Mormons take very seriously the admonition to cleave unto ones husband or wife. Such is the zeal for some that they take this commandment into the electronic plane by combining email addresses and facebook accounts.
Combined email/facebook accounts make for some really interesting games if you are trying to reach a specific person in a relationship. If you are in the Relief Society trying to send out a mass email, good luck on reaching sisters with combo accounts as the husband will likely delete it as spam. If you are in the Elder’s Quorum and you want to send any type of joke that is even slightly off color via email to one of your buddies, welcome to insta-delete.
While there are many practical applications to a combined account, for the husband and wife in the relationship, each has one overriding motivator to enter into this conjugal agreement. For husbands, this type of account saves them the hassle of setting up and maintaining an electronic presence on the internet as important, appropriate emails are passed on from the wife/secretary. For wives, it is an important filter to keep their husbands’ ex’s from trying to add them on facebook.
Even with these benefits, combined accounts on facebook provide plenty of ambiguity and confusion. Try to interpret this status update, for example:
“SierraDave McKay just got done watching Pride and Prejudice…again! Love Colin Firth as Mr. Darsy!”
This status update was either
A) Posted as a couple as a part of “date night”
B) Posted by Sister Smith, who has basically hijacked the facebook account since her husband didn’t even want one in the first place.
C) Posted by Brother Smith, who may be struggling with gender issues in his marriage.
If you want to mess with a couple that has a combined email/facebook account, just create your own combined account and post the following on their wall:
“Hey, you looked really cute on Sunday!”
Was that Sister Davis, commenting on that sassy sweater vest combo her friend in Relief Society was sporting on Sunday? Or was that Brother Davis, testing the waters for something nefarious and illicit? Who knows! But the ensuing fallout will be sure to lead to Bishop’s interviews aplenty and you’ll be the talk of the ward for months to come!
Gently Hew Stone 