Is there anyway the Church can salvage Doctrine and Covenants 132? What values and virtues does this section provide today? Are there parts that would be worth removing to make the content more relevant to us?
If we take that D&C 132 was written to convince Emma to embrace polygamy, could this section be Joseph speaking as a man and not as a prophet, similar to Brigham Young’s racist teachings? If we create children with concubines like Abraham will it be accounted unto us for righteousness (D&C 132: 37)
We could try to understand D&C 132 in a modern context by using the Come Follow Me manual. But that doesn’t work well as the manual stops from referencing anything after D&C 132 verse 40 (where the crazy stuff starts)
So many questions about D&C 132.
- Is 10 the limit on the number of virgins that a man can take? (verse 62)
- Did Joseph violate the virgin requirement by marrying women that were not virgins like mother-daughter pairs and women married to other men? (verse 62)
- Did Joseph violate the “replenish the earth” commandment by not having any children from polygamous unions (that we know of) (verse 63)
- When the Lord says “for I will destroy her” when a wife does not believe and administer unto her husband, is this physical, spiritual, or both?
If this wasn’t enough to make your head hurt, how about verse 26 that says once they are sealed in the Holy Spirit of Promise, then they can “commit any sin or transgression of the new and everlasting covenant whatever, and all manner of blasphemies” except commit blasphemy against the Holy Ghost (which it defines as the shedding of innocent blood) , then they shall “enter into their exaltation” This sounds a lot like getting your calling and election made sure, or second anointing (but without the secret Sunday session in the Temple with the foot washings).
So getting back to the questions asked at the beginning, can D&C 132 be salvaged? What could the Church do without throwing poor Brother Joseph (or God) under the bus? There is already precedent on removing things from the Doctrine and Covenants like the Lectures on Faith. Could the Church just remove 132 completely? If they did, could somebody like a Prophet Seer and Revelator (we have 15!) receive a replacement revelation that reflected our modern marriage customs? Would the members accept new canonized scripture?
Your Thoughts?
Wheat & Tares 
There is a lot wrong with D&C 132. To start with Joseph was never a polygamist.
https://salemthoughts.com/Topics/JosephSmith-Honest_Seer.shtml
And there is plenty of evidence that D&C 132 was modified. There have been revelations to restore the original revelation.
https://salemthoughts.com/Topics/Joseph-DandC132.shtml
The language of 132 is awful. It is not how anyone would expect God to speak, especially as it concerns the welfare of women. But the language has been there for well over a century and it doesn’t seem to have created more than a whimper of complaint.
The irony of how institutions handle controversy is that when the controversy is small there is not much urgency in acting on it. And when the controversy is large then anything the institution does draws more attention to the controversy.
That section 132 isn’t more controversial indicates to me that membership in general does not take the scriptures literally. They treat 132 the same as Genesis. God tells Emma she is going to be destroyed. God tells Abraham to kill his son. Interesting stories. Now what’s for breakfast.
As long as this attitude holds then there is no urgency for the LDS church to do anything about section 132.
Recognize the LDS church still believes in plural marriage – its policies support multiple women being sealed to a single man. Two of the three members of the current First Presidency are in this situation and it appears they have every expectation of having two wives in postmortal life.
Looks like cachemagic is suggesting the use of Strategy 45 (aka the Trump Maneuver). The LDS church simply quietly removes the later verses and then denies they ever existed. (I am not sure why cachemagic still throws Brigham under the bus, wouldn’t it be more consistent just to deny all polygamy, period?) When internet searches or hard copies showing the old verses come up, then just say that is a conspiracy by the CoC (or Joe Biden) to make the LDS church look bad and gain more converts.
10ac, Is there a way to salvage Brigham? I think it is interesting that as soon as Joseph dies, Brigham adds 10 wives. I am afraid the polygamy is tightly tied to Brigham.
Many of us have seen a depiction of Joseph Smith’s 33 wives with actual names of the women and dates of most of the marriages. Seems pretty detailed to me. Is that all made up?
Brigham Young certainly violated the “multiply and replenish” rule by having only 56 children with 55 women. That’s only about one child per female. Output would have been greater had those women been in monogamous relationships.
Emma had many pregnancies, so Joseph was virile. Yet to my knowledge no other women claimed he fathered their children. Is it possible that these “sealings” were more spiritual than temporal? I have not studied this issue and really don’t know.
Disciple, I can’t believe you think there is little objection to D&C polygamy garbage and Emma being destroyed if she didn’t cooperate. Have you listened to any female voices? Didn’t think so. Women’s opinions on things are easy to just ignore in this male centric church, and obviously you do. If any women (instead of men practicing eternal polygamy) were in the first presidency, I am pretty sure we would be uncannonizing this utter garbage that came from Joseph’s lust and not from any God who loves his daughters. You claim it doesn’t cause mose than small whimpers and that is totally ignoring the pain Mormon women live in believing they will be forced against their will into being in an eternal harem. You just happily ignore how women feel because, oh gee, it doesn’t hurt you…selfish jerk.
Cachemagic/Russel brings up an interesting problem surrounding polygamy. He happily threw Brigham Young under the bus for starting polygamy. People object because there is good evidence Joseph also practiced polygamy. Which brings up an interesting problem. We have to throw Brigham under the bus, or we have to throw Joseph Smith under the bus, or we have to throw God under the bus.
Someone started polygamy, either with or without God ordering it. if it was Joseph, was he a fallen prophet? If it was Brigham, was he? And if God ordered either of them to, then it doesn’t matter which of them started it because we have a royal jerk for a god. If we hate the idea of polygamy, we have to figure out how/why it is part of our official doctrine. Who started polygamy? So, who we gonna throw under the bus?
If God really ordered it, does he not love his daughters or care how they feel, but wishes them to be in eternal harems. The fact that it is still in our temple and scriptures and two GAs think they are sealed to both wives says polygamy is still doctrine. So, according to that, we have to throw all LDS church leaders under the bus or accept that God doesn’t care about his daughters. Because it is STILL doctrine. That says we need to throw all top church leadership under the bus, because *starting* polygamy is only part of the problem. The church has only discontinued practice of polygamy in this life. They have not discontinued practice in the supposed CK, and they have not changed canonized scripture, and they have nor repudiated it. So, we still believe polygamy.
So, who we gonna throw under the bus? God or the whole Mormon church?
“Would the members accept new canonized scripture?”
Bill, the question that comes to my mind is: do we accept the current canon? Because if we can’t do that then there should no expectation that we can accept a new canon.
As to your overall question–I think it’s possible that the second half of Section 132 might be removed as it has little relevance to how we practice marriage today. Even so, I’d be sad to see it go. I think it does the saints some good to wrestle with the reality of our polygamous past. At the very least it’s a reminder that we should be wary of getting too comfortable with the norms of the prevailing culture.
I am okay with Section 132 staying in the Doctrine and Covenants. The scriptures are full of information that is no longer practiced or relevant. I generally prefer to leave scripture alone — I would not want present-day church leaders to rewrite or remove scripture to suit the present-day sentiments of some or even many members.
I think there was a change in practice somewhere early. I think Georgis is correct that DNA evidence has not identified any descendants of Joseph Smith from his plural sealings. But sometime on the way out west, Brigham Young shared that plural wives should be taken care of by their sealed husbands whenever such a woman would otherwise be abandoned during the trek westward, and in 1852 he publicly declared the institution of plural marriage as real and functioning marriages, and not just sealings.
Church history is sketchy in these early matters, and is affected by attitudes of church members in the meantime. As an example, Church history has always wanted to show direct connections and continuity between Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, such that everyone raised in Utah for the last century thinks that Brigham Young’s United Orders were identical to Joseph Smith’s United Orders — however, this is simple false. Brigham Young was never a member of Joseph’s United Orders, and Brigham’s orders with communal living in a village and so forth were NEVER practiced under Joseph — they were wholly different except for the title “United Order.” But it is seen as heresy by some to declare this truth. Similarly, for so long (and still, even today for many), the church was desperate to connect the ban on blacks holding the priesthood to Joseph Smith, even though the real history may not support that continuity.
Joseph did whatever Joseph did, and Brigham did whatever Brigham did, and we are where we are today. I sometimes think the parable in D&C 88:51-61 is operative now, and I am okay with that.
The catastrophe that was (is) LDS polygamy is not *merely* that it treats women like livestock but that it was invented to hide the corruption and lust of early church leaders. Once you dig into the details of both JS and BY polygamy you see there is no redeeming quality. I’m astounded that anyone can read 132 without laughing or crying.
Disciple – as Anna so eloquently said, D&C 132 has created much more than a whimper of complaint. It’s created a lot of pain and heartache for women. Much of that doesn’t get discussed at Church, so you have to look online and in private discussions to see how much pain D&C 132 causes.
As for the more general questions in the post, I don’t think you could remove the polygamy from D&C 132. The first verse makes it clear that the Lord is answering Joseph’s question about Old Testament polygamy, and that Joseph will be required to live polygamy or be damned and destroyed. There isn’t any wiggle room. Here are the first four verses:
1 Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you my servant Joseph, that inasmuch as you have inquired of my hand to know and understand wherein I, the Lord, justified my servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as also Moses, David and Solomon, my servants, as touching the principle and doctrine of their having many wives and concubines—
2 Behold, and lo, I am the Lord thy God, and will answer thee as touching this matter.
3 Therefore, prepare thy heart to receive and obey the instructions which I am about to give unto you; for all those who have this law revealed unto them must obey the same.
4 For behold, I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory.
My thought is that doesn’t give anyone any room to pick and choose which parts of D&C 132 they want to keep or discard. Eternal polygamy is the law. We aren’t able to live the whole law now because of the wickedness of the world (I had a revelation to that effect back when I was TBM), but the law must be preserved because it will be reinstituted in the eternities. And all will rejoice.
Then, you know, I got a psych evaluation and started meds and went to therapy and don’t believe that anymore. I happily throw both JS and BY under the bus, and don’t believe that God actually says most of the stuff that the prophets say he does. Poof! No more cognitive dissonance for me!
On Joseph Smith not having kids with plural wives. Joseph Smith practiced all this secretly. He was unabashed in announcing his other revelations, and not the one on polygamy? There are many ways to be sexual without semen entering the vaginal canal. My guess is that Joseph Smith was sexual with his plural wives in such a way.
I have little doubt that libido was behind Joseph Smith’s practice of plural marriage. It was bizarre, it was secretive, it routinely raised suspicion, and he kept doing all sorts of novel experiments to practice it. It wasn’t routine. He married other men’s wives while they were gone on missions. He married the underage. He married non-virgins. And he married far more than just 10 women.
Great article and comments.
My take on A Disciple’s comment is somewhat different than Anna’s/Janey’s in that s/he seems to think that members don’t believe scripture so they don’t care about Section 132. I hadn’t thought of that; it’s possible. Anna’s and Janey’s responses are also proper reads of the situation and I recognize them also. My take is that 99% of members have simply not read all of Section 132.
To wit, graduating BYU requires a family proc class, two Book of Mormon classes, 1 NT class, and some electives. No requirement to study the OT or the D&C. My experience is that most members simply do not read scripture or, if they do, they simply read the BOM over and over and over and over and over. They can’t react negatively because their only reference point to Section 132 is the correlated lesson every four years. They simply don’t know what their own scriptures says.
I hear this response from cachemagic/Russell Anderson all the time that polygamy belongs to Joseph and not to Brigham, to which I respond so what?
As for Georgis’ comment that perhaps these marriages were spiritual in nature, ok, but where is the scriptural support for that? The BOM, the most correct book, specifically says in Jacob that polygamy ONLY exists to raise seed. So Joseph Smith then was not following the rules. And to that effect, neither was Brigham Young as noted in Brad D’s comment, unless righteous seed means that Brigham’s seed was being elevated over the seed of other male saints, which is a pretty cringe apologetic argument.
As the kids say, make it make sense.
A big part of my faith deconstruction happened when I decided to learn more about polygamy. Both sides of my family have polygamy horror stories that would make your hair turn purple, stand on end and then fall out. I began with Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s book “A House Full of Females” which unsettled me with stories of Heber C Kimball going on plural marriage sprees which he bragged about to the other men even as he often didn’t support his many wives and children financially or emotionally.
Ulrich had listed in her bibliography “In Sacred Loneliness” by Todd Compton, “Nauvoo Polygamy: But We Called It Celestial Marriage” by George D Smith plus “In Sacred Loneliness: the Documents” also by Todd Compton came out not long ago. These books thoroughly convinced me that Joseph Smith used a cursory reading of the OT for stories of polygamy to use as an excuse to unleash his off the charts libido. I went through and read all of the stories about polygamy in the OT and there is not one story that says that God instituted it. Polygamy was a social construct of ancient societies.
We are told by Jesus that by the fruits (actions, behavior and outcomes) of people and their spiritual teachings we will be able to tell if something is of God or not. Considering the stories in the OT this alone should clue us into the fact that polygamy is NOT of God because there isn’t even one story regarding it that is uplifting and has a happy ending. Polygamy set family members against each other, husbands played favorites while ignoring the other wives and children, many men couldn’t afford to care for one wife and her children let alone for more wives and kids, it became an unholy type of pride (for the man only), the wives’ feelings and needs were mostly ignored, children weren’t able to bond with their fathers, wives were treated as things to be bought or bartered and often had to beg their husband for enough money to feed and clothe their children and to pay rent, medical bills and much more. If you read the diaries of polygamous wives they often talk about wanting to free and/or dead. The divorce rate of polygamous marriages was very high.
Another reason that we can tell that polygamy was not instituted by God is the fact that it was done in secret until the Brighamites moved west and, for a brief time, out of the US. Joseph Smith and then his closest friends were sneaking around to marry, visit and have sex with their “spiritual wives”. He and his plural wives were constantly lying to poor Emma, and after a while Emma knew that if Joseph was in a room of their house and the door was locked along with the fact that one of their maids was missing he was probably up to no good. I am sickened and disgusted by the way that he flaunted polygamy in her face. When word started to spread around Nauvoo and elsewhere about church leaders, and especially the prophet, having sex outside of marriage and trying to explain away their immoral beliefs with even more lies Joseph actually got up in church and out and out lied to the people while denouncing polygamy publicly. It was actually put in the D&C but later removed by Brigham. Ditto for Brigham, Heber Kimball and other members of Joseph’s inner circle. Both the Bible and especially the BoM condemn and preach against doing deeds in darkness and in secret in order to hide sinful and illegal behavior. I haven’t even touched on the topic of the abusive way that Joseph et al coerced women and girls into plural marriage. Disgraceful and evil don’t even begin to describe this behavior, especially when the men saw the girls and women as “belonging” to them as if they were inanimate objects that could be used and abused at will. Frankly, I hope that these men will rot in hell and that their sins will be shouted from the rooftops. The women that they convinced (possibly bribed or intimidated) into helping them procure new and usually young wives should also have their names made known to the world.
Of course, the church doesn’t want this sordid, tawdry part of its history known by members, investigators and the world in general. To know these horrifying stories is to put Joseph’s whole story and his prophethood into serious question. Does God actually tell leaders to commit and perpetuate acts that are clearly beyond the bounds of morality and decency? Do our Heavenly Parents delight in seeing their daughters and little children suffer in ignominy and privation? Did the ends justify the means when older men with impressive church callings and money had the boyfriends or fiancés of a young woman whom he wanted to add to his harem murdered, castrated, excommunicated or run out of town?
Church members absolutely NEED TO KNOW these stories. The Gospel Topics essay on polygamy is a joke. If the leaders refuse to openly discuss and disavow polygamy throughout church history and even into the present with what Carol Lynn Pearson rightly calls “The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy” and which two members of the FP currently practice we must educate ourselves, our families and others about the sin and crime of polygamy within the church. Only when enough voices are raised inside and outside of the church can it done away with for once and for all.
I realize that I come across as an anti polygamy zealot. So be it. It has been my generation on both sides of my family that has come to grips with the trauma and unhealthy behaviors that have been passed on down from generation to generation that were a result of polygamy. This only happened when my cousins, sibs and I were willing to face the ugly truth about the terrible things done to our female ancestors and their children and tell their stories to our own children as well as denounce polygamy for the evil, immoral doctrine that it was and continues to be.
I saw a funny tiktok video from an ex evangelical and he says when he talks to people that are critical of him from his former congregation they often will ask him if he is following the Bible. He responds that he is – he just ignores different parts of it than before. They usually huff and are affronted but then has been a good way to talk about the parts of the Bible he used to follow that he doesn’t now and why
Cachemagic seems to want to ignore not only D&C 132 but also the pretty well documented history behind it. I am happy to ignore the section of the scriptures that I disagree with and I don’t believe. But I can’t seem to ignore the history. Seems pretty clear Joseph slept with multiple women besides Emma and justified it with polygamy.
I think the church should move on but it is hard to do if we simultaneously claim that those leaders were prophets seers and revelators.
Chadwick I never said that polygamy belonged to Joseph. I said just the opposite and provided a LOT of information that Joseph was not involved in polygamy at all. In fact it was probably Joseph’s strong opposition to polygamy that got him killed.
Yes, D&C 132 should be removed and renounced. What to replace it with? The original D&C 101, the Statement on Marriage adopted in 1835 in order to repudiate accusations of polygamy. It says, in part:
“Inasmuch as this Church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication, and polygamy: we declare that we believe that one man should have one wife; and one woman, but one husband, except in the case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again.” It also states that marriages should be “solemnized in a public meeting, or feast.” (I personally believe that no marriages should ever occur in the temple, only sealings of couples already married civilly.) The Community of Christ accepts this as their D&C 111. For the original, see:
Doctrine and Covenants, 1835, Page 251 (josephsmithpapers.org)
Russell
Agreed I mistyped. And the question still remains, so what?
Can D&C 132 be salvaged? I’m with Janey. The introduction to section 132 says it’s all about polygamy, so we probably need to trash the whole thing.
What could the Church do without throwing poor Brother Joseph (or God) under the bus? Joseph should be thrown under the bus for introducing polygamy (and the evidence that he did is overwhelming despite cachemagic’s claims otherwise: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/plural-marriage-in-kirtland-and-nauvoo?lang=eng). Brigham should also be thrown under the bus for his further development and institutionalization of polygamy. I don’t think God had anything to do with polygamy. The fact that God allowed Joseph and Brigham to do what they did with polygamy is a lesson–and it should be an official Come, Follow Me lesson–in how much God will allow humanity to shoot themselves in the foot and allow the weak and powerless to suffer for decades without intervening.
Could the Church just remove 132 completely? Yes, it could. I think the idea of keeping it in as “past scripture that we no longer follow” as ji suggests is interesting because it would facilitate Church members’ ability to identify and remember the enormous sins and mistakes of Joseph and Brigham and more readily accept that today’s Church leaders are likely sinning and making mistakes as well. However, if Section 132 were to be retained, there would have to have an explicit refutation above it printed in bold and signed/acknowledged by the Q15. That said, I think it’s much easier for the Q15 to just remove this section with a short ambiguous statement–as they are wont to do–than it is for them to throw Joseph under the bus with a printed refutation, so we’re much more likely (which isn’t saying much since it doesn’t seem terribly likely right now) to see Section 132 removed than retained as “past scripture that we no longer follow”.
Could somebody like a Prophet Seer and Revelator (we have 15!) receive a replacement revelation that reflected our modern marriage customs? The Q15 don’t seem to have received a revelation of this sort in decades, if not since Joseph himself, so I suppose it’s possible, but given the scarcity of revelation from the Q15, it doesn’t seem likely. I mean, there are a number of issues troubling the Church right now, and if Joseph were present, he’d almost certainly be announcing revelations–and multiple subsequent corrections to said revelations–on all of them (whether they would be actual revelations from God, as Joseph’s Section 132 most certainly is not, is a different problem). Today, revelation doesn’t seem to flow at all to the Q15 like Joseph claimed it did to him. One thing I can praise the Q15 about, and I mean this sincerely, is at least they aren’t lying about receiving grand revelations that aren’t happening. They even made Packer retract his claim that the Family Proclamation ought to be considered revelation (https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=50440474&itype=cmsid) when he made this false claim in General Conference. Nelson has kind of gone against the grain of his recent predecessors a bit in claiming revelation from time to time, but most of his revelations are on such small matters. While the most orthodox members may drool over his revelations, I think a lot of rank and file members kind of just yawn. The one time he did claim revelation on a bigger issue–the POX–his prophesying, seeing and revealing powers were revealed (pun intended) for what they actually are (not great).
Would the members accept new canonized scripture? In general, yes, I think members would accept new scripture. I also think a revelation disavowing polygamy would be welcome as well. There would be some hand-wrining amongst the men–especially the older men who grew up with all the lessons I had about how polygamy would be practiced in the eternities. After all, these men would be losing out on eternal pleasure with their 10 virgins, but I do think the Church would move forward without too many people leaving–and a lot of people would feel a lot more comfortable. A new revelation on marriage would be the perfect opportunity to allow all people to be married, including LGBTQ individuals. That would obviously be harder for some Church members to swallow, but one can always dream.
Russell, there are a lot of people trying to say that Joseph was against polygamy. But, hey, I have ancestors who swore an oath in court that he did, so, are you saying my family members committed perjury? Nope, I just don’t buy it. Too much evidence to the contrary. Too many people came forward and said they were married to him, and that they had marital relations with him to say that he fought against it. Too much that has no other explanation, like the problems between Joseph and Emma. You either have to say that these fifty or so people lied about it, or that Joseph did. Occam’s razor. Simplest explanation for all the historical records (during and after Joseph’s death) was that Joseph was in on the polygamy.
But I agree with Chadwick that it really doesn’t matter. Who cares if it was Joseph or Brigham? Either way, we have the same mess, and the same painful history of polygamy, and the same current problems hiding how ugly it really was, and pretending we don’t currently believe it is true and will be the only form of marriage practiced in the top level of CK. Those who are not married polygamously get to be servants to those who are. Oh, fun, enjoy your harem of wives who don’t even like you. Because the only women who were “happy” in polygamy were the ones who did not love their sperm donor.
Does it matter if Joseph was a fallen prophet or that Brigham was? Either way, we belong to a church that fell away from the truth. Either way, we have a long history of our “prophets” believing wrong doctrine. Either way, the church we belong to is not “the church of Jesus Christ.” For TCOJCOLDS to be what it claims, we have to have NO fallen prophets. So, the church is wrong, or God is a jerk who doesn’t love his daughters. You just can’t claim that Joseph Smith never practiced polygamy so we still have THE true church. If polygamy is wrong, and BY brought it into the church, then we have an apostate church because we still believe it is gospel.
Or are you a member of Community of Christ here to convert us? You do know that while it was still the Reorganized Church that it officially accepted that Joseph Smith did practice polygamy?
There’s a story Richard Bushman includes in Rough Stone Rolling about a time Joseph was so violently ill that he dislocated his jaw while vomiting blood. At a council meeting the following day he accused Emma of poisoning him.
Based on the evidence, there’s no telling whether Emma actually poisoned him or not, but it’s likely the accusation was indeed made. So Joseph was the kind of husband who thought his wife might poison him. Gee. I wonder why.
Section 132 is vile and should be binned. You know what section of D&C I do like? 121 which says that if a priesthood holder tries to cover up misdeeds or leverage his authority for personal gratification in any way, “Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man.”
Joseph’s behavior around his practice of polygamy (including the destruction of that printing press which ultimately got him killed) totally fits that bill. So by his own scripture, he is disqualified from prophethood and we don’t have to obey a single damn thing he or his successors ever said.
I’m going to push back a little. We’ve been getting pretty-much just one side of the story here. There are many positive stories about polygamy from polygamous wives. Excellent work has been done by Don Bradley and Brittany Chapman Nash and others. They’ve drilled down deep into the historical record and’ve discovered that things don’t look quite like the picture that some historians have painted. That’s not to say that there were no difficulties–of course there were. But the real story is–overall–far more positive than we’ve been led to believe over the last half century or so.
And I’d be careful about the question of fruits. First, because most of what we’ve heard over the last while are the negative stories. And that doesn’t give us an accurate picture of what the fruits really were generally speaking. And second, because there’s no question that though a practice can be mandated by the Lord the people can fail to pull it off. Using similar logic I could propose that monogamy is not ordained of God because, forsooth, half of marriages (in the West) end in divorce–and half of those that remain intact are miserable.
Having sad that, some pretty harsh things have been said about Joseph and Brigham — and I appreciate that commenters are trying to be honest about their views — but I’d recommend reading the testimonies of Joseph’s plural wives in order to gain a more polished perspective of polygamy:
https://josephsmithspolygamy.org/plural-wives-overview/
And here’s a well documented overview of Joseph Smith’s polygamy:
https://mormonr.org/qnas/VvSJBb/polygamy_joseph_smith_era?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwsPCyBhD4ARIsAPaaRf1abeYtBDf6mTXfyEWf7MoqX8mPb-IL89AX0UB_CHCLDwBCFIA8vhUaArlzEALw_wcB
Through much of its history the Reorganized Church denied Joseph’s involvement with polygamy. It’s leadership, direct descendants of JS Jr. heed to the line: Joseph was an honorable ma ; polygamy is dishonorable; therefore Joseph could not have initiated it. Church historians, starting in the 1950s and 60s, eventually prevailed with a fairer and more balanced view of Church history. Up until then Church members had always been told Brigham Young was the culprit. Certainly there are some CofC members today who continue to deny Joseph’s involvement, but it’s more widely accepted that some sort of “spiritual wife system” wad going on in Nauvoo.
To those poor misguided souls who deny JS was a rampant polygamist/misogynist: Read Todd Compton’s book: “In Sacred Loneliness”. Return and report. Both JS and BY treated women as commodities. Read how BY rewarded John D. Lee and Isaac Haight with young wives after their “successful” Mountain Meadows massacre. Then he later executed Lee because he needed a scapegoat. JS also rewarded his loyalists with young women.
To Anna and Janey,
My surprise is that there has not been an organized movement specific to denouncing the language of section 132. I am somewhat aware of protest movements in the LDS church and I don’t recall any specific to this one issue.
I agree that LDS women have publicly and privately expressed pain and sorrow about the doctrine of polygamy. I think it is significant that at a recent General Conference President Oaks acknowledged women have a justified concern of being forced into polygamy by their husbands choosing to marry again after their death. His response is important.
President Oaks said that no woman would be forced into a relationship in the afterlife based on temple sealings in this life. This is a rejection of section 132 where it teaches a woman is obligated to her husband, even if he weds other wives.
I sense the current LDS Church is not keen on raising awareness that it should follow scripture – the church as it currently is does what it wants to do and only gives lip service to what is taught in the scriptural text. Accordingly, my expectation is the LDS leadership will make no effort to align the Doctrine & Covenants with what the church currently teaches and practices.
A Disciple, I guess women are not organizing a protest about section 132 because there are much more pressing problems. And even when women try to organize any kind of protest they get vilified, death threats, and excommunicated. So why bother? The scripture surrounding polygamy is just not worth getting excommunicated over. If women organized a protest against every problem, you would see no end to protests. So, it is called “pick you battles” and there are problems hurting women in this life that just seem more pressing than the fear of what is supposed to happen in the next. I am sure those women who are still in enough to bother protesting see giving women some kind of voice in leadership as the one big problem that would solve a lot of others, thus you have protests over ordaining women, but not all the miscellaneous stuff that we just have no say in.
Jack, yes there were some women who seemed to like polygamy. They were probably lesbian. Or they wanted a career and having 1/30th of a husband allowed them to devote their time to a career. Most women wish at least once that they had wife to tend the kids and wash the dishes. But for every story of a woman happy in polygamy, I can give you 5 of unhappy or abandoned wives trying to support herself and her children. My own ancestry has wives who would have been better off as single mothers, because at least then they would have had some rights over their body and their children. And my great grandmother was abandoned by mother and father after her mother divorced, but had zero rights to her own children. So she did the only thing possible to escape an abusive husband, she divorced and left Utah. But the abusive husband didn’t support his children, so my great grandmother was left at 13 to support her siblings. Polygamy could work, if men were forced to support their wives and children, and had zero rights to children in a divorce, so they were forced to keep the wives happy enough to stay. But back in those days, women were chattel. I was tempted to write cattle and claim it as a typo.
The leaders are now saying plainly that sealings in this life really don’t matter, because they will be of force in the next life only if both parties want it, and no woman will be forced to remain with a man against her will. There’s no need to worry about being unloved in a harem, unless one doesn’t believe the current teaching. Maybe this is a reason why we shouldn’t teach what the scriptures don’t teach. They are silent on mothers in heaven, and maybe for good reason.
Assuming that there are mothers in heaven, we don’t know that they birth spirit children through a divine procreative act: we don’t know how intelligences become children. One can make the point that God took the title Father because He is a leader, and we know that we become children of Christ through choices and not through parents’ sexual union. I don’t think that we need to obsess about the problems in the next life, when we really don’t know anything about it. I think that we might go beyond the mark when we think that all the problems in families in this life will follow us into the next, and that the abuses and misery we see in this life is the model for the next. We live in a fallen world, and our families and associations are probably not good mirrors of that families and associations will look like hereafter. We are taught “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” I don’t know exactly what it means, but I am willing to trust that God will make all right, and that every tear will be wiped away.
A recent podcast by John Dehlin discussed Nauvoo polygamy. If even half is true it’s revolting. There was a code system to identify how receptive RS women were to sexual relationships. Men were rewarded for supporting polygamy or punished for not, and once they realized they too could have multiple women, many readily joined in. John C Bennet was a doctor and may have performed abortions. It was a big open marriage.
There simply is no way to reconcile LDS ideas of righteousness with LDS polygamy. The only way to let them coexist is to concede JS was scoundrel but that God allowed it for unknowable reasons so that other truths could be restored. I’ve (surprisingly) heard a BYU religion professor say as much. JS did not follow his own polygamy rules.
I believe many Q15 like and support section 132 and until that changes, it will remain.
Georgis,
While I hear what you are saying, why do we have to cause more tears with current teachings? Why not say this instead of emphasizing that only a person married to opposite sex will be in the highest level of the CK? Why not allow widows to be sealed to a 2nd man if they want, just like Oaks and RMN did instead of just saying it will all be worked out in the next life? Why not allow single women to be sealed to their children? There are many unique situations where we could do things that would support women but we don’t.
Instead we emphasize and cause pain with our general conference discourse and by withholding our most holy temple rituals unless everything meets a man’s ideas of worthiness neededness. We cause confusion and pain for women in multiple circumstances. Why do the men get a temple ritual to reinforce their peace while women just get told don’t worry your pretty head over it? We men have got it covered, just don’t worry. Don’t act like you are real person like the men with real feelings. Shut up put up and defer.
Well, we are worried because the man in top authority in the church is telling us we should worry about sad heaven without our kids, or sad heaven without our 2nd husband. We don’t have the privilege of even talking about changing these rituals unless someone bothers to ask our opinion. Even then we don’t get to decide anything about making our church life more satisfactory. We only get to receive whatever the men decide.
What you shared is real and valuable, but it feels like gaslighting next to hearing RMN speak on Think Celestial
Toad,
John Dehlin is unreliable. He only cares about building a predetermined narrative.
The real scoundrel was John C. Bennet. He was an opportunist and womanizer par excellence–and he manipulated the beginnings of polygamy for his own lustful purposes.
“There simply is no way to reconcile LDS ideas of righteousness with LDS polygamy.”
I believe there is a way to reconcile them. But first we have to get a proper understanding of polygamy and then correct the false narrative that has been built from a jaundiced and incomplete understanding of what was in the hearts and minds of the early saints.
***
lws329,
Who knows but what there will be changes in the future regarding who may be sealed to whom and so forth. But even as things now stand we can be assured that things really will work out for every one. The Lord won’t hold anyone back–male or female–from going as far as they want–and that means inheriting the universe. We don’t know exactly what the family of Adam and Eve will look like when all is finished. But there are a couple of things that we do know: first, the entire human family will be sealed together in some fashion. And, second, that family will be sealed to Christ. And so if we place our hopes in the Savior–in his power to exalt the children of Adam and Eve–then we have nothing to fear.
A lot of women aren’t bothering to “wimper” and complain. My sisters, my nieces, and my daughters just quietly left. The preposterous idea that God commanded the abusive shenanigans that went on with Mormon polygamy was flatly rejected, and they moved on.
Either the sealing ceremony is important, or it isn’t. You can’t say don’t worry about it, at the same time you scare people into temple marriage because if they are not sealed they won’t be together. If I ask if I will be sealed to my abusive father, I am told not to worry, because unless I want to be with him, then I don’t have to be. Funny, but having his family sealed to him was used to manipulate my abusive father in the repentance process at the very same time his abuse victims were promised that we didn’t need to worry because being sealed was important and it really didn’t matter to whom. So, are we sealed to family members or are we sealed into God’s family. If it doesn’t matter to whom, then why hurt people by making them jump through hoops to be sealed to THAT person, when really, we are just sealed into God’s family. So, are we sealed to specific individuals or not? Seems pretty basic. All the patting on the head of people who are unhappy about who they are sealed to, like divorced women who do not want to be stuck with the jerk, yet telling others that they have to be sealed or they will not be with that person….well, it just starts to feel all made up. Made up as they go along. You *have* to get married in the temple because what if one of you gets killed next week? No, don’t worry, you can always be sealed after death. Divorced, don’t worry, it is just sealing you to God. Why not just seal us into God’s family and tell us we get to be with who ever we want? But no, you HAVE to be sealed to your spouse or you don’t get to be together. Unless you are divorced and still sealed, then it is all, “It doesn’t mean you will be stuck with your ex.” Marry a nonmember? Horrors you won’t be able to be with your children. Spouse dies before someone is sealed? No problem. Do it proxi. Who do the children go with in case of a divorce? Seems women are assured they are still sealed to their children. At the same time men are assured they are still sealed to their children. The very worst mistake you could possibly make is to not be married in the temple…but don’t worry about it because it really doesn’t matter. Hog wash. If it is our choice and the sealing doesn’t matter there really is no purpose in doing it to begin with. If it is all going to be sorted out later, why are we busting our butts getting people sealed now? Why are we scaring people and making them terribly unhappy if it is all so easy to sort out later?
Oh, yeah, I forgot. It is all about keeping the members just scared enough that they bust their butts trying to jump through all the hoops the church sets up and do everything the church tells them to because they are scared of losing their family…unless they are not happy with who they can be sealed to, then it is no big deal, just jump through all the hoops anyway.
Does it all feel like a big farce to anyone else?
I’m a child of three divorces. I have two half-brothers from two different stepfathers–plus three siblings from my biological father. There are many, many families like mine and many others that are even messier. How are we going to fix all of this? I don’t know but I’m confident that the Savior can do it.
I’m grateful that even though so many families are shattered we have the sealing powers regardless. It gives us an ideal to work toward. Living in a world that doesn’t know which way is up or down can be really perplexing. But even so, instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater we should rather do the best we can with what God has given us in our efforts to move forward–and trust that–yes–things will work out.
And as we continue to move forward my hope is that at some point the earth will be cleansed–most likely in a millennial day–and the family of Adam and Eve will find itself in good health both temporally and spiritually–and that the time will come when there will be very little (if any) discontinuity between the earthly pattern and the heavenly pattern.
Georgis, your comment made me laugh. It is the best explanation *ever* for why we don’t talk about Mother in Heaven. It’s because upon finding herself in her afterlife, she decided she didn’t want to be with that jerk, Father in Heaven, anymore. And things were all sorted out. So here we are.
Anna, you hit the nail on the head. I’ll add that it is quite apparently implicit in Mormon teachings that families can’t be together forever. According to common belief in the US, you’ll see loved ones after you die. But according to Mormon belief, you have to go through all of these complex rituals and endure strict obedience to the Mormon Church in order to see loved ones after you die. Or if a couple who was righteous dies but never converted to Mormonism while living, they have to wait until living Mormons get sealed on their behalf in order to be together. If a righteous couple died a long time ago before there were government records that recorded names, birthdates, and other information, well then they can’t be together forever until that all gets figured out in the millennium, I guess, when we’ll all be occupied doing temple work, so I’ve heard.
Seemingly pointless repetitive rituals seem to be effective at making people feel like they’re serving or doing something important. It keeps the tithing dollars coming and entrenches people further in belief. But I don’t believe in a God who is so arbitrary, nitpicky, and well powerless and reliant on opulent expensive buildings and complex rituals to be done in order to keep people together after death.
Becoming like the Savior requires participation on our part.
Jack,
I happen to agree with what you are saying about sealings. I believe Christ will work it all out in His love for all of us. What I don’t agree with is RMN quoting the BoM in conference to say that in this life we have a tiny piece of time to determine who we will live with after we die and the kind of body we will have. He uses D&C 132 to make his point that only a married man and woman can get there, carefully excluding LGBTQ people.
Reread that talk. It’s almost like he never heard of baptism for the dead or temple work at all. Like he never read the Doctrine & Covenants which leaves lots of room for eternal progression.
I agree with Anna here. Religious rituals and doctrines shouldn’t be used to make people afraid and to control them. That is what I saw RMN doing last fall. Because I appreciate much of what he does, and had been praying for him to take actions in conference that would be protective of LGBTQ people in the church, I felt very betrayed when he used his time to make things worse. In my opinion it wasn’t very Christ like. More like unrighteous dominion.
Hope he does better next time, or the next president does.
Jack, when the baby proves to have been dead 20 years, it time to throw it all out. There is no living baby there to save. But I kept the stinking stuff far too long because people kept saying, “don’t throw the baby out with the bath water,” and I can find no sign of a living baby anywhere, just a big tub of stench.
But, since you seem to find something valuable, go ahead and keep it.
If you actually read any of the links I provide you will see that I am not ignoring D&C 132 at all. Joseph Smith received a revelation on July 12, 1843, but that is not what we have in our Doctrine and Covenants as D&C 132. I have shown how it was modified and even provided an inspired restoration of the original revelation that was given to Joseph Smith.
Brian, I don’t understand why I can’t see your comment when I look at the Wheat and Tares article. But here is my response:
If you actually read any of the links I provide you will see that I am not ignoring D&C 132 at all. Joseph Smith received a revelation on July 12, 1843, but that is not what we have in our Doctrine and Covenants as D&C 132. I have shown how it was modified and even provided an inspired restoration of the original revelation that was given to Joseph Smith.
Russell Anderson https://salemthoughts.com/ Liber Medicina Animi
I think Section 132 is a perfect place to talk about the hypocrisy of religion. A man gets a revelation that he can have more than one wife and it’s approved by God, so he does it. Another man in a similar position either uses that revelation or has one himself that’s not published and does the same. They then “share” and allow other chosen men to also participate while other men aren’t allowed. Compare these men with Clinton or Trump or a host of rock or athletic superstars who have had many women over their lifetimes or lesser men who have someone on the side and of course they are sinners or scum because they don’t have the sanction of God. The University of Texas did some research in the mid 2000’s about the 237 reasons people have sex and it’s pretty obvious that it’s not always men having sex. The real problem with Section 132 is that it’s a misogynistic with God’s permission justification of a man’s point of view. It disregards women physically, spiritually, and emotionally as if they are property instead of being also God’s children. At least when it’s a sinful affair, one night stand, or even a consensual nonconformist relationship, both men and women have a say in what it is and a reason for doing it. Of course it wouldn’t be sanctioned by God like things are in Section 132. But, to quote a song. by Luther Ingram, “If loving you is wrong, I don’t want to be right.”
D&C 132 is canonized spousal abuse. It is not salvageable. It is bullshit.
Anna made an excellent comment about the “dead baby” that needed to be thrown out. ( Referring to the baby with the bath water old saying).
So much of the Mormon church is now a dead and disintegrating carcass.
There is no beauty and very little truth left in it.
Ruth also said that one reason there is not much push back against the perversion of polygamy is because the members who finally get disgusted enough up and leave, forever.
In Matthew 22″ 29-32 Christ says there is no marriage in the ressurection.
The bogus arm of the flesh nonsense of the Temple ceremonies are useless and do nothing to help us in the “afterlife”.
But these Temple busy work ceremonies keep overworked members too busy to think things through and it keeps the money (tithing) rolling into the Mormon bank account.
I liked Ruth’s comment about women not protesting polygamy because they just leave. This whole conversation and Disciple’s comment about women don’t seem to protest D&C 132, got me wondering why don’t women protest and I think it is because when you do a little research or even look at your own inborn sense of right and wrong, that polygamy is so obviously wrong. We should not have to point out to top church leaders how polygamy turns women into little more than some man’s property. We should not have to protest the obvious. And if top church leaders have to have women pointing out to them that polygamy needs to be repudiated, then they are just plain hopeless. They are not only not prophets of a loving God, they are not even half decent human beings. It is like if blacks had to point out to church leaders that slavery is wrong because it was still part of our doctrine. It is after all in the Bible and so, God must have instituted that too. It is just so obviously immoral to own another child of God. The same with polygamy. It inherently makes women into little more than men’s property. But you know, if we have to say that to the top church leaders, then they are about as immoral and hopelessly self centered as possible, and obviously not prophets of a God who loves his daughters. So, when protest is pointing out the obvious, and you know that if the top leaders can’t see the obvious they are pretty blind, and who even wants to be in a church that has zero moral compas?
Excellent comment Anna!
“And if top church leaders have to have women pointing out to them that polygamy needs to be repudiated, then they are just plain hopeless. They are not only not prophets of a loving God they are not even half decent human beings”.
I finally relaized that the Mormon church leaders had no more to do with my eternal salvation or my spiritual growth than the Pope of the Catholic church.
They all claim to speak for God, in their dreams maybe.
Cachemagic: “To start with Joseph was never a polygamist.”
True! He was married once, and the rest were all adulterous liaisons and/or acts of rape.
Russell Anderson/cachemagic
I read your links and they are interesting. I can see how your argument is compelling to you and others that may believe it. It seems though to be built on the premise that Joseph couldn’t have been started polygamy because you assume first that he was the prophet and thus couldn’t or wouldn’t lie. I guess I see that plenty of evidence that there was a whole lot of deception and lying that went along with the adultery and polygamy. Even the church of Christ now recognizes Joseph was probably involved and lying after defending him against charges of polygamy since the 1840s
I am not sure it matters to me if Joseph started it or Brigham. the way it was implemented was bad. My own family history of polygamy is full of sad stories. Young brides with old husbands. Neglect. Poverty. The most fun of all of them is still sad. My great great grandmother lived most of her life and raised her children and farmed with the second wife. He left both of them and married a much younger red headed catholic divorcee after 1890 and my grandmother said they used to use her name like a curse word and complained about her for the rest of their lives.
It is a lot easier for me I guess to believe Joseph lied because there are other things I think he lied about. Other scripture like the Book of Abraham and Moses that I don’t think are inspired translations. So I guess it is easier for me to look at D&C 132 and reject it.
I just want to second Poor Wayfaring Stranger’s recommendation of Carol Lynn Pearson’s book The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy. I thought the absolute best parts were where she quoted comments from hundreds of people whose lives have been damaged by the ongoing existence and threat of polygamy, and the Church’s current refusal to disavow it. Polygamy isn’t dead, and can never be so long as D&C 132 tarnishes our canon. I think Elisa’s description of it as “canonized spousal abuse” is absolutely spot on.
And as others have mentioned, why do the Q15 not get rid of it? Of course because some of the top among them (RMN, DHO) don’t want to give up their eternal polygamy. Not to mention that they’d likely feel like renouncing polygamy would be admitting a level of fallibility in past Church leaders that they really aren’t comfortable with. And of course the other huge reason, as so many other commenters have already expressed so well (and as Pearson’s book illustrates so well) is that women’s pain doesn’t matter to Church leaders. Oh, maybe it does a little, enough for DHO to occasionally wave it away in Conference talks. But it doesn’t really count in a way that matters, that would affect Church policy decisions.
I also want to give more than a thumbs up and say thanks to lws329 and Anna for your great comments about all the condescending dismissals of women’s concerns with sealing practices. It certainly is telling who gets told to wait until the next life for satisfaction and who doesn’t!