Sixth in a series on "ity" words

Fidelity is "the quality of being faithful; faithfulness, loyalty, unswerving allegiance to a person or party." Our fidelity is our word of honor, our pledge, our oath. It is "strict conformity to truth or a fact; honesty, truthfulness, trustworthiness." Fidelity comes from the root word that means to trust or to have faith. One of my favorite Christmas songs is "Adeste Fidelis," literally meaning "o come all ye faithful."

Generally, the virtue of fidelity is manifested in two types of behavior. The first is that we keep our promises, covenants and oaths. This trust is a bedrock of all civil societies. Much progress comes from faithful adherence to higher principles. Helen Keller noted, "Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose." Fidelity, then, like many of the other "ity" virtues, involves some level of subordination of our selfish and self-interested behavior to a higher good.



Though the brethren do frequently talk about this type of fidelity, by far the most common references to fidelity relate to faithfulness to our marriage covenants. For example, in his response on "60 Minutes" to Mike Wallace's question about our moral code, President Gordon B. Hinckley said, "We believe in chastity before marriage and total fidelity after marriage. That sums it up. That is the way to happiness in living. That is the way to satisfaction. It brings peace to the heart and peace to the home" (Ensign, November 1996).

President Thomas S. Monson has also noted, "Because sexual intimacy is so sacred, the Lord requires self-control and purity before marriage, as well as full fidelity after marriage" (Ensign, November 1990).

The concept of fidelity is enshrined in "The Family: A Proclamation to the World": "Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity."

In a September 2009 Ensign article, "Fidelity in Marriage: It's More Than You Think," Kenneth W. Matheson, a professor at BYU, discusses various aspects of fidelity in marriage. He writes, "Physical infidelity is only one of the many temptations Satan uses to break up families and marriages. Emotional infidelity, which occurs when emotions and thoughts are focused on someone other than a spouse, is an insidious threat that can weaken the trust between a couple and shatter peace of mind."

President Spencer W. Kimball famously said, "And, when the Lord says all thy heart, it allows for no sharing nor dividing nor depriving. The words none else (Doctrine and Covenants 42:22) eliminate everyone and everything. The spouse then becomes pre-eminent in the life of the husband or wife. And neither social life nor occupational life nor political life nor any other interest nor person nor thing shall ever take precedence over the companion spouse" ("Faith Precedes the Miracle").