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Roy wrote:
For me it is helpful to compartmentalize early Mormon theology and modern Mormon theology. I am a fan of using the Marvel and DC comic book universes as examples. They are similar and borrow ideas from each other but they are clearly separate worlds that work under separate rules. We can speculate on who would win in a fight, superman or captain marvel but ultimately we are comparing apples and oranges. This is how I see early Mormon theology and modern Mormon theology. They cannot be aligned because they come from different worlds.
This works as long as it is understood that there are 3 “worlds” at play here:
a) The joint world of JS and BY (which is a stretch actually)
b) The 1950’s “Modern Era” that upper leadership still lives in divided by gender roles.
c) The world from the 1970’s and beyond that includes a lot about civil rights, autonomy, and consent that wasn’t given air time in either of the other generations.
There is the sticking point that the culture emphasis is on “eternal truths” and “restoring pure principles” that cross all generations and assuming that specific niche cases in the world views are truths that cross time and space. EXAMPLE: The farmers who lived on the edge of starvation and wrote the Word of Wisdom spoke vaguely at best about what easy access to sugar and the intense refinement of the food chain would do across the board to the saints’ diets.
Amy and Roy: Thanks for your comments. Although I do not agree with all, they are very illuminating.
Netflix has a documentary called ‘Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey’ about the FLDS church. It’s a series that shows some of the traps groups that practice polygamy can fall into. I think there are many commonalities between the FLDS practice and the LDS practice from the 1800s but there are also many differences. Among the key differences is that I don’t think BY ever reassigned wives and children from one family to another, nor did he separate children from their families. At least not that I’m aware.
Either way, the documentary is worth a watch. Women were treated like possessions. The number of wives dictated status in the community.
It’s not a competition of the sexes for who had it worse, if it were I know where I’d place all my bets, but I think in the case of the men it was the ones that were expelled by the leaders because there weren’t enough women to go around or because they were seen as competition for acquiring more women.
nibbler wrote:
Netflix has a documentary called ‘Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey’ about the FLDS church. It’s a series that shows some of the traps groups that practice polygamy can fall into.I think there are many commonalities between the FLDS practice and the LDS practice from the 1800s but there are also many differences. Among the key differences is that I don’t think BY ever reassigned wives and children from one family to another, nor did he separate children from their families. At least not that I’m aware.
Either way, the documentary is worth a watch. Women were treated like possessions. The number of wives dictated status in the community.
It’s not a competition of the sexes for who had it worse, if it were I know where I’d place all my bets, but I think in the case of the men it was the ones that were expelled by the leaders because there weren’t enough women to go around or because they were seen as competition for acquiring more women.
Yes, there were some men that were fairly high up in the community and were respected. They were rewarded by their loyalty to the prophet with additional young and beautiful wives. Yet, the situation is dependent upon the good graces of the prophet. He giveth and he can take away. Even those higher status positions within the FLDS church contained an element of control and fear that is scary.
If I remember right, after his father died, Warren Jeffs pre-emptively accused 3 of his biggest competitors of serious sin and exiled them from the community (reassigning their wives and children). In this one bold move, Warren removed his biggest competition and also sent a message to anyone else that might dare cross him.
AmyJ wrote:
This works as long as it is understood that there are 3 “worlds” at play here:a) The joint world of JS and BY (which is a stretch actually)
b) The 1950’s “Modern Era” that upper leadership still lives in divided by gender roles.
c) The world from the 1970’s and beyond that includes a lot about civil rights, autonomy, and consent that wasn’t given air time in either of the other generations.
There is the sticking point that the culture emphasis is on “eternal truths” and “restoring pure principles” that cross all generations and assuming that specific niche cases in the world views are truths that cross time and space. EXAMPLE: The farmers who lived on the edge of starvation and wrote the Word of Wisdom spoke vaguely at best about what easy access to sugar and the intense refinement of the food chain would do across the board to the saints’ diets.
I agree, Amy. We can never understand our ancestors if we insist of retroactive continuity. We can either know them or know the story that we tell ourselves about them in order to feel good.
I want to combine two thoughts, one by Roy and the other by Amy Roy’s past thought:
“I do not think that it would be wise to characterize these high libido individuals of being “abused” by their libidos. Partly because I still want to believe in free will and personal choice.” I also want to address Roy’s comments about “Sacred Loneliness.”
Amy’s past thought:
“In my mind, these higher sex drive men are the ones “getting the girl(s)”, getting the jobs, getting the power and authority in the system. And likely, getting in over their head in a lot of different scenarios because of their confidence and their previous successes and to cover insecurities.
I want to pick up where Amy states “And likely, getting in over their head in a lot of different scenarios . . .”
There were two points I was trying to make.
The first is that although there were groups of women being abused by a subset of man, I also think men with high sex drive (biologically higher testosterone) that did get over their heads. That may have been too many wives and children – not the rewards of more sex (although I am sure most of these men might see it this way) but the lack of anything more, a sex drive where they are always emotionally and existentially lonely. And Roy, although you believe in free will and personal choice I wonder if some of these men become trapped in their own sex drive. It is just a wonder, as I am unsure.
My second point in this broader conversation is that as humans we tend to want to put history into neat and simply boxes. All men were this way, or all women experienced this. I believe polygamy has a subset of many different experiences. Clearly some women were abused and some men enjoyed sex with different women through the week or month. But I believe there is another subset of men who tried to be good to many wives and some wives that enjoyed the closeness of other women. And then there is everything in between these two polarities – multiple subsets.
Besides me, does anyone believe polygamy was inspired for a 50 year duration to build up a LDS community, but in the process, and within subsets, our not so divine human nature complicated things?
skipper wrote:
The first is that although there were groups of women being abused by a subset of man, I also think men with high sex drive (biologically higher testosterone) that did get over their heads. That may have been too many wives and children – not the rewards of more sex (although I am sure most of these men might see it this way) but the lack of anything more, a sex drive where they are always emotionally and existentially lonely. And Roy, although you believe in free will and personal choice I wonder if some of these men become trapped in their own sex drive. It is just a wonder, as I am unsure.
Polygamy isn’t just about sex. Polygamy is about male authority (1 man and many women), about control (of the situation if nothing else), about men selling/bestowing admission to an upgraded afterlife in exchange for promises. Polygamy is about seeing whether a man was worthy of leadership in a way that tied women and children directly and explicitly to him (and that is why our sealing practice for living women have to choose which man to be sealed to in this life while a man can be sealed to as many women as he has legally married in this life rankles so much – the inequality of choice).
Our religious culture grounds the conversation in how BY practiced polygamy and how it was used by the upper leadership in general to consolidate social power and authority with sex used to biological children and a biological legacy converted into a jumble of spiritual legacy parts.
skipper wrote:
My second point in this broader conversation is that as humans we tend to want to put history into neat and simply boxes. All men were this way, or all women experienced this. I believe polygamy has a subset of many different experiences. Clearly some women were abused and some men enjoyed sex with different women through the week or month. But I believe there is another subset of men who tried to be good to many wives and some wives that enjoyed the closeness of other women. And then there is everything in between these two polarities – multiple subsets.Besides me, does anyone believe polygamy was inspired for a 50 year duration to build up a LDS community, but in the process, and within subsets, our not so divine human nature complicated things?
I don’t think that God had anything to say about the way that humans arrange relational frameworks at this level, even though people like JS and BY said that God did. I do believe that polygamy was used to weld leading families into a community that colonized the west (and the Native American Indian tribes in the area as well) in an empire-building spree that was halted by the railroad and the land absorbed into the state of Utah and the US government.
I think that our biology innately encourages sex with multiple partners over a lifetime and that men are both biologically wired to seek more sex and that their brains are more strongly rewarded when it happens for them. I think that more women have been more thoroughly conditioned to deny a sex drive and that the cost of sex (producing pregnancy) is wired into a women’s DNA so that she is more sex risk-adverse. There are also studies out there that from a biological perspective, women’s bodies produce more negative effects such as nausea when encountering risk that men’s bodies do not (which is one reason why teenage boys are risk-seeking).
skipper wrote:
Besides me, does anyone believe polygamy was inspired for a 50 year duration to build up a LDS community, but in the process, and within subsets, our not so divine human nature complicated things?
I do not believe that polygamy was inspired.
A major reason why I don’t believe it was inspired is that I can look back over 150 years of LDS history and see what a disaster it was.
I can imagine a scenario where war or a virus kills of 90% of the male population. In this scenario, polygamy might make sense.
That was not the case with Mormon pioneers. In the 50 years in which polygamy was practiced, there were more men counted than women in each Utah census (from 1850 to 1900). While polygamy certainly increased the progeny of a number of the leadership, it’s effect towards increasing the total population (over and above what would have happened through monogamy) was negligible. (I am not able to find a good percentage number. I find that women in polygamist relationships had an average of 5.9 children while women in monogamous marriages had an average of 8 children. However, during polygamy more women were actively married – in some areas it could be quite challenging to find a non-married woman – and therefore the population did increase a small amount more than it would have under monogamy.)
Also polygamy was a public relations nightmare for the church. When Polygamy was finally out in the open under BY, missionary work and immigration slowed to a crawl. The United States government was so determined to stamp out polygamy as to enter the Utah war. Later in the Utah period, husbands and the church leadership went into hiding to avoid getting arrested. The manifesto happened because the government was going to confiscate all church assets (including the temples). We could have grown even faster through conversion and immigration without polygamy.
Now, more than 100 years after the manifesto, we are still known for our polygamy past and it makes us seem like a sex cult (creating a drag on our conversion growth rates that remains today). There are also multiple Mormon offshoots were teachings on polygamy are used to manipulate, exert control over, and trap young women in marriages that they otherwise would not have chosen for themselves.
The official LDS essay on the topic reads:
Quote:For many who practiced it, plural marriage was a significant sacrifice. Despite the hardships some experienced, the faithfulness of those who practiced plural marriage continues to benefit the Church in innumerable ways. Through the lineage of these 19th-century Saints have come many Latter-day Saints who have been faithful to their gospel covenants as righteous mothers and fathers, loyal disciples of Jesus Christ, and devoted Church members, leaders, and missionaries.
For me, this is an effort to look for the cloud’s silver lining and then prove that the situation was God inspired because you found a silver lining. In 1857 about half of the Utah population lived in polygamous households. Therefore, yes a good number of current church members are descended from polygamous households but I’m not sure that’s a blessing. I’m imagining a scenario where two people have sexual intercourse, pregnancy ensues, and a baby is born. The baby is a unique person and arguably a divine miracle (in the sense that everyone is a miracle and a child of God). Could we not argue that God inspired or approved of this sexual intercourse. Could we also argue that everyone descended from that baby is a further blessing from that sexual union? What if the sexual intercourse was fornication, or rape, or incest? Are we comfortable saying “Be not too quick to condemn rape or incest – many people alive today wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for rape or incest.” If the child born to David and Bathsheba had lived and that child became the progenitor to countless people alive today, would that justify the sexual union of David and Bathsheba?
Amy and Roy: We have an honest difference in opinion. But I still have my own uncertainties, even of what I state below. I am posting more to figure it out. I am not arguing against you two.
I see polygamy as it was inspired for a short time, like in the Old Testament. And just like in the Old Testament it often led to negative consequences. There are many negative outcomes that still affect the Church today. However, I resist the historical view of a binary (all good or all bad) and think there are some cases of both the man and multiple wives had good relationship and felt good about their choices. There is a large, blurred continuum between these two poles.
Some members (often) think of how hard this would have been for women. It would have, and what I am about to say does not differ with the hardships of women. But it had to be hard for men to have a sexual and sociological temptation and not act with pure intent. How many men could really handle this? If you read about the Dual Control Model of Sexual Response, if men can have more sexual activity in safe and “good” ways, it is like pushing down on a gas pedal (Sexual Excitation System) and there would be less braking (Sexual Inhibition System). I wonder if too many men could not control their own desire and temptation to have unlimited sex with different women, and some got trapped by this, biological feeling they needed more and more sex with more women and rationalizing it as following God’s commandments.
But with this said, however, I wonder if this is the biological reason polygamy was used. That is, to increase the number of children born within the faith and “raise up seed unto the Lord”. This was seen as fulfilling a biblical promise for increased progeny, enabling the community to grow and have more members to receive the gospel, and ensuring that an LDS community could thrive. In one sense, one could argue it happened in Utah and is one reason (among many) there are so many members in Utah.
(As an aside and connected to comments I have made on other posts at this side, it makes me wonder, in general, of how much control men have over sexual arousal).
I do not disagree with Amy that a sociological complex was developed, where a subset of men and women because commit to polygamy so they looked righteous to their fellow man and woman. No different than today where some people view certain callings has a sign of being more righteous, trying to have more status.
Still trying to figure it out.
The ongoing problem with polygamy is that it is an umbrella term for whenever 1 man is in a relationship with multiple women (including teenagers). The nature of the relationship is “marriage” (civil ceremony or sealing ritual) and/or “having sex [consent undefined]” (mistresses/girlfriends/proto-girlfriends).
It covers widows “re-marrying for eternity” in this life (Russell M. Nelson), powerful men who thought it was a good idea to repeatedly undergo a ritual binding them to hundreds of women and girls to ensure that he looked good in the next life and that these women and girls had access to to the highest kingdom through him (Wilford Woodruff), other men who saw an interesting/pretty woman or girl and thought, “there is the answer to my problems” (many men including JS).
In terms of community structure, it might have worked in some instances and it is possible that it provided the most security and hope to the community (which varied/varies from family to family).
In terms of optics, polygamy as a familial-community structure has always looked lousy and hasn’t aged well at all because it looks like a means of controlling less powerful men, all women, and indirectly a lot of children.
Amy: I believe I get what you are saying – one man/husband and many women/wives. From an equality perspective it can sure look unfair and male domination. I think JS and BY were inspired and polygamy was a short-term directive from the Lord to build up a critical mass of Saints. But many men and woman – probably more men than women – sinned in the process. I think too many men could not handle the temptation of sex with multiple women and their sexual biology was not mastered. But with that said, I believe there were good men that did and some women that felt good about their decision.
I am sensing this thread may be moving toward saturation and ending. I appreciate your thoughts. Although I do not always agree you are clearly an extremely good thinker. Plus, I have some work demands that will limit my time for further dialogue.
skipper wrote:
I see polygamy as it was inspired for a short time, like in the Old Testament. And just like in the Old Testament it often led to negative consequences. There are many negative outcomes that still affect the Church today. However, I resist the historical view of a binary (all good or all bad) and think there are some cases of both the man and multiple wives had good relationship and felt good about their choices. There is a large, blurred continuum between these two poles.
Some thoughts to consider: We do not have anything to suggest that polygamy was inspired or commanded in the Old Testament. This was just the practice of the time. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all owned slaves as was also the custom of the time for wealthy men. There was no attempt to “restore” the ancient practice of slavery. (It is worth noting that the slavery of the OT is not the same as the “chattel slavery” practiced in the US at the time of JS)
I agree that nothing is all bad or all good. The OT version of slavery gave some individuals a more stable, safe, and secure quality of life than would have been possible otherwise. In cases where the slave master was just and kind the slaves/servants could be fiercely loyal.
I do not judge these patriarchs for doing the things that were considered normal for their time and place.
The tie between patriarchy and polygamy is the kicker because they feed back into each other to give men and women different church experiences and amplify the “male domination optics” aspect as well as power/authority imbalances within the system(s). - Culturally and doctrinally, it is acceptable for a widower to be sealed to multiple women within his lifetime (he doesn’t have to choose which spouse to remain sealed to), but it is unacceptable for a widow to be sealed to multiple men within her lifetime (she has to choose which spouse to be sealed to).
- Communally, we keep coming back to “preside” and what it means. Deborah Tannen theorized that men talk [and I am adding “think”] in terms of hierarchy – with a lot of conversation going on in essence to prove “hierarchy placement”. She also theorized that women talk [and “think”] in terms of social network – which is focused on connection creation and needs-based analysis. The focuses of these 2 thinking and conversational styles are drastically different and come up with different conclusions, scope out different problems to be solved, and devote resources to different topics entirely. Our cultural answer to this continuous conundrum is “follow the man because he has the priesthood” which pans out as a man dominating a situation he may or may not have the desire to be in.
- Polygamy & Sexuality – The collective culture we live in assumes that polygamy was “about sex” (generally “polygamous sex=legalized adultery” and/or “procreation”). Part of our understanding and perception of the intersection of polygamy and sex has been informed about how much abuse happens between men and women in imbalanced power relationships. Most of our understanding is coming to us out of divorce research, domestic violence research, and hookup culture – but we as members collectively have some understanding that “if we would do it to each other in the here-and-now, we are likely to do it to each other back then (and hide it under the rug)” and that is not a good look for the organization. There are no good answers as there are a lot of active members from polygamous backgrounds and the sex-informed feminists are feared as potential enemies rather then useful allies.
Polygamy as a system worked for some men and women. The “Supporting a mistress” system worked for some men and women back in the 1850’s or so. The “TradWife” aka “Coverture” system of men covering for women worked and still works for some men and women. There are systems of “open marriages” and “group marriages” that are on the fringes that “work” in the sense that services are provided.
If I have a theory in all this, it is is:
- Polygamy is culturally legalized relations between 1 man and multiple women over a course of a lifetime.
- Our culture associates “marriage” and “sealing” as being interchangeable, ergo “a sealing” = “a marriage”.
- Marriage Expectations around partners have expanded dramatically over the last 50+ years (household provision, emotional provision, friendship, healthcare case management, financial unit, sole sexual partner, best emotional companion, etc.) as the family support structure has folded into the nuclear family structure. One of the major newspapers put out an article about it awhile back that I only got to peruse the summary for.
- It likely wasn’t as pretty a situation as our most white-washed stories make it out to be or what our religious culture sterilizes it to be.
I “judge” the men who restored or carried on with polygamy in our church as using polygamy to “scratch an itch to control” in their soul. – I think that JS was more interested in using polygamy as social glue and in legalizing emotional affairs and in essence “getting high” off of courting other women.
– I think that BY was interested in sex as well as empire-building (and protecting his proto-empire).
– I think that Wilford Woodruff used polygamy at the end of his lifetime to ensure that he was the instrument who “saved” women from post-life uncertainty.
I understand to a degree, their rationale behind it. I hope to be there in heaven with popcorn to witness the conversations and introspective monologues when the consequences of what they were doing are laid out. I also entertain that that aspect of mortality may not be so important to actually be worth placing my attention on those conversations.
AmyJ wrote:- Culturally and doctrinally, it is acceptable for a widower to be sealed to multiple women within his lifetime (he doesn’t have to choose which spouse to remain sealed to), but it is unacceptable for a widow to be sealed to multiple men within her lifetime (she has to choose which spouse to be sealed to).
[snip]
I hope to be there in heaven with popcorn to witness the conversations and introspective monologues when the consequences of what they were doing are laid out. I also entertain that that aspect of mortality may not be so important to actually be worth placing my attention on those conversations.
From Wikipedia:
“Eternity is a 2025 American fantasy romantic comedy film directed by David Freyne, written by Pat Cunnane, and starring Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen, Callum Turner, John Early, and Da’Vine Joy Randolph.
Premise
After death, everybody gets one week to choose where to spend eternity. For Joan, Larry, and Luke, it’s really a question of who to spend it with. Joan must choose between her first love, who died in a war, or the man she built her life with.”
My wife and I will join you in the theater with popcorn!
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