In spite of Luther's feelings, modern society has accepted that bigamy is worse than divorce. Of course, divorce is not that great either!
Matthew 5:32
But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
No doubt there's a lot of adultery going on in modern society with our high divorce rate! Fortunately, God's grace is available for all who repent.
OK. Again not quite comparable (modern-day adultery to the situation Luther referenced in his day).
With both modern-day bigamy and adultery, the overwhelming reality of BOTH is that deception is a part of it. With bigamy, somebody has continued to marry others without telling the original partner or add-on partners. Deception, lying is usually part & parcel of adultery as well (not always, but probably 97% of the time to guestimate).
With the situation in Luther's day, the royal wife "consented" to the arrangement. There was no deception. There was no putting away the wife.
What I find interesting is I can probably find a few FReeper LDS posts which emphasize that LDS polygamous wives "consented" to the add-on wives.
So this goes past to my post #117:
If you want me to, I can point to very specific Mormon leaders, who, in the early 20th century, wanted to "quarantine" polygamy in the Mormon community. Reed Smoot and his secretary, Karl Badger (even though Badger was himself the product of a polygamous union), for example (circa 1904-1906). By about that time, and a few years after, half of the Mormon general authorities were monogamous...and many of them wished it would be so quarantined. The LDS prophet Grant in the 1930s likewise went on an anti-polygamy reform even though he himself had had three wives. He, too, wished to "quarantine" it. I guess I'm just not understanding how it is that Luther gets finger-pointing from Mormons for wanting to quarantine polygamy, but LDS reformers early in the 20th century receive commendation for the same thing? (Anybody want to explain that little inconsistency?)
Here, Luther was like early 20th century LDS leaders who wanted to "quarantine" polygamy--but who gets the finger-pointing from modern Mormons, Luther or those early 20th century leaders?
And this latest example, here Luther commented on a situation whereby a wife "consented" to the arrangement-- a common Mormon practice 100-150 years ago--and who gets the finger-pointing for doing from modern Mormons? The Mormons of yester-year for doing this thousands of times? (Nope- Luther for doing it once)
Hypocrites! Be consistent, then! I'll show my consistency: As Ruy Dias de Bivar said in #124, Luther was wrong. (At least we understand why he said what he said) As for 19th & 20th century Mormons, anybody who believes the visions & story-telling of a 14 yo kid are gullible & gullibility is no excuse for their believing that godhood rested upon how many wives a man had.