Polygamy - Optional Now, Essential Pre-1890?

[K-2]

We're aware of people who are sealed to multiple spouses for eternity, yet the prevailing opinion in the Church is that although it may be that some will live polygamy as exalted beings, it is not to be thought of as essential to that state in any way.

 

Alright, but what about the Saints of yesteryear who went to prison as a result of the practice? If it is ultimately non-essential and optional, then why should they have cared at all? Why did an angel with a drawn sword threaten Joseph Smith and command him to practice it? What were these people accomplishing through polygamy that is at once important enough to go to jail for or risk death for, and also now completely optional and non-essential to exaltation? What is different about our situation today?

[rpn]

It was clearly not essential to all members as a condition of membership before 1890 ----- the majority never practiced it.   But it was apparently essential for some designated people (emma is the one who comes to mind), and approved for others.

[Teancum]

We're aware of people who are sealed to multiple spouses for eternity, yet the prevailing opinion in the Church is that although it may be that some will live polygamy as exalted beings, it is not to be thought of as essential to that state in any way.

 

Alright, but what about the Saints of yesteryear who went to prison as a result of the practice? If it is ultimately non-essential and optional, then why should they have cared at all? Why did an angel with a drawn sword threaten Joseph Smith and command him to practice it? What were these people accomplishing through polygamy that is at once important enough to go to jail for or risk death for, and also now completely optional and non-essential to exaltation? What is different about our situation today?

 

 

Well you see.... this is what happens when essential doctrines shift and change.  Ludicrous issues like what you pose come up.

[Teancum]

It was clearly not essential to all members as a condition of membership before 1890 ----- the majority never practiced it.   But it was apparently essential for some designated people (emma is the one who comes to mind), and approved for others.

  25% did and the prophets and apostles at that time said it was a essential to be exalted.

[Avatar4321]

When you at commanded to do something it becomes essential for your exaltation

[K-2]

rpn, Why do you think it would be non-essential (for exaltation, not membership) for some and yet designated for others? What was accomplished by it?

[K-2]

Avatar4321, that sounds sort of circular - that it was important because it was commanded, and presumably commanded because it was important. I'm still left wondering why it would be important for some and not for others.

[Teancum]

When you at commanded to do something it becomes essential for your exaltation

 

 

Why do the essentials change?

[Avatar4321]

It was important for Noah's salvation to build an ark. It's not for ours. Doesn't seem fair for Noah does it? But I don't know that He was complaining about it.

when the Lord wants us to do something do it. If He doesn't want us to do something else. Dont.

[K-2]

Why would polygamy be important? Especially, important for some and not others? 

[smac97]

I'm not sure we have all the details about why polygamy was important during the early period of the Church. We may likewise question why other previously-commanded-but-currently-not-in-force commandments like circumcision and animal sacrifice "important for some and not others."

That said, we are given a key bit of guidance in Jacob 2:30 (referring to polygamy): "For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things."

My wife is a great-great granddaughter of John D. Lee. He had, I believe, 19 wives and 56 children. There are now many thousands of Lee descendants in the Church.

I am the great-great grandson of Alexander F. Macdonald, a contemporary of John D. Lee (and, interestingly enough, a close personal friend). He had five wives and 26 children. My father, who is writing a biography of AF Macdonald, estimates there are 5,000 to 10,000 descendants of AF and his wives in the Church.

In contrast, AF Macdonald had a cousin of roughly the same age who, instead of immigrating to America, immigrated to New Zealand. He was never LDS, but he did marry and have some children. My father has researched this familly line and found that at present, there are approximatey 23 descendants of this man and his wife, none of them are in the Church.

Anecdotally, it appears that polygamy, coupled with continued faithfulness in the Gospel, yielded the results indicated in Jacob 2:30.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Teancum]

It was important for Noah's salvation to build an ark. It's not for ours. Doesn't seem fair for Noah does it? But I don't know that He was complaining about it.

when the Lord wants us to do something do it. If He doesn't want us to do something else. Dont.

 

 

Noah is myth. Science shows us there was no global flood.

Edited September 27, 2014 by Teancum

[Calm]

Why would polygamy be important? Especially, important for some and not others? 

Why would circumcision be important enough that Moses was threatened by death for not circumcising his son?

[omni]

I'm not sure we have all the details about why polygamy was important during the early period of the Church. We may likewise question why other previously-commanded-but-currently-not-in-force commandments like circumcision and animal sacrifice "important for some and not others."

That said, we are given a key bit of guidance in Jacob 2:30 (referring to polygamy): "For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things."

My wife is a great-great granddaughter of John D. Lee. He had, I believe, 19 wives and 56 children. There are now many thousands of Lee descendants in the Church.

I am the great-great grandson of Alexander F. Macdonald, a contemporary of John D. Lee (and, interestingly enough, a close personal friend). He had five wives and 26 children. My father, who is writing a biography of AF Macdonald, estimates there are 5,000 to 10,000 descendants of AF and his wives in the Church.

In contrast, AF Macdonald had a cousin of roughly the same age who, instead of immigrating to America, immigrated to New Zealand. He was never LDS, but he did marry and have some children. My father has researched this familly line and found that at present, there are approximatey 23 descendants of this man and his wife, none of them are in the Church.

Anecdotally, it appears that polygamy, coupled with continued faithfulness in the Gospel, yielded the results indicated in Jacob 2:30.

Thanks,

-Smac

 

Anecdotal stories aside, studies have shown that Mormon polygamous marriages actually produced less children per wife.

 

"The more wives a woman's husband has, the fewer children she is going to have personally," study author Michael Wade, a biologist at Indiana University Bloomington, told LiveScience. "That's interesting, and evolutionary biologists would say then that polygamy is good for males and maybe not so good for females."

Wade and his colleagues reported their findings in the March issue of the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.

 

 

Just look at BY for an example of this.  BY had 55 wives and 57 children for an average of just over one child per wife.  Or if you want to only include his 16 wives who conceived children that would be an average of 3.5 children per wife or about half of what the average American woman of the time.  Had each of BY's wives individually married an LDS man we would expect to have seen a posterity much larger than BY was able to produce on his own.

[rpn]

Of course it could be essential for those who were so commanded, and not essential for anyone who was not (or never received spiritual confirmation, since we know the Lord judges on our intent and capability as well as our actions).   

 

Same thing, if we hear SWK's admonition to grow a garden, receive witness of the Holy Ghost to do so, and we simply do not when it is within our capacity to do so, then we are intentionally and deliberately fluffing off what the Lord wants us to do.   It would not be essential for those who don't know that growing a garden is included in discipleship, or someone who sought but never received spiritual confirmation, or who was wheelchair bound and lived in a building that didn't allow window gardens so we could not.

 

Who knows why some are called to greater light on some topics than another, but disregarding such light once received is not good.

Edited September 27, 2014 by rpn

[oremites]

Noah is myth. Science shows us there was no global flood.

 

No global flood doesn't mean Noah is a myth.  The one doesn't necessarily follow from the other.

 

And, to get back on the subject, someone already mentioned circumcision.  At one time it was essential, an "everlasting convenant."  Not for us.  Things changed.  God deals with different people at different times in different ways according to their circumstances and needs.  I don't know why people have a hard time with that.

[Coreyb]

I feel like the question here is built upon somewhat of a shaky premise. Our conception of exaltation and what it means to be an exalted individual/family seems to have shifted a bit since the mid to late 1800s. IMHO, most Mormons today view exaltation as being eternally bound to our mortal spouses and children, living with God and all righteous humanity forever learning and growing (whatever that means) until we know all things. In the nineteenth century, exaltation was seen by Mormons to be living as Gods and Goddesses, Kings and Queens, ruling over worlds and ever expanding kingdoms with ever increasing populations of children, ever increasing in knowledge and dominion, ( at least to those in the Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball school of thought, but that is where the "polygamy is essential" doctrine came from). In that line of thought, the more wives a man had, the more he could spread his seed, which is the basis of his kingdom, both now and in the hereafter. So how could a man have all the Father hath if he were to pass up on a gift given him which would further his own kingdom? That would be like the servant in Jesus' parable not refusing to get more talents at the exchangers, but only taking one talent when the master offered five! In our modern Mormon mindset, where exaltation of the nuclear family seems to be the goal, one wife is enough. This begs the question, could a man have as many children with one wife as he could with several if given forever to do it. I guess that is a question for the philosophers and mathematicians of which I am neither  

[Avatar4321]

Noah is myth. Science shows us there was no global flood.

your lack of faith isn't science. Nor is it relevant to the conversation

[halconero]

Noah is myth. Science shows us there was no global flood.

 

Oh brother. That's not the point. Whatever the historicity of Noah, scripture (I think of the epistle of Peter) states that for Noah the ark was necessary for salvation.

[K-2]

Why would circumcision be important enough that Moses was threatened by death for not circumcising his son?

Why was circumcision not restored as part of the restoration of all things in this dispensation if it was as important as polygamy?

[carbon dioxide]

  25% did and the prophets and apostles at that time said it was a essential to be exalted.

If polygamy was ever essential for exaltation, than a lot of people would never be exalted. 

[Calm]

Maybe it will be….

[JLHPROF]

If polygamy was ever essential for exaltation, than a lot of people would never be exalted. 

 

Many are called, but few are chosen.

[VideoGameJunkie]

I keep saying maybe we'll get our extra wives in heaven if polygamy is necessary and we're worthy. Kind of like how the Muslims believe in the 72 virgins awaiting them.

[halconero]

Why was circumcision not restored as part of the restoration of all things in this dispensation if it was as important as polygamy?

 

Circumcision is still required today. It's just shifted from foreskin to heart.