Posted on 10/05/2009 6:42:28 PM PDT by Colofornian
While much has been said about the heartache of plural wives living in 19th-century Mormonism, these unions could also bring happiness and unusual independence, according to a prominent religious scholar.
During a lecture Thursday before a packed house at the LDS Tabernacle, Kathleen Flake said that often only the negative side of polygamy is emphasized.
“I am always suspicious when I only hear one side of an argument,” added Flake, who teaches religious history at Vanderbilt University.
This suspicion lead her to research polygamy in Utah during the pioneer era, a time when about 25 percent of Latter-day Saints were living “the principle.”
What Flake found would probably surprise many.
Focusing on the writings of Elizabeth Kane, a Protestant who spent time in St. George during the 19th century, Flake revealed that husbands often treated their polygamous wives as individuals, not as “a collective.” ...Deep love was not uncommon, but husbands were told to attend to all of their wives without becoming infatuated with one at the expense of the others.
SNIP
The Protestant ideal of marriage also focused on romance and devotion.
“Mormons stood in opposition to these ideas of romantic oneness,” Flake said.
Some 19th-century polygamous wives, like writer Fanny Stenhouse, were unhappy because they didn’t “ruled in her husband’s heart.”
Flake stressed that she is a historian, not an advocate of polygamy, and she doesn’t want to “downplay these experiences.” It is also correct that records of disappointed wives “are all over the archives.”
But she said that the polygamous wives who thrived “had bigger ambitions” than their husbands’ hearts. Instead, they were answering a calling to be “priestesses” and “queens of queens” by following their religion...
(Excerpt) Read more at hjnews.townnews.com ...
So Lds tabernacles are now importing out-of-state speakers to promote the "happy" side of polygamy? And listeners are coming away saying, "That's a new way of looking at polygamy?"
So, let me get this straight. WorldNet Daily runs an article today about an Obama Nominee praising polygamy...and late last week a Logan, Utah Lds Tabernacle was jammed full with listeners to a speaker promoting the "happy" side of polygamy?
(How can we tell the difference between liberals and so-called "conservatives" today without a scorecard?)
Here's the link to the WorldNetDaily article: ObamaNomineePraisedPolygamy
Here's an excerpt from that article: President Obama's nominee to become commissioner for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission signed a manifesto praising polygamy and arguing traditional marriage should not be privileged above other forms of union. Chai Feldblum, an outspoken homosexual rights activist and Georgetown University law professor, is a signatory to an online petition entitled "Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: A New Strategic Vision For All Our Families and Relationships." The organization defines itself as "a diverse group of nearly twenty LGBT and queer activists [who] came together to discuss marriage and family politics as they exist in the United States today." The manifesto, first noticed by the Catholic News Agency, calls for a "new vision" for securing governmental and private institutional recognition of "diverse kinds of partnerships." Among the stated "partnerships" the petition seeks to protect is "households in which there is more than one conjugal partner."
Well, that description -- "diverse kinds of relationships" and "households in which there is more than one conjugal partner" fits Mormon polygamy, past, present & future.
Lds polygamy, future: "Obviously the holy practice (of polygamy) will commence again after the Second Coming of the Son of Man and the ushering in of the millennium." (Mainsteam Mormon apostle Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 1966 edition, see pp. 577-579 for context)
Lds polygamy, present: (Lds believe that both polygamists on earth, if properly sealed to multiple spouses, remain polygamists in the afterlife; they also believe serial monogamists on earth, if properly sealed to each partner, become eternal polygamists if they reach the highest degree of glory)
Polygamy: one wife too many.
Monogamy: the same
And in the Bible Jesus said there is no marriage in Heaven, for one (based of course on whether or not the LDS church thinks this is correctly translated). And two, will an LDS family's father be the son of his father or the father of his son who would be the father of his son. Secondly, a guy has a hard enough time satisfying one wife let alone more ... plus all those mother-in-laws to put up with. Now if that isn't Hell I don't know what is ....
I kind of like the idea of multiple husbands....you can never keep one happy! Perhaps if they saw less off us, and be challenged by other males, they’d be better off.
:)
Funny you should mention that. In the "readers' comments" section of this Logan, UT newspaper article, a reader added this electronic comment with the article:
The whole "celestial family" doctrine is hard for me to get my mind around. Aren't my parents sealed to their parents, and so on? Does my dad live with his parents or with my mom? Do I live with my parents or with my wife? I see a geometrical progression here that is difficult to fathom."
For those not getting what this person's questions are...if you've seen the bumper sticker, "Families are Forever," that's a Mormon sticker. And they believe that families stick together as a unit in one of three degrees of glory -- plus a few wind up in outer darkness. But that presumes they've all been "judged" by God to be on the same level. What happens if you have...
...a faithful temple-going grandpa,
...an apostate grandma,
...a child of their's whose a "cafeteria Mormon" (non-temple going Mormon),
...and a "jack Mormon" (inactive) granddaughter whose living with her boyfriend?
Would that be one happy "All in the Family?" Which degree of glory? And what if the faithful temple-going grandpa had parents who were fundamentalist polygamous Mormons?
Surprisingly, mainstream LDS Mormon policy concedes that a Mormon woman, if properly sealed to eternity to each of her earthly husbands, can be a polygynist for eternity!!!
Surprisingly, mainstream LDS Mormon policy concedes that a Mormon woman, if properly sealed to eternity to each of her earthly husbands, can be a polygynist for eternity!!!
But what about in the Here and Now??
No. (They haven't figured out a way to get it past the social & doctrinal "YUKKKK" factor reaction. But hey, if they could still be withholding "priestholder status" from blacks when Mitt Romney was a tithing 30-yo member of the church, who knows what whims the Lds "prophet" will operate upon next?)
I’ve often wondered why Mormon’s seem so damn happy all the time!
I say...they’re on to something! hehe
I always thought it would be terrific to have several husbands. Much higher standard of living
If I were the chinese I would encourage it.
When you outlaw polygamy, dominant males instead end up with one wife and a collection of mistresses on the side.
How is having more than one wife worse than having a wife and several mistresses?
Or maybe we should outlaw mistresses, too?
Anyone want to take bets whether or not Glenn Beck goes after this nominee?????? Or is this topic off limits for him?????
Very good question: In light of Mormon cultural realities -- polygamy -- will Glenn Beck go after Obama EEO Commission nominee Chai Feldblum for having signed a manifesto praising polygamy and arguing traditional marriage should not be privileged above other forms of union???
I can tell you one thing: Note that the Deseret News or KSL.com (both Lds church-owned) didn't cover this Lds Tabernacle speaker last week touting the "happy" side of polygamy! (Does that tell you how certain segments of Ldsism is ambivalent about polygamy? "Yes" come hear a happy speaker on happy polygamy; but "no" we won't highlight that reality to our readers)
My two ex wives liked that idea too.
Knowing this & other Lds family stories so similar, what do you think is the gut-level reaction Lds have about these not-so-distant ancestors? (And the fact that they kept it hidden -- besides obvious reasons of legality, did you detect any sense of social shame?)
“I wish my own women to understand that what I am going to say is for them as well as others, and I want those who are here to tell their sisters, yes, all the women of this community, and then write it back to the States, and do as you please with it. I am going to give you from this time to the 6th day of October next, for reflection, that you may determine whether you wish to stay with your husbands or not, and then I am going to set every woman at liberty and say to them, No go your way, my women with the rest, go your way. And my wives have got to do one of two things; either round up their shoulders to endure the afflictions of this world, and live their religion, or they may leave, for I will not have them about me. I will go into heaven alone, rather than have scratching and fighting around me. I will set all at liberty. ‘What, first wife too?’ Yes, I will liberate you all.... “I wish my women, and brother Kimball’s and brother Grant’s to leave, and every woman in this Territory, or else say in their hearts that they will embrace the Gospel – the whole of it.... say to your wives, ‘Take all that I have and be set at liberty; but if you stay with me you shall comply with the law of God, and that too without any murmuring and whining. You must fulfill the law of God in every respect, and round up your shoulders to walk up to the mark without any grunting.’ Now recollect that two weeks from tomorrow I am going to set you at liberty. But the first wife will say, ‘It is hard, for I have lived with my husband twenty years, or thirty, and have raised a family of children for him, and it is a great trial to me for him to have more women;’ then I say it is time that you gave him up to other women who will bear children. If my wife had borne me all the children that she ever would bare, the celestial law would teach me to take young women that would have children.... “Sisters, I am not joking, I do not throw out my proposition to banter your feelings, to see whether you will leave your husbands, all or any of you. But I do know that there is no cessation to the everlasting whining of many of the women in this Territory; I am satisfied that this is the case. And if the women will turn from the commandments of God and continue to despise the order of heaven, I will pray that the curse of the Almighty may be close to their heels, and that it may be following them all day long....
“Prepare yourselves for two weeks from tomorrow; and I will tell you now, that if you will tarry with your husbands, after I have set you free, you must bow down to it, and submit yourselves to the celestial law. You may go where you please, after two weeks from tomorrow; but, remember, that I will not hear any more of this whining.”
- Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, v. 4, pp. 55-57, also printed in the Deseret News, v. 6, pp. 235-236
“There is a great deal of quarrelling in the houses, and contending for power and authority; and the second wife is against the first wife, perhaps, in some instances.”
- Apostle Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses, v. 4, p. 178
“When James Hunter took his second wife, the first who had accompanied the couple to the Endowment House for the ceremony could not sleep and walked the floor all night as she thought of her husband lying in the arms of his bride...
“A person brought up in a polygamist household... told this story: ‘There is one real tragedy in polygamy that I can remember. One evening a man brought home a second wife. It was winter and the first wife was very upset. That night she climbed onto the roof and froze to death.’”
- Isn’t One Wife Enough?, by Kimball Young, pp. 147-148
“I think no more of taking another wife than I do of buying a cow, and if you want to build up the kingdom you must take more wives.”
- Apostle Heber C. Kimball, quoted in Jennie Anderson Froiseth, ed., The Women of Mormonism: or the Story of Polygamy As Told by the Victims Themselves, 1886; see Abanes, One Nation Under Gods, p. 295
“God will be very cruel if he does not give us poor women adequate compensation for the trials we have endured in polygamy.”
- Mary Ann Angell Young, quoted in Anti-Polygamy Standard, August 1882, p. 36
“It is the very refinement of cruelty, this polygamy, and it hurts are deeper and more poisonous than any other wounds can be. They never heal, but grow constantly more painful, until it makes life unendurable.”
- Ann Eliza Young, letter to Mormon Women, “Letter Number Two,” in Froiseth, ed. The Women of Mormonism, pp. 169-170
Yep, lots of happy women.
“Kimball always kept an eye out for romance. ‘Brethren,’ he instructed some departing missionaries, ‘I want you to understand that it is not to be as it has been heretofore. The brother missionaries have been in the habit of picking out the prettiest women for themselves before they get here, and bringing on the ugly ones for us; hereafter you have to bring them all here before taking any of them, and let us all have a fair shake.”
- The Lion of the Lord, by Stanley P. Hirshon, pp. 129-130
“Or maybe we should outlaw mistresses, too? “
God did outlaw mistresses.
One man, one woman = marriage.
Taking it away from just the adult members of the marriage, what about the kids?
Imagine being one of 20 kids with several mothers. How can you every really bond?
Imagine being a boy. The boys get cast out, mostly, except for a favored one or two who get to get married.
‘Taint natural. Joking aside, for the children, I think it is cruel.
It happens today - this is not something of the 19th century
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