I’m not a Mormon, but I always understood the context of polygamy among the Mormons to be based on the very imbalanced female to male ratio of their early years. Without a father or husband, a woman would have no other practical way to provide for herself, other than by becoming a prostitute, which of course was frowned upon in Utah.
In addition to that, young men were effectively assigned wives that they could support within their means. And unmarried young men were seen as a threat to the community, more like the criminals that the Mormons eventually drove out of Utah, a former sanctuary to them in the West.
And in retrospect, these social policies seemed to work very well for Mormons as a whole.
Polygamy was/is away for men (mormon) to insure many children to populate their own plants which they will become gods of, the women of his planet are eternally pregnant.
“I’m not a Mormon, but I always understood the context of polygamy among the Mormons to be based on the very imbalanced female to male ratio of their early years. Without a father or husband, a woman would have no other practical way to provide for herself, other than by becoming a prostitute, which of course was frowned upon in Utah.”
A common LDS deception on the issue. In fact, the truth is, there were ALWAYS more men than women in Utah, both in the general population and in the church:
http://mormonthink.com/joseph-smith-polygamy.htm#more
Click on the section “more women than men?” for the statistics.
It also does not square with the actual history of polygamy among the Mormons. This was not something that they were all just practicing willy nilly. It started with Joseph Smith and his inner-circle who practiced polygamy in secrecy before they left to Utah.
Here is Mormon Apostle John A. Widtsoe refuting the idea as well, quoted from Mormon Thinker:
“”Plural marriage has been a subject of wide and frequent comment. Members of the Church unfamiliar with its history, and many non-members, have set up fallacious reasons for the origin of this system of marriage among the Latter-day Saints.
The most common of these conjectures is that the Church, through plural marriage, sought to provide husbands for its large surplus of female members. The implied assumption in this theory, that there have been more female than male members in the Church, is not supported by existing evidence. On the contrary, there seem always to have been more males than females in the Church...
The United States census records from 1850 to 1940, and all available Church records, uniformly show a preponderance of males in Utah, and in the Church. Indeed, the excess in Utah has usually been larger than for the whole United States, as would be expected in a pioneer state. The births within the Church obey the usual population law - a slight excess of males...
The theory that plural marriage was a consequence of a surplus of female Church members fails from lack of evidence...
Another conjecture is that the people were few in number and that the Church, desiring greater numbers, permitted the practice so that a phenomenal increase in population could be attained. This is not defensible, since there was no surplus of women...” (”Evidences And Reconciliation”, pgs 307 - 310, The Bookcraft Company, 1943, Salt Lake City, Utah)
Sorry, but you're superimposing myth into history.
I remember one specific poster who, I think like a lot of contemporary Mormons plus their allies, assumed that there was some glut of widowed women and that therefore, men just had to “step up” and “marry” them as a “plural wife.”
According to the Changing World of Mormonism, pp. 224-225: [LDS} "Apostle” John A. Widtsoe, who was born during the polygamy years (early 1870s) stated:
’We do not understand why the Lord commanded the practice of plural marriage.’ (Evidences and Reconciliations, 1960, p.393). One of the most popular explanations is that the church practiced polygamy because there was a surplus of women. The truth is, however, that there were less women than men. Apostle Widtsoe admitted that there was no surplus of women”: 'The implied assumption in this theory, that there have been more female than male members in the Church, is not supported by existing evidence. On the contrary, there seems always to have been more males than females in the Church.’.. The United States census records from 1850 to 1940, and all available Church records, uniformly show a preponderance of males in Utah, and in the Church. Indeed, the excess in Utah has usually been larger than for the whole United States, ... there was no surplus of women'” (Widtsoe, Evidences and Reconciliations, 1960, pp.390-92," as cited in Changing World, pp. 224-225).
You mean like the one young man who fancied a certain pretty young woman (who was interested also in the young man). But an old coot of a local Mormon leader had his eye on the woman. And the young man wouldn't back down; wouldn't be sent on a mission.
And so they castrated the young man...
What is entirely "interesting" is that the person who had the oversight of this mess was a "Snow"...Bishop Warren Snow of Manti:
"In Nauvoo it was the orders from Joseph Smith and his apostles to beat, wound and castrate all Gentiles that the police could take in the act of entering or leaving a Mormon household under circumstances that led to the belief that they had been there for immoral purposes.... In Utah it was the favorite revenge of old, worn-out members of the Priesthood, who wanted young women sealed to them, and found that the girl preferred some handsome young man. The old priests generally got the girls, and many a young man was unsexed for refusing to give up his sweetheart at the request of an old and failing, but still sensual apostle or member of the Priesthood. As an illustration...Warren Snow was Bishop of the Church at Manti, San Pete County, Utah. He had several wives, but there was a fair, buxom young woman in the town that Snow wanted for a wife.... She thanked him for the honor offered, but told him she was then engaged to a young man, a member of the Church, and consequently could not marry the old priest.... He told her it was the will of God that she should marry him, and she must do so; that the young man could be got rid of, sent on a mission or dealt with in some way... that, in fact, a promise made to the young man was not binding, when she was informed that it was contrary to the wishes of the authorities. "The girl continued obstinate.... the authorities called on the young man and directed him to give up the young woman. This he steadfastly refused to do.... He remained true to his intended, and said he would die before he would surrender his intended wife to the embraces of another.... The young man was ordered to go on a mission to some distant locality... But the mission was refused... "It was then determined that the rebellious young man must be forced by harsh treatment to respect the advice and orders of the Priesthood. His fate was left to Bishop Snow for his decision. He decided that the young man should be castrated; Snow saying, 'When that is done, he will not be liable to want the girl badly, and she will listen to reason when she knows that her lover is no longer a man.' "It was then decided to call a meeting of the people who lived true to counsel, which was held in the school-house in Manti... The young man was there, and was again requested, ordered and threatened, to get him to surrender the young woman to Snow, but true to his plighted troth, he refused to consent to give up the girl. The lights were then put out. An attack was made on the young man. He was severely beaten, and then tied with his back down on a bench, when Bishop Snow took a bowie-knife, and performed the operation in a most brutal manner, and then took the portion severed from his victim and hung it up in the school-house on a nail, so that it could be seen by all who visited the house afterwards. "The party then left the young man weltering in his blood, and in a lifeless condition. During the night he succeeded in releasing himself from his confinement, and dragged himself to some hay-stacks, where he lay until the next day, when he was discovered by his friends. The young man regained his health, but has been an idiot or quite lunatic ever since...."After this outrage old Bishop Snow took occasion to get up a meeting... When all had assembled, the old man talked to the people about their duty to the Church, and their duty to obey counsel, and the dangers of refusal, and then publicly called attention to the mangled parts of the young man, that had been severed from his person, and stated that the deed had been done to teach the people that the counsel of the Priesthood must be obeyed. To make a long story short, I will say, the young woman was soon after forced into being sealed to Bishop Snow. "Brigham Young... did nothing against Snow. He left him in charge as Bishop at Manti, and ordered the matter to be hushed up." (Ibid., pages 284-286)
Source: MORMONISM'S EARLY SECRETS
Btw, the one-time history prof at BYU -- D. Michael Quinn -- confirmed the castration account in his writings.
Then you 'understand' just what the LDS propaganda machine wants you to 'understand'.
I’m not a Mormon, but I always understood the context of polygamy among the Mormons to be based on the very imbalanced female to male ratio of their early years.
This was thought to be better than the daughters becoming whores and or becoming unwed mothers which is what we have today which can not possibly be any better.
I do have big doubts about God having anything to do with it, except in nature itself.