Age of Consent

[SteveO]

3 minutes ago, JulieM said:

No, you stated "men preying on women" in Nauvoo.

 

And do you have any historical evidence that would suggest Joseph be placed in that group?

[juliann]

51 minutes ago, SteveO said:

Is there any resemblance of the early Mormon church to any religious groups since that have practiced polygamy?  My point is that although Joseph introduced polygamy, there is no evidence that it was a heirarchy of men preying on women to satiate their lust.  It would've degenerated into that, and it didn't.  It's actually remarkable that it didn't degenerate into that.

But it did degenerate. Women were becoming scarce which drove the marriage age down. Polygamy was dying even before the Manifesto. It is not a sustainable system.

That said and moving on to general topics, Helen Mar is about the worst one to pick if one wants to carry on about the horrors of polygamy. She left too many records behind defending herself. So I think it is just a little creepy for critics to be second guessing her and turning her into a victim. It is the antithesis of giving women the right to speak for themselves. The only thing this demonstrates is that sometimes the loudest complainers won't take the time to learn about other less visible women who are much better witnesses of the cost of polygamy to women. 

There is not much about the traditional approaches to polygamy that I am going to line up with. I think the who had sex with who is ludicrous. I think there was sexual interest, the men write about the benefit to men of having women at the ready in a Victorian age. Thus, prostitution would decline. I don't think it is helpful to start drawing lines where interest turns into lust. 

We don't know what Joseph was thinking because he didn't tell us. So we have to go back and provide reasons for him to do it. I think it may be better to leave it at whatever he thought he was doing, it obviously wasn't rolled out effectively. On top of that, no one knew how to run multiple marriages in one household. It took BY to institutionalize it and then it became something different.

Everything about it is rejected today. We don't do the kingdom building thing they thought they were doing with stables of children for the men. We don't try to attach ourselves to the highest authority to get closer to God. We have a really, really strange aversion to polyandry, given that we tolerate polygyny, to the point some have taken to denying married couples had relations.  We would never tolerate the class structure of 1st vs additional wives, which amounted to lower status for the majority of female participants.

It goes on and on but it is quick and easy to pick an age and make it all about that to avoid the hard work of actually learning about these women.

 

[SteveO]

Nevermind

Edited April 18, 2017 by SteveO

[juliann]

10 minutes ago, pogi said:

The fact that people were being sealed to Joseph after his death is pretty good evidence that polygamy was not all about sex. 

It is actually evidence of a belief that attaching oneself to a high status male would get you closer to God. Along with your family, which is the real lesson of Helen Mar. 

[JulieM]

13 minutes ago, pogi said:

The fact that people were being sealed to Joseph after his death is pretty good evidence that polygamy was not all about sex. 

Well, at least those sealings 

Kind of hard to "multiply" without sex though.  Isn't that one of the reasons for practicing polygamy (given by Joseph)?

Edited April 18, 2017 by JulieM

[juliann]

16 minutes ago, JulieM said:

You don't know that.

Bennett lived with Joseph for 8 or more months and they were close ("inseparable" is the word used).

Joseph called him to be assistant to the president of the church not soon after he came to Nauvoo.  He was elected mayor of Nauvoo, was made the Chancellor of the University of City of Nauvoo, and Master in Chancery for Hancock Court.  I think Joseph trusted him.  He also organized the first Masonic Lodge in Nauvoo.

Sure. And then he didn't trust him. At all. 

[SteveO]

4 minutes ago, juliann said:

But it did degenerate. Women were becoming scarce which drove the marriage age down. Polygamy was dying even before the Manifesto. It is not a sustainable system.

That said and moving on to general topics, Helen Mar is about the worst one to pick if one wants to carry on about the horrors of polygamy. She left too many records behind defending herself. So I think it is just a little creepy for critics to be second guessing her and turning her into a victim. It is the antithesis of giving women the right to speak for themselves. The only thing this demonstrates is that sometimes the loudest complainers won't take the time to learn about other less visible women who are much better witnesses of the cost of polygamy to women. 

There is not much about the traditional approaches to polygamy that I am going to line up with. I think the who had sex with who is ludicrous. I think there was sexual interest, the men write about the benefit to men of having women at the ready in a Victorian age. Thus, prostitution would decline. I don't think it is helpful to start drawing lines where interest turns into lust. 

We don't know what Joseph was thinking because he didn't tell us. So we have to go back and provide reasons for him to do it. I think it may be better to leave it at whatever he thought he was doing, it obviously wasn't rolled out effectively. On top of that, no one knew how to run multiple marriages in one household. It took BY to institutionalize it and then it became something different.

Everything about it is rejected today. We don't do the kingdom building thing they thought they were doing with stables of children for the men. We don't try to attach ourselves to the highest authority to get closer to God. We have a really, really strange aversion to polyandry, given that we tolerate polygyny, to the point some have taken to denying married couples had relations.  We would never tolerate the class structure of 1st vs additional wives, which amounted to lower status for the majority of female participants.

It goes on and on but it is quick and easy to pick an age and make it all about that to avoid the hard work of actually learning about these women.

 

Do you believe polygamy was commanded by God, and then ineffectively carried out?  Just want to be clear here.  That's what I think happened, like you said, it seemed to suffer from a chaotic implementation and no institutional administration regarding it.

[cinepro]

This isn't the first time this subject has come up (Joseph and polygamy in general, and HMK in particular), but every time it does, I feel like a little bit of my soul dies.

It's obvious to see in any other close-knit religious group when a leader abuses his power.  It's obvious to see when a leader implements strict rules and codes, but then violates those rules and codes himself because he is different.  We can look at those groups and wonder how those followers could be so...faithful?  It's almost like it's taken from the playbook for starting a small religion. 

But I feel like I'm in a Twilight Zone episode that I now find myself on message boards where people defend the Church, and in addition to apologists defending The Book of Mormon or core claims of the Church, they have to find ways to defend a married 38-year old man secretly telling the 14-year-old daughter of a close friend that her family's salvation (may?) depend on her being sealed in marriage to him, and doing so on the authority of their faith in him as a Prophet.

This is totally backwards from everything that I have ever been taught in the Church, and the gospel.  I've always been taught that the Church was manifestly true from its "fruits".  I've always seen that the Church ideals were more "moral" than the world in general.  Mormons have a reputation for trying to be more honest, or healthy, or hard-working, or nicer, than society in general (obviously there are many specific exceptions).  And the Prophet is supposed to be the pinnacle of this teaching.

And now look at what LDS apologists have to defend!  And look at how they defend it! 

"Ignore your feelings (which we've always told you were the Holy Ghost), and look at these census charts that indicate a totally different type of marriage was okay back then.."

"Yes, everyone else needed to have permission from their first wives to take a second or third, but Joseph Smith received special permission from God to not have to have Emma's permission, and we know this because Joseph told us God told him that."

While I spent plenty of time in my high school and mission years defending the Church from all sorts of attacks, I was never an internet apologist, and I never had to deal with issues like this.  And I've seen many, many people who find their faith devastated or immeasurably altered by the reality of Joseph Smith's polygamy.  But I am surprised that there are so many people who will defend this.  To me, I would expect this to be the point that more apologists reach and just throw up their hands and say "Heck no!"

As I've always said, it's my observation that women who fall away tend to have polygamy as their main concern, and men tend to have the Book of Abraham as their main concern.  Put together, I think history will show that it was the more wide publication and acknowledgment of the situations (and reality) of HMK and the Book of Abraham (especially via the Church essays) that began the end of this era of the Church. 

I don't know what the next 50 or 100 years holds for the Church, but if defending Joseph Smith and HMK and the Book of Abraham are a big part of it, I'm not optimistic.

 

 

 

Edited April 19, 2017 by cinepro

[JulieM]

1 minute ago, juliann said:

Sure. And then he didn't trust him. At all. 

Exactly and for good reason.  But much damage had been already done by then because Joseph initially put a great deal of trust in him.  He was definitely a scoundrel.

[pogi]

6 minutes ago, JulieM said:

Well, at least those sealings 

Kind of hard to "multiply" without sex though.  Isn't that one of the reasons for practicing polygamy (given by Joseph)?

Apparently it is not the only reason. 

Edited April 18, 2017 by pogi

[SteveO]

9 minutes ago, JulieM said:

Well, at least those sealings 

Kind of hard to "multiply" without sex though.  Isn't that one of the reasons for practicing polygamy (given by Joseph)?

Polygamy wasn't about "multiplying" though...not the main one anyways.  Pogi corrected it.

Edited April 18, 2017 by SteveO

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Tacenda said:

C/P'd the below on Fairmormon. Why would he marry a 14 year old any way?

If you look at how most of the plural marriages happened at the beginning, it appears they were sealings for drawing families together.  They weren't doing Law of Adoption sealings yet nor were they sealing their own parents to themselves unless they were alive.  They were doing proxy baptisms at most.

So it would indicate to me they were yet unaware of how God's family would be able to all be sealed together as one, so they came up with using the marriage sealing as the process...since it was, as far as I can recall, the only possible adult to adult sealing available to many of them at that time.  Even if they were sealed to their parents, their parents would not be sealed into the larger family that was being created with Joseph at the core.

So Joseph was first sealed to wives and sisters and then when the first was probably decided to be less than desirable as wives became both literal and symbolic demonstrations of eternal rewards, the leaders and others who desired eternal family connection began to seal him to their daughters and sisters.  Thus you have the men approaching Joseph and Joseph approaching the men and then the male relative, father or brother or uncle approaches the woman to introduce the idea.

 

[JulieM]

12 minutes ago, SteveO said:

Polygamy wasn't about "multiplying" though...

According to Jacob 2:30, it is.  Also, read D&C 132:63.

Edited April 18, 2017 by JulieM

[SteveO]

5 minutes ago, Calm said:

If you look at how most of the plural marriages happened at the beginning, it appears they were sealings for drawing families together.  They weren't doing Law of Adoption sealings yet nor were they sealing their own parents to themselves unless they were alive.  They were doing proxy baptisms at most.

So it would indicate to me they were yet unaware of how God's family would be able to all be sealed together as one, so they came up with using the marriage sealing as the process...since it was, as far as I can recall, the only possible adult to adult sealing available to many of them at that time.  Even if they were sealed to their parents, their parents would not be sealed into the larger family that was being created with Joseph at the core.

So Joseph was first sealed to wives and sisters and then when the first was probably decided to be less than desirable as wives became both literal and symbolic demonstrations of eternal rewards, the leaders and others who desired eternal family connection began to seal him to their daughters and sisters.  Thus you have the men approaching Joseph and Joseph approaching the men and then the male relative, father or brother or uncle approaches the woman to introduce the idea.

 

How much of it was "stumbling in the dark" and how much was revealed?  I think thats where a lot of the trouble comes in.  Where does the revelation end, and where does "to the best of their ability" begin?

[SteveO]

10 minutes ago, Calm said:

If you look at how most of the plural marriages happened at the beginning, it appears they were sealings for drawing families together.  They weren't doing Law of Adoption sealings yet nor were they sealing their own parents to themselves unless they were alive.  They were doing proxy baptisms at most.

So it would indicate to me they were yet unaware of how God's family would be able to all be sealed together as one, so they came up with using the marriage sealing as the process...since it was, as far as I can recall, the only possible adult to adult sealing available to many of them at that time.  Even if they were sealed to their parents, their parents would not be sealed into the larger family that was being created with Joseph at the core.

So Joseph was first sealed to wives and sisters and then when the first was probably decided to be less than desirable as wives became both literal and symbolic demonstrations of eternal rewards, the leaders and others who desired eternal family connection began to seal him to their daughters and sisters.  Thus you have the men approaching Joseph and Joseph approaching the men and then the male relative, father or brother or uncle approaches the woman to introduce the idea.

 

For me, I don't struggle with polygamy so much in and of itself.  As I've mentioned, I'm just not seeing too much sexual motivation behind it.  It does bother me that such an important principle seemed to be so disorganized with little to no divine guidance as to how it needed to be administered. 

Edited April 18, 2017 by SteveO

[JLHPROF]

12 minutes ago, JulieM said:

According to Jacob 2:30, it is.  Also, read D&C 132:63.

If polygamous marriage is to only raise up seed, why would monogamous marriage be any different?
Is raising up seed to God the ONLY reason for polygamy to exist?  (Isaiah 4:1 for instance)

In fact, the very verse you reference states differently:

• D&C 132:63 But if one or either of the ten virgins, after she is espoused, shall be with another man, she has committed adultery, and shall be destroyed; for they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfil the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified.

Looks like we can add to the reasons for polygamy.
1. To multiply and replenish
2. To fulfill a premortal promise of God
3. For exaltation (oh look, maybe exaltation and polygamy ARE directly related)
4. To continue God's work

Very interesting...

Edited April 18, 2017 by JLHPROF

[JulieM]

2 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

If polygamous marriage is to only raise up seed, why would monogamous marriage be any different?

I agree.  I never said it was the only reason.  I know other purposes were given. But it's not accurate to say it wasn't "about multiplying" either.

[pogi]

48 minutes ago, cinepro said:

This isn't the first time this subject has come up (Joseph and polygamy in general, and HMK in particular), but every time it does, I feel like a little bit of my soul dies.

It's obvious to see in any other close-knit religious group when a leader abuses his power.  It's obvious to see when a leader implements strict rules and codes, but then violates those rules and codes himself because he is different.  We can look at those groups and wonder how those followers could be so...faithful?  It's almost like it's taken from the playbook for starting a small religion. 

But I feel like I'm in a Twilight Zone episode that I now find myself on message boards defending the Church, and in addition to apologists defending The Book of Mormon or core claims of the Church, they have to find ways to defend a married 38-year old man secretly telling the 14-year-old daughter of a close friend that her family's salvation (may?) depend on her being sealed in marriage to him, and doing so on the authority of their faith in him as a Prophet.

This is totally backwards from everything that I have ever been taught in the Church, and the gospel.  I've always been taught that the Church was manifestly true from its "fruits".  I've always seen that the Church ideals were more "moral" than the world in general.  Mormons have a reputation for trying to be more honest, or healthy, than society in general (obviously there are many specific exceptions).  And the Prophet is supposed to be the pinnacle of this teaching.

And now look at what LDS apologists have to defend!  And look at how they defend it! 

"Ignore your feelings (which we've always told you were the Holy Ghost), and look at these census charts that indicate a totally different type of marriage was okay back then.."

"Yes, everyone else needed to have permission from their first wives to take a second or third, but Joseph Smith received special permission from God to not have to have Emma's permission, and we know this because Joseph told us God told him that."

While I spend plenty of time in my high school and mission years defending the Church from all sorts of attacks, I was never an internet apologist, and I never had to deal with the issue like this.  And I've seen many, many people who find their faith devastated or immeasurably altered by the reality of Joseph Smith's polygamy.  But I am surprised that there are so many people who will defend this.  To me, I would expect this to the point that more apologists reach and just throw up their hands and say "Heck no!"

As I've always said, it's my observation that women who fall away tend to have polygamy as their main concern, and men tend to have the Book of Abraham as their main concern.  Put together, I think history will show that it was the more wide publication and acknowledgment of the situations (and reality) of HMK and the Book of Abraham (especially via the Church essays) that began the end of this era of the Church. 

I don't know what the next 50 or 100 years holds for the Church, but if defending Joseph Smith and HMK and the Book of Abraham are a big part of it, I'm not optimistic.

Cinepro, you are an active believer in the restored gospel, right? 

How do you maintain faith in the restoration without maintaining faith in the prophet of the restoration?  I am genuinely curious how people can reconcile this. 

Without experiencing what I have experienced in relation to the restored gospel, I would not try to defend Joseph.  But having experienced what I have experienced, how can I not defend him?  I don't have a testimony of polygamy, and you are right, it doesn't "feel" right, so what am I missing here?  When I ask myself that question the only possible answers that I can think of are 1) It is all bogus, 2) my perspective is limited, or 3) he was a fallen prophet.

I find #3 problematic in many ways.  If he was fallen, then so are all the leaders who followed him in the abominable practice.  I cannot accept #1 and therefore cannot accept #3, so I am left with the only other option, which is #2.  How do you reconcile it though?

Edited April 18, 2017 by pogi

[cinepro]

14 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

If polygamous marriage is to only raise up seed, why would monogamous marriage be any different?

 

That makes no sense. 

Monogamous marriage would be different because it can fulfill a whole host of needs and wants other than making babies.  Companionship.  Support.  Etc.

In a community where there are approximately equal numbers of marriageable men and women, then polygamy serves no purpose other than to give certain men (usually powerful men) more opportunities for procreation and, to the degree it is acknowledged in the community, greater status.  Women in polygamous marriages will obviously have less companionship and support than they would otherwise get in a monogamous marriage (all other things being equal). 

I suspect that's a huge part of the problem some women have with the idea of polygamy.  A woman might be a true believer in the gospel, but asking her to effectively halve (or worse) her already meager time and money with her husband who is busy trying to make a living and/or lead the Church is pretty tough.  And to halve that time with someone who might be younger and prettier...? 

 

[thesometimesaint]

cinepro;

We cling the Bible, The Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, D&C because we believe them to be the word of God as far as they are translated correctly. What's left after we jettison them?

[Calm]

"they have to find ways to defend a married 38-year old man secretly telling the 14-year-old daughter of a close friend that her family's salvation (may?) depend on her being sealed in marriage to him, and doing so on the authority of their faith in him as a Prophet."

Or one can approach it as they screwed up trying to make sense of a brand new principle/idea that they had little to no exposure to and thus messed up practicing and teaching, implying things that weren't true, making connections that weren't eternally necessary once one knew the next version of God 's family sealing (the revelation that came to WW).

I realize that people assume that such revelations are given in full context with all important questions answered, but most revelations---if not all that we have examples of---are not given that way.  line upon line is repeated both in teaching and in example from the beginning of covenanted times...so mistakes would naturally occur in my view and sometimes whoppers as overconfidence popped up due to so much new knowledge being shared.

Helen and her family's behaviour do not indicate a "once sealed, always saved" POV.  They are front and center in the trying to do what is right to the best of our ability, including making tremendous sacrifices.  Either their understanding grew later on or the report Helen gave wasn't expressive of actual understanding.  To me, it comes across as the only chance for their family to be sealed into Joseph's eternal family.  Now that may have been understood to be the only way to achieve exaltation, by being sealed to Joseph, you were sealed to God or at least being sealed to someone sealed to Joseph.  It appears to me from their behaviour they saw a sealing into Joseph's family as essential to exaltation,  but not the only requirement.  And everyone in the close community appears to have believed the same thing as wives, daughters, and sisters, and eventually men when the Law of Adoption came in were getting linked into a family web with Joseph at its core.  Whether Helen understood it that way or not at the time, I don't think we can tell easily.  It makes sense to me to look at all she wrote prior to that description, look at the sacrifices and choices she made over her life as well as look at how else she wrote and whether she made an effort in her reminiscing to imagine how she understood it in the past or didn't make that effort.

They were doing the best they could with the limited knowledge they had.  Joseph knew a lot through revelation, but I see no need to believe he knew everything even in the areas much was revealed to him.  Throughout his life there are references to him receiving perceived enlightenment on his revealed knowledge from nonrevelation sources, like books on ancient America.

 Helen got caught in the middle of the mess of revelations and messed up inferences.  So did some others, like Emma and Joseph himself, imo.  Lots of wives and husband, monogamous and polygamous, suffered because of screwed up cultural notions of the relationship of spouses, eternal and temporal.  It is still happening, we are still struggling to get our marriages correctly balanced so we don't put burdens on our loved ones and ourselves that we don't need to carry.  Mistakes are made because of good intentions all the time, sometimes disastrous ones.  I don't see any reason to be ashamed of them if we are struggling to do what is right and are not being malicious.  If I am eager to get forgiveness for my missteps, I need to be generous in looking on the past in the same way, forgiving my parents for creating some horrible situations because they thought it was best for us and then being unable to remedy the situation when they realized it backfired, I need to forgive Mom for her withdrawing rather than being there, I need to forgive Dad for trying to strengthen us by telling us kids we were responsible for being in the mess though not the mess itself.  There are parents who excuse their abuse and anger with claims of love, but .I think most parents really do love their kids and really do hurt them because their love doesn't come with a howto manual.

Since I can see parents I believe are inspired in many things still making major mistakes with their kids, why shouldn't I believe this could happen to Helen by her parents and Joseph, the dear friend they wanted as an eternal family member.  Why can't .I just be grateful that we have received additional revelation that fills a need and desire that many of us have as strong as them, the desire to be eternally bonded with each other in God's eternal family.  I am not going to condemn them for having the same desire and for either lacking the patience or being perhaps too sure of themselves in understanding God's ways back them.  I am fully confident we are making the same type of mistake in something with just as much pain caused.

[Calm]

31 minutes ago, SteveO said:

How much of it was "stumbling in the dark" and how much was revealed?  I think thats where a lot of the trouble comes in.  Where does the revelation end, and where does "to the best of their ability" begin?

Exactly.  If we are so confident in our ability to judge them, I suspect we have placed ourselves in the same situation of believing we know more than we do and thus we are harming others with our decisions based misunderstandings.

Humility in judging everything and everyone will likely get us to safer ground sooner.

[SteveO]

5 minutes ago, Calm said:

"they have to find ways to defend a married 38-year old man secretly telling the 14-year-old daughter of a close friend that her family's salvation (may?) depend on her being sealed in marriage to him, and doing so on the authority of their faith in him as a Prophet."

Or one can approach it as they screwed up trying to make sense of a brand new principle/idea that they had little to no exposure to and thus messed up practicing and teaching, implying things that weren't true, making connections that weren't eternally necessary once one knew the next version of God 's family sealing (the revelation that came to WW).

I realize that people assume that such revelations are given in full context with all important questions answered, but most revelations---if not all that we have examples of---are not given that way.  line upon line is repeated both in teaching and in example from the beginning of covenanted times...so mistakes would naturally occur in my view and sometimes whoppers as overconfidence popped up due to so much new knowledge being shared.

Helen and her family's behaviour do not indicate a "once sealed, always saved" POV.  They are front and center in the trying to do what is right to the best of our ability, including making tremendous sacrifices.  Either their understanding grew later on or the report Helen gave wasn't expressive of actual understanding.  To me, it comes across as the only chance for their family to be sealed into Joseph's eternal family.  Now that may have been understood to be the only way to achieve exaltation, by being sealed to Joseph, you were sealed to God or at least being sealed to someone sealed to Joseph.  It appears to me from their behaviour they saw a sealing into Joseph's family as essential to exaltation,  but not the only requirement.  And everyone in the close community appears to have believed the same thing as wives, daughters, and sisters, and eventually men when the Law of Adoption came in were getting linked into a family web with Joseph at its core.  Whether Helen understood it that way or not at the time, I don't think we can tell easily.  It makes sense to me to look at all she wrote prior to that description, look at the sacrifices and choices she made over her life as well as look at how else she wrote and whether she made an effort in her reminiscing to imagine how she understood it in the past or didn't make that effort.

They were doing the best they could with the limited knowledge they had.  Joseph knew a lot through revelation, but I see no need to believe he knew everything even in the areas much was revealed to him.  Throughout his life there are references to him receiving perceived enlightenment on his revealed knowledge from nonrevelation sources, like books on ancient America.

 Helen got caught in the middle of the mess of revelations and messed up inferences.  So did some others, like Emma and Joseph himself, imo.  Lots of wives and husband, monogamous and polygamous, suffered because of screwed up cultural notions of the relationship of spouses, eternal and temporal.  It is still happening, we are still struggling to get our marriages correctly balanced so we don't put burdens on our loved ones and ourselves that we don't need to carry.  Mistakes are made because of good intentions all the time, sometimes disastrous ones.  I don't see any reason to be ashamed of them if we are struggling to do what is right and are not being malicious.  If I am eager to get forgiveness for my missteps, I need to be generous in looking on the past in the same way, forgiving my parents for creating some horrible situations because they thought it was best for us and then being unable to remedy the situation when they realized it backfired, I need to forgive Mom for her withdrawing rather than being there, I need to forgive Dad for trying to strengthen us by telling us kids we were responsible for being in the mess though not the mess itself.  There are parents who excuse their abuse and anger with claims of love, but .I think most parents really do love their kids and really do hurt them because their love doesn't come with a howto manual.

Since I can see parents I believe are inspired in many things still making major mistakes with their kids, why shouldn't I believe this could happen to Helen by her parents and Joseph, the dear friend they wanted as an eternal family member.  Why can't .I just be grateful that we have received additional revelation that fills a need and desire that many of us have as strong as them, the desire to be eternally bonded with each other in God's eternal family.  I am not going to condemn them for having the same desire and for either lacking the patience or being perhaps too sure of themselves in understanding God's ways back them.  I am fully confident we are making the same type of mistake in something with just as much pain caused.

Love this.  Thank you

[thesometimesaint]

3 minutes ago, cinepro said:

That makes no sense. 

Monogamous marriage would be different because it can fulfill a whole host of needs and wants other than making babies.  Companionship.  Support.  Etc.

In a community where there are approximately equal numbers of marriageable men and women, then polygamy serves no purpose other than to give certain men (usually powerful men) more opportunities for procreation and, to the degree it is acknowledged in the community, greater status.  Women in polygamous marriages will obviously have less companionship and support than they would otherwise get in a monogamous marriage (all other things being equal). 

I suspect that's a huge part of the problem some women have with the idea of polygamy.  A woman might be a true believer in the gospel, but asking her to effectively halve (or worse) her already meager time and money with her husband who is busy trying to make a living and/or lead the Church is pretty tough.  And to halve that time with someone who might be younger and prettier...? 

 

It puts a lot of strain on a marriage to make your spouse the only interactions you have.

There are sound sociological reasons to not engage in too much polygamy. But small scale with expanded resources isn't one of them.

[juliann]

33 minutes ago, SteveO said:

Do you believe polygamy was commanded by God, and then ineffectively carried out?  Just want to be clear here.  That's what I think happened, like you said, it seemed to suffer from a chaotic implementation and no institutional administration regarding it.

Since all we have is 132, I'm not sure what to make of it. First, I think most revelation isn't talking on the phone to Jesus. So who knows what JS thought he as doing. What I do, however, is stand behind the women who claimed revelation. And it was one big hot mess. So were the reasons they came up for it after the fact.  I suspect, based on JS, throwing the sisters out of the mansion, that had he lived, Emma would have prevailed and he would have accomplished sealings and such closer to what we have today. 

But polygamy cannot be pulled out of the 19th c where women had few rights and the science of the day supported some weird stuff. That is what polygamy was shaped by. Those who advocate for it today are just as clueless as those who were instituting it were. It would be nothing like then without the beliefs of the day. 

19 minutes ago, SteveO said:

How much of it was "stumbling in the dark" and how much was revealed?  I think thats where a lot of the trouble comes in.  Where does the revelation end, and where does "to the best of their ability" begin?

Nicely put. And where does it is over begin. The only reason we have trouble with it today is because of the men who won't give it it up and feel supported by the lingering sealing policy that gives them priority.

 

45 minutes ago, cinepro said:

 

As I've always said, it's my observation that women who fall away tend to have polygamy as their main concern, and men tend to have the Book of Abraham as their main concern.  Put together, I think history will show that it was the more wide publication and acknowledgment of the situations (and reality) of HMK and the Book of Abraham (especially via the Church essays) that began the end of this era of the Church. 

 

 

 

 

It is those defenses that are doing the damage more than polygamy itself. Just as with the priesthood ban. Polygamy is a historic practice. If the defenses would leave it there, it would not be much of an issue. Anymore than the United Order, stoning women adulterers,  or sufferage are....or any number of past events. I think it is inarguable that JS's instituted a universal polygamy that included polyandry. I suspect BY, who established rules to benefit men, allowed for divorce because he couldn't stomach women having the right to determine who would father their children or hitch their star to. So rather than picking up another spouse, as Lyons and others did, they had to divorce the first one. 

What has happened is that the taboo on this topic squeezed scholarship. So even the best and brightest put a gloss on polygamy by highlighting stuff like the wives all worked together and babysat while leaving out the horror stories, not that there was any attempt to deceive, it was just how things were done. That isn't the case anymore. Nor is it the case that only men are studied. It seems no one has figured out that the vast majority of polygamists were women not men and that if you want the real story that is where you have to go.

So we can do two things. We can use this as a stick to beat the church, or we can first make a minimal attempt to start looking at the majority. Anybody who can name polygamist men but can't name their wives shouldn't be in the conversation.