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SamBee wrote:
As I understand it several of the plural marriages were not consummated and some of them were posthumous.
I think it’s pretty well agreed that the consummation of some of the marriages is up for question. But the 32 or 33 marriages at
http://wivesofjosephsmith.org/ are all generally considered to have been bona fide marriages during Joseph’s lifetime. A perusal of that web site is well worth anybody’s time who wants to discuss the issue intelligently.I don’t believe Joseph had any wife besides Emma. There are two sides to every story, and most people are only familiar with one side when it comes to polygamy. Here is the other side:
http://restorationbookstore.org/jsfp-index.htm The authors claim that Brigham Young went on a mission to a polygamous community known as the Cochranites, shortly after joining the Church. And that Brigham and others, influenced by this, brought polygamy into the Church secretly, and ultimately blamed Joseph for it. Well, there is a lot more to the story, but I’ll leave it at that.
allquieton wrote:I don’t believe Joseph had any wife besides Emma.
đŸ˜¯ I will read the web link you provided, but I got to say…well, never mind. I guess we can all believe whatever we want to believe. That is what this site is all about.
Amen, cwald – and I will wield the admin stick with vigor if this thread starts turning into a debate about whether or not Joseph practiced polygamy. We all can have our opinions, and allquieton provided a useful link to see the other side of the belief spectrum, but we aren’t set up as a debate site, and I won’t let it happen. We don’t pull out the big guns very often (in fact, we do so very, very rarely), but this is one case where I will.
Old-Timer wrote: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. .
It’s interesting that you make it sound like the Shakers with sex or the Oneida colony with it’s open sexual relationships. There were a lot of communitarian experiments at the time and earlier plus experiments with nutrition and health similar to the WoW. Maybe it was the feeling that with attempts at restoration, anything was fair game.
Quote:Maybe it was the feeling that with attempts at restoration, anything was fair game.
GB, I think that’s a fair summary of how I see Joseph – and most “visionary” people, in general.
cwald wrote: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.
In all honesty don’t want to try to tear down the LDS Church like some rabid anti-Mormon. In fact, what I would really like to see more than anything is simply for them to slightly reform some of their hard-line policies and doctrines that advocate unquestioning obedience to authority or at least for more members to really acknowledge the fact that these leaders are still just men that make mistakes like everyone else.
Why prolong the agony by perpetuating an obvious myth like this nearly infallible prophet idea? It wouldn’t bother me so much if it was a relatively harmless or positive myth but this one has way too much potential for abuse and has already resulted in a lot of unnecessary confusion and stress from the beginning. The fact is that they have contradicted themselves and can be proven wrong in many cases. Well if they’ve been wrong before and can’t seem to keep their story straight then why should I listen to them when they say I shouldn’t ever drink beer? It just doesn’t make any sense. Now if they want to preach against habitual drunkenness then it would be harder to argue with them but it seems like they take everything to extremes just because they can. There is no accountability.
cwald wrote:PS – I love the signature quote.
I’m guessing that whoever first said this quote on my signature probably meant it as a harsh criticism of religion compared to the supposed superiority of philosophy. However, to me the meaning is more complicated than that and it also shows the relative futility of philosophy in many cases. A classic example of some of the dead-end pointlessness of over-thinking things is the question of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Maybe many people don’t really question religion simply because they are already satisfied with the answers they get from it and they don’t feel any need to question it because it works for them. Sure I think it would be better to question it and eliminate some of the assumptions that don’t really stand up to honest scrutiny but sometimes even after you have already done that you still basically have to guess or admit that you don’t really know for sure. Actually, some of the unknowns and unsettled arguments are one reason why both religion and philosophy are often more interesting to me than many “scientific” questions where the answer can be directly verified or there is more of a consensus.
There is a close friend of mine in Denmark who I helped bring to the church 5 years ago this month. A few years back we met in Salt Lake City and were walking around temple square. We came across the statues of Joseph Smith and Emma facing each other. My dear friend stares at them and says, “Where’s the statues of the other 32 wives he had. Aren’t they just as important?” That was a great point and I remember it bothered me that the last years of Priesthood/RS manuals of early presidents of the church like Brigham Young only mentions the 1st wife. Yesterday, my very favorite missionary companion, who served with me in Austria, called. We were talking about the wife of our LTM mission leader and how much we liked her. She had made an important point to us sister missionaries about general authorities. She was a young woman who had served her mission in South America while her present husband (our LTM President) was married to his first wife and was her LTM president as well. While she was on her mission, his 1st wife died. After her mission she became good friends with this older, but very handsome, mission president. They fell in love and were planning their wedding. Harold B. Lee was an uncle to her fiance and one of the 12 apostles. She was so excited about her wedding and making all sorts of plans when Elder Lee firmly told her to not make such a fuss over her wedding as she was just a second wife. She told us to always remember that GA’s are just humans with flaws, predjudices, and failings and only when they speak with “Thus saith the Lord” do I respect their callings. I have several problems here. One, why are these other wives not considered as important when God values each one of us equally. Two, if GA’s have flaws, predjudices, and failings, how can I know if what they say when they proclaim “Thus saith the Lord’ is truly from God? Haven’t some GA’s used those words in making prophecies that did not come true or later showed to be wrong? I really struggle with spirituality right now sometimes wondering if insprirations I am getting are just reflections of my own wishful thinking or really from God? I follow them anyway to see where they lead as this is all I can go by. Most of the time they have led me the right way so I feel good about that. I just find spirituality a difficult thing, especially in regards to church leaders.
Every time I see this subject I can’t help but think of the disrespect and flat out mockery of these women. They were real. They were involved with these men because of their faith and they are completely ignored and erased as if they never existed. Even though I think polygamy was in no way inspired … these relationships are kind of thrown about in books, lessons, etc … as if they were monogamous. It’s a beating around the bush … thats getting a little too dishonest, imo. Sure it isn’t pretty but it was real and involved multiple women with more faith than I will ever have. Actually the other question is whether the women were interested or not. From some of the accounts of polygamy I’ve read, certain women were happy enough to get into plural marriage, although the dynamics between the wives seem to have been somewhat catty. I find it a fascinating subject – have been enjoying looking through all the links and information on the internet etc. I seem to have a great understanding and openess now. As I have read, it seems much easier to sort through things when you dont look at it in black and white. Does anyone know the reasoning behind the polyandry (ie Smith taking wives of women that were already married??). Was he just confused in the idea of polygamy and what he was supposed to do?
:I always thought the polyandry was a bit more cynical personally. I don’t know what the husbands thought. NotSure2008 wrote:Does anyone know the reasoning behind the polyandry (ie Smith taking wives of women that were already married??). Was he just confused in the idea of polygamy and what he was supposed to do?
:11 out of 34 known wives of JS were already married. They married JS out of pure faith, even believing that the fate of Joseph and the Church depended on it. They were amazing women who should be honored for their sacrifices. I personally will never be able to accept Josephs acts of polyandry (or polygamy) as okay in any way, shape or form. This statement below comes from an 1861 speech by Brigham Young. Perhaps it sheds a little light on what the h*ll they were thinking.
“The second way in which a wife can be separated from her husband while he continues to be faithful to his God and his priesthood I have not revealed except to a few persons in this church, and a few have received it from Joseph the Prophet as well as myself.
If a woman can find a man holding the keys of the priesthood with higher power and authority than her husband, and he is disposed to take her, he can do soWho had the highest power and authority of them all? It seems like one big power trip to me. IMHO
bridget_night wrote:…if GA’s have flaws, predjudices, and failings, how can I know if what they say when they proclaim “Thus saith the Lord’ is truly from God? Haven’t some GA’s used those words in making prophecies that did not come true or later showed to be wrong?
Excellent question.
Today we can walk into a Deseret Book store, pick up a copy of Michael Ash’s book, and see in chapter 3 “Unrealistic Expectations of Prophets” that prophets are human and fallible. Ash does a great job of showing how prophets, like everyone else, are largely products of their culture and surroundings. They have prejudices and opinions like everyone else. These things will naturally work their way into the prophet’s communications.
So how do we know what is inspired and what is of man?
Ash says it is
our individual responsibility to listen to the spirit and determine for ourselves what is of God. This book is sold by the official retail outlet of the church. Of course that doesn’t make it doctrine, but he backs up his statements very well with scripture and quotes from different church leaders. It may be the best chapter in his book.
(Ash, “Shaken Faith Syndrome”, FAIR 2008)Flowerdrop, That quote makes me sick to my stomach. Wow, what a tangled web.
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