- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
SilentDawning wrote:
I just want to say that my comments earlier in the thread were likely reasons people adopted this terrible practice. They weren’t meant to be justification for the practice.
SD, I’m sure no one read your comments that way (as justification). I get what you mean, though, because my seeking to understand often is misunderstood as cheerleading. To me, it’s critical to try to understand why people of the past would be willing to accept a concept like polygamy. I know it was gut-wrenching for them, but they did it anyway. Searching to understand how/why they could have done it is helpful to me in finding ways to forgive and to be at peace (with what happened in the past).I also seek to understand – and part of that, in this case, is understanding that the majority of members WEREN’T polygamous, even when it was being taught as essential for exaltation. Why is that important?
If people then could refuse to participate (and, by extension, accept) and remain actively involved (and accepting of those who taught and implemented it as prophets), while not condemning members who did participate, we can learn as much,if not more, from the them than from those who did participate. It doesn’t have to be an all or nothing proposition – and there might not be a better example in our history than that.
This is not going to be as eloquent as I would like. I understand that we’re always, technically, free. I understand that people were motivated by a variety of things to do what they did. If I’d lived then, my nature, especially when young, would have been to go along – be polygamous – and make do. And life would have gone on in all its many-faceted beauty. Here at StayLDS I’ve probably played into some stereotypes. I could reasonably be seen, based on some of my posts, as obsessed, grim, myopic, etc. But women hurt by this doctrine are normal. They’re doers and servers in the church, they’re good friends, good wives, educated and well-adjusted in society. They aren’t nursing horrible childhood wounds, or necessarily in bad marriages. (To be clear, no one here has said anything like this to me. I am talking about how women disturbed by LDS polygamy are viewed in general in the church.)
This is a pretty decent transcript of a recent interview at fMh:
Quote:When I was newly married my very virtuous husband loved the church in every way. I tried to get him to promise me that he wouldn’t marry in polygamy, that he wouldn’t take another wife. See, I’m using this terrible language – wouldn’t
takeanother wife. He just wouldn’t promise. He didn’t know what would be required of him down the line and he didn’t want to perjure himself…
And I just felt very bad about this.
Eventually – and it’s really only quite recently that I managed to deal with it… And what I say is, instead of just, “Please, please, don’t do this,” I say, “Alright, if you do this…whether I agree or not (because we all know that there is a fair amount of coercion involved)….If you marry another woman I promise to make life hell for both of you, which I am quite capable of doing.”
It sounds a little childish and desperate, like it might be coming from a woman who doesn’t have a very good sense of herself. Maybe she is shallow in gospel understanding, and doesn’t know how to make the most of life. Maybe her husband isn’t empathetic or loving. But this is Claudia Bushman speaking, and we know none of that is true.
I don’t care at all about past polygamy. But I think it’s a crying shame that we’re keeping it alive to distress the good women of this church, and make them beggars in their own marriages. (And I say that with utmost respect for them, and not to pry or point fingers or make unwarranted assumptions. I very first heard her tell this story at a small gathering a couple years ago, but I never referred to it because I thought she might have meant it just for small groups.)
I wish I thought that anyone in leadership cares about this. I hope they do, and we just don’t know it yet. What would be lost and what would be gained by stating that we are done with mortal polygamy?
1st – Love this Quote:But this is Claudia Bushman speaking, and we know none of that is true.
Quote:
I wish I thought that anyone in leadership cares about this. I hope they do, and we just don’t know it yet. What would be lost and what would be gained by stating that we are done with mortal polygamy?This isn’t a direct hit, but a rumor is floating around the web that Elder Ballard spoke at a broadcast regional/stake conferences he encouraged people to read the essays. I am so taking this and running with it, not for me, but for others. I am hoping that as people read them we can start the conversations.
Today as I drove home from Relief Society I really thought about how my vision of my ward sisters changed. I like my ward, I haven’t had gripes, but today I realized I don’t know them like I thought. In class and at church we appear one way, yet may not be. Polygamy may get it’s hit as we spread the word. Its not a top down change, but race wasn’t either. We have to keep working and finding a way to move without it being war. War will get us stuck.
All of this talk about what might happen reminds me back in the day when people talked openly about moving back to Missouri. It was clear that there was a belief that our homes in the intermountain west were only temporary and that at some time we’d be told to pack up and move back to where the center stakes were prophesied to be, the temples would be built on a pattern already revealed and that we’d be at Adam-Ondi-Ahman (?sp) where the ancient of days would come to judge us all. People talked about being faithful and being obedient but over the years other than the church purchasing land and spiffing up history sites the whole notion has faded into distant memory, a part of a church that was but isn’t anymore. And that’s what’s going to happen to polygamy. There’s no way that it could fit into today’s church regardless of whatever twists of ancient, perverted, twisted theological speculation someone might come up with. For me it’s time to move on. GBSmith wrote:I think that polygamy is one of those doctrines that will be ignored to death. The essays will be the last official word, there won’t be any conference talks on the subject, seminary and institute teachers will finesse or just skip teaching about 132 and the history of the “principle” and the only people with anything to say will be history hobbyists, nutcase, zealots, and those who yearn for bearded prophets who come out with a revelation a weekand the ability to see Christ on demand plus the occasional paper or book at the MHA. That’s what I think the GA’s hope and that we’ll consider that period from a different church in a different time and that has nothing to do with what is happening now.IMHO. Sure, many Church members have largely ignored and continue to ignore polygamy so far and it’s not like Church leaders are going to talk about it in General Conference or start asking members if they have a testimony that polygamy was commanded by God in temple recommend interviews. So in that sense it is more like the doctrine that Adam was supposedly literally the first man than something like the WoW or temple marriage because it is essentially nothing more than a fairly obscure point of trivia for practical purposes rather than something that will directly impact most active members’ lives. However, the interesting thing to me about the essays and some of these issues now being mentioned in Institute lessons is that it shows that some of these historical issues are no longer as easy to ignore or make excuses for as they used to be for many Church members.
Basically members don’t need to be particularly skeptical, interested in historical details, etc. to stumble onto some of this information on the internet and have their LDS testimony shattered in a matter of days (or even minutes) over some of these issues and in many cases be left feeling like the Church deliberately hid this information from them. Also, most members already know that the Church was involved in practicing polygamy in the past and officially abandoned the practice but what many of them don’t know about but are in constant danger of finding out about is some of the disturbing details of Joseph Smith’s plural marriages in Nauvoo such as sealings to women still married to other men, his step-daughters, etc. while publicly denying it and hiding many of these “sealings” from Emma. I think that’s the main reason they are now insisting it was commanded by God because they apparently feel like that’s the only way to defend Joseph Smith as a trustworthy prophet and the typical whitewashed story of Joseph Smith is being increasingly exposed as a myth nowadays.
DA – What do you think, though, about Roy’s thought back at the beginning of this thread? My concern isn’t what Joseph did, it’s the implications of our explanationof what he did for today’s LDS women. If possible, I’d like to focus on that and not so much on being stunned by Nauvoo polygamy. The question for me is, what now? Roy wrote:Ann wrote:Countenancing past polygamy, refusing to clearly state that we are DONE in mortality with multiple spouses of ANY mix of gender and numbers, and SITTING BY while the implications of that wash over the women and girls of the church is, in my opinion, unconscionable.
I agree. Since we are so clearly not going back to the good ol’ days of polygamy – why not just say that it has been taken off the table for the rest of mortality. Why not double down that God’s eternal standard is monogamy. What does that mean for people that were married to multiple people in this lifetime (either successively or concurrently)? We do not know but we have faith that an infinitely loving God will sort it out in a just and merciful fashion.How many LDS people would a statement like that offend?
Quote:Why not double down that God’s eternal standard is monogamy?
Fwiw, I think we have done that, institutionally, over the last few years – driven by the same-sex marriage debate.
It’s been kind of ironic, imo, that the LDS Church has been near the forefront in talking about marriage being traditional and between ONE man and ONE woman(!!!!), given our history – but I think we have “doubled down” on it recently. Sure, the Church hasn’t condemned 19th century polygamy or tackled the issue of marriage construct(s) in the next life – but it sure has stated publicly, repeated, that God’s standard of marriage for mortality is monogamous.
Seriously, it might be impossible to run away from mortal polygamy more than has happened over the last 20 years or so without flat-out condemning it in the past.
I have said this previously, but, along with the core issue of homosexual sex itself, I believe much of the opposition to same-sex marriage was motivated by a desire to not have the door opened for the next debate to be polygamy. I think that is more frightening for most leaders than same-sex marriage possibly could be.
Ann wrote: “A – What do you think, though, about Roy’s thought back at the beginning of this thread? My concern isn’t what Joseph did, it’s the implications of our explanation of what he did for today’s LDS women. If possible, I’d like to focus on that and not so much on being stunned by Nauvoo polygamy. The question for me is, what now?” For me, the implications of our plural marriage history, now, is to not let the negative implications of plural marriage define LDS women of modern times. This is not to minimize the pain and suffering it must have caused, and the way it can be considered degrading, but to recognize that one can still be part of the LDS experience and not buy into the reasons given for it. Also, to reject to ourselves and others the underlying messages it sends about the status of women in our history, and the inequities it implies today and in the future. Reject those cultural values.
Although these plural marriage issues are different that the ones I refer to next, I put plural marriage in a similar arena as the priesthood ban, the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and my own angst-related issues in the church. One has to decide what they think about these issues, what it says about our church historically and today, and, if one is committed to their membership in the church at some level, figure out how to not let it drive you crazy or drive you into sheer inactivity.
We will never know for sure WHY the practice was instituted. There are theories a) JS did it to justify his indiscretions with Fannie Alger b) God commanded it to fuel population growth c) there weren’t enough men for the number of women, and one needs to decide if these theories hold water, or if there were other reasons. Ultimately, your own belief matters. I personally take a somewhat cynical view of the practice as JS covering himself for his sexual appetite. To turn it into doctrine is a horrible outcome of that.
After deciding what you believe, it’s time to try to figure out how to minimize the impact of the practice on you today. Without minimizing the suffering it caused, the coping mechanisms range from the active promotion of women’s rights and interests in the church such as Ordain Women, all the way to strategies that minimize the angst while being largely quiet about it at church.
The former paragraph puts us into the realm of coping.engaging with the LDS experience when we find parts of it unhelpful or even destructive to one’s personal happiness, as I have on certain issues. I think we all have different strategies….which I will try to synthesize here:
a) Use lessons on Sundays to provide counterpoint arguments and new perspectives when people come out with objectionable reasons for plural marriage, and imply negative things for the status of women. Learn to “rock the boat without sinking the ship”. Some find this not only therapeutic, but also helpful in giving others something to think about . Inside out culture change. I notice one woman doing this in the ward we attend. She provides a mix of supportive and “counterpuntal” statements throughout all lessons. She wears pants to church every week. I am almost starting to feel safe around her and may even support her comments when I feel I can. Such is the influence you could have on others — providing a sense of belonging for other like-minded people.
b) Avoid situations that produce angst. For me, it was the “volunteer as employee” model I started feeling. To cope, I found ways of serving humanity outside the church, while still remaining connected on a diluted level inside it. I also had to shake the judgmentalism from others that I had “gone off the deep end” or that somehow, my service was not as valid because it wasn’t aimed at the church.
c) Support the slow changes the church is making to be more “progressive”. Although it is by no means a final solution to the status of women, they are slowly making changes on their own timeline. At an agonizingly slow pace for many people, but there have been instances of slow change. You can support those changes provided it doesnt’ subtract from your inner peace given their baby steps.
Ultimately, I find effecting change in the church is a very slow process, and one that will take the patience of Ghandi to effect. He got Independence of India from Britain, but it took his lifetime. For me, I am not capable of committing to such changes — not because they aren’t important, but because there is so little positive reinforcement along the way. I can’t sustain the effort it requires. For some reason, I like a balance of high impact results in the short term and longer term projects we can pick at over time.
Therefore, my strategy is to create space in the world where I express my contrarion ideas about leadership, about how to effect change, even to the point of starting my own organization around a mission that engergizes me, and allows me to serve in ways that are not possible in the church — while not abandoning the church completely.
I hope I haven’t minimized the impact of plural marriage on women today. It is a terrible thing on our history. Naturally, I joined the church because I thought it was something I could be proud of, and for years I was. But now that I have seen the impact of plural marriage and other bad decisions by our previous leaders, I see it as a massive blight on our history and destructive to not only new membership growth, but the self-esteem of women.
I was researching Elizabeth Smart the other day. You could argue that a derqanged man took plural marriage doctrine and justified it to enslave her sexually. And so, shadows of plural marriage continue to effect women today in that way. Her advice to others is to not let what happened define her. She has gone on to found an organization that helps people who experienced similar trials as she did. She served a mission and then got married. I see her as a person who is responding in the best way she can for her mental health, in spite of what happened to her. If I could, I wish I could just erase that experience from her life…I really do.
Old-Timer wrote:Quote:Why not double down that God’s eternal standard is monogamy?
Fwiw, I think we have done that, institutionally, over the last few years – driven by the same-sex marriage debate.
It’s been kind of ironic, imo, that the LDS Church has been near the forefront in talking about marriage being traditional and between ONE man and ONE woman(!!!!), given our history – but I think we have “doubled down” on it recently. Sure, the Church hasn’t condemned 19th century polygamy or tackled the issue of marriage construct(s) in the next life – but it sure has stated publicly, repeated, that God’s standard of marriage for mortality is monogamous.
ack! “marriage for mortality” is that awful qualifier that I so very hate…because the eternal identity is more important for my daughters than temporary practices that come and go in mortality.I want doubling down on equality in marriage forever. That was what I signed up for when I went to the temple. I did not know all this other stuff then. Now that I know, I am allowed to change my opinions on my covenants and following church leaders based on new light and knowledge I have.
For me, polygamy is just one thing that because it is left unresolved…is the greatest problem for me with church and priesthood. It makes me not want to follow priesthood leaders, frankly. If they won’t double down and tell me what the doctrine is or isn’t, frankly it makes it difficult to double down on my commitment and sacrifice to the church.
Credibility in the priesthood is lost for me when the irony is really seen. And who is better at satire for this kind of thing than Stephen Colbert:
Quote:I’ll give the Mormons this: They know which way the wind blows. When America decided that polygamy wasn’t the way to go, the Mormons changed their ways and banned it. They had similar changes in policy when public opinion turned against the traditions of massacring pioneers and believing that all Black people are evil. Pretty much whenever the general populace decides that Mormons are a sinful crazy cult, their leader receives a message straight from God that makes everything OK. This practice continues to this day; you can see it in the way that Mitt Romney was pro-choice when he was running for governor of Massachusetts, but was divinely inspired to become pro-life when he was running for the Republican nomination for president.
Stephen Colbert, ‘I Am America (and so can you!)”, p. 55-6.
I love how Colbert is tongue and cheek, but has an intelligent point to be made.
The church won’t double down on it’s stance on polygamy, that is why credibility is hurt around polygamy. It was brought into the light of day…and doesn’t stand up…and the church has not double downed on rejecting the teaching [yes, banned the practice but didn’t reject the teaching]…instead just made comments like “not right now”, “not in this life based on the Proclamation” or “we don’t know why”….and they leave it in the D&C and open for future and eternal speculation by men and women.
It is one thing for early saints in New Testament days to believe Christ was coming back in a couple years…and just be off on timing..we still believe He is coming back. I’m doubling down on His return because timing doesn’t matter on things that are true. True teachings shape my thoughts and beliefs and my identity.
Polygamy…nope. Timing doesn’t matter on things that are not true. It was done in the OT, just like killing lambs and spilling blood was done. Not because they are eternal principles, and are not going to be brought back.
It was a mistake for JS to do it, to write in the D&C about it, for BY and John Taylor to institute it, and it was good the church stopped it. The last nail needs to be put in the coffin on it. Admit it is not eternal, it is not doctrine (as GBH said), and close the book on it so my daughters don’t ever have to have it be something to wrestle with for their eternal identity.
It doesn’t make me want to leave the church. It just hurts credibility and I consider that when the church wants me to double down on what a priesthood leaders says (Sabbath day is the latest kick), when I know perfectly well they can be wrong.
I think my wife and daughters are benefited by me taking a stand on this and what I believe and how I handle it, rather than wishy washy telling them I don’t want to perjure myself on something I abhor because I more respect priesthood than I do the important women in my life.
On that Colbert comment. I heard a quote on Mormon discussion podcast about “churches must do two things to survive. First they must change and second they must make it seem like they are not changing” Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I have always believed the LDS church changes when it’s impossible not to — without losing assets or impairing other organizational goals on a large scale. Recent leaders have engaged in non-crisis change, I will give them that, such as elevating Ward council over PEC. For me, the biggest issue with polygamy boils down to consent, and both D&C 132 and the reprehensible Law of Sarah violate a woman’s ability to consent (or to withhold consent). A rape victim is still virtuous if she did not consent, Moroni 9:9 notwithstanding. How is telling a woman she must consent (to a plural marriage) or be destroyed not the same mentality as rape? In the context of D&C 132, a woman’s consent is not binding on anyone else–it will happen whether she agrees or not. Her husband is not bound to her at all, while she is bound to him (which is why the unequal language in the temple sealing point to polygamous roots). She can choose to refuse consent and be destroyed. That’s not really a choice. That’s not really consent. From a post I did on the Law of Sarah:
http://www.wheatandtares.org/16791/one-more-reason-i-dont-want-to-gather-in-missouri/ Quote:[2] I could further point out that the Law of Sarah, the church’s original defense that was bolstered by Brian Hales in the church’s recent essay makes literally no sense for anyone who has actually read the Old Testament. Sarah proposed Abraham produce a child with her servant Hagar. It was Sarah’s idea because she owned the servant. When the servant got uppity, she kicked her to the curb, and thousands of years of bloodshed ensued. How that can be twisted to mean that a woman who refuses to let her husband take a second wife doesn’t really get a vote is pretty convoluted logic, and yet that’s what the Law of Sarah says.
Orson Pratt said:
“When a man who has a wife, teaches her the law of God, and she refuses to give her consent for him to marry another according to that law, then, it becomes necessary, for her to state before the President the reasons why she withholds her consent; if her reasons are sufficient and justifiable and the husband is found in the fault, or in transgression, then, he is not permitted to take any step in regard to obtaining another. But if the wife can show no good reason why she refuses to comply with the law which was given unto Sarah of old, then it is lawful for her husband, if permitted by revelation through the prophet, to be married to others without her consent, and he will be justified, and she will be condemned, because she did not give them unto him, as Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham, and as Rachel and Leah gave Bilhah and Zilpah to their husband, Jacob.” (The Seer, Vol.1, No.3, p.41)
President Joseph F. Smith (at the Reed Smoot hearing) said:
President Smith: The condition is that if she does not consent the Lord will destroy her, but I do not know how he will do it.
Question: Is it not true that … if she refuses her consent her husband is exempt from the law which requires her consent.
President Smith: Yes; he is exempt from the law which requires her consent. She is commanded to consent, but if she does not, then he is exempt from the requirement.
Question: Then he is at liberty to proceed without her consent, under the law. In other words, her consent amounts to nothing?
President Smith: It amounts to nothing but her consent.
The Old Testament doesn’t require the wife’s consent because it was her idea; this was a part of slavery or having a servant. The women owned those women and gave them to their husbands to increase their own status as wives through offspring. The husbands didn’t request them, so there was no question of the wife’s consent or lack thereof. It was her disposing of her own property (slave) for her own gain and bears no resemblance to the polygamy practiced in the early days of the LDS church. Most contemporary Mormons would know nothing about the Law of Sarah if it were not for the recent polygamy essays in which this argument was resurrected.
Quote:She is commanded to consent
😯 Quote:For me, the biggest issue with polygamy boils down to consent.
Amen.
Ironically, that is one of the biggest reasons I can’t condemn it entirely, in all cases – since I know personally a woman who chose it completely on her own, no pressure, no coercion, full consent. I also know there are far more in that situation than the one woman I know.
I know this is a stretched analogy, but for me it is similar to people who condemn same-sex marriage entirely because they can’t fathom any reason to accept it, even in theory. I can’t imagine myself in either of those arrangements (polygamy or same-sex marriage), but I value the right of others to choose their own arrangements – even if those arrangements seem repulsive to me.
Full, informed consent is about the only restriction on which I will not concede – and that is why I hate the way polygamy was implemented in our own history.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.