A lot has been said about the church’s polygamy essays recently. Now that the dust has settled, let’s see what you think.
[poll id=”450″]
[poll id=”449″]
[poll id=”451″]
Discuss.
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Polygamy & Me: Weekend Poll
Wheat & Tares 
My other for #2 is because God commanded it in the first place.
Joseph was amazed, more than a bit overwhelmed by all the new information being revealed to him, and increasingly convinced of the need to “restore” “everything.” He read about David and Solomon and the many wives (and concubines) “given to them by God.” He became convinced that such a practice (though IMO the practice in ancient times was solely cultural and practiced by all men of wealth and power) should be restored.
Section 132 was most likely made up whole cloth primarily to convince Hyrum to convince Emma.
My basis: women must be equal to men in the eternities–free from the sexist corruption of man-made cultures. Men and women are maximized by the bond/close relationship they can form with a single person they love. In a polygamous relationship such a bond with one other is impossible.
What Eric said. Also, the whole human family cannot be sealed together without it, according to our current understanding.
el oso,
Whyever not?
I went for ‘revelation’ and figure that settles it. Else you’d have to explain not only the old boys amassing a gaggle of wives, but also questioning their tastes (I’ve seen daugerrotypes of women who were alleged to be Joseph’s wives, and some of Brigham Young’s, and whatever talents those brethren had, unless it was ‘revelation’ that dictated the sealing of THOSE women, then their tastes, IMO, were questionable…there’s someONE (or more) for everyone, I guess…
Hedgehog,
All children are sealed to their mother in order to be sealed into the human family. Some mothers would not be sealed to a husband, if not for polygamous sealings. In the heavens, parents are not single.
el oso: You seem to think that there will be >50% women and <50% men. On what basis do you form this conclusion?
el oso,
My personal preference is for children to be sealed to both parents. Irrespective of whether the parents remain married (see my comment#25 on this post http://www.wheatandtares.org/15475/pondering-on-polygamy/). I suppose technically that might count as polygamy – but it would work both ways, ie. women being sealed to more than one man as well as the other way around. I do think things aren’t all that clear, as I stated there.
I do agree with hawkgrrrl that “>50% women and <50% men" is a big assumption.
As I see it, sealing links the generations. A never-married person is sealed to the human family by virtue of their sealing to their parents.
Here’s a problem with Joseph’s polygamy that nobody talks about. He was a prophet and not a king. In the Bible, it was the kings who practiced polygamy not the prophets. I’ve even seen apologetic statements about how Joseph wanted to restore all things and have multiple wives like the prophets of old, David, etc. David wasn’t a prophet. Nathan was–and he didn’t have multiple wives.
So I’m not buying the “restoration” angle. As others have said, polygamy was a cultural institution among powerful, rich men–not prophets.
#2 was becasue the origianl commandment was by revelation.
#3, I would practice polygamy if it were reinstated by the church only if it were required of me.
Glenn
Since all women will be sealed to all husbands they had in mortality, I’m wondering why the poll only references polygny and not polyandry. I have several women in my ancestral line sealed to two husbands. Are you saying men won’t have to choose between plural wives, but women will have to choose between plural husbands? If so, can you give a source reference from any recent church publication for that?
Idiat
more women than men will make it to the Celestial Kingdom and will need to be sealed to a husband
Winifred – maybe. Maybe not. There’s a whole lot of righteous males who never married in this life who have to be sealed to someone, too. I would have thought, knowing how much of history is a type and shadow, that if polygamy was the odds on favorite, we’d have had Adam, Eve, Betty and Barbie. Why start off with the ideal of monogamy only to switch gears later? I think there will be a whole lot of monogamy, with some polygny and polyandry thrown in. This would track the relatively small percentage of those who end up remarrying in mortality.
Hedgehog,
After both spouses are dead, the sealings of children to both of their parents usually can happen. As you note, polygamy is involved in this process on a frequent basis.
Hawk & Hedgehog – All people have more women than men in their genealogy when you go back far enough. That is certainly a basis for the practice of polygamous sealings. I am not saying that this is mandated in the eternities for those who inherit exaltation.
In fact, in our generation, there may now be more fathers than mothers in many societies. This is unusual in world history, but the practice of trying to seal the whole family of God together will continue. For living persons, current sealing practices are somewhat problematic in light of this. After death, the sealings are all accomplished.
Lonicera: “So I’m not buying the “restoration” angle. As others have said, polygamy was a cultural institution among powerful, rich men–not prophets.”
Good point, but I think Joseph Smith saw himself not only as a prophet, but as a theocratic leader like a king, only beholden to God, and that king and queenhood was the eternal destiny of all righteous men and women.
Polygamy makes perfect sense for kings. They have so much status and wealth that many women are glad to trade the elevated status of a marriage to a king for the intimacy they might get with a poor man.
Joseph had this sort of status as well, “done more save Jesus only,” so by virtue of this status, many women would be glad to sacrifice exclusivity for spiritual status, both in this life and the next. If Emma feels like this decreases her exclusive rights, as the one who snagged him before he was 2nd to Christ, she is welcome to divorce and marry another poor, or less desirable man whom she can have exclusively.
Perhaps the question of polygamy should not be whether or not it is a commandment, but whether or not it is actually a sustainable or desireable relationship for those who try to practice it. Men with a high amount of cachet may be able to sustain such a relationship with high satisfaction for all. Men without such cachet cannot offer their women enough to compensate for the lack of exclusivity.
#2 The leaders have no right to disavow it. God commanded commanded it to begin. He counciled it to stop.
“Men with a high amount of cachet may be able to sustain such a relationship with high satisfaction for all.”
Oh, please say you want to think that one through again.
Joseph was a master experimenter and remixer. And I mean that in a way that can be compatible with prophethood. I would heavily consider the fact that he saw polygamy in the bible when he was focused on restorationist thinking as well as other contemporary new religious movements that were also experimenting with polygamy and other forms of alternative sexual arrangements (the Cochranites, Oneida etc. There were a whole bunch. Mormons were NOT unique in this.) and off he went. Somehow the sealing ideas got mixed up in it etc. Nauvoo was beginning to spin out of control outside of polygamy with ever more grandiose plans – (habeus corpus! Nauvoo Legion! Lets run for president! Theocracy! United Order! Missions all over the world!). Joseph’s reaction to stress on the community was to expand vision and do more! More! More! It was part and parcel with his religious genius.
So I wish the first question offered “pick 3” because I don’t think it was one thing but a cocktail of many of those reasons. I would consider polygamy a failed religious experiment, one that should not stick and be discarded like Adam God theory. We can do so while still honoring the pioneering spirit of our ancestors that launched themselves head-on into trying to create a better society, a Zion. It takes a lot of experimentation and willingness to be open to radical shifts. And sometimes you are going to get it wrong. Polygamy was wrong. If anyone had been listening to Emma (who in theory is a co-equal with Joseph in the eternities..right? Isn’t that what we tell all our women folk today about their divine destiny?) then they would have halted that particular experiment and focused on other things. Instead it got Joseph killed, the Saints driven out etc. In my mind, polygamy caused a huge rift in the founding couple which BY exacerbated. The great divorce. We need to heal that by recognizing that maybe Emma was right and Joseph was wrong on this count. The provenance and complete ickiness of D&C 132 would seem to allow it to be stricken on D&C 121 unrighteous domininion grounds alone. He hurt her and he and Brigham and everyone refused to listen. We can’t undo the past but maybe we should listen now by agreeing with Emma that polygamy was a bad idea that has polluted the most beautiful one of eternal sealings and families. Or the other way is to reopen a serious consideration of monogamy as key social structure and search for ways in which the sealing doctrine can be constructed so it is in alignment with equality of men and women in the eternities. Something that is plain irreconcilable with polgamy. I don’t think there is much..uh..appetite for the latter approach in the modern church. We are pretty much all in on monogamy and against things like polyamory and polyandry (a wise choice I think). SO that leaves us to untangle the sealing doctrine from polygamy. That will take some serious prophetic work. I think the Mormon people would be largely ready to embrace such an untangling and like the priesthood ban pull over on the side of the road and cry if and when it was announced. Sadly the polygamy essayed doubled down on polygamy including its most troubling aspects (law of Sarah? really?). So that probably put it off for a few more generations. Sigh.
Oh and why would I leave the church if polygamy was reinstated even if i wasn’t required to practice it? Because I have daughters and I would not raise them in a religious environment where polygamy was normatively accepted because it is an inherently unequal structure and one in which I would trust no man to give my daughters what they deserved as co-equal daughters of God who deserved to be fully and wholly loved by a truly equal partner. End of story.
rah wrote:
“Sadly the polygamy essayed doubled down on polygamy including its most troubling aspects….”
It’s been awhile now since it was released, and it doesn’t get better after sleeping on it for a couple of weeks. I can’t believe they want to teach this to my children. Not happening.
if polygamy were legalized in the United States remember that men would not be the only ones who could have multiple spouses.
#21 – true, you’re describing an “olly-olly-oxen-free” situation. Which is WHY, some six years ago when dragooned into the Prop 8 campaign by a well-meaning bishop, I postulated WHY, pray tell, given the Church’s past history to be left the “heck” alone with regards to what WE considered marriage to be, could we not at least be politically consistent and take the Libertarian approach that we don’t need the GOVERNMENT to sanctify matrimony; that issues of property divison and/or support could be readily worked out by contractrual agreements, if felt necessary, between competent adults involving valid consideration for lawful purposes (the essential elements of a legally binding contract). Any issues of child custody and support, since all US states are well-accustomed to dealing with parents that have never been married, really has nothing to do with what is seen as ‘marriage’ in the eyes of the law.
Naturally this position feel then, and still does, on deaf ears amongst active LDS. The Government that can giveth can also taketh away….
It is interesting to see the reaction, not only to the papers the church just published, but to polygamy in general. I think that the west, and in particular American Mormons, have a fairly myopic view of polygamy. I will agree that the way the early church and the current fundamentalist sects practice polygamy, in some cases (most cases for current polygamist communities) was unhealthy for the families and greater community. I am not convinced that this is the case for all practicing polygamists.
I just spent several months with a teacher who was the daughter of a polygamist marriage. A late (younger) daughter of the second wife to be exact. Only, she wasn't from Utah. Just about as far from Utah as you could be actually, Siberia. For these cultures it is a healthy, normal aspect of life. Or was. So much of their old ways and culture is being lost through the imposing of western ideals that don't really work well within their communities. One has to wonder if the early saints would have been more diligent in practicing and living the gospel, would things have turned out differently (including the discussions we are having today)? Speaking of this one case only, though there are others I could point to, as a society they live our temple covenants better than we ever have, or currently do. And, for them it is a matter of this is how we live, rather than have these standards imposed upon them through covenants.
Too often we try to impose our morals and values on systems we don't bother to try to understand. For those that think that all forms of polygamy are wicked, evil, selfish, nasty, and despicable, step back from judging good and evil, and instead try to discern truth from error. Polygamy in a western society might not be workable, we tend to be greedy, self-centered, and judgmental; this is not true for all of God's children.