I realized recently that perhaps one reason that it's been harder for the women I know than the men to leave Mormonism is that the Young Women Theme is drilled into their heads all the time.

As a boy, the closest thing we had to that was the Scout Law and Scout Oath, but both of those things were not uniquely Mormon. The theme, which all girls are required to utter weekly and memorize, repeatedly and explicitly tells them to obsess over temple marriage. The implication is so strong that being loyal to the church leaders is the only way to ever have a family.

It's such a powerful cult indoctrination mechanism.

I remember hearing my sister and all the other girls say it and remarking to her later that it seemed like she was in a cult. If only I had realized that I was as well. It only took me about 9 more years!

How many exmo ladies were impacted by this message in particular? And how common were you-must-get-married-in-the-temple lessons?

They definitely were commonplace for boys but only about once every other month, at least for me.

I was in YW from 1995-2002.

We rotated through the values for Sunday lessons and Wednesday activities. At the time the values were:

Faith
Divine Nature
Individual Worth
Knowledge
Choice and Accountability
Good Works
Integrity

Yes, we had plenty of indoctrination lessons on Sundays, but we had some really excellent ones in there too. I suspect some of my leaders had one foot out the door.

Some of the activities we had during my time in the program (and many of them we did annually):

Self defense, taught by a certified instructor
Change a tire and the oil on a car
Learn to cook dishes from around the world (some women in the ward who were born in another country took the time to teach us their favorites, back when you could cook in the church kitchen)
Adopt a grandmother from the ward (we had a lot of widows) and sit with them in Sacrament Meeting just like they were our own family. They were also invited to some of our Wednesday activities.
Quilting. We made quilts every year.
Visiting residents in a nursing home regularly
Making meals and cleaning the house for Sisters who were about to have babies

We talked about the value of pursing higher education and knowledge. We talked about self sufficiency and finances and managing a household and caring for young children. We learned to cook and sew. I had leaders along the way who taught me some real life skills. I am thankful for them.

As for temple marriage, yes, we had those lessons regularly. However, when I was a Laurel, one of my leaders was married to a non-member, and during our marriage lesson, she actually showed pictures of her beautiful wedding and talked about what it was like to be married to a non-member. I remember her saying that you could marry outside the church, and it was okay, but you miss out on some stuff and it's hard. Well, marriage is hard. I'm 11 years into mine now and it's nothing like I expected. The temple marriage proponents forget to tell us how hard you have to work to make a marriage work, and how hard it is to balance kids and a spouse.

I left the church the day I moved out of my parents house. I was never happy being Mormon, and I loved moving out on my own and discovering who I was without the pressure from the church. My exit was easy. The brainwashing in YW certainly didn't stick =)

We didn't have a theme. We had a mutual theme that the whole mutual recited. It was a scripture. The girls I had in YW when I was a leader didn't pay attention as far as I could tell to the theme. I didn't. I never memorized it even as a leader. I was halfway out already. They didn't allow us to have anything fun for the girls. It always had to be focused on goals.

I had goal books when I was in mutual, but I thought the goal books later on took it to a whole new level. BUT when they called me into YW, they didn't have any goal books or lesson manuals. They has stopped the prior program and hadn't completed the new program. I was shocked. When we got goal books, I took each girl (23) and would go through the list of goals and say, "Do you tend your younger brothers and sisters?" "Yes." And I'd sign it off. They were having the girls make goals for things they did everyday as most of them came from families with at least 5 children and most of them were the oldest daughter or child.

It was all busy work. I wish I could remember some of the goals that I found especially ridiculous. I had several girls who were struggling. They were Beehives and there was a lot of bullying in the ward and in school. I often got in trouble for doing things like taking them to the Festival of The Trees.

I had never viewed "mutual" that way. We had lessons every week during the week except 1 week a month and then we would do something fun. We did tie quilts for every girl in our Laurels class. I still have mine.

especially when I was young. It was my greatest dream. I think I was the last one in my class to marry. I could have married 3 nonmormons before I finally married my gay husband and I was not a "special spirit." The men I worked for couldn't figure out why I wasn't married and neither could the bishop. Mormon guys didn't like me for some reason. I was very independent and earned very good money. The bishop even told me not to tell the guys how much I earned, that they would be intimidated.

I am now with one of the nonmormons I could have married at age 22. We've been together 16 years now. We are not married.

OK, I'm clueless. What is the current Young Women's Theme?

I'm going to bet it is the same, but I can't remember it.

Repentence! The young women will be given many opportunities to repent!...of something or other.

I remembered parts of the theme we had in the late 1990s but I couldn't remember it all. So, like any good millenial, I asked Google. The church has done a remarkable job at eliminating previous themes! I couldn't find it.

If you image search, you might have better luck finding older printables. Late 90's, I think that was the theme without "virtue" tacked on the list of YW values. The list of values in the middle of the theme ended with "integrity" at LEAST until 2005.

Here is the old one from the Internet Archive

https://web.archive.org/web/20180427024920/https://www.lds.org/young-women/personal-progress/young-women-theme?lang=eng

Ah, yes. That is the previous one. I briefly served as an adult in YW and remembered the theme from when I had been in there. I stumbled over the addition of virtue in the values(it used to end with Integrity) and the "strengthen home and family" in the last paragraph. That was not there when I attended as a teenager.

Thank you for the replies everyone.

I'm wondering, is it possible that the church began to emphasize temple marriage more in the 1980s under Benson? I ask because I'm writing about 1960s Mormons and want to be accurate about what the Mutual program was about.

Yes I have the Young Women Theme still almost memorized after many years. Even as an active young women I have noticed that the young men had a bigger budget and that they did better more fun activities than us the young women did.