This book is intended to serve as a textbook for the SFL 200 (Strengthening Marriage and Family) course at BYU, though we hope that anyone will enjoy reading this volume. Broadly, this course provides a scholarly study of family-related issues from which evidence-based applications embedded within gospel and family proclamation principles are provided. These equip students with the knowledge to engage in successful practices related to dating, marriage, parenting, and running a home. This textbook provides access for all who read it (students in the course and others) to scholarly research that builds upon the doctrinal foundation they receive from prophets and apostles and provides them with faith-filled, proclamation-aligned, and scholarship-based knowledge and practices in all aspects of family life (dating, marriage, parenting, running a home).

We have attempted to shed scientific light on findings that reflect, on average, what happens when individuals are able to and choose to live according to sacred principles related to marriage, family, and parenting. Simultaneously, we have attempted to also empirically address the challenging topics that many individuals are experiencing in their lives, and we strive to do so with love, compassion, sensitivity, and from the perspective of truth that God loves all of His children and that each person is as precious in his sight as the other.

Regardless of your past or current family situation or your current personal circumstances, we hope that your reading of this book will allow you to increase your testimony of God’s plan for individuals and families, grow in your knowledge of science related to the family, become equipped with tools so that you can act rather than be acted upon in striving to strengthen your homes and families (current and future), and find peace in knowing that you are not less than or broken but, rather, that you are a child of God and that nothing about you or your current circumstances is outside of His ability to bring you home.