How To Address Affidavits?

[provoman]

What faith promoting response can be offered to address affidavits which state:

"we know of not other rule of system of marriage than the one published from the Book of Doctrine and Covenants."

and

"we know of no system or marriage being practised in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints save the one contained in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants,..."

What was in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants concerning marriage from 1841 - 1842?

[Nevo]

What faith promoting response can be offered to address affidavits which state: "we know of no other rule or system of marriage than the one published from the Book of Doctrine and Covenants" and "we know of no system or marriage being practised in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints save the one contained in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants..."

 

I don't think there is any getting around the fact that the statements are deceptive, insofar that several of the signers knew about, and in some cases were practicing, plural marriage.

 

Perhaps some reasoned that plural marriage wasn't yet a general "rule or system of marriage" for the Church at large, so it wasn't a practice of "the Church" per se. In any case, the main purpose of the statements was "to show that Dr. J. C. Bennett's 'secret wife system' is a creature of his own make." This is how Eliza R. Snow later justified the statements to Joseph F. Smith:

 

Br. Joseph,

 

On looking over the spurious pamphlet it seems perfectly easy to disprove the statements which refer to the articles over the brethren's and the sisters signatures, by proving what J. C. Bennett's secret wife system really was.

 

At the time the sisters of the Relief Society signed our article I was married to the prophet. We made no allusion to any other system of marriage than Bennett's. His was prostitution, and it was truly his, and he succeeded in pandering his course on the credulity of the unsuspecting by making them believe that he was thus authorized by the prophet. In those articles there is no reference to divine plural marriage. We aimed to put down its opposite.

 

Yours respectfully,

E. R. Snow

 

(Eliza R. Snow to Joseph F. Smith, no date, Joseph F. Smith Collection, Church History Library, MS 1325, box 23, folder 16, pages 23 and 24)

 

Snow's explanation will not satisfy everyone, but it's clear to me that the statements were a good-faith attempt to protect "the unsuspecting" from predatory types like Bennett. As long as there was ambiguity about whether or not secret polygamy was authorized, members would continue to be victimized. Of course, the difficulty is that some people really were authorized by the prophet to practice polygamy. But the priority here was to put down Bennett's counterfeit teaching.

Edited August 24, 2015 by Nevo

[provoman]

I don't think there is any getting around the fact that the statements are deceptive, insofar that several of the signers knew about, and in some cases were practicing, plural marriage.

Perhaps some reasoned that plural marriage wasn't yet a general "rule or system of marriage" for the Church at large, so it wasn't a practice of "the Church" per se. In any case, the main purpose of the statements was "to show that Dr. J. C. Bennett's 'secret wife system' is a creature of his own make." This is how Eliza R. Snow later justified the statements to Joseph F. Smith:

Snow's explanation will not satisfy everyone, but it's clear to me that the statements were a good-faith attempt to protect "the unsuspecting" from predatory types like Bennett. As long as there was ambiguity about whether or not secret polygamy was authorized, members would continue to be victimized. Of course, the difficulty is that some people really were authorized by the prophet to practice polygamy. But the priority here was to put down Bennett's counterfeit teaching.

Snow's statement is interesting. Thanks for your input.