polygamy discussion with B. Hales – cont’d

[Anonymous]

I tend to think we should look closer at our assumptions around God commanding something that seemed to be in conflict with several other principles of church operation.

1. “All things in the church shall be done by common consent” no question the early practice of plural marriage was not preceded by a vote of the membership.

2. “We believe in obeying the law” the Illinois anti-bigamy law of the time was quite comprehensive.

3. The D&C at the time denounced multiple wives.

4. Would God command something that would require “dodging the question” or (as some would say) “lying”?

5. Satan’s method is compulsion (as in threatening with a sword) while the Lord’s is love and patience.

We don’t believe our prophets are infallible, we do believe they are human. Are we not supposed to question the words that follow “this is what God told me”? I thought we are supposed to seek our own confirmation, for me plural marriage as practiced does not add up. I look at the entire life of the practice and ponder the fruits. If as true Mormons we are to receive all truth, come from where it may; should we not embrace the light that is revealed to us individually? Is it not proper for me to say “I cannot see the light in the bulk of this historical practice” even though I would not exist if the practice never did?

[Anonymous]

Hi again,

These are busy days for me but I’ll try to respond.

Here’s five insightful comments with some of my thoughts:

1. “All things in the church shall be done by common consent” no question the early practice of plural marriage was not preceded by a vote of the membership.

The New and Everlasting Covenant is not something followers can validate or invalidate by “common consent.” We can individually accept it or reject it, but it is everlasting and transcends our own agency, except for how we will personally respond to it. It includes eternal marriage – sealed unions that last forever. We can each choose to make those covenants, or not, and only ourselves will be affected.

2. “We believe in obeying the law” the Illinois anti-bigamy law of the time was quite comprehensive.

People commonly quote and August 1, 1831 revelation: “ Let no man break the laws of the land, for he that keepeth the laws of God hath no need to break the laws of the land” (D&C 58:21) to suggest that polygamy could not have been authorized by God. But they don’t quote the more specific revelation given two years later (August 6, 1833): “Therefore, I, the Lord, justify you, and your brethren of my church, in befriending that law which is the constitutional law of the land; And as pertaining to law of man, whatsoever is more or less than this, cometh of evil” (D&C 98:6-7). No Church leaders in the nineteenth century believed that polygamy was constitutional (even after the Supreme Court ruled it was in 1889). If we look at plural marriage through their eyes, we can more easily see why they did not see a contradiction (even though loads of people see it today).

3. The D&C at the time denounced multiple wives.

In fact, the language is ambiguous regarding polygamy. The article on “Marriage,” written by Oliver Cowdery and included in the 1835 D&C reads: “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 case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again.” (See 1835 Doctrine and Covenants CI:4 [page 251]; “General Assembly,” Messenger and Advocate 1 [Aug 1835] 2: 163; History of the Church, 2:247.) It wasn’t “crimeS of fornication and polygamy,” it reads “crime of fornication” and “polygamy.” Also, it says “a man should have one wife,” not “a man should have ONLY one wife.” These may seem like small points and I wonder if the loopholes were intentional or not since I think Oliver was always staunchly against polygamy. Regardless, the 1835 D&C does not denounce multiple wives.

4. Would God command something that would require “dodging the question” or (as some would say) “lying”?

The denials are hard to understand, but it is true that Church leaders tried to avoid lying by using creative language. Fawn Brodie called their denials, “circumlocutions” and “verbal gymnastics.” For example, in 1844, one month before the martyrdom, the Prophet stated: “What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven wives, when I can only find one. I’m not sure they were very effective.

The fact is that Nauvoo polygamists were caught between unconstitutional laws and God’s commandments. Scriptural examples exist where deception was permitted or required in order to serve God’s purposes. Abraham introduced his wife Sarah as his “sister” to King Abimelech, not disclosing she was his wife (Genesis 20:1-7), a tactic he had implemented earlier in Egypt:

And it came to pass when I was come near to enter into Egypt, the Lord said unto me: Behold, Sarai, thy wife, is a very fair woman to look upon;

Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see her, they will say–She is his wife; and they will kill you, but they will save her alive; therefore see that ye do on this wise:

Let her say unto the Egyptians, she is thy sister, and thy soul shall live.

And it came to pass that I, Abraham, told Sarai, my wife, all that the Lord had said unto me–Therefore say unto them, I pray thee, thou art my sister, that it may be well with me for thy sake, and my soul shall live because of thee. (Abr. 2:22-25; see also Genesis 12:10-20.)

Despite these observations, I too am uncomfortable with this slippery slope. It was much worse later in Utah. But I guess it comes down to following the laws of God (as we believe) or the laws of man.

5. Satan’s method is compulsion (as in threatening with a sword) while the Lord’s is love and patience.

God’s method is to command His children and to bless those who obey those commandments: “There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated– And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.” (D&C 130:20-21,)

He is a loving God, but his love cannot compensate for our disobedience: “If you keep not my commandments, the love of the Father shall not continue with you, therefore you shall walk in darkness” (D&C 95:12).

It may boil down to the question of whether we believe God commanded plural marriage in the first place.

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This is a good question: “…if a teenage niece comes to you with disbelief that God commanded restoration-era polygamy, are you comfortable looking her in the eye and saying that, yes, God commanded these men to treat women poorly, and yes, the proper response on the part of a woman is to accept the bad treatment and make the best of it.”

First, polygamy is not authority to “treat women poorly etc.” Men sometimes have treated their wives (monogamous or polygamous) poorly and it is indefensible. It is true that polygamy creates inequalities. Perhaps we should imagine ourselves as Gods who are creating their own earths. How can there be two genders and complete equality? Factor in Satan who will exploit the gender differences and tell me how you would guarantee equality? Don’t forget the need for order and offspring and sealed marriages in the eternities.

A more specific answer to the question is: “How would you feel at the final judgment to tell a worthy woman she would be denied exaltation because monogamy was the only marriage dynamic in the celestial kingdom and she did not have a husband?”

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One person wrote: “…billions of people that have not heard the gospel and will have the chance in the next life. By those numerous people accepting the gospel will there not be enough men to practice monogamy in the CK?”

I haven’t seen that data, but I’ve done my own research. Here’s an excerpt from Joseph Smith’s Polygamy vol. 3:

Since Joseph Smith apparently did not defend the idea that there would be more worthy women than men at the final judgment, it is impossible to examine his reasoning and explanatory details. However, it appears to be the only eventuality he anticipated. Analyzing the possibility using demographic data reveals some interesting observations.

For example, the ratio of male-to-female live births over the past three centuries seem to contradict this scenario. Demographers Graziella Caselli, Jacques Vallin, and Guillaume Wunsch observed: “The sex ratio at birth (number of male births per 100 female births) is generally very close to 105. This is one of the very rare demographic parameters that is virtually constant.” According to this ratio 51.2% of births are male and 48.8% are female. The numbers supporting these ratios have been extracted from nearly three centuries of statistical data. From these conclusions one could argue that, at the end of time, there will be a greater number of worthy men than women. There may be, however, some problems with this reasoning.

Early records may have suffered the underreporting of female births due to cultural prejudices that value male offspring over female. Even more important are the lapses arising from illiteracy and inadequate record keeping. Paris researcher Louis Sebastian Mercier wrote in 1782: “All the infants who are born there [in Paris] go to be nursed, half die, and the burial registers of the city’s parishes are not filled with their names; therefore counts should not longer be based on the register of baptisms, nor on that of deaths.” Sociologists Eric Brian and Marie Jaisson acknowledge that “the imperfect nature of registration figures are all well-known to specialists.” Despite these potential weaknesses, more recent data from reliable sources supports a consistent ratio of about 105 male newborns to 100 female.

Nevertheless, examining the ratio and extrapolating that value to the history of human existence may not be justified. Scientists cannot explain the genetic causes of the discrepancy. In Too Many Women? The Sex Ratio Question, Marcia Guttentag and Paul F. Secord acknowledge: “The results from various studies of reproductive biology suggest that a whole complex of factors are apt to have some influence on the sex of a zygote; moreover, at least some of these interact with each other.” Without understanding its root cause, data gathered during the last three centuries may not accurately predict the preceding millennia. Brian and Jaisson also recognize the “oscillatory nature around a near-equilibrium of the two sexes” that could ebb and flow over millennia, rather than just centuries. Three hundred years of data comprise only a small fraction of human existence. Since the phenomenon arises from as yet unidentified reproductive physiological factors, assuming a constant trend for the previous millennia may not be warranted.

In contrast to data supporting a greater of number of male-to-female births are data that indicate a greater receptivity of Christian values among women over men. Multiple surveys during the past century of religious involvement in Christian churches support greater participation among women. In his 1958 book, Religious Behavior, Michael Argyle concludes: “It is obvious that women are more religious on every criterion.” His published ratios of the involvement of women to men ranged from 1.40 to 1.87. Data from his surveys included attendance, claimed religious beliefs, church membership, and overall attitudes.

In 1999, Christian writer Leon Podles concluded similarly in his The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity– “men are largely absent from the Christian church of the modern Western world.” Podles assesses:

The most exact figures for the United States come from the 1936 Census, the last governmental tally of religious affiliation: in Eastern Orthodoxy the ratio of women to men is .75-.99 to one; Roman Catholics, 1.09 to one; Lutherans, 1.04-1.23 to one; Mennonites, 1.14-1.16 to one; Friends, 1.25 to one; Presbyterians, 1.34 to one; Episcopalians, 1.37 to one; Unitarians, 1.40 to one; Methodists, 1.33-1.47 to one; Baptists, 1.35 to one; Assembly of God, 1.71 to one; Pentecostalists, 1.71-2.09 to one; Christian Scientists, 3.19 to one.

More recently, the Pew Forum reported in 2009 the respective ratios for women to men in the United States for several religious activities: “Are affiliated with a religion” (1.09); “Have absolutely certain belief in God or universal spirit” (1.18); “Pray at least daily” (1.35); “Say religion is very important in their lives” (1.29); “Have absolutely certain belief in a personal God” (1.29); and “Attend worship services at least weekly” (1.29). An even more recent study of Episcopalian adherents showed a ratio of 1.63 women to men. In an 1992 article in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, Tim B. Heaton discussed the gender distribution of Church members: “Latter-day Saints in Utah, other western states, and the South Pacific have gender ratios of approximately 95 males per 100 females, which is the value for the total U.S. population. Ratios in the Church are somewhat below the U.S. average in the eastern United States, Canada, and Asia, and females outnumber males by a large margin in Latin America and Europe.”

These observations could support an enhanced propensity among women to obey a celestial law on earth as reflected by Brigham Young and other Church leaders. However, they are not conclusive. Just as the birth ratios appear to have favored males 105 to 100 over the past few centuries, the opposite trend for participation in Christianity has favored women to a greater degree. Unfortunately, neither observation allows for sweeping conclusions regarding the preceding millennia. In short, it does not appear that demographic observations can accurately predict whether more men or women will be eligible for exaltation.

Thanks,

Brian Hales

[Anonymous]

Quote:

It may boil down to the question of whether we believe God commanded plural marriage in the first place.

Yep – and when the answers people have to that question differ, I’m not sure it’s productive to argue about the details.

[Anonymous]

brianhales wrote:

This is a good question: “…if a teenage niece comes to you with disbelief that God commanded restoration-era polygamy, are you comfortable looking her in the eye and saying that, yes, God commanded these men to treat women poorly, and yes, the proper response on the part of a woman is to accept the bad treatment and make the best of it.”

First, polygamy is not authority to “treat women poorly etc.” Men sometimes have treated their wives (monogamous or polygamous) poorly and it is indefensible. It is true that polygamy creates inequalities. Perhaps we should imagine ourselves as Gods who are creating their own earths. How can there be two genders and complete equality? Factor in Satan who will exploit the gender differences and tell me how you would guarantee equality? Don’t forget the need for order and offspring and sealed marriages in the eternities.

A more specific answer to the question is: “How would you feel at the final judgment to tell a worthy woman she would be denied exaltation because monogamy was the only marriage dynamic in the celestial kingdom and she did not have a husband?”

Hi, Brian –

Maybe I shouldn’t have said “treat poorly.” I was starting from our shared opinion that polygamy on earth is sexist and unfair. I think that what happens on earth, how men and women treat each other in the here and now, matters. How you speak about someone is part of your treatment of them. I think we should stop burdening women of the church with the possibility of polygamy in mortality. It doesn’t matter that it’s an outside chance, unlikely, etc. Its presence in canonized scripture is hurtful to us. What do you think?

Thanks for your time and all the courteousness you’ve shown us here at staylds. You really come across as a person of good will, and it’s a rare opportunity for us to talk with someone so knowledgeable on the subject.

[Anonymous]

startpoor wrote:

Still not sure how I feel about expert apologists like hales. While I’m glad he is doing such exhaustive research and making as strong a case as he can to counter critics, he is still a non objective historian and therefore can’t be taken too seriously.

1st I would say that nobody is completely objective and there must always be some interpretation of the facts available. However, I also believe that historians have as their purpose to discover what the past meant to the people who lived it. I believe that an apologist historian has as their primary purpose to defend the modern church and would therefore interpret the past (and the historical church) through a lens that is most favorable to the church today. I therefore believe that the narrative presented says more about us and the narrative that we (in the 20th/21st century) need rather than what happened long ago.

For a time my pet area of interest was Emma Smith. There were many different accounts of her life. It was interesting how the versions differed depending on if the author was from the Josephite (RLDS) or Brighamite (LDS) faction. I also noticed differences depending on the era that the author lived in. There was a time in the early Utah church when it seemed that to talk ill of Emma was a service to the church. In this time a story was circulated of Emma poisoning JS and another of Emma pushing a pregnant Eliza R. Snow down a flight of stairs and causing a miscarriage (both now seemingly unfounded). Later I read some accounts that depicted her as a pitiable soul that failed in the ultimate test of her life by not moving west with the saints. More recently Emma has been portrayed as a sort of heroine and the things she did against JS or the Brighamites are minimized or dropped from the narrative all together.

Essentially, the story changed depending on the needs of the author and the audience. Where is the real Emma Smith to be found?

Life is all about stories. The stories we tell about the past are often very much shaped by our needs in the present.

Edit: I had previously asked some questions that invited speculation into Bro. Hales beliefs and his positions on historical and doctrinal issues. I have modified my post in a way that focuses on how I perceive things generally and I have done my best not to make assumptions about Bro. Hales specifically nor to invite others to do so. In essence, I am trying to be more fair to Bro. Hales since he is not here to clarify.

[Anonymous]

There seems to be well documented evidence in Rough Stone Rolling that some of the wives were very young — with Fannie Alger being 14 years of age. One of the claims in Brother Hale’s post is that none of the wives were 14, but I believe Fannie Alger was.

[Anonymous]

SilentDawning wrote:

There seems to be well documented evidence in Rough Stone Rolling that some of the wives were very young — with Fannie Alger being 14 years of age. One of the claims in Brother Hale’s post is that none of the wives were 14, but I believe Fannie Alger was.

Helen Mar Kimball was 14, I have never seen a historian question that. The question with Helen is whether her marriage with Joseph was ever consummated. I think Fannie was most likely a couple/few years older.

[Anonymous]

brianhales wrote:

5. Satan’s method is compulsion (as in threatening with a sword) while the Lord’s is love and patience.

God’s method is to command His children and to bless those who obey those commandments: “There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated– And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.” (D&C 130:20-21,)

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First, polygamy is not authority to “treat women poorly etc.” Men sometimes have treated their wives (monogamous or polygamous) poorly and it is indefensible. It is true that polygamy creates inequalities.

Brian, I appreciate your time and responses here, I must have missed this back at the time. I only have a couple points:

I don’t see any disagreement with the claim that God’s ways do not include compulsion. Isn’t it odd then that an angel (if on the side of God) would compel Joseph to obey the command?

I agree that plural marriage did not give license to treat women poorly – as far as personal interactions go. My position is polygamy inherently devalues women. When a wife does not have 100% of her husband’s affections and support she is in an inferior marriage. I have heard you say similar things in podcasts, polygamy is basically impossible to pull off as mortals living on earth. I can’t comprehend another state of being so my comments apply to this life. When a wife cannot be certain that her husband is not dating or somehow open to taking another wife – then she does not have complete fidelity in her marriage.

The “inequalities” of polygamy qualify for me as treating women poorly.

[Author]

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