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Hello everyone. Havent posted on this forum for a while – I have actually regained my testimony in a very strong way – Ray once mentioned to me about something to do with a two by four (or something along those lines) and I most certainly have had that or a lightning bolt or whatever you want to call it ( a couple of very strong spiritual experiences anyway!!). I am not fully active in the Church yet due to family not knowing, but I am living the principles and doing the best I can.
Anyway I have been looking into Polygamy – watched the Joseph Smith dvd the other day – an AMAZING film, gave me goosebumps and had me filling up – it didnt mention polygamy. Was looking up the Emma Smith: My Story and one of the reviews was that it was portraying mormonism wrong as it claims Emma new about her husbands polygamous relationships when she claimed she didnt until after his death. Some say Joseph didnt have polygamous relationships. So I am confused and was wondering if someone more knowledgeable could just let me know the facts about the history of polygamy. Who had the revelation to start it? Did Joseph Smith have multiple wives (more importantly what is the Churches view on this???) etc etc
many thanks and hope everyone is well
Your best bet is to read the history yourself, but that is quite a bit of reading. If you want opinions from people, I can offer mine. I am pretty familiar with the general topic. My responses to your question points:
NotSure2008 wrote:it claims Emma new about her husbands polygamous relationships when she claimed she didnt until after his death.
This is a bit confusing. As is usually the case in life and history, it’s a little complicated, and some of both. Emma made claims that Joseph did NOT practice or teach polygamy, but those claims were more around the time of the formation of the RLDS Church, which was made up of people that had opposed polygamy in Nauvoo. The RLDS claimed that Brigham Young invented polygamy (basically) and that Joseph never taught or practiced this. They enlisted Emma in their cause, although it seems she was not super thrilled with their movement either IMO. I think she was just plain tired and wanted peace and quiet after Joseph was killed.
Anyway, it also seems that she DID know about SOME of Joseph’s plural wives. Some of them lived in their house. She also got pretty pissed off about some of them. She was also allegedly a witness to some of the marriages. I do not think she knew the full extent of polygamy as it was happening though.
So the answer is … yes, no and it’s complicated.
I think she knew about some of the other wives. I think she did not like the idea at all. I think she really did claim later on to not know about it. She really and truly seemed to love Joseph deeply to the end of her days, a very faithful and loving wife. I think she tended to help cover up polygamy in her later years out of a desire to forget about it and give her family a “good name.” I do not think she approved of it while it was going on, even if she sort of went along with it a little at times.
That’s my opinion, and the “truth” of history is just that — someone’s opinion who wasn’t there and will never really know.
NotSure2008 wrote:Some say Joseph didnt have polygamous relationships.
This was a belief promoted heavily by the RLDS Church after Joseph’s death. Even they finally let go of the idea. I don’t think this is really a serious historical question anymore — Joseph Smith taught and practiced polygamy. To what extent? Was it 32 wives or 33? How many of the marriages were consummated (some but not all)? Were there any children as a result? These are the types of remaining questions debated, but few (if any) serious students of Mormon history question whether it existed at all.
NotSure2008 wrote:someone more knowledgeable could just let me know the facts about the history of polygamy.
History is never quite that sure. We don’t have video security footage, or game instant-replay to look back at for the “real facts.” We have witnesses who heard and experienced things that maybe scratched a few notes in their personal journals, stuff like that.
NotSure2008 wrote:Who had the revelation to start it?
That would be Joseph Smith. I doubt this came from Sidney Rigdon, who was not fond of the idea at all. Brigham Young wasn’t that prominent, or even a member, when it was developing. There were later modifications and clarifications by Brigham Young though, as well as John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff. Brigham Young was the one who brought it out into the open as a public practice, and also turned it into a practice central to the theology from the 1850’s through to the early 1900’s. Brigham Young was the one that developed it into a regulated religious practice within Mormonism. Joseph version seems to me more like an exploration of the idea, with very few set rules that we would think of as “normal.” I don’t personally think Joseph’s exploratory version really complied with the Old Testament practices, or even those of other contemporary cultures that practiced it (like Islam).NotSure2008 wrote:Did Joseph Smith have multiple wives (more importantly what is the Churches view on this???)
Yes. Probably the best resource for this is Todd Compton’s book “In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith.” It documents the lives of Joseph’s wives, telling their stories from their perspectives. I think the most agreed upon count is somewhere around 32 wives, give or take a couple. Probably a good 12 or so were marriages that were “consummated” by sexual relations, but not all of them (that’s my vague memory, don’t hold me to being exact).
I found this website several years ago and found it to be a good and unbiased source. Much of the info comes from Compton’s book In Sacred Lonelinesswhich I have read, but this site is great because it compiles it down to a simple and informative site. I think that list is a great example of how there really wasn’t a rhyme or reason involved that is easy to discern. The ages are all over the place (from the oft-quoted 14 to the other extreme of 58); the marital statuses of the women at the time of their marriage to Joseph go back and forth; etc. – there are so many stereotypes that just aren’t born out as indisputable when all the factors are analyzed. The following is personal speculation only, but it is the result of years of thought and study about the topic: Personally, I have come to believe Joseph caught a glimpse of post-mortal life that was completely foreign to the normal view of his time – and he “experimented” with various ways to help the saints approximate what he glimpsed. I have no problem believing he first started contemplating plural marriage arrangements quite a while before starting – or that he finally decided to start when he met someone (Fanny Alger) to whom he was attracted and whom he thought Emma generally could tolerate – or many other possibilities, but he didn’t seem to be able to settle on one “implementation model” before he died. All I can see is someone who was open to radical things, saw an after-life that was totally foreign to him and his contemporaries and attempted to figure out how to teach his people that their future might include arrangements that were out of the box for their time and culture.
I also have come to believe that Brigham, as he said himself, was not a “visionary man” like Joseph (or, likewise, an innovator) – that, instead, he was a leader and organizer. I believe he accepted Joseph’s attempts to establish some kind of non-monogamous sealing arrangement (and that he believed deeply that it was critical to be able to accept polygamy in his time in order to be faithful – even as the majority of the early saints never lived it actively), but I believe he realized the only sustainable model of non-traditional marriage was traditional polygamy – so that’s what he established. If he had continued Joseph’s wide-ranging experimentation, I believe the end-result would have been much worse than it was even with the establishment of polygamy. Polygamy did create almost a new ethnic group, a new House of Israel in a practical way, if you will. It and the subsequent Manifesto also constituted a very real sorting or winnowing process that left pretty much only those who were committed to the LDS Church no matter what – and, from a strictly organizational standpoint, that needs to occur at some point in most organizations that thrive and reach maturity.
Once maturity is reached, the strings can be loosened and the tent broadened, which we have been seeing (imo) for the last 15-20 years.
Sorry, Ray, but I’ve looked at the same information on JS and polygamy and have come to the opposite conclusions. Given the breakdown in ages of wives and the high percentage of teenagers and younger women, I believe their is a pattern in his actions. I don’t believe there’s any way his actions can be justified given his hiding it from his wife. The end result may have been to set the church so far out of the mainstream there was no change it could be assimilated but the harm done to children and the breakdown of the family with women forced to raise children without a father present and often without support financially is hard to justify. If you want to read something instructive, try Annie Clark Tanner’s “A Mormon Mother: An Autobiography”. This is one topic that has done more to drive me away from the church than any other one. Notsure2008, Brian gave some very reliable answers. And I agree that http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/ is an excellent summary.Old-Timer wrote:Personally, I have come to believe Joseph caught a glimpse of post-mortal life that was completely foreign to the normal view of his time – and he “experimented” with various ways to help the saints approximate what he glimpsed.
This is probably very near the truth. And that is a terrifying fact. With all my heart I hope that the rest of us who catch a glimpse of the post-mortal life don’t proceed to act as
recklesslyas Joseph did. I think I finally am coming to appreciate Ray well enough to detect that he is not making any apology for Joseph Smith in what he says above. He seems to be, on the contrary, saying frankly that he believes the story as we all have described it with all the best and all the worst ramifications that it entails.
I think I see things very similar to Ray. Ray did a super job of encapsulating it into 2 superb paragraphs. I would differ only in clarifying that whatever Joseph tapped into, he was not seeing LDS style polygamy in the afterlife specifically, but that was what came out of Joseph as an expression of the idea. I think Ray understands what I mean based on other discussions he and I have had. What I am trying to say is this — no, there probably isn’t polygamy in the afterlife the way we think of it. In fact, I personally doubt there are marriage relationships exactly like we have them here on earth. That’s my current opinion. I understand what GBSmith is saying too, but it really doesn’t look to me like the typical religious “free love” experimentation that was not unheard of in the 19th century. Mormons weren’t the only ones testing these limits back then. Joseph to me seemed to be exploring an idea in the Old Testament. Joseph seemed driven to make use of the Old Testament and “Christianize” it — polygamy, the whole Pearl of Great Price mythology, the literal ideas about the House of Israel and the Abrahamic Covenant to name a few. I fully admit it’s possible LDS Polgamy was partly driven by his lack of personal control and marital fidelity, but it sure was a methodical and complicated set of theological ideas to just get some extra “tail.” I still think that Joseph was largely sincere and believed his own ideas (note: that doesn’t make them true or not, but I see him as generally buying in to his own story).
It’s hard to participate in a discussion on this subject without descending into a MormonMatters type debate. I guess for me the best thing is to say that that was then and now is now and let it go at that. Thanks for all of your answers. I have tried to read and research some of the history myself but as has been said there is so much on the internet and a lot of them are long winded answers. Also there are a lot of critical sites out there and many of their answers are probably not very trust worthy (although I do read through them sometimes!).
One of the main things I struggle with the Church is how many members seem to have blinders on, they dont like to even be questioned about the faith in a remotely negative way or even in a way of WHY do you believe that. It makes it difficult to ask what the point of view from the churches perspective is! However, looking through all the different informations available I can understand why as you just get yourself into a big mess. I am not sure whether I am doing myself a favour or not. With the experiences I have had recently, I cant possibly deny the Church, but there are so many things I am not sure on – as this thread is based, polygamy is one of them (there are several others I have come across). However having family which are anti-religion anyway, I dont want to accept the church fully without having researched all the criticism. I know this is probably a strange way of going about it, but it comes from my science background, I cant make the answers fit the model I would like the Church to be, I have to analyse all the information and come to the conclusion that the factual answers take me. However with everyone having such different opinions and with most of the problems originating from JS time when to be honest we will never know the exact goings on..this will be difficult.
I read somewhere about JS marrying a 14year old, tbh this wouldnt worry me as it was the norm in that era. Many 40/50year olds married very young maidens! I am assuming due to them being more fertile perhaps. I am a little confused about the explanation of JS having a glimspe into the afterlife and then trying to follow it??
I am a big believer in that we are all human even the prophets and people make mistakes. I am lending more to the conclusion that the Church is true or the basic general principles are, but that it has got human error within as well. However I am also not sure if this is an appropriate stand to take?
I hope that posts make sense!!
As I understand it several of the plural marriages were not consummated and some of them were posthumous. NotSure, Personally I don’t think anyone, inside or outside the church, can argue with the statement that “the church has both truth and the errors of fallible humans” …though we can be sure of an endless debate on the details.
That statement is the
perfectplace to start, because to deny the human factor in the church is to set yourself up for failure. I am commenting on your question of whether this is an appropriate position to take. There are many, many, many knowledgable faithful members who will agree with this statement. It is perfectly appropriate to view the church from within, as an active member, using this vantage point. Having said that I think we should recognize there may be some members who personally have a hard time reconciling human fallibility in with church leadership. We can go easy on them, but the point is that position is not scriptural or doctrinal. Personal paragigms can be a difficult wall to surmount, but the point is – growth requires getting over the wall.
NotSure2008 wrote:…there are a lot of critical sites out there and many of their answers are probably not very trust worthy…One of the main things I struggle with the Church is how many members seem to have blinders on, they dont like to even be questioned about the faith in a remotely negative way…
I read somewhere about JS marrying a 14year old, tbh this wouldnt worry me as it was the norm in that era. Many 40/50year olds married very young maidens!…I am a big believer in that we are all human even the prophets and people make mistakes. I am lending more to the conclusion that the Church is true or the basic general principles are, but that it has got human error within as well.
Polygamy was one of the earliest major problems I had with the Church even before my mission along with the priesthood ban based on race and attempts to deny evolution. One thing that really compounds the difficulties and embarrassment caused by these issues is the idea of nearly infallible prophets and apostles and the Church’s claim that they are supposed to speak directly for God.
If you want to give them the benefit of the doubt and play along with this nearly infallible prophet idea then the problem is that if they were wrong before then why didn’t God just step in and correct them? And if somehow they were actually right before then the way they later completely reversed their policy on these same issues seems way too convenient and looks almost as if they were basically just caving in to external pressure and popular opinions and showing more fear of men than God. So either way these issues cast serious doubt on their reliability and credibility.
At first, I rationalized and shrugged off some of these issues by assuming that God probably did not approve of the racial discrimination but allowed it to continue mostly because too many Church members were probably not prepared to accept blacks as ecclesiastical authorities before. As far as polygamy, I thought it was not necessarily wrong it just wasn’t a Western European custom and was more of an Eastern custom because it is mentioned in the Bible as if it was normal in a different time and place.
When the Mormons were practicing polygamy they were largely separated from the rest of society to the point that they had more freedom to make their own rules. Also, I thought that the main idea behind polygamy was mostly just to have large families and that many of the objections mostly stem from human emotions like jealousy and lust that theoretically would not exist in the Celestial Kingdom anyway. So I thought the change was mostly a necessity to re-integrate into the American society rather than being a permanent reversal from God’s perspective.
Growing up in the Church, I mostly associated polygamy with Brigham Young and didn’t even know that Joseph Smith was involved to this extent; it’s just not talked about that much in Sunday school, Seminary, Institute, etc. or openly acknowledged by many members. At this point, what bothers me the most about this is not so much that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy at all as much as the way that he practiced it by marrying other men’s wives and young teenagers and trying to hide it and then we had Emma kicking some of these girls out of the house when she found out about it. The whole situation looks very shady and raises suspicions that maybe it really was just a case of men taking advantage of their position of authority and trust mostly for the sake of sex in many cases.
DA – I love your “don’t mince words”, “tell it the way I see it and let the chips fall where they may” approach to these hard issues. I will second your comments about JS and polygamy and just leave it at that. PS – I love the signature quote.
The modern world is hypocritical about polygamy. It supports promiscuity and multiple sexual partners, but can’t get its head around multiple wives (or husbands) Even in Victorian times, it was often acknowledged that married men would have mistresses (particularly in Latin countries) or catch the clap.
I’m not saying I agree with this, but double standard is the case here.
I’m finally getting back to try to clarify my earlier comment, and, interestingly, Sam’s comment is a great launching pad. Those who reject polygamy but don’t reject extra-marital sexual activity are hypocritical at the fundamental level. When it comes to marriage and related issues, there really are only two options:
1) Monogamy;
2) Everything else.
That’s important to consider and understand, since, likewise, there are only three options in the post-mortal life when it comes to inter-personal relationships:
1) Monogamous marriage;
2) Every other form of marriage.
3) No marriage.
Finally, there are only two options in the post-mortal world for the creation of “spirit life”:
1) Sexual activity;
2) Asexual creation.
I have come to believe that spirit life is created asexually in the after-life, for many reasons. Therefore, I wonder if there might have been a deeper motivation for what became polygamy – particularly since there wasn’t any one central “practice” during Joseph’s lifetime. It only was under BY that polygamy as we know it was instituted. Under Joseph, there was polygamy, dynastic sealings (which continued posthumously), polyandry, and a combination of polygamy and polyandry. (Yes, under Joseph, some women were sealed to more than one man.) The dynastic sealings are the most interesting to me, frankly.
If we grant that Joseph might have been motivated by something other than simple libido (and when I look at the overall picture it’s difficult for me to believe it only was about physical attraction), then I am left to ask how he might have tried to implement something that approximated asexual activity in the creation of spirit life – if, in fact, he had “seen” that sort of arrangement. It simply couldn’t have been through “perfect” modeling, since sexual activity is absolutely critical to the creation of mortal life – meaning that any attempt to teach something beyond monogamous, sexual activity in the post-mortal life would have had to be couched in the norm of his time. That norm was marriage – and it’s important that he appeared to hang onto the sanctity of sex within marriage, even as he went about trashing the traditional construct of his time. (After all, he was well aware of the “free-love” movements of his time – the Oneida community being the most prominent.)
I think it’s instructive that he didn’t reject marriage, but, instead, seemed to be attempting to expand it to include the entire community – at least symbolically. He built a society that stressed everyone being involved in each others’ lives, including sharing in the raising of children in many ways. He broke down the walls that separated men and women into single, monogamous units. He preached ultimate society as communal, group interactivity. He taught that heaven existed as cities of Zion, NOT as individual marriages. The list goes on and on.
I can’t say I have glimpsed what I believe he glimpsed, but, given how I see the post-mortal life and the creation of life there, I just don’t think what we ended up with under BY was what JS saw as the ideal. I think it was a rough and crude copy of his vision – and I have no problem with it being dropped eventually. Our current theology has plenty of flexibility, imo, to accommodate what I believe to be Joseph’s vision. Most recently, we even have started sealing wives to all their mortal husbands, which I see as kind of completing the “eternal marriage circle” even as we have returned to the former mortal construct of monogamy.
Frankly, that’s probably my ideal right now – mortal monogamy and theological “everything else”.
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