I think most people agree that polygamy was practiced secretly in Nauvoo. Polygamy skeptics like to blame it on Brigham Young, but even if that were true, what types of secret evidence would we expect to see? Would that apply to Joseph if he was secretly practicing polygamy as well?
Mark: Yeah, you have the strongest kind of evidence. So again, since polygamy is something that was being denied openly while being practiced privately, you’re going to have, basically, a few kinds of evidence. You’re going to have, (I would say) four kinds of evidence. And it’s important to look at all of these. You’re going to have privately held evidence that are private records by the people that are participating, that are pro-polygamy that are faithful. You’re going to have that.
GT: Faithful to the LDS Church.
Mark: Yes, faithful to LDS. Because somebody who is faithful is not going to talk openly about polygamy at that time. They’re not going to do it.
…
Mark: They’re people, a lot of times, it’s because of polygamy, that they’re dissenters. That’s what’s turned them off. Other times it’s other reasons that they’ve been turned off and since they have this, they’re going to use this as retaliation. It’s going to be that. So you’re going to have those. Those are going to be your contemporary evidences. It’s going to fall into those two categories. Those are really the only reasonable expectations.
GT: Dissidents.
Mark: Then, you’re going to have later evidence from friendly people who are participants that are going to talk about it after the secret’s out. Then, the fourth category, I think this is a very good, big, important one to talk about, is third party evidence. So, this is going to be accounts from people, usually later, after the secret’s out, who are neither anti-Mormon dissenters or pro-polygamy. So, people who have no reason to want to discredit Joseph Smith, [nor] who want to attack to Joseph Smith, and have no reason to want to promote that he was a polygamist.
Mark: Now you asked about rules about evidence. There is another thing about hearsay. It’s called the statement against interest. If somebody says something that goes against their interest, that carries some weight. So, we can look at some of the contemporary evidence.
We get into more detail. What polygamy evidence is there in the Nauvoo period? Mark Tensmeyer will tell us about the Sarah Pratt case, Hyrum Smith before the high council, and other evidence polygamy was secretly practiced by Joseph Smith in the Nauvoo period.
Mark: There is the deal where in January 1844, Joseph and William Law are holding a city council meeting, and William Law is questioning a witness. He asked him, “Well, what did we talk about? What did you and I talk about on that day?”
Mark: “We talked about the doctrine of plurality of wives, the rumors about it. It’s really messing up families. It’s causing a lot of pain to a lot of people.” And William Law says there on the record, “…and don’t you think there’s some truth to those things because Joseph and Hyrum blew up the matter before the High Council, and the Elders quorum?”
Mark: And so Joseph responds by saying, “A man who promises to keep a secret and doesn’t, cannot be trusted in anything.”
GT: Meaning that Wil[liam] broke a secret.
Mark: That William broke a secret. Yes, he did. So, what secret did he break? So, it kind of inadvertently [discussed polygamy.] It’s after that, that things really start to fall out between Joseph and the Laws. William Law starts the Reformed Church, and a number of people join.
…
Then, of course, William Law, his attack on there, it’s really two-pronged. The one thing he does is he files criminal charges against Joseph in Carthage for unlawful cohabitation with Mariah Lawrence and others. That goes before a grand jury. A grand jury indicts. People in that grand jury include active elements, including people from the Mormons. It includes Daniel H Wells. It includes William Marks. He’s there as part of it. It includes Willard Griffith.
GT: The grand jury includes all these people?
Mark: It includes Mormons, and they say that there was probable cause. They indict him. So, they say that there is probable cause that these charges against Joseph Smith are true. They bound him over for trial in October 1844. Now, of course, that trial never happens. We know why. Because Joseph died before that, but had Joseph not been killed in June 1844, then there would have been a full-on trial about polygamy. So that trial that Joseph was put on trial almost happened.
Mark: Yeah. Of course, the other thing they do is they publish The Expositor. The Expositor says a few things about polygamy. It says things like, they’re taking these women and it exaggerates some things. “They are leading them out into the wilderness, if they say no, and all kinds of things.” But what it also has is it has three affidavits by Austin Coles, William Law and Jane Law. William Law says, “Hyrum gave us revelation. It allowed for people taking plural wives.” Jane Law says it did and it said he can take up to 10. Doctrine and Covenants section 113 doesn’t say you can take up 10, but it does mention ‘if a man takes 10 wives and they are virgins…’ it says that one point.
Then Austin Coles has an affidavit in there. His is detailed. He said, “Late last summer, Hyrum Smith read a revelation to the High Council. The first part said that if a person was sealed up to eternal life, and they could not lose their exaltation unless they commit murder.” Then, it talks about how Abraham and Jacob, their doctrine in taking plural wives. It says that it allowed for a man to take plural wives. So, he gives a description that’s actually really good summary of Doctrine & Covenants Section 132 as we know it. It’s brief, but a pretty comprehensive summary there.
We talk about other evidence in Nauvoo as well. The LDS and RLDS Churches have fought about Joseph Smith’s polygamy for a century. Is there 3rd party evidence that could settle this? Mark Tensmeyer discusses evidence outside the two churches that can help settle the matter as to whether Joseph Smith practiced polygamy.
Mark: Another section, after William Marks is dead, there’s one of the apostles by the name of Zenas Gurley, Jr, whose father was very instrumental in founding the LDS Church. He’s wanting to get to the bottom of this. I think it’s 1880s and William Marks is dead at this point, but Leonard Sobey, who was the other member of the High Council, he did not become a Brighamite. He followed Rigdon and after Rigdon’s church fell apart, he just sort of stayed out there and remained unaffiliated, but still believed. He goes out to Leonard Sobey and asks him, “What happened? What really happened?”
Sobey said, “Hyrum Smith read a revelation on plural marriage. As near as I can recall, it’s the exact same revelation the Utah church put out.”
GT: Oh, wow. That would sure be nice to throw out if you’re a polygamy skeptic. That’s after June 27, 1844.
Mark tells about other RLDS or even Bickertonite members who concede Joseph practiced polygamy. Why do you think some LDS members are buying into the argument that Joseph was a monogamist? Do you agree the evidence is overwhelming that Joseph practiced polygamy?
Wheat & Tares 
One nice consequence of walking away from the Church is that I don’t have to defend the indefensible nor do I have anything to gain or lose whether or not JS was a polygamist. I’m pretty sure he was based on the evidence I’ve seen. But if he wasn’t, that doesn’t change my view of his truth claims.
I think most members have come around to believing that JS was indeed a polygamist. After all, there’s a Gospel Topic Essay on the Church’s own web site that says so. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at my very TBM bishopric member who insists that Brigham Young started the Church’s little experiment with polygamy….that the Church and BYU have been taken over by the “extremely liberal” Church history department.
The fact that Joseph was a polygamist is beyond any dispute. Period. As Josh said, even the church admits this.
I feel like I’ve heard stories of multiple religious and spiritual leaders taking multiple wives or being womanizers, and so I was thinking to myself, “What is it about being a spiritual leader that causes men to think this is what they should do? Why is this so common?” I did a google search to come up with a list of founders of religion who took multiple wives like Joseph Smith did (I felt like it would be a straightforward and easy search)- but after spending a bit of time looking for it, I just kept coming up with results for Joseph Smith and Brigham Young over and over again. It turns out it’s not that common.
I think being raised in the church, and being the descendent of a polygamist, has caused me to think that the church’s history with polygamy is much more normal than it actually is. I’m beginning to glimpse non-members will still associate the church with polygamy, even though it’s been discontinued for 100+ years*. I guess it actually is pretty weird.
Have any of you felt the same way, not feeling like our history with polygamy is that big of a deal? Am I the odd one out, or late to the game on this one?
One more question. I do know that there have been other movements and attempts to build utopias where people have practiced polygamy and or polyamory, but they’ve all been pretty limited in scope. None of them have built a major city that I’m aware of. Is another reason the church gets associated with polygamy, and just articles about JS and BY come up, because it’s been the most “successful” experiment with polygamy in American history?
I guess my question is: Do people associate Mormonism with polygamy more because it’s so weird? Or because it’s so weird that this polygamous group grew so much and was so prosperous? Or both?
“Why do you think some LDS members are buying into the argument that Joseph was a monogamist?”
The answer I hear most is the lack of children with any wife but Emma.
I also think that some people just can’t bear to picture Joseph Smith having relationships – especially consummated ones – with women other than Emma. It goes against the great love story the church has taken great pains to play up.
Josh, a bishopric member believes Brigham started polygamy? I shouldn’t be surprised I guess, but I still am.
aporetic, I watched a Netflix on David Koresh of the Branch Davidians. (Remember the Waco disaster?) Allegedly he was a polygamist. And if we look at the religious adulterers, there are many: Jimmy Swaggart, MLK, to name a few. Adulterers are more common than polygamists. Like non-Mormon scholar Larry Foster says, if it was all about sex, there are easier ways than inventing a theological basis for it.
“Is another reason the church gets associated with polygamy?”
Well, the US government fought the Utah Church from 1852-1890 (and beyond, really through the 3rd Manifesto in 1933.) So that’s roughly 90 years of association, and not going to be forgotten by the public easily.
“it’s been the most “successful” experiment with polygamy in American history?” I would say yes. I can’ t think of any other organizations espousing polygamy in America.
I like Ruth’s 2nd answer better than her first: “I also think that some people just can’t bear to picture Joseph Smith having relationships – especially consummated ones – with women other than Emma. It goes against the great love story the church has taken great pains to play up.” The lack of children is a justification for this real reason modern LDS want to think Joseph was a monogamist, not a primary motivation.
aporetic1 – regarding Mormon polygamy being a successful experiment. I look around at all the amazing polygamy-descended Mormons in my life, and have to say that in at least one way, Mormon polygamy was a success.
But the church won’t call it an experiment, and therein lies the rub.
I don’t think that polygamy was a successful experiment at all. It never has been. When you read the Genesis chapters dealing with Abraham and Jacob plus other plural marriages mentioned in the OT such as the story of the prophet Samuel’s mother’s situation when her husband took another wife because she was supposedly barren NONE of these stories show happy, healthy normally functioning families. Polygamy brings about favoritism, jealousy, children growing up without a strong relationship with their father, unhappy wives with unfulfilled needs, a lower standard of living or outright poverty as a result of having to feed, clothe and care for so many wives and children, bickering between wives and sets of children, etc. When Joseph Smith was reading the OT scriptures about polygamy he either glossed over the myriad problems that polygamy brought with it or else he was ignorant or too full of himself to think that those unhealthy behaviors and consequences would ever happen to him.
After reading Todd Compton’s very illuminating book “In Sacred Loneliness” about Joseph Smith’s wives who in later years willingly submitted to being interviewed about their polygamous/polyamorous marriages to him which they then signed and dated, had witnessed and notarized, I learned that nearly all of the ladies concerns about carrying on clandestine relationships where they and Joseph had to lie in order to keep a lid on what was going on behind closed doors. The fact that dishonesty was such a huge feature of Nauvoo polygamy tells me that this was NOT God’s will for his people. In scripture God always comes down hard on those who lie and try to keep illegal and/or immoral acts from being found out. Joseph didn’t get a pass on his dishonesty and lying just because he was the prophet. If anything, he should have realized that he, more than anyone else in the church, ought to be living a life that could withstand the closest scrutiny.
The stain and scourge of polygamy has continued to live on in our church and not just in the terrible unfairness of eternal polygamy whereby a man can still be sealed to however many wives he’s been lawfully married to while women may not. I’m talking about the deep psychological scars and sick behaviors that polygamy brought about and/or made much worse. I have polygamy horror stories on both sides of my family that would turn your hair purple, but in talking with others who have polygamous ancestors their stories are just as awful. What nobody ever talks about is how polygamy damaged and warped the children in any number of ways. In doing family history the stories that I have uncovered have helped me to understand why my maternal grandmother and most of her siblings were so thoroughly messed up. On my dad’s side it was my maternal great-grandparents who suffered. Those sick ways of dealing with life and relating to others got worse with every generation because 1) those were the behaviors that they were taught and saw the adults in their lives model. 2) Many adults, especially church leaders and people in other positions of leadership and authority, tended to strongly encourage families and individuals to not discuss the adverse effects of polygamy on them or their families. Sometimes people were threatened with church discipline for doing so . On both sides of my family we held cousins’ meetings back in 2000 to tell the story of what polygamy did to our ancestors and how that affected the way our parents were raised and why they themselves had some very unhealthy beliefs that affected the way that we were raised. We cousins then covenanted with each other that we would seek professional help to overcome generations of unhealthy behaviors/beliefs so that the the toxic fallout from polygamy ended with us thereby freeing our children from this “curse”. While it hasn’t been easy, we’ve been very successful in stopping the transmission of the wretched side effects of plural marriage from messing up the lives of yet another generation in both families. NO, polygamy was NEVER a success. Ever. Polygamy was wrong from beginning. It’s high time that we say this part out loud in the church.
APWS,
IMO, Brigham young built the most stable community–which included the practice of polygamy–in the history of North America. When you mention the difficulties that folks in those days suffered from the practice of polygamy–you are telling only one side of the story, IMO. There are plenty of positive stories and statements about polygamy in the historical record as well.
Also, I think it can be useful to measure the downside of Latter-day Saint polygamy againts the downside of marriage as it is currently practiced in the West. What we see today is an absolute disaster comparatively speaking. And so to say that polygamy doesn’t work because some folks didn’t have a good experience with it is not proof of the pudding–unless we’re willing to assume that monogamous marriage doesn’t work either–because most folks are having a bad experience with that, too.
Re: The ramifications of polygamy in later generations: I don’t want to be disrespectful of the difficulties you’ve experience with mental illness in your family that stem from the practice of polygamy. I can certainly imagine that kind of scenario. I know–my family is also stricken with mental illness–some of it quite severe. But we come from a different stock–Okies who migrated to California during the Dust Bowl and became apple pickers. They weren’t polygamists–but they sure had their own brand of problems to deal with.
As I say: I don’t want to be disrespectful. Even so, I’m pushing back a bit because it is a known quantity that many positive things came out of the saint’s practice of polygamy–great blessings. And to set it forth as if nothing good came of it is a bit too cynical for my tastes.
@A Poor Wayfaring Stranger: thank you. What you have written is exactly what I need to read right now.
Jack, I think you may have an overly rosy view of the “stable” community BY built, not in least part because it was built on land violently stolen from indigenous people. It was a society in which slavery, while rare, was touted as a virtuous institution and Native children were forcibly assimilated into white families. It was a society that believed in Blood Atonement and xenophobia. So…stable for who exactly? We should measure the strength of societies by how they treat the marginalized, not how they treat the privileged.
A Poor Wayfaring Stranger gave several tangible, real, relatable examples of how polygamy hurts families, communities, and individuals. I won’t repeat his list in my comment. It’s encouraging to hear that your family recognizes the damage and is seeking healing. Then Jack comes along and says it wasn’t all bad because of some nebulous thing called “great blessings” which is basically meaningless.
The reality is that if God wants more babies in Mormon families, we can get there without polygamy. In fact, women in polygamous relationships have less children than in a monogamous relationship. So whether or not I come from polygamous stock is basically irrelevant to me. If God wanted me to be a Mormon boy he could accomplish that with or without polygamy.
Back to the OP, count me in the camp of home-grown smack dab in the middle of the Salt Lake Valley, seminary graduate, BYU bachelor’s and master’s degrees, returned missionary, who did not know about Joseph Smith’s polygamy until it was introduced to me on BCC circa 2013/2014. After the initial refusal to believe, I put in the time and effort, and Joseph Smith’s polygamy is pretty much a done deal. The argument that he didn’t have children to me is just silly. There are lots of ways to avoid pregnancy, and since Joseph Smith seemed to want to keep polygamy a secret, I would not be at all surprised to eventually learn he employed such methods.
Chadwick,
In my second paragraph I set forth the idea of comparing the downside of polygamy as practiced by the Latter-day Saints with the downside of monogamy as practiced by the modern West in general. That’s where the reality check is. The blessings that came through polygamy–though real and important IMO–are not at the focal point of my argument. What I was trying to do by comparing the two — and likely failed because I really don’t know how to write — is to convey the idea that anecdotal evidence will not suffice. I could lay out a laundry list of everything that is going wrong with marriage in the U.S. today–and use that to prove that the practice of polygamy faired much better than monogamy in the present. And if I really wanted to force the issue I could include all of the devastating effects that infidelity, divorce, fatherlessness, etc., have on the tender hearts and minds of children–many of whom are stricken with mental illness because of such effects.
“If God wanted me to be a Mormon boy he could accomplish that with or without polygamy.”
If God wanted to, he might’ve set the whole plan in motion without a big bang that would produce hundreds of billions of galaxies over billions of years–the vast majority of which are comprised of lifeless material. But here we are. 😀
Kirkstall,
come on, brother. I think you’ve got more ideology that history in your argument.
I am frankly baffled as to the Church’s fairly recent decision to play up the “romance” between Joseph and Emma. When I was growing up, and even in my early adulthood, Emma was mostly maligned as unfaithful (ironic, no?) because she didn’t follow BY to Utah and instead founded an “illegitimate” church with her family in charge.
Jack:
Yes, monogamous relationships don’t always work out the way we hope. But the devastating effects you point to above (infidelity, divorce, fatherlessness) just as easily exist in polygamous relationships. And if I strike out divorce, the other two can exist where this is no formal relationship but in a cohabitation structure. Essentially, polygamous relationships come with all the baggage of monogamous relationships with the addition of all the baggage that A Poor Wayfaring Stranger notes. So while the structure of monogamous relationships could certainly be improved, your argument that polygamous relationships provide something better has not been supported. And in both your comments, you had yet to iterate what blessings exist only in a polygamous relationship.
As to the point that anecdotal evidence will not suffice, I completely disagree. The scriptures are essentially anecdotal evidence. The stories we hear in general conference are anecdotal evidence. The stories coming out of Ukraine right now are anecdotal evidence. Stories matter.
Angela, yes I remember this too as a child. Often my leaders trotted out the quote that Joseph would go to hell and back for Emma, essentially implying that she failed and Joseph would need to save her. I don’t hear that much anymore.
Jack, re: “I think you’ve got more ideology that history in your argument.”
My argument is that a society built on white supremacy enforced by violence is not the utopia you make it out to be. As far as history goes, the early saints’ violence towards the indigenous population (as well as other white settlers) and BY’s white supremacist rhetoric is well documented. As far as ideology, while the discussion has turned to weighing the outcomes, of polygamy can we at least agree that murder and white supremacy are bad?
Chadwick,
I agree that stories matter–but that doesn’t mean that they suffice. Is it enough to be told the story of Jesus’ resurrection to be convinced of it? No. The story is important–in that it gets us in the right frame of mind. But we need something more than the anecdote itself to be convinced of it in a way that calls us to action.
“So while the structure of monogamous relationships could certainly be improved, your argument that polygamous relationships provide something better has not been supported.”
My argument is a hypothetical. What I’m suggesting is: I could bring to bear a lot of negative stats on marriage in the West and then leap to the conclusion that monogamy must therefore be bad–stats that look much worse than those that were employed by A Poor Wayfaring Stranger to prove his/her point about polygamy. But the fact is–you and I know that the problem isn’t monogamy per se. And it’s in that light that I’m pushing back on the criticisms leveled against polygamy. The negative things that I’ve heard about it over the years simply don’t convince me that it was a failed experiment–anymore than monogamy must be a failed experiment because of all the difficulties we’re seeing in marriage at present.
Re: Blessings of Polygamy: The blessings I was speaking of apply specifically to the saint’s obedience in practicing polygamy–not to any unique blessings that might pertain to that practice. Many of those blessings came to the church as a whole as well as to polygamous families. There’s no question that many–if not most–of the saints believed that they were doing the Lord’s will by either living or assenting to the practice of polygamy. There is testimony after testimony in the historical record to that effect. Many of them felt strengthened by the Lord in their efforts to live up to the practice–as it difficult as it was–and were blessed in ways that sustained both their own households and the church at large. The vast majority of church leadership over the next couple of generations would come from those polygamous families. And both the church and the saints as a community would be firmly anchored in their faith because of the influence of those families. So powerful was that influence that it forced the church into the wilderness thereby causing the saints to live as true sectarians for a time–keeping them from backsliding into something that might’ve mirrored the protestant denominations of the time. IMO, polygamy played a major part in increasing the faith of the saints such that the church would be firmly rooted–to the degree that from thence it would be able to spread throughout the world without being overcome by syncretic influences.
Kirkstall,
“My argument is that a society built on white supremacy enforced by violence is not the utopia you make it out to be.”
I agree with what you’re saying in principle. But I disagree with you’re take on the historical record. It seems like you’re washing said history with one sweeping ideological brushstroke. And it obscures the nuance necessary to get a true sense of what the saints were really trying to accomplish and what the collective intent of their hearts was while in the process.
Last comment and I’ll bow out.
Jack: all the things you listed as being blessings of polygamy would be just as true WITHOUT polygamy. Future church leaders can, and do, come from anywhere. People can, and do, feel strengthened by the Lord in monogamous families, or as members not in a marriage. Not one of your examples is unique to the institution, so it still begs the question, where’s the beef?
To wit, while no one in my fairly conservative ward the last few Sundays would condemn Abraham or Jacob for practicing polygamy, everyone was in unison that would not practice it today. If the blessings are so apparent, I would think at least a few mainstream members would be willing to give it a try.
The mainstream members have learned to be quiet about polygamy. They either practice it in secret (I’m told my Lindsay Hansen Park that it is more common than you think) or join a polygamist group. Church leaders are on a seek and destroy mission when it comes to polygamy, so anyone espousing it will quickly get a church court—errr membership council.
Chadwick,
As I say–I’m not talking about blessings that may (or may not) come from practicing polygamy per se. I’m talking about the blessings that came to the saints because of their obedience–it was an Abrahamic sacrifice for them to practice polygamy, IMO. It was an especially designed challenge for the saints at that particular time and in those particular circumstances–which would have lasting positive effects on the church.
A Poor Wayfaring Stranger –
I agree completely that polygamy was wrong from the beginning. The way the church handles the subject has been the biggest driver in my disaffection.
When I said you could call it a success – from the church’s point of view, not mine – because of all the wonderful people who are descended from polygamists, I meant that it is very rare and difficult for anyone to view their roots with disgust and sorrow. It goes against most people’s natures.
I saw a clip of Jeffrey Holland saying that the church will never disavow polygamy. I think the older generation has too much riding on it. They look around in the inter mountain west and just see good people.
I’m impressed that your family has grappled with your true story. And I am sorry for the way I stated my comment.
Wrong word again. By disgust I meant with polygamy, not with the people.
@A Poor Wayfaring Stranger – Thank you for your story.
The negative impact of polygamy is strongest within the church. Not sure how much of the general public these days even know about it – at least before Googling.
When I was knocking on doors around 1980 the most common question we got was, “Aren’t Mormons the ones with lots of wives?” I hear that now the most frequent question is, aren’t Mormons the ones that hate the gays?”
I am breaking my promise to myself to no longer respond to @Jack — just this once. Please check into logical fallacies as a way to improve your arguments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
The good news is we don’t have to rely on anecdotal evidence about whether polygamy was good or bad! (Although there is a lot of heartbreaking testimonial evidence from women who practiced polygamy that it was heartbreakingly bad for them.) But more fundamentally, as practiced in the LDS church historically and currently (via sealings) it is structurally sexist, anti-woman and anti-family.
There is no squaring polygamy with gender equality. There just isn’t. Polygamy says that one man is worth multiple women, and that women’s highest and holiest duty is to be an eternal baby factory in the heavens. I think it will also forever be a wedge in LDS marriages because women can never be completely secure that their spouse will not bring another person into their eternal marriage without consent. And that is an intimacy wrecking ball.
Until we in no uncertain terms repudiate that idea and apologize for ever having practiced or justified it, I don’t think we can eliminate sexism in the church, I don’t think women will be treated or viewed as equals, and many women will continue to have a twinge (or more) of insecurity in their marriages that their husband has a power over them that they do not have and if they do not behave he can get another eternal wife. Or even if they do, he can still get another to meet more needs. We can never be enough. One woman isn’t enough for a man.
Section 132 is canonized spousal abuse and unrighteous dominion. Polygamy is rotten. Were some good people born through it? Sure. That doesn’t redeem it.
But you don’t have to take my word for it!
You can read In Sacred Loneliness. You can listen to Year of Polygamy. You can read Ghost of Eternal Polygamy. You can listen to the series that the Faithful Feminists did in polygamy in 2021. You can read an excellent series that ran on By Common Consent around the same time (pasted below).
And honestly, if you haven’t done that, you don’t get to have an opinion about polygamy because you don’t have the background for it and I won’t debate you on it. Sorry. This one is a big one for me and for many, many of my sisters and friends.
https://bycommonconsent.com/2021/10/08/o-god-where-art-thou-dc-121-and-132/
Three things. First, I agree 100% with Elisa. Polygamy was mostly rotten for women, men, and children. And I don’t think that polygamy is the order of heaven. Second, I actually also agree with Jack, that polygamy’s purpose was to make the early Saints so different and unacceptable that they had to find a place apart where the church could develop roots. In that way, it was successful. That idea came to me through inspiration after much study about the topic. Of course, my inspiration isn’t binding on anyone else, but I have to accept it. Third, regarding Joseph and Emma’s love story, the sad thing is, I think they really did love each other. That’s why “the principle” was so heartbreaking. That, and all the lying. As I read the excellent book Revelation, Resistance & Mormon Polygamy by Merina Smith, I kept thinking about what a devastating movie you could make about their relationship during that time. When Emma’s friends were in on this secret or even secretly married to Joseph and Emma didn’t know and they were hanging out at RS meetings and Emma and began to find out. Gutwrenching. I mean, she loved him. Sob.
BeenThere,
I’m an uneducated rube. I don’t know how to write–in fact I don’t even know how to type. I just bumble along the best I can on the keyboard.
I’m familiar with that Wiki page. It’s a good reminder–for me–and for all who frequent this blog. I don’t want to point fingers at anyone in particular–but I’ve seen some real doozies here. That and I don’t want three fingers pointing back at myself–which I probably deserve. I’d like to believe that my thinking is better than my writing–but knowing what a low bar my writing is doesn’t give me much hope in that department either.
Jack –
Should girls in the church be taught that polygamy is still on the table for them? That if the prophet were to give the green light, it could be brought out again?
I’m asking, but will already say that girls *are* taught this.
The idea that past polygamy was is some cosmic sense necessary to preserve the church is anathema, in my opinion, to the very gospel we claim to believe. Polygamy says that individuals don’t matter, that some are lesser than others. That devastating some women is just the price we pay for the church rolling forth. What happened to the worth of the one?
Ruth,
Yeah it’s kinda like walking a tightrope. I have five daughters–and what I tell them (when the question comes up) is that there is no explicit doctrine–in the scriptures–that points to polygamy as the de facto arrangement in the eternities. However, when questions come up that have to do with those who practiced polygamy in past then I turn to the words of Jacob–and I try to convey (to them) the idea that, while the Lord may command his people to practice polygamy on rare occasions, monogamy is the standard marriage arrangement that he requires of his people. And even that little bit of exegesis may be a tough pill to swallow–but may daughters are tough. They can handle the teachings of the canon and the Lord’s anointed.
Re: Past Polygamy: I’m glad that we have a difficult past to struggle with–not that I’d wish that kind of suffering on anyone–especially my own girls. But the fact that we are trying to make sense of it is a good sign–IMO. What we don’t want to do is capitulate to the demands of the world and say, “oops! we got all of that wrong,” and then move on as if we were nothing more than another Christian sect. Our past challenges us to consider the economy of the Lord’s Kingdom with fear and trembling–and that’s the way it should be, IMO. It keeps us grounded in the reality of the restoration and in the notion that there is much more to come–and that the Lord will continue to test our metal–as a people–in order to prepare us for greater things.
Polygamy is practiced semi-openly *today*.
We don’t have to look to the past (though that’s damning enough).
Many of the same elements are in force (obedience to what they believe is God’s will, privilege for those at the top, poverty for others, secrecy, fathers largely absent, the “problem” of what to do with what becomes excess boys as they grow up, etc.)
Lindsay Hansen Park’s blog Year of Polygamy has been referenced here, and is illuminating.
The Salt Lake Tribune has covered current polygamy well.
I have seen one example fairly close up, where the polygamy is so recent that they know their cousins (some practice it, others don’t). The secrecy continues. Marriages are so close that there’s an increase in birth defects. First cousins marry. Family relationships are marred by favoritism and sucking up to be favored. Or become remote when one wants healthy boundaries, but the other doesn’t know how, so takes it personally, and largely rejects them.
This short film about a family currently in polygamy, If This is Heaven, Then Give Me Hell: Escaping the FLDS is worth watching.
https://www.firefilms.org › if-this-is-…If This Is Heaven, Then Give Me Hell: Escaping the FLDS
While @Jack has good company in many CoJCoLDS wards, his viewpoint is not nearly universal, even there. Probably many here are like me, having held a wary justification of polygamy, and now thumbs upping @josh h on the relief in recognizing you don’t need to anymore.
I feel sad for my ancestors.
@Larry, polygamy is practiced very openly today. Every time Dallin Oaks or Russel Nelson talk about being sealed to two women.
@wayfaring, thank you for your comment. I believe there is a lot of generational trauma among us from polygamy. One of my ancestors was so heartbroken over polygamy that she stopped producing milk for her baby.
@Elisa
*concurrent polygamy, then….
*also, with subsequent wives having children.
+While Mormons do have our distinctive twist to it, I don’t think pretty much anyone around the world objects to a man or woman remarrying after their spouse dies.
What I was getting at is that many of the damaging effects of polygamy are currently observable.
Agree that the psychological effects of our prophet and other FP touting that they are eternally sealed to another woman (while also mocking the fears of female members) are damaging.
The here-on-earth effects are negative and bad in tangible ways that carry down through generations.
@Jack
Jack, you write very well. I think you clearly articulate your positions and I am convinced of the depth of your belief in what you say. I won’t denigrate that in any way.
What I don’t find convincing are logical fallacies. A tiny bit of good can’t outweigh a massive amount of bad – and vice versa: false equivalency.
An appeal to authority – cannon, the lord’s anointed, or God – is not a trump card as its value is very subjective because it is based on an individual feeling good about something and being convinced that feeling comes from God. Applied to polygamy, it makes me feel very uncomfortable, it had devastating effect on thousands of lives, it just seems wrong to both my head and to my heart, I never want to be expected to be a polygamist ( neither does my wife). We are taught that such stupors of thought and negative feelings are of the devil. The only way I can relieve that dissonance is to latch onto the thought that polygamy was commanded of God: the pressure and pain is relived – I feel better – it must be God speaking to me that polygamy is OK. But it isn’t and He isn’t.
The thought that past leaders got it wrong is unsettling because we are always to follow the leaders: another stupor of thought. Now we are in a “double bind”: a technique employed to get us to “choose the right” when they are really just wanting us to choose them.
I truly do appreciate the depth of your testimony and your convictions. “God said so” is really just “somebody said God said so”. The challenge facing us mere mortals is to believe what we think is right and to do what we think is best. I don’t buy into a trickster god that gives us awful Abrahamic tests to prove our conviction. We d0 that by the way we live.
Six years ago this May my beloved sister suddenly died as the result of a traumatic brain injury she’d sustained five months before. She was my best friend and confidante. Her sudden loss left me wounded and bereft. A year and a half later her husband announced that he was getting remarried in the temple. Words cannot begin to express the anger and horror that I felt at this announcement. I was fine with my BIL finding a new companion. Of course he deserved to find happiness and love again. What I wasn’t happy with was that he could’ve married this new spouse in a civil ceremony but chose instead to marry in the temple thereby making my sister a polygamous wife without her permission-which she wouldn’t have given especially after helping me to uncover our family’s sordid history with polygamy which led to the cousins’ gatherings that I mentioned above. My BIL comes from “church royalty” as my sister and I called and I still call it, and he follows whatever the brethren decree without even thinking things through, so the idea that he was in fact making my sister the “first wife” in a polygamous marriage didn’t even occur to him. Unfortunately, it didn’t occur to any of his family or my mom and a couple of my sibs either.
In all good conscience I could not attend the sealing in the temple. Someone had to take a stand on behalf of my sister. One of my brothers did likewise. Later on that same day my sister’s son, her only child, called me and asked me if my absence at the temple had been because I was acting on behalf of his mom. When I said “yes” he began to cry and told me how he’d begged and pleaded with his dad to to remarry in a civil ceremony out of love and respect for my sister who’d been his devoted wife for 35 years. My BIL was horrified at the thought of NOT being married in the temple and my sister be damned. I can only imagine what my sister must’ve thought about that from up on high!
The upshot of my BIL’s decision has been to strain the relationship between him and his son, his daughter-in-law and their children. As my nephew said to me, “How am I going to explain the fact that Grandpa is married to two wives at the same time when they get older and hear about this at church? How do I explain this to my only daughter? My wife can’t bring herself to discuss the subject because she gets so angry any time that it (D&C 132) is even remotely mentioned.” My heart goes out to my nephew. To any church member(especially men) who reads this story and thinks that it’s really no big deal or that I’m making too much of a fuss over something that happens all of the time I implore you to seriously think about polygamy and eternal polygamy from the woman’s point of view. If the tables were turned and you were the vulnerable individual in the relationship would you really allow this pernicious doctrine and practice to go on? If I appear to be on an anti-polygamy crusade that’s because I am. Polygamy in one form or another has blighted my family in the past and in the present. I will use my voice wherever and whenever to call it and it’s myriad abuses out in the hope of educating others about a practice that should never be tolerated for any reason.
I never knew my maternal grandmother because she died before I was born.
One day when I was asking my mom what her mother was like, she told me a story her mother had shared with her. Her mother said: one morning when she woke up she saw her mother ( my great grandmother)ironing shirts and tears were streaming down her face. Apparently she had just found out her husband ((my great grandfather) had taken a second wife.
My great grandfather served multiple missions for the church— including 5-6 yrs as a mission President for the southwest. He married one of the missionaries serving in his district. The marriage took place in in Mexico—post manifesto and resulted in 2 children.
His first wife was left to take care of and provide for their 9 sons (2 died before the age of 4) and 2 daughters.
Don’t tell me polygamy doesn’t have devastating effects on the lives of women and children. My grandmother toiled alongside her mom trying to help take care of her younger siblings.
BeenThere,
Thanks for the compliment. That means a lot–especially coming from someone as bright as you seem to be.
Re: Logical Fallacies: I won’t deny that I have trouble with logic. Sometimes I get lost in my own rabbit hole–so to speak. Even so, I think this particular topic poses a couple of challenges that make it very difficult for people *not* to talk past each other. One being the question of ethics versus the rather counterintuitive demands that revelation seems to require of us at times. Another being, the unevenness of the literature on the topic; the subject is so sensitive that I suppose we shouldn’t be too surprised at the wide range of interpretation to be found among the many writers/historians/theologians who’ve tried to tackle the whys and wherefores of it. Another might be our modern tendency to break ranks with the past. IMO, we have great difficulty getting into the hearts and minds of our forebears nowadays. As the saying goes: history is [another planet].
That said, I’m convinced of your sincerity too–and I appreciate you giving me that benefit of the doubt in that regard. And as I’ve said before: what more can we do than live according to what we feel is right for the best reason we can come up with?
“
Atticus said, “Sister, when you stop to think about it, our generation’s practically the first in the Finch family not to marry its cousins. Would you say the Finches have an Incestuous Streak?
Aunty said no, that’s where we got our small hands and feet.
“
The genetic aim of reproduction is to diversify the gene pool. Polygamy itself, along with social hierarchies, along with colonization creating many small, isolated, remote towns, leads to condensing the gene pool.
Section 132 doesn’t include guidance to discourage inter-marriage. Joseph Smith married sisters, and a mother/daughter pair. Leviticus and Numbers both proscribe marrying closely.
A general overview of inbreeding:
https://www.bbcearth.com/news/what-are-the-effects-of-inbreeding
Late manifestations:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170726-the-polygamous-town-facing-genetic-disaster
Poor Wayfaring Stranger, thanks for your great comments on this thread.