Abstract

This paper examines the ways Latter-day Saint women outside the United States understand, navigate, experience, and create various structures of home and family. These structures at times reflect a traditional Latter-day Saint North American nuclear family model and at other times, given diverse local contexts, diverge from it. This paper draws primarily from small samples of oral histories and interviews of Latter-day Saints in Botswana, South Africa, Mexico, and Finland, as well as secondary sources which discuss Latter-day Saint family structures in Flanders, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Central America, and India. This paper examines three themes which characterize Latter-day Saint family structures and experiences in various parts of the world: working mothers, the non-nuclear family, and patriarchal versus egalitarian marital power structures. It finds that economic realities, globalizing forces, and strong cultural traditions are primary factors affecting Latter-day Saint family structures.