As a church we talk about polygamy seldom enough that there are people who are unaware that it was ever a practice. When we do talk about it, we seem to either have people waxing extremely nostalgic or waxing extreme in their offense. Usually over the same things. The truth is that polygamy was extreme. It was extremely bad and extremely good and we ignore the the good either because we are overwhelmed by the bad or because we want the bad parts back.
And because, it appears, we have decided to abandon what was good about it or modern society has now accepted those points as normal.
For the bad:
- exploitation of women.
- women as property.
- men as superfluous (if a marriage can have thirty women and one man, a man is = 1/30th of a women in importance to a marriage).
- the potential of surplus men being driven from the community (which happens in the FLDS).
- abuse of ecclesiastical authority to force people into marriages they would reject.
- those who comment on this post will surely fill in the blanks.
- otherwise, watch sister wives (which I confess to never having seen).
For the good:
- it broke cultural boundaries so that married women were allowed to own and manage their own property (in the rest of the United States they were unable to do so) because the doctrine was that they were the equals of men in every respect.
- women were given the vote when they were not allowed to vote anywhere else (and the U.S. Congress took that right away, before giving it back. Most textbooks only give the second date for Utah suffrage). The vote was not a hollow thing, the first woman in Utah to run for the state legislature beat her husband in the general election for the position of state senator — so not only running, but running against her husband — and beating him.
- Being praised as attorneys (where they were not allowed to practice law in other jurisdictions), business leaders, doctors, artists and shopkeepers.
- Strong female cooperatives and bands of sisterhoods with women running their own organizations independently of men.
- An emphasis on female education (to the point it was preached as more important as men being educated).
- Women having the right to divorce — easily and without censure. Brigham Young famously preached a sermon where he stated that if his daughters needed to divorce two or three times before they found the right many that was much better than being stuck in the wrong match or being afraid to marry.
The problem is that we can have all the virtues without polygamy and too many in the Church only give lip service to the virtues as being virtues. When was the last time you heard a woman being praised for being a business leader? Or encouraged to obtain practical education such as going to law school or business school or medical school? What Brigham Young encouraged, we actively discourage. What Jacob (in the Book of Mormon) castigated as sin, some of us embrace.
And should a daughter decide that she needs a divorce? How many would be like Brigham Young?
On the other hand, we do have what appear to be lecherous idiots, who just also are the same group who wants to see a return to the status of non-LDS women in the 1800s — they reject every sermon of Brigham Young or Joseph Smith (or Joseph F. Smith or Joseph Fielding Smith) on the equality of women. They are the kind of men that if a woman expressed an interest in medical school, instead of following the prophets and encouraging other women to help make that successful, they would attempt to discourage it.
In today’s church, I do not see an acknowledgement of the down side (or why it was definitely necessary for polygamy to be ended) or the up side (because I don’t think many in the modern church would encourage their daughters to become attorneys, doctors, business women or store owners — and do not value female education to the point that they would consider educating their daughters more important than educating their sons as Brigham Young did). Those who want a return of plural marriage want it for the factors that consist of its down side, and fail to realize that the benefits (which many outside the church now take for granted) can be easily accessed in today’s culture.
And as for the last virtue, that it created an ethnic group out of Mormons in an extremely short time — we are ceasing to be an ethnic group and ceasing to have ethnic group virtues.
Which is probably why no one told you about polygamy. What do you think?
Wheat & Tares 
What is the purpose of discussing polygamy outside the context of Church history? Like the United Order, it would have been meant for those that could live up to a higher standard. I’ve practiced what one might term serial monogamy (two marriages, one divorce, one pending, and if Wifey#3 does turn out to be my beloved Snips after all….) and that’s tough enough. If it’s done in light of what we find in Jacob (e.g., for raising a seed unto the Lord, NOT for indulging one’s sexual appetites, see Jacob 2:22-33) then it MIGHT work. Done with baser motives, it likely will NOT work.
Like related ‘controversies’, it boils down to were the Saints, ancient and recent historical, led a Prophet, called of the Lord, and are we being led today? If the answer is yes, and we heed those words, we’ll do alright.
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich presented a fascinating paper at last year’s MHA about “Runaway Mormon Wives” which …. Incidentally was about women in abusive marriages elsewhere who ran away and escaped to mormonism as a polygamous wife to be sheltered from abuse (back then battered wives couldn’t get divorced).
I agree that the truth is much more complicated than either narrative usually told. But if I had to judge it by its fruits? It would be rotten at the core, even if it did allow some positive things to come from it. I agree with you that most of the positive things are now available to women these days just by virtue of the women’s rights movement.
my polygamous grandmother could own property bc her husband abandoned her and her children at one settlement and would take a new young wife to go to the next new settlement. They never saw their husband/father again. But she did get early voting rights and to own her own tiny cabin barely eking out survival in the middle of nowhere. So there’s that.
#2 – an sad example of how NOT to practice polygamy, Kristine. Sounds exactly like what Jacob preached AGAINST. Doesn’t make the PRINCIPLE wrong, but the practitioner(s) could and often were.
BTW, after seeing how Cody Brown in effect ‘disposed’ of his ‘first’ and LEGAL wife, Meri, I no longer watch that show. To me, he discarded her like a vehicle with some miles on it in favors of a hot, new, “ride”. That woman deserves better and I hope she finds it.
I flinch every time somebody quotes Brigham Young in making their case. BY said so many things in so many settings, you can probably find a quote to support just about anything. He was often guilty of exaggerating a point to make the point, so you could probably script a debate about any number of topics with nothing but BY quotes on both sides.
Brigham Young did use hyperbole as a style. He lamented that if he didn’t people didn’t want to listen to him.
He also felt free to rethink positions (like how he felt about pork).
But he did have some general trends.
I loathe polygamy…I don’t personally care what the “goods” were and are, nor do I care if the principle was “right.”
I want nothing to do with it…ever, and my church offers me no comfort in that regard.
Polygamy is the single reason that I cannot give full commitment to the church.
Isn’t interesting that LDS polygamy and LDS monogamy both result in some form of significant (but almost opposite!) repression of women. Clearly God want’s women in a one down role!
Really very interesting to see the upsides-not being US has sheltered us from a lot of info about polygamy here. I’ve often wondered why women bought into it and indeed defended it, so I’d love to know more about how it worked on a day to day down the years basis, and I’m particularly interested in both how they dealt with sexual jealousy, and how these family constructs worked for children.
Kristine, I’m horrified by your ancestor’s experience, but not surprised. How has that worked out in your family? how long before there was the possibility of trust in relationships and confidence in fathers How open about these experiences was anyone able to be? Did siblings meet, was there thereinafter an experience of extended family or was everyone just the skeleton in someone else’s closet?
Very, very messed up.
Attitudes to divorce certainly turned right around.
I believe if you were to read Brigham’s biography by John Turner, you might come away with a different interpretation of Brigham’s feelings towards women’s equality. Of course, his version is through his lens, but I believe the portrayal you give Brigham here is a bit misleading.
Greg, you are right that every author favors a narrative and imposes one.
Handlewithcare – all of the above. There were various experiences. Once in Utah it was very public. The relationship among the children depended very much on the relationship among the wives. Wives who were biological sisters were understandably much more willing to live closer together and their children felt a much closer kinship. I grew up with the jest that it was much easier to marry biological sisters – they could hate each other without killing each other. Sometimes wives lived in the same communities, so the kids would have been close. Often wives lived in different communities, sometimes hundreds of miles apart. Could be to keep the peace, but sometimes it was to escape the notice of federal officials. By the time you got to 2nd and 3rd generation polygamy, children had a very good taste of what they were getting into, and many people still felt it was well worth any personal cost to live the higher law of celestial marriage. Remember, accepting the principle of polygamy was expected of most church members, regardless of whether you lived the practice. That’s why the 1890 and 1904 manifestos came as such shocks – an integral part of Mormon doctrine was being casually dismissed.
Stephen, you need to specify that the traits in the OP apply to polygamy as practiced in Utah and outlying communities in the late 19th century. Official divorce was not an option for plural wives until 1851, a decade after polygamy began in Nauvoo. Also, polygyny practiced by later FLDS groups and other cultures currently practicing worldwide very rarely contain any of the positive traits in the OP.
Those of us who descend from Mormon polygamists were often told about polygamy. The empowerment it gave women, the love among the wives, the exponential quantity of righteous seed it created, the unity that developed under outside persecution. It was not, however, considered appropriate to discuss the hatred and jealousy wives felt (beyond a quip like above). Those women who fought being involved in polygamy were embarrassments because they disobeyed church leadership. We were not informed of the many situations where husbands took additional wives without the first wife’s consent, or, in some cases, in spite of the first wife’s vehement opposition (Emma may have been the first, but she wasn’t the last). There was a very fine line to be walked where you needed to honor the sacrifices of your ancestors (and polygamy as a sacrifice made for the kingdom of God *was* to be honored), without suggesting that FLDS groups had any credibility.
Like in Kristine’s case, polygamy encouraged female empowerment more out of necessity than choice. Just from examples in my own family, women were left to provide for themselves because: husbands were on missions, husbands were in hiding, husbands abandoned them when they took additional wives, wives kicked out husbands when they took additional wives, wives saw no reason to leave communities with their grown children to go with their husband and younger wives to colonies hundreds of miles away, or even because husbands left their wives to hold down the fort while they went back to gather wives and families in previous settlements to bring them to newer settlements.
I have one line of polygamists that had enough wealth and privilege to provide higher education for sons and daughters. The vast majority of my polygamist ancestors were hoi polloi, just trying to subsist on the land. I have polygamy three generations deep in some lines. And, the more family research I’ve done, the more I’ve come to hate it. It was very jarring to sit in a DUP meeting not too long ago and hear the ladies joking about polygamy. I had to really focus and try to put myself back into the mindset I initially grew up with.
Didn’t realize how long that was. Apologies.
And yet, those fruits gave us the twelve tribes of Israel. Those who claim all instances of plural marriage are “bad” under any scenario are essentially saying the Lord is wrong to use plurality to raise up seed per Jacob 2:30. Presuming, that is, plural marriage is what’s being referenced in that verse of scripture. Perhaps someone has an alternate interpretation.
When I (child of Midwestern converts) finally tumbled to the facts about polygamy, I came to my Utah-bred, physician husband to try to get my bearings. His first response: “Some of them went to medical school.” He was really trying to help, but, no…. Because my unspoken reply is, “So what? Would you be happy if the price for your schooling was what LDS women paid then and still pay today?”
People in the church today discuss polygamy as if it was over. If I am not mistaken it is either going to become legal again very soon or it effectively is legal already.
Since it is still prescribed in the DC 132 and since the primary reason that it was abandoned was because the US government forced it to be stopped to the point of losing the temples and since even for many decades after the 1890 Manifesto it was quietly practiced by most of the highest leaders in the church…. I don’t see how we can continue to avoid another course correction now that the government has clearly moved away from its 19th century prohibition against polygamy.
One of the more disturbing aspects of polygamy is that it is still practiced by tens of thousands of “Mormons” today. Mormons being defined broadly as believers in the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith as a prophet, not necessarily confined to those with their names in the great big database on North Temple with the proper paperwork filled out at the water’s edge of baptism.
The insane FLDS are in the news constantly but the AUB is even larger and at least 50 other splintered groups are out there. We have some AUB people here in Atlanta of all places. Many are secretive but at least 50,000 people including their children are living in plural marriage. Most have large families.
Even more disturbing is that the practice of polygamy in the intermountain west is GROWING! Some of the growth is from internal reproduction. But when you run off the male half of the offspring and don’t have decent medical care and decent education, jobs, etc., for the rest, it is hard to retain most of the next generation.
Polygamy continues to grow because of successful recruitment from the more extreme members of the mainstream LDS church. This unpleaasant little secret is what drives its growth. Nobody wants to talk about cohab missionary work. These converts often bring some paltry monetary assets and effectively trade it for more young wives. The polygamists live off of this along with a few legitimate businesses and government welfare (bleeding the beast). If it wasn’t for this constant flow of new blood andmoney they might grow anemic and shrivel to a degree.
I think we are reaching a tipping point. Either we embrace polygamy as our legacy along with the people who were faithful in living it underground all of these years. Hoping that our missionary efforts might not suffer that much and the intellectuals who find it repulsive don’t grumble too loud. Or we have to repudiate it unequivocally, to the point that our most extreme members stop joining it. The excuses for Joseph Smith and all the rest doing it have to go. The illogical dancing around fine points of doctrine don’t work anymore. There may have been a time when, with enough cooperation from law enforcement, we might have been able to stamp it out, except for an irrelevant handful of fanatics. But that opportunity has been lost.
If we continue to ignore it, as the number of polygamists increases in size in a climate when all other religions are losing people, it becomes increasingly impossible to distance ourselves from them in the public mind and eventually in our own mind. Imagine a Utah high school in the not distant future that is 25% active LDS, 25% not active but of Mormon heritage, 10% polygamist children and 40% “gentiles” from elsewhere. Stratify that across 50% being immigrants from Mexico and elsewhere but somewhat concentrated in the gentiles and mainstream Mormon groups. How are we going to prevent the polygamists from recruiting effectively at that point? In a couple more generations almost every maninstream LDS family will have polygamist relatives. You and each of you will have a few great-grand children if not grandchildren raised in plural marriage. Continuing to eschew them becomes difficult.
Postponing a clear theological break with plural marriage only grows more difficult as they grow in size, influence and are integrated into our society. I might also point out that after President Monson “sleeps with his fathers,” the next two in line are sealed to two wives. They have large families from the first and are dependent upon the second as their health fails.
Lets talk about the future of polygamy.
I don’t think living polygamy would be allowed even if it was made completely legal and acceptable in the US. There just aren’t the “positives” needed for it.
Some might even think it would be a benefit to the growing number of single women (never married and divorced) in the Church, but I think the current abilities to not just provide for themselves physically (albeit with greater difficulty) but the allowance of more sociality across a more broad pool (bloggernacle alone is pretty broad), I think it would be better to work on having more faithful men than to shift to a “polygyny is better than being alone” horridness. If someone is going to choose polygamy (of either stripe) it should be the desire of everyone involved, without guile.
IDIAT, statistics show polygamy didn’t increase overall fertility rates and population numbers. The practicing women of polygamy had less children per person; the practicing man increased his number of offspring . . . but it came at the cost of all the 20-30 yo unmarried men in society. It only raised up a “seed” amongst mormon leaders, not mormons at large. You can do with that what you will.
Mary Ann– excellent points.
Kristine A — the latest statistics show a decrease in per wife fertility but greater overall fertility so that there was met population growth. I just listened to a demographer talk about that this year.
All that said, https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/jacob/2.24 is pretty much the conclusion I draw.
Quote:
24 Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord.
25 Wherefore, thus saith the Lord, I have led this people forth out of the land of Jerusalem, by the power of mine arm, that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph.
26 Wherefore, I the Lord God will not suffer that this people shall do like unto them of old.
27 Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none;
In my circle of mormon interactions there are a few clear reasons why polygamy is not really discussed.
First, the women in my life do not like the concept in the least. Not my wife. Not my daughters. Not my sisters.
It is an uncomfortable topic for them because of the personal ramifications upon them as individuals with the prospect of “sharing” their spouse in the eternities with one or many, many more sister wives. They have been taught to be celibate until marriage and then totally faithful afterwards and the concept of their husband having sexual relations with other women just fly in the face of their lived experience in church and church culture.
Second, the cultural explanations for why polygamy was practiced fall very short from reality. It doesn’t take too many times to argue that the reason polygamy was practiced is because there were too many women widows so the prophet had to marry them and take care of them and then find out that there were actually more men in the 1800’s Utah for you not to feel foolish for defending the practice based upon very faulty traditional justification.
Third, the mormon culture is highly uncomfortable with talking about sex. It is difficult to not connect polygamy with sex, even subconsciously.
Despite, the possibility of there being potential good in the practice of polygamy, the most transparent effects on members is bad. Even if that is only psychological.
I don’t see why anyone would want to actively talk about it in the first place.
So I am not very surprised we don’t and people really don’t know much about it.
But that is just my perspective.
If I had to spend the eternities with Wife#1 and #2 given the present circumstances, methinks I’d actually have been sent to “Hell” (what it’d be for them we can only speculate) like in some episode of Rod Serling’s “Night Gallery”. When Jacob said OTHERWISE we’d have to adhere to ‘these things’ (e.g., monogamy), it wasn’t a restriction but a reassurance.
IDIAT, there is a difference between stating polygamy is uninspired and expressing dislike for the practice. Like James said, I’d expect the majority of Mormon find the concept distasteful (understatement, I know), but they are willing to believe that it was a command from God. If you were to continue in Jacob 2, specifically verses 31-35, you would see some very common and very understandable ramifications for women.
I agree with Frank. Reinstating polygamy would be very problematic for the church. First, it would implicitly legitimize many FLDS groups and undermine the emphasis on following current leaders of the church. Two, although there are a few who note the irony of the church fighting the government making alternate forms of marriage legal, it would be hard to obscure the hypocrisy of the church doing an about-face and saying, “Just kidding! You thought we were promoting a return to the traditional 1950s ideal? Silly you! We meant a very rare family structure of the 1850s!”
James, I think we are too unwilling to truly embrace female equality. And comfortable about the rest.
For a counterpoint. http://lemmonythings.com/2014/11/25/joseph-smiths-multiple-wives-and-why-i-dont-care-at-all/
Mary Ann — the FLDS seem to manage to capture everything negative.
I can’t see anything positive we could gain from it in today’s church.
Stephen, I agree. As long as people associate polygamy with the gut-wrenching practices of Warren Jeffs’ offshoot, I don’t think we’ll be in danger of reinstating polygamy anytime soon.
Some women don’t want to be part of a church that is even discussing the return of polygamy. They don’t want to subscribe to a theology that includes it. They simple want absolutely nothing to do with it, just like 99.9% of the women they know.
I mean non-LDS women they know.
Just b/c the legal and social state of marriage and/or social mores has degenerated into “olly-olly-oxen-free” doesn’t mean that the Church will consider itself in position to reinstate polygamy. AFAIK, it’s something that even about 120 or so years ago most would have gladly left behind, and I sense no great sentiment to relive it. If nothing else, it drew unwarranted attention. That’s one thing most infantry officers are taught, either in training or if the platoon sergeant places a dud grenade in his sleeping bag, to not draw fire. I’d like to think that our erstwhile prophets, seers, and revelators were at least as smart as a ‘butter-bar’ lieutenant.
I personally agree with most posters and I find polygamy disgusting and would revolt at the reinstitution of it.
The problem I have with it is our rejection of it in the here and now coupled with a nebulous acceptance of it both earlier and probably later after death. I disagree with the excuses that continue to be perpetuated that justify it.
Polygamy did not increase fertility neither in the 19th century nor in the late 20th century. So explain to me how Short Creek grew from about 500 people during the 1953 raid to over 10,000 today. The answer is successful missionary work.It ain’t the Baptists who are joining them. So why do we sit and do nothing and keep silent because we are uncomfortable while the fundy missionaries lead so many of our zealous/kooky brothers and sisters into it.
How are the women in the family circle of people like James Allred above (#21) going to feel when their grand daughters and great-granddaughters are pulled into it? How do you think my father feels about the handful of his friends who grew up with him in Cache valley and became polygamists.
I don’t see how anything good can be attributed to polygamy. Look at your examples again and I think you would see that there were other factors involved, not polygamy, or that the instances of the good were so small that one cannot use them as examples. We unfortunately were more like Warren Jeffs’ group than we like to believe. Amen to getting rid of the practice. It is and was horrible for all involved.
Mike – Maybe there are lots of reasons we sit and do nothing. But one has got to be wishful thinking. President Hinckley – I’m not criticizing his wish – wanted it to be true when he said, “They have nothing to do with us; it’s a matter for the law.” But while our doctrine is still that the church would practice polygamy again, “if God commands,” I think we are complicit.
We can have all the positives without polygamy and avoid all the negatives with monogamy — which leaves me with Jacob’s sermon.
But until we talk about it in those terms the shadow of it harms is still.
To me, the biggest reason people hate polygamy is not wanting to “share.” As I’ve thought and prayed about it, I realized that there is a certain competitive mindset, and an opposite mindset that is better referred to as Zion.
I think in order to reach Zion, you have to make the welfare of others and not yourself a primary focus. Under that understanding, I would learn to be okay with polygamy if it were commanded of me.
No one should ever be asked to give up their self respect for the welfare of others, or to reach Zion for that matter.
@SilverRain #32
Two questions:
1. Are you a man?
2. Do you believe the “Law of Sarah” allowing men to marry women despite the objections of their current spouse to be inspired?
As far as testimony goes, my testimony that Heavenly Father loves me is one of the things I feel more sure about than anything else. And in our religion, eternal marriage and agency are of utmost importance. I do not believe that HF would take away my agency regarding my eternal marriage – He loves me too much for that. Even if I am just the wife.
So here I hang onto this religion by my fingernails whenever topics like polygamy come up. Because I don’t believe the “Law of Sarah” was inspired. So then do I believe polygamy was inspired? etc. etc. cognitive dissonance etc. etc.
As a single, never married, childless 30-something year old woman, I have to say that I dislike the idea of polygamy because to me in seems like a way of formalizing a lot of the personal anxieties that I already have and creating a circumstance where I would be constantly competing for the attention of someone who has already demonstrated that I am not his first choice. I could only see it as being livable if I didn’t have particularly strong feelings for him, beyond a degree of like and respect and if I could live in my own home raising my children as I saw fit with him visiting on an agreed upon schedule.
Mistral – I don’t want to assume too much about your anxieties, but write just to say that married women with children probably share many of them with you. Polygamy puts us all on unstable ground.
Thank you Anon.
For me thinking about polygamy brings back memories of the last YSA ward I belonged to. It was dysfunctional in many ways for many reasons but part of it was that there was a very unbalanced male to female ratio that resulted in a lot of competition between the women.
hi Silverrain, I used to feel as you do , especially after teaching D/c seminary in the early 80s, and having several dear friends either unmarried or divorced. i would have gladly welcomed them into our home and marriage.
Thirty years later with a hard-earned 35 year old marriage, I’m so glad I wasn’t in a position to have done so. The sweet companionship and sexual relationship I have with my spouse could not have existed under polygamy. That’s not selfish, it has to do with selflessness and obedience every bit as much as any polygamy as i have shared my spouse with children, family, ward, stake and his professional life.
I think the only way it worked was by sacrificing intimacy and the interior journey that long monogamous marriages require and the concomitant spiritual growth, and led to pretty brutal and primitive relating between men and women. I suspect that the greatest intimacy women experienced was with their female relatives, and they had low expectations of marriage. Kids maybe gained from it in that their mothers may have survived longer due to less sex and fewer childbirths than they might otherwise have experienced.
So my husband and I are as one in refusing this doctrine. a lower kingdom and the joy we experience together in this life are currently a price we are prepared to pay for our fidelity to each other.
This brings up how polygamy was intended to “exalt” women: by forcing them to face these anxieties so that they could put off the natural (wo)man. It was supposed to create angst and heartache. Among the women. It also restored the “proper” Order of Things that was subverted by The Fall when man hearkened to woman (“Thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee”). Woman no longer had any bargaining chips- if her husband was unhappy with her, he could just go to Family B (or C or D) and they would treat him just fine.
I am currently reading Merina Smith’s Revelation, Resistance, and Mormon Polygamy: The Introduction and Implementation of the Principle, 1830–1853 and it tracks the evolving rationales given for polygamy and the development of the doctrine. Fascinating stuff. But the more I learn about it, the less I believe God had anything to do with it.
It appears that polygamy worked best when the wives liked each other more than they liked their husband.
Silverrain is a woman.
Moss’s comment sounds a whole lot like the episode of the Tudors I recently saw at the gym. Anne Boyleyn is concerned that she’s pregnant for the second time after giving birth to a disappointing girl. She doesn’t want anything to happen to the baby, so she doesn’t want to lie with King Henry VIII. She is very worried because he’s taken a mistress, and she knows full well how easily she could be replaced. Her father advises her that it’s the right of both husbands and kings to take a mistress if needed while their wives are pregnant, and the real key is for Anne to choose a mistress for him, someone who won’t subvert her, who will be her ally, not her rival.
So, how is it that polygamy was more moral than monogamy? There’s a damn good reason we don’t bring it up. The justifications are simply untenable.
I mostly despise the double-talk:
-we have nothing to do with polygamy!
-currently practice polygamy in our temple sealings. Guarantee you every remarried Q12 is looking forward to his polygamous afterlife.
In regards to the “not being jealous” part of polygamy; I understand the argument but don’t agree w it. We are commanded to be one w our spouses–polygamy by its very nature drives ppl emotionally farther apart.
Okay, question: Isn’t it right that every remarried man AND woman would be looking forward to an afterlife with the ones they loved?
I just don’t understand how that has anything to do with harem-scare ’em (“do this or be destroyed” – 132) polygamy.
Grandpa remarried a lovely woman who we included as part of our family for 20 years. A young widow finds a good man to make a blended family with. This is life. Don’t we all expect that there are things to be worked out in the hereafter?
The OP asks why we think we weren’t told. I think it’s because Joseph Smith’s polygamy is an example of the very worst aspect of it all. No taking care of women, no children – just heartbreak for Emma. Telling us about that rightly focuses empathy on her.
Regarding the question about Jacob 2:30: “For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.”
This is sandwiched between scathing rebukes for men having multiple wives and concubines. Most people don’t interrupt their rebukes to bring up the rare exceptions. Secondly, the verse’s use of pronouns is unclear.
Rather than using this verse as a supporting argument for polygamy, it could be the Lord was saying, “Listen to what I am saying now–one man and one wife is my command and is what is necessary to bring up righteous children. Otherwise, you shall have to hear “these” things (His threats regarding cursing the land because of their unchaste actions.)
This is the reasoning of Curtis Henderson who wrote the best arguments against polygamy I have read. He argues that polygamy is a tare within the gospel wheat field. He is still believing, but he argues that we should examine this issue enough to be able to reject it. After all, it might be embarrassing to return to Heavenly Father and say, “Polygamy was the elephant in my gospel beliefs, but I decided to just believe and not examine it.” Don’t we keep seeking for truth?
http://athoughtfulfaith.org/curtis-henderson-errant-nature-of-polygamy-fallible-prophets-seeking-for-truth/
Another interesting scripture is in Malachi 2 which is a rebuke of the priests of that time. In Malachi 2:14 it says, “Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.”
Verse 15 adds, “And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.” (Could the “one” mean a covenant of one man and one woman?)
While Moroni did not quote Malachi 2, he did quote other parts of Malachi. That surely should have brought Joseph to read the entire book of Malachi and to have given some thought to what it meant to deal treacherously with one’s wife of his youth.
Malachi 2 is a rebuke to the unrighteous priests of that time.
Malachi 2:14-15 says
“Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.
“And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.”
Couldn’t the one be emphasizing one covenant?
Moroni quotes much of Malachi to Joseph. While this did not include chapter 2, one would think that would have led Joseph to the entire book and given him reason to ponder what it meant to deal treacherously with the wife of his youth.
To envision a future of mormonism without polygamy is to ignore the repeated and consistent sermons and teachings to the contrary between 1850-1895 by the prophet and those commissioned to expound doctrine. To propose that polygamy will not be practiced in the future is to blatantly imply that our prophet and the quorum of the 12 during that period were 100% wrong about “the greatest revelation ever given to the saints.” And yet, that’s exactly the path the church will take, never addressing the elephant in the room.
And to opine that Brigham was for equality of the sexes is to willfully ignore the stories and lives of most of the women close to him, in favor of a few obscure anecdotes that have been spotlighted to make the narrative more palatable. This is a man who literally bartered a man for his fiance in exchange for his salvation and joked with other men about how many times they had “frigged” their wives the night before. One of his wives found herself addicted to morphine to ease the marital neglect. I don’t argue that there weren’t positives, just that this post is a case of telling a half-truth to arrive at persuasive conclusion. The records are there. Just a matter of looking at the entire picture.
Greg, I think we disagree on who is telling the half truths.
Not a few anecdotes. It is a large body of consistent and constant sermons on the point.
What struck me as remarkable about old sermons was the large volume of them on the concept of women as equals and not property and how the message never seemed to penetrate.
I found that remarkable and it got me thinking about just what other messages are we just not hearing.
Not the one offs, like Hinkley on reasonable gun control, but the steady repeated ones.
Made me start pondering my own blind spots.
But when Joseph Feilding Smith starts an address with “this will surprise you but your wives are not your property” it is obvious that (a) that group the MM and Gleaners) had not gotten the message and (b) it was still alien to them.
Sorry, lost a parenthetical.
Posting from a phone during a break.
Might help convince people of equality if we could ditch “preside” as something needing to be applied to the family. Elder Oaks spoke once on how the family order was not the same as the Church order; can’t we leave “preside” to church organizations alone?
Greg – The elephant in the room is making a mess that stinks to modern Mormon women. It’s hard for us to be told that there’s nothing to be done because the room was built around a younger and smaller elephant. Could we please take out a few windows or a door and make room for its exit? The great thing about the Internet age has been connecting with others who also smell the smell. Even better when they are men because then women can reasonably hope for change.
I’ll note that the conversation has moved on to other blogs:
http://www.millennialstar.org/oh-say-what-is-truth-evaluating-claims-regarding-nauvoo-polygamy/
With links to others.
If the church didn’t repudiate polygamy in the gospel topics essays (like with the race and priesthood essay), then it probably never will. The Book of Mormon specifies a situation where God would command polygamy – to raise up seed. Joseph included a couple other reasons to practice polygamy, but they are not as compelling to me based on what I’ve seen.
It’s already been noted that polygamy has a negligible effect on the population as a whole (and a slight decrease on an individual woman’s fertility). But… you need to look at *who* was raising up seed at exponential rates. Even with a slight decrease in fertility per woman, you start putting multiple women with a guy, and his amount of posterity is significantly higher than in monogamy. With the exception of Joseph Smith (max 3 kids produced via polygamy, if that), the posterity of early church leaders is mind-boggling. With a large family, a monogamous guy can have hundreds of descendants within a handful of generations (while infant mortality was high, it is not unusual to see 19th century families where 8-10 kids lived to adulthood and managed to have posterity of their own). You get large families + polygamy? You now have thousands of descendants within a handful of generations. I have a couple *thousand* 3rd cousins from just *one* Mormon polygamist ancestor. And he was a 2nd generation polygamist. Those allowed in polygamy were men loyal to the church, and usually decently able to provide for a second family. You get a rich guy who’s prominent in the church? He would have been pressured into a larger number of wives. More children are being produced by very active church members, which puts a higher likelihood on many of those children remaining in the church. The next generations of polygamy would only occur among those children who remain active in the church, again upping the percentage of those children staying in the church. There is a reason the church’s plural marriage essay included the line “A substantial number of today’s members descend through faithful Latter-day Saints who practiced plural marriage.” When they say a substantial number, they *mean* a substantial number.
That being said (and 19th century justifications to the contrary), Jacob 2 states the ideal marriage type is monogamy. The church currently has a presence in countries where polygamy is legal. They still do NOT allow practicing polygamists to be baptized. Convert baptisms are now at almost triple the rate children are being born into the church. We don’t need polygamy to fuel church growth. As stated before
–All the positive benefits that members use to feel better about historical polygamy (in the OP) are now freely available without that institution. (With the exception that polygamy supposedly helped curb adultery and prostitution. Given that we’re a church that values overcoming our carnal natures, that justification was highly suspect in the first place.)
–Re-instituting polygamy would legitimize many FLDS offshoots, which is not good morale for following current leadership.
–Polygamy is now even *more* intimately associated with oppression of women. All the negatives in the OP, and none of the positives.
As far as sealings are concerned, we’ve had funky rules in the past, we have funky rules now, and we’ll have different funky rules in the future. Parents and their biological children weren’t consistently sealed together until the 1890s. At one point daughters who died unmarried were sealed to husbands of their sisters. At one point only a first wife of a husband could be sealed to him (the reaction against polygamy had swung far), so later wives and children of those later wives were just out of luck. Sometimes the children of later wives were sealed to the guy and the first wife, just to give them a bone. Not only were all these practices idiotic, they were incredibly confusing for family researchers. At this point we’ve pretty much thrown up our hands and seal every individual to every spouse they had, and even to people they weren’t technically married to if they had kids together. Although the living rules for sealings are a bit different, after you die one of your descendants (or descendants of your family members) will inevitably complete any undone sealings to your spouses, parents, and children just to tie up loose ends. My aunt regularly flips out over her grandfather being sealed to that floozie of a second wife. I reply, “You know what? They’re dead. Let them figure it out. At least they have options.”
There were women who entered polygamy who hated it. There were women who entered polygamy who found it difficult, but livable. There were even women who entered polygamy who professed to really like it. The point is that we can’t teach that *all* women loved it or that *all* women hated it. History is messier than that. We *can* teach that it was a temporary sacrifice that is unnecessary today. And we *can* teach our daughters that if you have someone approach you about entering plural marriage, you punch that person and run away. According to Jacob 2, God has more respect for his daughters than that.
Nowhere in the Bible does God command us as his children to marry more than one spouse. Nowhere in the Book of Mormon does God command us as his children to marry more than one spouse. He repeats over and over again how he abhors such practices and that they are an abomination to him. If God is a real God then his word is the same yesterday today and forever. Therefore the conclusion i have reached is that polygamy or polyandry are not of God.