B. Carmon Hardy, Solemn Covenant: The Mormon Polygamous Passage, (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992,)
Between 1890-1910: LDS leaders solemnized at least 262 known plural marriages in the post-manifesto years when the church was pretending to be 100% against polygamy (source: Hardy, A Solemn Covenant, 1992)-- most of whom by either apostles like Taylor & Cowley (later ex-communicated) or by Ivins in Mexico, who was rewarded for this & made a general authority in the early 1900s, or by others who became general authorities after solemnizing such plural marriage vows.
Hardy lists the specific people involved in these plural unions in his appendix of the book, and is able to provide specific years these plural unions took place in most cases, along with a list of plural wives for each man.
Mormon leaders did not break up most of the polygamous arrangements that were already intact in 1890 & thereafter. B. Carmon Hardy shows in his book's appendix that some of those polygamous unions lasted into the early 1960s...some of those who were secretly solemnized in the early 1900s.
So when Mormons say polygamy "ended" in 1890 among mainstream Mormons, there's "no way" when there wasn't even a Mormon monogamous "prophet" at the helm until the mid-1940s!
Btw, Hardy devotes a full chapter in that 1992 book to how LDS regarded polygamy as sexually superior to monogamy--not for erotic or "orgy-like" reasons--but for what they regarded was the "opposite"--associating prostitution and the resulting ill-health with monogamy, etc.
IoW, some Lds 19th century leaders were openly attacking monogamy.
Does anyone doubt, for a second, that if the right case went in front of the Supreme Court, that Mormon polygamy would be restored?
A smart person wonder wonder about more than this!!
"Now if any of you will deny the plurality of wives, and continue to do so, I promise that you will be damned;
and I will go still further and say, take this revelation, or any other revelation that the Lord has given,
and deny it in your feelings, and I promise that you will be damned.
Brigham Young - JoD 3:266 (July 14, 1855)
Perhaps some of our FR Mormons can tell us whether BY was REALLY a prophet of not.
According to Mitt Romney’s ancestor, the LDS church officially frowned on public polygamy while “allowing” it among members who lived outside the US. They were still considered church members and had access to Temples.
Anyone in the US was excommunicated which is why there was a rift.
Oddly, many men went on their mission after they had wives and kids. Can you imagine?