first wive, the present belongs to the one who is living.

I would suppose that recognition could easily explain the difference between Elder Scott and the others. Elder Scott has no one else’s feelings and vulnerability to consider. I don’t suppose the other men feel any differently about their first wives as Elder Scott does, but other feelings and obligations and loyalties have taken center stage. Don’t you think?