On Despising Mormon Polygamy

Patheos' KiwiMormon blog ^ | October 28, 2014 | Gina Colvin

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

Polygamy is actually an Old Testament practice, which was never challenged in the New Testament.

Polygamy is ruled out in that, number one, God made them "male and female," not male and females, and, secondly, if you divorce and remarry, you are committing adultery. If polygamy was acceptable, it would not be a sin to remarry. She would just be your second wife.

But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. And in the house his disciples asked him again of the same matter. And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery. (Mar 10:6-12)

[2ndDivisionVet]

I’ve got 2016.

[sten]

you realize going into the past just opens you up for comparisons to the church and it’s dealings/scams in the past

(want your dead grandmother to live in a nice condo? pay more on sunday!)

[Nifster]

You might want to read those accounts of J. Smith closely (particulalry those from non Mormon sources). It is entirely plausible that Smith was shot by one of his ownn (either to fulfill a sick ‘prophecy’ or because of the chaos).

I have been to Nauvoo (visiting my mom in Quincy when she lived there and she wanted to see it.....she liked older architecture). It is well preserved but the story that the acholytes give you is so much fluff and stuff. There are small kernels of truth to it but on the whole it is a very jaded presentation. Preservation is well done

[SkyDancer]

Thought so too. Interesting place re: US history which is about as far as I’d take it. I’ve read lots about Mormons and the books that the Tanner’s produced.

[terycarl]

does polygamy ever work in the opposite direction....one wife, several husbands????

[2ndDivisionVet]

Yes, but it’s MUCH more rare.

[DesertRhino]

“A real conundrum. ..We abhore the whole 72 virgins being raped for eternity in Allah’s whorehouse but, Joe gets a pass?”

Agreed. And another conundrum. Legitimately criticizing polygamy, and forgetting one happens to be on their third marriage.

[Nifster]

Agreed. And I too have read the Tanners’ work. I believe that is where I first learned of the Spaulding manuscript.

[Vendome]

They get the salad set they didn’t get with the Ginsu knives?

[Vendome]

What’s love got to do with it

What’s love but, a sweet old fashioned notion.

What’s love?!??!!

[teppe]

I have a great-great-great-grandfather who was killed by an Indian in Southern Idaho.

His widow entered into a polygamist mairrage with a friend of his, who raised the kids as if they were his own.

I don’t know about all of the polygamist mairrages, but in this case it worked out perfectly. A young widow and her children were taken care of in a very inhospitable frontier environment.

Possibly, God knew my ancestors plight as well as others and this was his solution for dealing with the welfare of the early Latter Day Saints while they were fulfilling Isiah’s prophecy”

...and in the last days, the Mountain of the Lord’s House shall be established in the Tops of the Mountains and all nations shall flow unto it!”

....which is kind of funny, while Brigham Young wanted the State to be called Deseret,,,anti-mormons snubbing the Church named it “Utah” which in the Ute language means “Tops of the Mountains” thus fulfilling Isaih’s 3,000 year old prophecy.

[mrobisr]

Divorce is a sin because of the life long contract made between a man and woman is broken. Much like Jesus talks about the bride groom and bride and his life long commitment to us.
“ if you DIVORCE and remarry, you are committing adultery. If polygamy was acceptable, it would not be a sin to remarry. She would just be your second wife.”

The action word you used was divorce. So by marrying a second lady that was not a break of contract divorce so by scripture that would be acceptable.

“And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery. (Mar 10:6-12)”

There again the action word is divorce (put away), if that wasn’t important both times it would be noted. Example, Scripture would read whoever marries another person committeth adultery, but it doesn’t because “put away” divorce is the issue.

Don’t get me wrong I wouldn’t be married to more than one woman for any amount of money, but there are too many examples of polygamy in the OT. If you can truly show Scripture that condemns it I’m all ears, but I have searched high and low and it’s just not there.

Titus 1:6 King James Version (KJV)

6 If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly.

1 Timothy 3:2 King James Version (KJV)

2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;

1 Timothy 3:12 King James Version (KJV)

12 Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well.

[Tennessee Nana]

In 1831 Joey Smith tried to force 12 year old Mary Elizabeth Rollins to have sex with him.

—Smith Tells 12-Year-Old Mary Elizabeth that God Has Commanded Him in a Vision to Marry Her and that a Sword-Bearing Angel Threatened to Kill Him if She Didn’t Obey (Sound Familiar?)—

Authors Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery report Smith’s snag line as follows in “Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith—Prophet’s Wife, ‘Elect Lady,’ Polygamy’s Foe”:

“Mary Elizabeth Rollins claimed that Joseph had a private conversation with her in 1831; she was 12 years old.

“She said Joseph ‘told me about his great vision concerning me. He said I was the first woman God commanded him to take as a plural wife.’ [letter from Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner to Emeline B. Wells, summer 1905, LDS Archives]

“Although she did not become a plural wife of Joseph’s until a number of years later, that early conversation planted a seed that Mary Elizabeth long remembered.”
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Feb 15, 1845 - Sidney Rigdon asks, in the LDS newspaper MESSENGER AND ADVOCATE “Did the Lord ever tell any people that sleeping with their neighbor’s wives and daughters had any thing to do with preparing the way of the Savior’s coming[?]” Ridgon’s daughter, Nancy, had been approached by Joseph Smith and asked to become a secret plural wife. This caused a rift between Rigdon and Smith.
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“I shall have wives and children by the million, and glory, and riches and power and dominion, and kingdom after kingdom, and reign triumphantly.”

Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses V.8, Pg 178-179
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July 6, 1862 - Brigham Young preaches: “Monogamy, or restrictions by law to one wife, is no part of the economy of Heaven among men. Such s system was commenced by the founders of the Roman empire. . . .The scarcity of women gave existence to laws restricting one wife to one man. Rome became the mistress of the world, and introduced this order of monogamy wherever her sway was acknowledged. Thus this monogamic order of marriage, so esteemed by modern Christians as a holy sacrament and divine institution, is nothing but a system established by a set of robbers. . . . Why do we believe in and practise polygamy? Because the Lord introduced it to his servitors in a revelation given to Joseph Smith, and the Lord’s servants have always practiced it. ‘And is that religion popular in heaven?’ It is the only popular religion there, for this is the religion of Abraham, and, unless we do the works of Abraham, we are not Abraham’s seed and heirs according to promise.”
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Feb 15, 1885 The SALT LAKE TRIBUNE editorial: “The essential principle of Mormonism is not polygamy at all, but the ambition of an ecclesiastical hierarchy to wield sovereignty; to rule the souls and lives of its subjects with absolute authority, unrestrained by any civil power.”
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Feb 27, 1889 - LDS political newspaper SALT LAKE HERALD’s article titled, “FAILED MARRIAGES,” regarding “the report of the Labor Commissioner Wright, presented last week, on the statistics of marriage and divorce in the United States from 1867 to 1886 inclusive,” with following: In 1870 Utah had highest rate of divorce out of all states and territories. In 1870 Utah’s rate was one divorce per 185 marriages. National averages was 1:664. States with lowest divorce rates are South Carolina at 1:4,938, Delaware at 1:123,672, New Mexico at 1:16,077, North Carolina at 1:4,938, and Louisiana at 1:4,579. In 1880 Utah had tenth highest rate of divorce out of all states and territories. In 1880 Utah’s rate was one divorce per 219 marriages, which was more than twice the national average of 1:479. In twentieth century, divorce rates for LDS temple marriages starts out three times higher than this “divorce mill” rate for early Utah civil marriages.
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Nov 1, 1890 - Date for which U.S. President William Henry Harrison’s amnesty declaration for LDS polygamists does not cover “unlawful cohabitation.” According to Harrison’s proclamation no Mormon polygamists will be prosecuted for illegal cohabitation committed before this date if they refrain from such cohabitation after this date.
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Nov 1, 1891 - Apostle Marriner W. Merrill preaches at the Logan Tabernacle “that not only plural marriages had ceased in the Church but that Brethren should not live with their plural families hereafter, but observe strictly the law of the land in this matter.” On the stand with him is Apostle Joseph F. Smith who later has children by his plural wives. This illustrates a difference between public statements and private beliefs by leaders of the Church concerning the extent of the President Woodruff’s Manifesto.
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Apr 2, 1892 - At a meeting of the Twelve Apostles they discuss whether or not to continue to cohabit with their plural wives. Heber J. Grant records that Apostle John Henry Smith said that “cohabitation was all right. The Lord had revealed to him that plural marriage was true and he did not want to throw off any of his responsibilities. He felt the brethren should take their wives out of Utah so that they would not be liable to the law in case they lived with them.” Grant also writes, “ [Quorum] Pres[iden]t Lorenzo Snow had nothing to day about the brethren living with their wives.”
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Aug 4, 1897 - Apostle Heber J. Grant records: “[Apostle] George Teasdale felt that every man who had taken an oath to sustain the constitution of his country and subsequently voted in favor of the Edmunds Tucker law, was a covenant breaker. Plural marriage was one of the principles approved by Almighty God, and the Church of Christ cannon be fully established on the earth without this principle. Referred to many of our young girls who were marrying outsiders, and said that he believed that God would yet open the way so that our young women who were willing and anxious to become virtuous wives and honored mothers would have the privilege of doing so, and there would be no necessity of marrying non Mormons. . . . It is becoming a very serious question as to what is to be done with our young girls who do not wish to marry non-Mormons. Felt impressed in his very soul that God will open the way so that the bonds of the Gentiles may be removed, and our young people will be permitted to live all the principles of the gospel.”
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Mar 8, 1904 - Apostle, and U.S. Senator, Reed Smoot’s 25-year-old personal secretary, Carl A. Badger writes: “I believe, that we all feel that the case is much more serious than it was ever thought it would be. . . . “ The Senate investigation on seating Smoot has just begun and lasts for three more years. Concerning Church President Joseph F. Smith’s recent testimony before the committee Badger writes: “The admissions made by President Smith have aroused great newspaper indignation, . . .” President Smith had admitted to continuing to live with his plural wives after the manifesto in violation of both the laws of the land and of the church.
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May 21, 1906 - Royal G. Smith is born to Mary T. Schwartz Smith a plural wife of Church President Joseph F. Smith. Joseph F. Smith is arrested, after returning from a trip to Europe, on a charge of illegal cohabitation, and released on his own recognizance. Under considerable pressure, the case is brought to trial, and on November 23, 1906, Joseph F. Smith pleads guilty and was fined $300
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Feb 22, 1914 - Sugar House Ward Bishop John M. Whitaker records in his diary: “For a long time before this meeting, about ten years when it commenced, I had been called before the Stake Presidency a number of times for teaching that anyone who took a wife after the Manifest in 1890, had done contrary to the laws of the land and also the law of the church and were living in adultery, and this aroused President Taylor and John M. Cannon to such an extent they told me I was out of harmony with them, and I had more than once offered them my resignation as Bishop of Sugar House Ward, but they never took it and then they told me what they had done, married immediately after the manifesto, . . .”
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Only through celestial marriage can one find the strait way, the narrow path. Eternal life cannot be had in any other way. (Deseret News, Church Section, November 12, 1977, Salt Lake City, Utah)
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[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

The action word you used was divorce. So by marrying a second lady that was not a break of contract divorce so by scripture that would be acceptable.

Just by putting your wife "away" does not sever the union, and so, the idea of divorce from the start is an illusion. That is why marrying another is adultery.

Here is the definition of the word translated to adultery:

Thayer Definition: 1) to have unlawful intercourse with another’s wife, to commit adultery with

I.E., a man, by marrying another, does not have a second lawful wife. She is committing "adultery" with him, because he is married to another.

[Aliska]

When I was about 8, about 1950, my father drove the family to Nauvoo and we took the tour. All I remember are the quaint two-story brick houses set way back from the riverbank and the jail.

The guide told us about Joseph Smith getting shot which was upsetting and the golden plates. I didn't quite believe in the golden plates as more than an imaginative tale, but I asked my father, "Daddy, what happened to the golden plates?"

"Why an angel took them back to heaven?" with a chuckle. Mormonism was never discussed in our family again, correction it was when we visited SLC.

My father liked the history of it and some distant cousins in Illinois were Mormons. It's quite interesting where my studies have led me.

My great great uncle went off to the Gold Rush in 1849 following a wagon train out of Galesburg, Illinois. His friend, David Cook was with him. I made contact with a history buff in Galesburg who had read an article about my great uncle's departure and when they went through Wyoming, they left the trail at either Fort Laramie or another place and had to bypass SLC because the Mormons were out to get David Cook. They didn't like apostates although his family still believed, they had no place to gather as it was too far (from farms in rural Knoxville, Illinois).

Anyway our family history tells of my gr gr uncle sending back three gold rings, one for each sister. After that he drops off all records and oral accounts.

I wanted to find out what happened to him, where he was buried. I happened to run a google search on David Cook and found some personal letters in the Special Collections Department of the University at Bloomington, Indiana.

Lilly Library Manuscript Collections, Cook MSS

So I called, and a clerk got the collection and skimmed thru it. He came to a letter about my gr gr uncle with his name which was garbled but it had to have been he (nobody uses nominative case correct grammar to that extent any more I doubt, maybe it should be him). I asked if I could have copies of the letters. He said I could only have half.

So I sent the copying costs, I was sent the letters. They were all written by David Cook who had settled in San Jose. In one dated early March 1850, he wrote home to Knox County, IL where my family also lived that he had "Mr. Kimball had written him the melancholy intelligence of the death of N. H********. So he would have died late 1849 or early 1850. I could find no more.

But as I poured through the letters, history came alive. David Cook hadn't left the Mormon Church but joined a breakaway sect called the Brewsterites. He wrote about the wagon train that had gone through Death Valley and lost so many and how a few had made it to Santa Barbara and would be making their way north and what a hard journey they'd had. The train was likely the ill-fated Jayhawkers.

Then he told of a visit by one man from Santa Barbara where they talked congenially about Mormonism. I can't remember his name without digging out the letters but he was one of the important prophets, maybe the twelve, in any case was the founder or first mayor of Santa Barbara (there was a large Mormon settlement there).

He tells of having to shoot a beef to eat, his family, how hard it was to keep his children in shoes, a fascinating Catholic funeral for a little Native American child who had died.

On one of his trips to and from home to CA, they went by steamboat from New Orleans. He writes some very bigoted comments about black people.

So he died and was buried in CA and a memorial was put up in a cemetery that my family shared with the Cook family in Knox County. The cemetery page with the photos I can't find but his death is listed for West Truro Cemetery aka Cook Cemetery, stone says died in California, Cook, David S. born December 13, 1821, died April 4, 1886.

I believe Emma Smith, the widow, married a tavern keeper in Nauvoo or a town close by and didn't accompany Brigham Young to SLC.

I've also visited SLC, don't remember anything interesting to report, heard the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, admired the clean, wide streets, and was disappointed we couldn't go into the temple. That's when I was about 14. So I guess we did talk a little more about Mormons again. My dad never said anything bad about them and neither did my mother. It would be fun to have asked them later but I never thought of it.

[SteveH]

(1) G*d made them male and female
-> in no way does this dictate monogamy. bonobo chimps and most other animals are male and female, but not monogamous.

(2) if you divorce and remarry
-> does not conflict with polygamy as long as polygamists do not divorce their 2nd, 3rd and so on wives. The passages you cite disallow Male1 dissolving marriage to Female1, but this in no way disallows Male1 from a marriage to Female2, Female3, etc., while keeping the marriage to Female1. (Before you bring it up, I have not given it study, but it may be that the bible does not condemn polyamory either.)

In addition you avoided addressing altogether the fact that polygamists are described without criticism in the OT. If the OT is the word of G*d, then you must agree that G*d blew whatever chance he had of condemning polygamists in the OT.

Martin Luther read the bible and apparently agreed. The Mormons read the bible and apparently agreed.

At the very least, it is open to interpretation.

Of course, those with deep seated sexual insecurities may harbor strong internal psychological motivation to interpret the bible according to those deep seated sexual insecurities.

[SteveH]

there is no historical context that is relevant if the practice is described among OT historical figures but not condemned.

At best, it is open to interpretation.

Open to interpretation means that reasonable people may disagree.

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

> does not conflict with polygamy as long as polygamists do not divorce their 2nd, 3rd and so on wives.

If that's the case, Christ wouldn't call them guilty of adultery when they marry another, since, by definition, it is a legal marriage, and only the dissolution of a previous marriage is the sin.

in no way does this dictate monogamy. bonobo chimps and most other animals are male and female, but not monogamous.

We are not animals, but were made rational creatures with a single help-mate.

In addition you avoided addressing altogether the fact that polygamists are described without criticism in the OT.

Neither is divorce as practiced by the Jews ever specifically condemned, but Christ here condemns it. At this time, however, polygamy was already out of favor. None of the Rabbis in the Talmud were polygamists.