LDS Daily on Polygamy

One might also argue that if population increase were the purpose, why did Joseph Smith not have children with his many additional wives, and why in the world did he marry those who already had husbands? And why do we still allow a man to be eternally married to more than one wonan?

I know this topic has been discussed ad nauseum, but it seems to take an awful lot of mind bending and scripture twisting to make polygamy fit into a plan of God, but only one simple explanation of why maybe it doesn’t really. I think Occam’s Razor wins this one.

The fundamental problem with polygamy is that it creates “one to many” ratios without returning the favor. 1 Man can be sexually and/or emotionally and/or legally connected/”sealed” to many Women in our culture but it doesn’t go the other way around among living people.

There is a lot of unanticipated fallout from the practice over generations and from a theological standpoint. It didn’t create more children, it did not provide leadership for the children being raised to the degree that traditional families do, it did not mitigate any poverty that I know of. However, women who were plural wives got to take a break from their mothering responsibilities to go to school in the past. It did work for some families some of the time.

In today’s time, it says clear messages about the worth of women and their place in the church and in the home and/or clear, specific theological messages are pulled from the doctrine. Women get the clear mixed message that they are valued individually as a “Child of Heavenly Parents” AND potentially being groomed for a position of being “one of many”.

Are there times that 1 man should be “linked” to more then 1 woman in this way? I don’t know. I currently lean against it being a good idea because of the magnitude of the fallout that I know about (very limitedly though) and my core value of “Egalitarianism” [So if we get polygamy, we get polyandry too].

Is it sanctioned by God? I don’t know. I treat the Bible the way that I treat a story told by 1 of my kids about something I did not experience myself as their perspective. I recognize the “I’m chosen” bias that all kids have in the scriptures. I don’t think they can give me all the facts (just the ones that matter to them) or pick up on everything being said (including inside jokes). So I think our scriptures tell us about times when it was OK to view women as “one of many” (at least on paper).

It is really really hard for me to see the God that I know and worship having “approved” of those particular circumstances. It seems disingenuous to reduce that whole story down to God is “very practical. If Jacob were to be the father of a great nation—of the entirety of the twelve tribes—having many mothers to bring them into the world was probably necessary. It had to be done to bring about the desired outcome of posterity.”

I agree, and as has been said the whole idea of instituting polygamy in the modern church for that same reason doesn’t hold water when we look at who participated and how many that really affected.

Back to the opening question of Why Did the Lord Institute Polygamy? This is an issue that I find with much apologetics. If I start with a predetermined assumption and then only pick those examples that support my conclusions then my analysis will, of course, be hopelessly flawed.

The title of the article presupposes God instituted polygamy, or at least that the reader believes God did so. I don’t believe God did so in “modern” times and I’m dubious about the OT stories. I think many in the church, including apologists, do exactly what you have said. I think that can be proven with the current Come Follow Me curriculum. Not all we skip is repetitive, some just doesn’t fit the narrative. Likewise, some of what we don’t skip is bent to fit the narrative. I am a believer that much of scripture has multiple interpretations, and that may even be on purpose – but interpretations outside the church narrative seem to be discouraged and even dismissed. There is far too much “everyone who has ever eaten a pickle has eventually died, therefore pickles are bad for us” within church – even though everyone who didn’t eat a pickle also died and there’s no correlation between eating pickles and death.