New Book on Polygamy

[bluebell]

50 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

Is any marriage lived exactly as God would have preferred?

Exactly?  No. But in general, I’m guessing millions and more have been/are lived as He would want.

But hopefully posters realized that I was talking about how God was used as the reason for the bad ways it was practiced sometimes.  

 

Edited August 2, 2021 by bluebell

[Stargazer]

On 7/31/2021 at 1:05 PM, bluebell said:

I've been camping in the mountains of Wyoming for over a week so I'm late to the party, but to me it sounds like she was coming at the idea from the perspective that, in her belief, polygamy wasn't a correct principle and that's why the spirit left.

Also speaking for myself, I don't find those kinds of experiences trustworthy.   I was once in a sacrament meeting where a woman with a beautiful voice sang Amazing Grace.  It was so touching.  I thought it made the whole sacrament meeting.

But later that day I was talking to the bishop about something--a great man--and it came out that he had told her she couldn't sing that song in church.  He commented on how the spirit instantly left the meeting when she started singing it.

I didn't say anything (other than that I loved it) but I could recognize that the spirit didn't actually leave, he just lost the ability to feel it because he was angry at her.  If the rest of the congregation had know she was actively doing something she was told she couldn't do, it would have impacted our ability to gauge the presence of the spirit as well.  But we didn't know so those awkward negative emotions weren't in play for us like they were for him.

Over time, I have learned to recognize the difference between emotional reaction and the spirit of the Lord. And you are absolutely correct that what your bishop was talking about was an emotional reaction, not the withdrawal of the spirit. But of course, the spirit departed from him (and clearly no-one else), but only because of his rejection of it. Amazing Grace is a beautiful and uplifting song, and I think its exclusion from the hymnbook is a mistake.  Well, that's beside the point.  I remember once when I was about to tell someone something that was very precious to me, regarding a strong spiritual experience I had once had, and just as I opened my mouth to start telling about it, I got a strong disapproving impression, as if the Lord were saying "Shut it!" And I stopped. I saw that if I had resisted that impression that I would definitely feel the withdrawal of the spirit. Just the premonition of it was bad enough. 

On 7/31/2021 at 1:05 PM, bluebell said:

Likewise, if someone is convinced that polygamy was wrong because they themselves have very strong but negative emotions connected to it, I don't think they are in a position to gauge the presence of the spirit either.  That much (negative or positive) emotion easily gets in the way.

It's not just in our heritage though.  It's currently being practiced in the temple, and every latter-day saint wife who is married in the temple has to face the idea that, should she die before her husband, she could end up in a polygamous relationship for eternity.  Obviously we know that God would not force anyone into any kind of relationship, but if a beloved husband gets sealed to another woman, that puts the first wife in a spot to either lose him and those blessings, or face the idea of something she might really loath right now.

Also, there are still some aspects of how it was practiced, that are enshrined in our scriptures, that can be legitimately concerning for women to work through.  Not the least of which is trying to understand some verses in D&C 132 which explicitly state that any woman who refused to allow her husband to take another wife would be destroyed by the Lord.   

 

I hesitate to chime in on this, due to past experience with certain other commenters, but I feel I need to put something forward.

Exaltation is the ultimate goal that Father has for each and every one of us. But it is not singular -- it requires male and female together. Paul wrote: "Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord." (I Cor 11:11) That and DC 132 makes it abundantly clear that neither a single man nor a single woman can be exalted. Both sexes are required. Why? I have no idea. But it seems to be the case.

The problem, then, is this: if there are a billion of one sex and a billion and one of the other sex who are worthy of exaltation, then there is one worthy person who cannot be exalted. This would rob God and frustrate His purposes. In dealing with this question, someone once asserted to me that God would ensure that the numbers would be even. That God would make sure that among those worthy of exaltation, the ratio of men to women would be 1:1. The problem with this is that God cannot even guarantee that any particular one of us will ultimately be worthy of exaltation. If He had known absolutely who all would pass the test of mortality, then there would have been no point in sending us into mortality. Even God did not know which of us would succeed before He sent us. And God is not a respecter of persons, so He cannot take someone who is not worthy of exaltation and magically change him/her to make him/her worthy. So as to magically make the ration 1:1.

The argument that I made back then, and put forward again here, is that plural marriage (not polygamy) is required because the number of women who are worthy of exaltation will be larger than the number of men who are worthy. And I emphasize again that this is my opinion, or my deduction from the evidence, or feeling because of observation, not something I can give a CFR on. The only scripture I can call on as possible evidence for this is in the discussion about those who hold the priesthood in Doctrine and Covenants section 121, verses 34 - 44. This specifically concerns priesthood holders, or in other words, males. In particular part we read: "We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion. Hence many are called, but few are chosen." (verses 39 & 40). I'm not saying that women cannot exercise unrighteous dominion, because they obviously can and do. 

And as far as almost all men is concerned, the word men in this context is not a generalized reference to human being. Because the discussion involves priesthood holders, it is clearly a reference to males. It should be clear as day to anyone that there will be many priesthood holders called, but only a few will be chosen. And what is "chosen" in this context? If one reads further, to the last two verses in the section, one encounters some pretty powerful promises to those who are chosen:

45 Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven.
46 The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; and thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever.

This is a clear call-out to exaltation. 

Now, if few men will be exalted, and the number of women who will be worthy of it will exceed that number (which is my unprovable assertion), then plural marriage is required in order for God's purposes to be fulfilled. And as He Himself says in DC 3:1

The works, and the designs, and the purposes of God cannot be frustrated, neither can they come to naught.

This should actually help us understand why He said that "any woman who refused to allow her husband to take another wife would be destroyed by the Lord."  By so refusing, such a wife is refusing another worthy woman the opportunity of exaltation, which she cannot have without an eternal husband. And this is cause for "destruction", or in other words, she loses her own exaltation because she denies to another woman the opportunity for it. 

I'm a man, and a priesthood holder. I'm sealed to exactly one woman. I'd love to keep it that way. But it appears that, in order for me to be worthy of exaltation in the eternity I will be required to be sealed to more women, even though I do not seek this, and would rather not. There may be those men who would otherwise be worthy of exaltation, but who refuse to accept more sealings, and they will lose their exaltation as well. For the same reason.

I know this bothers folks. But do they not understand that marriage in the eternity does not closely resemble marriage in mortality? A woman in mortality may be repelled by plural marriage because it means her husband is off giving attention to another woman, and leaving her all alone, and possibly not providing for her and her children with him. This is fearful, and it's natural, and it's a survival characteristic to be worried about it in mortality. Men and women in mortality are extremely limited beings. But in eternity we are not restricted to one thought at a time. Is God only able to listen to one prayer at a time? Can He only do one miracle at a time? Of course not! All His trillions and quadrillions of children on all the planets in His universe can be heard by Him, and all at the same time. By the same token, our exaltation gives us the same power that God has. If an eternal husband has a hundred eternal wives, he is always with each and every one of them; none of them are ever alone. This is why we call it plural marriage, and not "polygamy". An eternal husband is married a hundred times. He does not have a hundred wives. He has a hundred marriages, none of them takes precedence over any of the others, and there is no worry over abandonment. Nor will there be any jealousy -- which is a human mortal emotion, I should like to point out.

This subject gets all confused with sex. Eternal life and eternal marriage is not mortal life and mortal sex. That's all some people can think about, and it gets them all twitterpated. But eternity does not revolve around earthly sex. We need to get this out of our heads.

I sometimes try to get people to look at life in the eternity as something more than what they see in mortality. It's not easy, because it seems that most people cannot imagine eternal life to be anything better than living on a planet with no bad weather, where the food is always first rate and you never get fat, television is always entertaining, skiing is always available and the slopes are great, the internet connectivity is fantastic, and one never gets tired, stressed, injured, or sick. And the daily harp recitals are optional. But that is mortal thinking. Even those of us who qualify only for the Telestial Kingdom will find immortal lives of wonder and magic, filled with purpose and accomplishment. So if we are counted among those worthy of exaltation, our lives will not resemble earth life with slightly better conditions. And that includes our personal relationships.

Members of the church need to stop thinking like gentiles, and start thinking like saints.

[JLHPROF]

3 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I’m a literalist because it seems like the least messy, easiest, most black and white way to understand the gospel.

And that makes me doubt the accuracy of literalism. 

So how do you as a literalist handle very clear scripture that indicates the starting point of this conversation - the somewhat "sexist" by today's standard scriptural truths?

Asking for some friends 😉

[Metis_LDS]

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

Why do you think women will out number men in the celestial world?

I do not know how to do a pole on the board.  It would be interesting to see if anyone has seen a ward or branch with more men than women.  I have been blessed to attend Church in 2 nations in many different wards and branches and have never even seen where the number of active brethren was the same as active sisters.  I view God as for the most part logical.  So I thought in the past that the male female ratio was a logical reason for polygamy borne out of limited personal observation.  I now think because of the board that there might be another reason.   That even among men in the Celestial kingdom that will be a reluctance to have spirit children, this by itself will create an issue that polygamy would solve.

[bluebell]

3 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

So how do you as a literalist handle very clear scripture that indicates the starting point of this conversation - the somewhat "sexist" by today's standard scriptural truths?

Asking for some friends 😉

You’d have to give me an example. 

[Calm]

17 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

unlikeliness of an exact 1:1 ratio is astronomical.

Unless we looked at this as a frozen in moment period, this could be resolved if numbers were relatively close over time by simply waiting till another batch made it. There would always be some having to wait, but no one would have to wait forever. 
 

But to me the simplest solution is one that allows multiple husbands as well as multiple wives. No need to worry about numbers, about implications of inequalities, etc.  There is nothing in scripture that prevents it, the basic unit of male-female is preserved.  If number of spouses and/or children impact one’s possible glory…whatever glory actually is…this is maximized for everyone as children sealed to each husband would also be sealed to their wives if we follow the same principle as children a woman has after being sealed to a man are all sealed to that man as well, whether or not there is any biological connection. 
 

Nothing new doctrinally or relationship wise needs to be added, but we simply treat the living as we already treat the dead and seal for any male-female marriage.  One might still be concerned if one will have a relationship with a particular individual, but that is a problem anyway since any partner may step back and in the end say exaltation is not for me and no one will force them otherwise it would appear. 

Edited August 2, 2021 by Calm

[Calm]

7 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

as far as almost all men is concerned, the word men in this context is not a generalized reference to human being. Because the discussion involves priesthood holders, it is clearly a reference to males

If women are priestesses, then it applies to them too by that reasoning. 

[Metis_LDS]

8 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Members of the church need to stop thinking like gentiles, and start thinking like saints.

If I live to 2023 I will have been a member for 50 years.  I agree and wish you luck with the above.

[Calm]

13 minutes ago, Metis_LDS said:

anyone has seen a ward or branch with more men than women

Yep. Moscow International Branch when we were there was more men than women. The few women there were with their husbands and there were the elders and some male international students as well as more boys among the few kids than girls. 

Edited August 2, 2021 by Calm

[Stargazer]

2 minutes ago, Calm said:

If women are priestesses, then it applies to them too by that reasoning. 

I agree that you could say that, but the verses in question refer to men only.  Of course endowed sisters are capable of unrighteous dominion. And it would certainly lead to their being unworthy of exaltation. I'm still asserting that the tendency to unrighteous dominion is a danger particularly with males. You're entitled to disagree.

[Stargazer]

11 minutes ago, Calm said:

Unless we looked at this as a frozen in moment period, this could be resolved if numbers were relatively close over time by simply waiting till another batch made it. There would always be some having to wait, but no one would have to wait forever. 
 

But to me the simplest solution is one that allows multiple husbands as well as multiple wives. No need to worry about numbers, about implications of inequalities, etc.  There is nothing in scripture that prevents it, the basic unit of male-female is preserved.  Nothing new doctrinally or relationship wise needs to be added, but we simply treat the living as we already treat the dead and seal for any male-female marriage.  One might still be concerned if one will have a relationship with a particular individual, but that is a problem anyway since any partner may step back and in the end say exaltation is not for me and no one will force them otherwise it would appear. 

That is a simple solution, but we seal for any male-female marriage because we cannot predict which one will take the cake, as it were. This is the same reason why we baptize all, regardless of whether we know whether this or that person will accept the baptism. 

[Calm]

26 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Eternal life and eternal marriage is not mortal life and mortal sex. That's all some people can think about, and it gets them all twitterpated.

There are plenty who think of it in terms of companionship though. A man with a hundred wives could very well be leaving a woman to be physically alone in the marriage for 99% of the time if equally dividing time and physical attention (not sex, but being with her) between his wives. 
 

The oneness you talk about applies to all in God’s family, not just with a husband and wife. So if a wife has multiple husbands, the same oneness applies to those relationships. 

Edited August 2, 2021 by Calm

[Calm]

3 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

we seal for any male-female marriage because we cannot predict which one will take the cake, as it were

Assumption and tradition that this means a woman has to choose only one husband. Nothing in scripture or current policy books state this. 
 

All marriages are sealed on the assumption that those in the sealing may or may not accept the eternal covenant, not just women with multiple husbands.  

Edited August 2, 2021 by Calm

[The Nehor]

22 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Members of the church need to stop thinking like gentiles, and start thinking like saints.

I prefer to be able to think like both. Sure there is a great advantage in being double minded. For example you could…

“A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” -James 1:8

*sigh* Never mind.

[Stargazer]

Just now, Calm said:

There are plenty who think of it in terms of companionship though. A man with a hundred wives could very well be leaving a woman to be alone in the marriage for 99% of the time if equally dividing time and attention between his wives. 

You're thinking like a computer. 🙂 Computers, even ones with multiple processors, still have to divide tasks into discrete time slices so as to give them all equal attention. God doesn't do that. 

Humans divide time and attention. God operates in simultaneity. At the same time, literally. No divide and conquer. 

It's literally unimaginable, but if one bends one's brain a bit, one can conceive that it's possible for God (and ultimately your exalted self) to see everything at once, without neglecting any of it.

A human failing is to imagine that God has human limits. He doesn't.

[Stargazer]

4 minutes ago, Calm said:

Assumption and tradition that this means a woman has to choose only one husband. Nothing in scripture or current policy books state this. 

Policy and doctrine are related, but not identical. Policy deals with how to implement doctrine, but while doctrine doesn't change sometimes policy must -- because our understanding of doctrine is imperfect. And we are probably implementing some policies because we don't know what the doctrine is, yet.

4 minutes ago, Calm said:

All marriages are sealed on the assumption that those in the sealing may or may not accept the eternal covenant, not just women with multiple husbands.  

Of course. 

But I think that if it were doctrinal for a woman to have multiple husbands this would have surfaced already.

[JLHPROF]

11 minutes ago, bluebell said:

You’d have to give me an example. 

I Timothy 2:9-15 

D&C 132:64-65

I Peter 3:1-7

Ephesians 5:22-33

I Corinthians 11:3

Genesis 3:16

All just products of their era, not inspired revelation?

[Stargazer]

4 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I prefer to be able to think like both. Sure there is a great advantage in being double minded. For example you could…

“A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” -James 1:8

*sigh* Never mind.

I think one needs to understand the world, even if one is avoiding following its lead.

[Calm]

2 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

It's literally unimaginable, but if one bends one's brain a bit, one can conceive that it's possible for God (and ultimately your exalted self) to see everything at once, without neglecting any of it.

A human failing is to imagine that God has human limits. He doesn't.

Which is why it makes no logical sense to say a man will not need to choose among his loves who to live with because he will be able to love all of them fully, but demand women do just that. As if women are incapable of being one with God as well.

[Calm]

8 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

But I think that if it were doctrinal for a woman to have multiple husbands this would have surfaced already.

Why?  How much eternal Truth have we already received?  How long in this world would it have been assumed by leaders that such even matters if marriage was about ensuring inheritances and care of a woman by a man?  You have no clue how much more there is to know. We know nothing of the mechanics for spiritual birth, for example. We don’t know how God controls creation or how the Spirit manages to communicate to all. How healings work or what baptisms or any covenant actually do, why they are require so that no exceptions can be made for and instead somehow proxy covenants take the place for those who didn’t get the chance.  We know nothing about how the parent-child relationship of mortality that we are dealing families in will operate given there may be absences and there is no reason to assume every parent is nobler or more intelligent than their child. Or  how such hierarchies could even work when we are one. 
 

The list of what we do not know about eternal life is infinite. 

Edited August 2, 2021 by Calm

[webbles]

2 hours ago, Teancum said:

I may have my history wrong but isn't there a story about after where Hyrum said they should have kept a copy of the revelation because Emma burned it.  Joseph responded that it was not a problem because he could give it again perfectly word for word.....or something like that.

I believe the story you are referring to is from William Clayton in 1874.  Andrew Jenson reported it in his "Plural Marriage" article.  It says:

Quote

Joseph related to me and several others that Emma had so teased and urgently entreated him for the privilege of destroying it, that he became so weary of her teasing, and to get rid of her annoyance, he told her she might destroy it and she had done so, but he had consented to her wish in this matter to pacify her, realizing that he knew the revelation perfectly, and could rewrite it at any time if necessary.

See middle of the left hand column of page 226 in https://archive.org/details/historicalrecord06jens/page/226/mode/2up

[Stargazer]

2 minutes ago, Calm said:

Which is why it makes no logical sense to say a man will not need to choose among his loves who to live with because he will be able to love all of them fully, but demand women do just that. As if women are incapable of being one with God as well.

I didn't say that "a man will not need to choose among his loves who to live with because he will be able to love all of them fully." A man is sealed to a woman. He loves her fully. She loves him fully. The same man might be sealed to another woman, and they love each other fully. There's no choosing whom to live with; we're talking about eternal life here, not mortal life; they are not the same, nor do they resemble each other much. Nothing is being demanded unequally from either woman, nor is there a terribly unequal demand on the poor man, who has to love all these women fully, but they only have to love one man -- making their burdens lighter than his. To start with, Love is not quantifiable in Eternity. Love is total. But this is going down a rabbit hole, or putting the cart before the horse, because before exploring that topic there's a more fundamental one, which is: does plural marriage exist in the eternity?

Let's get back to square one. To explain the scriptural plural marriage which is clearly expressed in both the Bible and the D&C, I proposed that in the eternities, eternal marriage will be plural, meaning one man will be sealed to multiple women, because more women will be exalted than men. If this assertion is false, my proposal fails. But for the sake of argument, please assume for the moment that this will be the case. And in that case, what do you do with the excess exaltable women who will not have a husband in eternity without plural marriage?

If you subscribe to the idea that the ratio of exaltable men to women will be 1:1, thus making plural marriage (of either type) unnecessary, I disagree with this idea, but given the unprovable nature of either assertion, we're at an impasse. And discussing plural marriage from that impasse is rather unproductive. Nor is talking about polyandry productive, since the scriptures don't ever so much as bring it up.

And where did you read anything I wrote that says women are incapable of being one with God? It doesn't even have anything to do with plural marriage.

 

[JLHPROF]

1 hour ago, Stargazer said:

But I think that if it were doctrinal for a woman to have multiple husbands this would have surfaced already.

I agree.  There is not a single example in all gospel precedence where the Lord directed this.  Even when women remarried it was limited to time only.  And in those rare polyandrous marriages there was only one eternal companion.

Whatever sealing exceptions may have been made administratively I remain unconvinced that God has or will accept polyandrous eternal marriage.  It seems beyond God's design.

[Calm]

24 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

didn't say that "a man will not need to choose among his loves who to live with because he will be able to love all of them fully." 

This is the rationale most in my experience give for why a man should get all his wives.  ‘It just isn’t right to ask a man to give up true love.’
 

Not saying you said that. 
 

It is a very stupid rationale that is based on the belief that men are able to handle living more than one woman, but women are only emotionally attracted to one man at a time and would thus never want to have more than one.  Often justified in the past by the much lower numbers of women cheating on spouses and assuming when they do, it is because of dissatisfaction while men cheat because of attraction.  Numbers are pretty equal now. 

Edited August 2, 2021 by Calm

[Stargazer]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Why?  How much eternal Truth have we already received?  How long in this world would it have been assumed by leaders that such even matters if marriage was about ensuring inheritances and care of a woman by a man?  You have no clue how much more there is to know. We know nothing of the mechanics for spiritual birth, for example. We don’t know how God controls creation or how the Spirit manages to communicate to all. How healings work or what baptisms or any covenant actually do, why they are require so that no exceptions can be made for and instead somehow proxy covenants take the place for those who didn’t get the chance.  We know nothing about how the parent-child relationship of mortality that we are dealing families in will operate given there may be absences and there is no reason to assume every parent is nobler or more intelligent than their child. Or  how such hierarchies could even work when we are one. 

I fully admit I have no clue how much more there is to know. Like you, I am left with what has been revealed so far in order to try to fathom what will be revealed in the future. But when Joseph inaugurated the Restoration of All Things, only Restoration was mentioned. Restoration involves what was formerly practiced/believed being brought forward again. When President Nelson talks about the Restoration being yet incomplete, meaning there is more to come, it doesn't mean that that which was never taught or practiced is going to suddenly appear. Since absolutely nothing in past scripture contemplates marriage in any other forms than one man / one woman, or, alternatively, one man / multiple women, there is no other form that can be Restored. When has polyandry ever been practiced by God's people? Never. Hence it cannot be Restored. 

But maybe you're right and next Conference we'll be asked to sustain a new revelation adding polyandry and same-sex marriage to the canon. The fact that it would contradict all previous scripture on the subject of marriage? Who cares.

You are absolutely correct that we have not even an inkling about mechanisms and mechanics; I have no argument with the bulk of your paragraph above. There's a huge pile we know nothing about. Talk about mysteries, wow, it's a huge conundrum in physics as to how (or even why) the Universe was created in the first place, and even the most brilliant physicists have been left bleating like lost sheep in the dark wilderness about it all. We see through a glass, darkly, as Paul cleverly said it. 

In many of my posts I try assiduously to convince members of the Church that they need to stretch their minds past what they see in the day-to-day lives, just to try to imagine what Eternity might be like, and how much different it will be than they think. In the matter of plural marriage, I am well aware that there are delicate feelings in both men and women as regards plural marriage. I wish folks could be more dispassionate about it, and see what I see, instead of being all caught up in the seamier side of it all. But I have to accept that I'm unlikely to achieve much. Edited to add: I realize that this makes it seems like I got the truth the rest of you don't, but it's what I believe to be true. With all due apologies for the apparent pride. Gosh now I'm starting to sound like Ahab.

1 hour ago, Calm said:

The list of what we do not know about eternal life is infinite. 

Like I said, no argument there!

Edited August 2, 2021 by Stargazer