Compromise is the key

[stemelbow]

38 minutes ago, Mystery Meat said:

I However, that does not change the fact that each of BY's marriages was between one man and one woman.

 

Again, just to be clear, there is plenty of argument to make in response to this "fact":

As I showed, in some of these marriages it was more than BY as one man, marrying one woman.  It was far more complicated than that simple statement.  in my mind, it's not right to call a disputed claim a fact. 

[ttribe]

1 minute ago, Mystery Meat said:

But that is what polygamy is: individual marriages of one man and one woman. Yes, the man is always the same and it is not like marriage between one man and one woman, but that is why bringing up polygamy in a SSM conversation doesn't work.

No, it isn't.  It's SIMULTANEOUS "individual marriages of one man and one woman."  No matter how you slice it, nothing about that is remotely "traditional" within the context of U.S. marriage history, which is also the context within which the SSM debate is occurring.

BTW, let me know when you find where I've taken a position on the SSM debate; I'd be curious to see it.  My position is that the defense of polygamy using this parsing of words is detrimental to the defense, not helpful.

[Mystery Meat]

7 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

Again, just to be clear, there is plenty of argument to make in response to this "fact":

As I showed, in some of these marriages it was more than BY as one man, marrying one woman.  It was far more complicated than that simple statement.  in my mind, it's not right to call a disputed claim a fact. 

But it is a fact. His wives were not sealed to each other, except via their sealing to BY and his sealing to each of them. That is what makes it a marriage: not shared household duties, not sharing the same husband, not living under the same roof. Who were these women married too: BY or each other? BY.

[Mystery Meat]

7 minutes ago, ttribe said:

No, it isn't.  It's SIMULTANEOUS "individual marriages of one man and one woman."  No matter how you slice it, nothing about that is remotely "traditional" within the context of U.S. marriage history, which is also the context within which the SSM debate is occurring.

BTW, let me know when you find where I've taken a position on the SSM debate; I'd be curious to see it.  My position is that the defense of polygamy using this parsing of words is detrimental to the defense, not helpful.

For the last freaking time: I have never called polygamy "traditional marriage." It is not, at least not in the sense of what we call traditional marriage now a days.

[stemelbow]

2 minutes ago, Mystery Meat said:

But it is a fact. His wives were not sealed to each other, except via their sealing to BY and his sealing to each of them. That is what makes it a marriage: not shared household duties, not sharing the same husband, not living under the same roof. Who were these women married too: BY or each other? BY.

I'd contend that the particular case I highlighted makes the simplified claim of one man and one woman debatable, at the very least. 

[Mystery Meat]

8 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

I'd contend that the particular case I highlighted makes the simplified claim of one man and one woman debatable, at the very least. 

Not really. She was married to Joseph Smith for eternity, to Brigham Young for time, and her marriage to her first husband was a separate marriage to her marriages to Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. 

[ttribe]

18 minutes ago, Mystery Meat said:

For the last freaking time: I have never called polygamy "traditional marriage." It is not, at least not in the sense of what we call traditional marriage now a days.

Calm yourself.  I was speaking in the larger context of the discussion, not your specific issue.

[stemelbow]

10 minutes ago, Mystery Meat said:

Not really. She was married to Joseph Smith for eternity, to Brigham Young for time, and her marriage to her first husband was a separate marriage to her marriages to Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. 

So two men involved in the ceremony by name, and one involved as witness already married to one of the participants, can be said to be a ceremony of marriage between one man and one woman?    At the very least, it seems we could agree that this makes the one man one woman statement a simplified explanation of what actually took place? 

[stemelbow]

35 minutes ago, ttribe said:

No, it isn't.  It's SIMULTANEOUS "individual marriages of one man and one woman."  No matter how you slice it, nothing about that is remotely "traditional" within the context of U.S. marriage history, which is also the context within which the SSM debate is occurring.

BTW, let me know when you find where I've taken a position on the SSM debate; I'd be curious to see it.  My position is that the defense of polygamy using this parsing of words is detrimental to the defense, not helpful.

To simplify early Mormon polygamy as many marriages between one man and one woman seems inconsistent as well, particularly when you note how it was practiced.  The women were often bound to the other women who also were married to the same man.  Whether that binding was official doesn't matter.  the result was hardly a marriage between a man and a woman.  It was practiced as if the women agreed to be joined in a family with each other. 

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, CV75 said:

LOL I think it has to do with a couple of contextual nuances: 1) the public discussion and terminology is one thing (which you recognize); 2) the doctrinal terminology is another; 3) in both cases the term "abnormal" is not used to describe ssm; 4) in doctrinal and handbook language, "unnatural" means in opposition to the higher way the Lord designed, intended and commanded us to choose to behave physically in the flesh, by covenant (Moses 3:5-9 and the rest of the Garden story).

There are a couple references to abnormal behavior I found doing a quick search on lds.org.  Wirthlin from 1994 was the most recent.  

Quote

That means we are to avoid abnormal sexual behavior, including fornication, homosexual behavior, child molestation, or any other perversion of God’s plan of happiness.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1994/10/deep-roots?lang=eng

Overall it does sound like church leaders prefer using the term unnatural.  As I mentioned before the two words are synonyms and similar meanings in this context, a distinction without a difference in my opinion.  

[JLHPROF]

3 hours ago, ttribe said:

 apologetics aimed at helping in conversion or re-conversion

You can never answer every question, (or even most questions).
So any conversion based on historical/scientific or any academic apologetics is on shaky ground to begin with.

[JLHPROF]

1 hour ago, HappyJackWagon said:

I'm curious if Brigham would consider his family, wives and children, as one family, or if he'd think of it as his 55 different families to whom he is sealed.

One family is not the question.
The question is how many marriages - one or 55?

If he considers each marriage a unique relationship between husband and wife (and I think he does) they may all be his one family, but each of his marriages is individual.

He has a marriage to Miriam.  She dies but remains his wife in the eternities.  One marriage.   They fulfill the command to multiply and replenish the earth having two children.
He has a marriage to Mary Ann.  One marriage.  They fulfill the command to multiply and replenish the earth having six children.
He has a marriage to Lucy.  One marriage.   They fulfill the command to multiply and replenish the earth having seven children.
He has a marriage to Clarissa.  One marriage.   They fulfill the command to multiply and replenish the earth having five children.
He has a marriage to Emmeline.  One marriage.   They fulfill the command to multiply and replenish the earth having ten children.
And so on.

ANY one of these lines can serve as a perfect example of a "traditional" marriage inasmuch as it matches perfectly the Genesis description of the first marriage performed by God himself.
While they may all have been one "family" under Brigham, they were individual, traditional marriages, although obviously the living situation was less than traditional.  But the living situation does not define the marriage.

I think you would be hard pressed to show that polygamy (by definition multiple marriages/wives) is only one marriage.  It still fits the traditional marriage pattern of one man and one woman.

SSM does NOT fit the definition of marriage as established by God and as such requires a complete redefinition of marriage to mean something different as defined by mortals.

 

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Mystery Meat said:

I am not sure why it would be interpreted as dishonest, unless someone was looking for things to gripe about or be offended (etc.). I have said that polygamy is not "traditional marriage" as the term is used to today. I have acknowledged that it was probably pretty different from what my marriage to my one wife looks like today. However, that does not change the fact that each of BY's marriages was between one man and one woman.

Hardly dishonest and anyone who would claim as much is just looking for ways to be upset.

I think that one of the difficulty is that pretty much everyone is contrasting SSM with monogamy and when they read "one man, one woman" that is where their mind goes.  The PoF allows very easily for that particular interpretation and given our greater culture where monogamy is extremely dominant and plolygamy is illegal, it is the most natural/common one from what I have seen.  

Given the LDS faith's history with plural marriage, it is possible that those who framed the discussion had in mind plural marriage as well, but it was framed as a "proclamation to the world", not to 'LDS members in the context of early LDS history', so it makes mores sense to read it in that context and the most common experience of marriage in the world, which is monogamy (even though there are a number of countries where polygamy is allowed.....it would be very interesting to see how people in those countries view it).

It is possible to frame it in the context of polygamy (a man did not remarry in a new ceremony a first wife or other wives when he married a new one, he did not need to remarry other wives when he divorced one wife) as each marriage ceremony/sealing between the husband and a wife was independent of the other marriage ceremonies/sealings.  However, this can appear to ignore the huge impact of a husband having these additional wives through additional marriages on a marriage, the individual marriage relationship will likely be significantly different within a monogamous context than a polygamous one.

[stemelbow]

20 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

ANY one of these lines can serve as a perfect example of a "traditional" marriage inasmuch as it matches perfectly the Genesis description of the first marriage performed by God himself.
While they may all have been one "family" under Brigham, they were individual, traditional marriages, although obviously the living situation was less than traditional.  But the living situation does not define the marriage.

I think this identifies some of the problems people are having here.  To me and probably others whether a marriage is traditional or not certainly includes consideration of their living situation.  In fact I don't know how one escapes that.  But, that's only part of the problem.  Because certainly the marriage ceremony couldn't always be considered traditional--after all when Brigham married Zina she also was married (again) to Joseph with her current other husband acting as witness.  That's weird--not traditional at all. 

But oh well.  It's pretty beside the point.  You use the word in a weird way.  I don't see the point of doing so, but have fun doing it. 

[CV75]

36 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

There are a couple references to abnormal behavior I found doing a quick search on lds.org.  Wirthlin from 1994 was the most recent.  

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1994/10/deep-roots?lang=eng

Overall it does sound like church leaders prefer using the term unnatural.  As I mentioned before the two words are synonyms and similar meanings in this context, a distinction without a difference in my opinion.  

I'd say it is much better to stay current in the terms the Church uses on the whole (as terminology does change, in this case, since a talk given in 1994!!!), and to keep up with the current dialogue in order to develop a more relevant perspective.

[Mystery Meat]

1 hour ago, stemelbow said:

So two men involved in the ceremony by name, and one involved as witness already married to one of the participants, can be said to be a ceremony of marriage between one man and one woman?    At the very least, it seems we could agree that this makes the one man one woman statement a simplified explanation of what actually took place? 

I don't see how.

[california boy]

43 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

One family is not the question.
The question is how many marriages - one or 55?

If he considers each marriage a unique relationship between husband and wife (and I think he does) they may all be his one family, but each of his marriages is individual.

He has a marriage to Miriam.  She dies but remains his wife in the eternities.  One marriage.   They fulfill the command to multiply and replenish the earth having two children.
He has a marriage to Mary Ann.  One marriage.  They fulfill the command to multiply and replenish the earth having six children.
He has a marriage to Lucy.  One marriage.   They fulfill the command to multiply and replenish the earth having seven children.
He has a marriage to Clarissa.  One marriage.   They fulfill the command to multiply and replenish the earth having five children.
He has a marriage to Emmeline.  One marriage.   They fulfill the command to multiply and replenish the earth having ten children.
And so on.

ANY one of these lines can serve as a perfect example of a "traditional" marriage inasmuch as it matches perfectly the Genesis description of the first marriage performed by God himself.
While they may all have been one "family" under Brigham, they were individual, traditional marriages, although obviously the living situation was less than traditional.  But the living situation does not define the marriage.

I think you would be hard pressed to show that polygamy (by definition multiple marriages/wives) is only one marriage.  It still fits the traditional marriage pattern of one man and one woman.

SSM does NOT fit the definition of marriage as established by God and as such requires a complete redefinition of marriage to mean something different as defined by mortals.

 

Simple question.  If the Mormon church considers polygamy the same as it considers one man one woman marriages, then why doesn't the church allow serial one man, one women marriages today?  No one is put in jail today for having "spiritual wives".  God certainly approves of one man one women marriages.   

It is insane to try and claim that polygamy is a one man one woman marriage.  The very definition of polygamy is multiple spouses.  What I don't understand is the shame in calling polygamy what it was.  Multiple wives married at same time.  There is no one man, one woman in polygamy.  Anyone having only one man and one woman in their marriage is not practicing polygamy.  There is no necessity to doing this pretzel type rationalization to try and make something work. Just have faith that at times, God allows one man, multiple women marriages.

[Mystery Meat]

45 minutes ago, Calm said:

I think that one of the difficulty is that pretty much everyone is contrasting SSM with monogamy and when they read "one man, one woman" that is where their mind goes.  The PoF allows very easily for that particular interpretation and given our greater culture where monogamy is extremely dominant and plolygamy is illegal, it is the most natural/common one from what I have seen.  

Given the LDS faith's history with plural marriage, it is possible that those who framed the discussion had in mind plural marriage as well, but it was framed as a "proclamation to the world", not to 'LDS members in the context of early LDS history', so it makes mores sense to read it in that context and the most common experience of marriage in the world, which is monogamy (even though there are a number of countries where polygamy is allowed.....it would be very interesting to see how people in those countries view it).

It is possible to frame it in the context of polygamy (a man did not remarry in a new ceremony a first wife or other wives when he married a new one, he did not need to remarry other wives when he divorced one wife) as each marriage ceremony/sealing between the husband and a wife was independent of the other marriage ceremonies/sealings.  However, this can appear to ignore the huge impact of a husband having these additional wives through additional marriages on a marriage, the individual marriage relationship will likely be significantly different within a monogamous context than a polygamous one.

I have no qualms with any of this. My point was simply to show that polygamy cannot be used to show a deviation from man-woman marriage (as some SSM advocates suggest). It can be used to show a lot of other deviations from marriage as we practice it now, but those deviations are really beside the point.

Edited July 11, 2016 by Mystery Meat

[Mystery Meat]

7 minutes ago, california boy said:

Simple question.  If the Mormon church considers polygamy the same as it considers one man one woman marriages, then why doesn't the church allow serial one man, one women marriages today?  No one is put in jail today for having "spiritual wives".  God certainly approves of one man one women marriages.   

It is insane to try and claim that polygamy is a one man one woman marriage.  The very definition of polygamy is multiple spouses.  What I don't understand is the shame in calling polygamy what it was.  Multiple wives married at same time.  There is no one man, one woman in polygamy.  Anyone having only one man and one woman in their marriage is not practicing polygamy.  There is no necessity to doing this pretzel type rationalization to try and make something work. Just have faith that at times, God allows one man, multiple women marriages.

Still waiting for someone to provide an answer to my CFR that the wives were married to each other. If you can't it is clear, that each marriage was between one man and one woman.

[Calm]

I don't think there is shame.  I think it is simply a desire to avoid the appearance or misconception it is a group marriage or that there is any sort of sexual relationship between the wives or that a husband might be having sex with more than one wife at a time (though if one thinks about it, getting up from one bed and going into the next room right away would be technically acceptable and not that much different save for one wife watching until it is her turn....and maybe that is what is disturbing).

Edited July 11, 2016 by Calm

[ttribe]

1 hour ago, JLHPROF said:

You can never answer every question, (or even most questions).
So any conversion based on historical/scientific or any academic apologetics is on shaky ground to begin with.

What, in your mind, is the point of apologetics, then?

ETA:  It occurs to me that the polygamy issue isn't just any question.  It's historically been a pretty big issue in Mormon Apologetics.

Edited July 11, 2016 by ttribe

[Mystery Meat]

To be clear when I say each of BY's marriages were between one man and one woman, between means that the covenant is between that one man and that one woman (and God). The women are not married to each other. The effects of each of BY's marriages obviously were felt by each other wife among others, but those effects no matter how great did not extend each marriage covenant to the others.

Just to be clear.

[hope_for_things]

51 minutes ago, CV75 said:

I'd say it is much better to stay current in the terms the Church uses on the whole (as terminology does change, in this case, since a talk given in 1994!!!), and to keep up with the current dialogue in order to develop a more relevant perspective.

As I mentioned in my post, there isn't any significant difference between the two terms.  

[JLHPROF]

3 hours ago, california boy said:

Simple question.  If the Mormon church considers polygamy the same as it considers one man one woman marriages, then why doesn't the church allow serial one man, one women marriages today?  No one is put in jail today for having "spiritual wives".
It is insane to try and claim that polygamy is a one man one woman marriage.  The very definition of polygamy is multiple spouses.

Poly - many + Gamos  - marriages.  Thus plural marriage.
We can call it polygyny if we want, but they didn't.
As far as what the Church considers - that's up to the leaders.

3 hours ago, stemelbow said:

To me and probably others whether a marriage is traditional or not certainly includes consideration of their living situation.  In fact I don't know how one escapes that. 

By looking at the marriage ceremony, where they are pronounced husband and wife, not husbands and wives.  Shouldn't the creation of the unit be the definition of the unit?

Quote

But, that's only part of the problem.  Because certainly the marriage ceremony couldn't always be considered traditional--after all when Brigham married Zina she also was married (again) to Joseph with her current other husband acting as witness.  That's weird--not traditional at all. 

That can still be done today.
 

[california boy]

9 hours ago, Mystery Meat said:

I have no qualms with any of this. My point was simply to show that polygamy cannot be used to show a deviation from man-woman marriage (as some SSM advocates suggest). It can be used to show a lot of other deviations from marriage as we practice it now, but those deviations are really beside the point.

Polygamy can not be used to show a deviation from man-woman marriage.  I don't think anyone has made that claim.  No one is saying that polygamy involved same sexes.  What people ARE pointing out is the fact that polygamy is a deviation from ONE man ONE woman and is a deviation from the definition of traditional marriage in this country.  So is inter racial marriage.  So is gay marriage.