How do we describe Mormon polygamy? I’ve often seen it said that 19th century Mormons “practiced” polygamy. For example, here’s President Hinckley on Larry King Live in 1998:
The figures I have are from — between two percent and five percent of our people were involved in [polygamy]. It was a very limited practice; carefully safeguarded. In 1890, that practice was discontinued.
There’s lots to criticize here, but what I’m concerned with is his use of the word “practice.” The word is used to minimize how central polygamy was, to demote it to just a minor incidental thing that some Church members did.
Listening to Lindsay’s excellent “Year of Polygamy” on the fMh Podcast has really driven home for me just how misleading calling polygamy a “practice” is. Polygamy was really in the central core of how the Church defined itself. It was seen as essential for exaltation. It was the thing that the Brigham Young-led sect did that many of the other sects that followed Joseph Smith’s restoration (most notably the RLDS) didn’t. The LDS Church wasn’t a church that “practiced polygamy.” It was a polygamous church.
There are many ways you could show how central polygamy was to the Church. One that stands out to me because it’s easy to see is that the process of ending it was painful and difficult. It took two manifestos and apostles being kicked out of the Quorum of the Twelve and decades of infighting that finally led the people who didn’t want to give polygamy up leaving to form new sects. Contrast this with changes the Church has made that genuinely do involve mere practices. When Sunday meetings were consolidated into the three-hour block, were multiple attempts required because people stubbornly kept to their old meeting schedule? When the Church started building smaller temples in the 1990s, did holdouts leave the Church because they thought only the older bigger temples could be true? When the missionary age changes were announced, was there infighting where some groups insisted that the old ages were the correct ones, and that faithful Church members should refuse to serve at the new ages?
Calling polygamy a “practice” not only minimizes how central it was to the Church in the past, it also sidesteps the issue of how much the idea remains alive in the Church today. We still have sealing rules that are designed for polygamy and GAs who are clearly planning to live polygamy in the next life. And of course the idea doesn’t stop with GAs. Even with curricula that are intentionally vague, teachers continue to teach that heaven will include polygamy. As a result, many women in particular have understandable anxiety about how heavenly heaven could really be if it includes the possibility (or the requirement!) that they share their husbands. President Hinckley said (in the same interview quoted above) that polygamy is “behind us.” That’s unfortunately clearly not true.
Polygamy was absolutely central to the Church in the past, and the idea that it is a higher law that will be brought back in the future or will exist in the next life is strong in the Church today. The Church didn’t “practice” polygamy. It was—and in many ways still is—a polygamous church.
Who knew you could take a single word from a sentence given by a dead guy given off the cuff during an interview and make a post about it. But, since you’ve opened the topic up about plural sealings, think about this: We don’t seal a living woman to more than one man, but once she’s dead, we can seal her to all the husbands she’s had in mortality. And, in fact, there are many women who, because of death, remarried serial husbands and they have had their sealing work done. Although there is language in the handbook that talks about people accepting the temple work done for them vicariously, there’s nothing that says “men who are sealed to more than one woman will be plural, but women sealed to more than one man will have to choose one husband.” If the door is left open for eternal polyandry, does that level the playing field and allay your concerns over eternal polygamy?
Nope. Thanks for trying, though.
What I especially appreciate is your effort to minimize how often polygamy is referred to as merely as “practice” by pretending that this is the only time it ever happened, and by referring to President Hinckley as “a dead guy.” I assume if I wanted to write off, say, his comment about not wanting people to pray to Heavenly Mother because he’s just a dead guy, you would be on board?
As you mentioned polygamy never ended, and is still practiced by many other sects that most mormons have no clue exist. The LDS folk think of themselves unique when there are from my memory at least a dozen other LDS offshot branches, some with polygamy, some led by Josephs Smiths actual grand children and family, some with a few more chapters in D & C, The Re-organized Church of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints. Thanks for sharing.
Well, I tried. My point about the hyper focus on “practice” is you’re giving it a definition that suits your post. You say “practice” is some kind of minimization of the actual belief. I don’t get the idea, from GBH’s many talks and writings, that he in any way believed plural marriage wasn’t central to the Saints during the time period it was in place. And certainly I won’t deny that a belief in and sealing practice of plurality isn’t part of our theology today. It’s just that when people discuss plural sealings, they almost always talk about the fact that men can be sealed to more than one wife, but leave out, either purposefully or ignorantly, the fact that women can be sealed to more than one husband. I wish I knew how things will shake out among those who have been happily married and/or sealed to more than one spouse because of death. I don’t get it, but I haven’t walked a mile in those shoes.
IDIAT is right: LDS sealing practices are totally fair. Men get their relationships validated whenever they want in this life, and women get to cross their fingers and die.
JF #5 – fairness is neither here nor there. Sealed and widowed man marries a sealed and widowed woman. You don’t think he’s crossing his fingers that someone on either side of the family will vicariously seal him and second wife together? The whole point of doing family history and temple work is so that, in fact, all marriages.(yes, that’s right — all marriages) are sealed. The bottom line is that when the final curtain falls, all men will be sealed to all wives they had in mortality, and all women will be sealed to all husbands they had in mortality. How it shakes out after that is anyone’s guess because we don’t have clear revelation on it — yet.
A quote by President Hinckley from the October, 2010 Ensign on Temples, taken from another talk President Hinckley gave in the Ensign, August, 1974:
“When a man and a woman are married in house of the Lord, they are joined not only for the period of their mortal lives but for all eternity. They are bound together under authority not only of the law of the land that joins them until death but also through the eternal priesthood of God, which binds in heaven that which is bound on earth. The couple so married has the assurance of divine revelation that their relationship and that of their children will not end with death but will continue in eternity, provided they live worthy of that blessing. Was there ever a man who truly loved a woman, or a woman who truly loved a man, who did not pray that their relationship might continue beyond the grave?….. reason demands that the family relationship shall continue after death. The human heart longs for it, and the God of heaven has revealed a way whereby it may be secured. The sacred ordinances of the house of the Lord provide for it.”
How are we to reconcile President Hinckley’s comment on “truly loving” with the idea of multiple spouses and multiple sealings? He doesn’t qualify his words to apply only to first marriages. Since, as I’ve already pointed out, husbands will be sealed to all wives they’ve had, and wives will be sealed to all husbands they’ve had, and presuming they “truly loved” each spouse, then what is the doctrine? Are men going to have multiple wives and wives multiple husbands? Or will we be limited to one spouse? If so, how are we to choose?
Sisters imply they are the only ones wringing their hands over plurality and what may lay ahead, that the brothers are sitting around dreaming of their harems. Not so. We’re just as anxious as you are about what the future holds.
The capital-C Church has been playing language games about matrimony from the moment the first person said “Celestial Marriage”.
I’m not sure how I’d like the topic to be treated from now on. I’d like the Church to be honest about it’d culture and history without promoting the doctrine; that seems an impossible task.
Ziff, thanks for the nice post. As a man who the Church considers to be a polygamist (i.e., sealed to two living women), I feel this issue acutely. I have asked for a sealing cancellation from my ex-wife and the Church has refused, so for the Church to say this is an issue of the past feels deeply disingenuous.
The Church disavows polygamy out of one side of its mouth because most Mormons view it as morally wrong (see recent Pew poll), and yet the temple ordinances, D&C 132, and the recent Church essay on polygamy show the Church upholding polygamy using the other side of its mouth. Disturbing to me. We can’t have it both ways, so which is it?
IDIAT, I’m not sure what you are taking issue with in the OP. Do you disagree that polygamy was central to the Church? Do you disagree that the Church downplays that centrality? Do you disagree that, “the idea that [polygamy] is a higher law that will be brought back in the future or will exist in the next life is strong in the Church today”?
Although I agree with you that the current sealing practices are troubling to some men, I don’t find your arguments convincing in rebutting any of the main arguments of the original post. Your argument seems to boil down to: “Sealing practices suck for some men almost as much as they do for some women. Let’s wait for the hereafter to sort it out.” If that is something to feel good about as a Church, well, then congratulations.
As for me, that is cold comfort. Give me the agency to sort it out for myself now.
BTW, I liked the alliteration in the title. But I think you could have done even better. How about, Peter Priesthood Picked a Peck of Petticoated Partners?
If you don’t understand why you can’t cancel your sealing to Wife 1 then perhaps you don’t understand policy. My only issue with the post is the accusation that GBH played down the significance of plural marriage as it existed in the early history of the church. The church had no incentive to beat the dead horse of plural marriage as it existed in the early church. Most members outside the USA don’t sit around and gripe about it like those on the bloggernacle. Now, I did say the concerns over plural sealings are valid, but they are valid for everyone, not just sisters. You seem against plurality in the next life, yet there are thousands of couples serially married who sincerely hope there is plurality in the next life. I hope I never have to be in the position of ‘truely loving’ two wives. But if I am, I hope our relationships would be eternal. By the same token, if my wife ends up married to two men, then I expect her to truely love her second husband, too, and would hope she would want those relationships to last for eternity. Your mileage may differ.
Idiat, you are off base in criticizing Ziff. He nailed it. And even if the church sealing practices are more fair now, they weren’t always that way.
It is my understanding that when Joseph Smith wrote the New and Everlasting Covenant revelations, they described plural and eternal marriage to be one and the same.
Now, people try and separate the two. Plural marriage is a thing of the past, but eternal marriage is a wonderful blessing of the gospel. This is for PR. When Joseph Smith wrote them, they were one and the same, and not to be separated.
Like I said, that is my understanding. Ziff, am I off here? If I am right, I think that illustrates the what you are talking about. The LDS church IS a polygamous church. To say it used to practice it certainly is misleading.
J.J.,the former Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints no longer goes by that name,and is no longer led by Smith descendants.They also have female Apostles.An offshoot that rejected the change from family leadership and to female priesthood exists,the Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (headed by a grandson on his mother’s side of Joseph Smith III’s eldest son).
(“Latter Day” vs. “Latter-day” is one of the preferences of the Missouri “Saints”).
IDIAT – “Most members outside the USA don’t sit around and gripe about it like those on the bloggernacle. ”
I don’t understand what you mean with this comment. What is the most likely reason that “members outside the USA” don’t spend time on this? Could it be because many of them don’t even know they belong to a polygamous church? I mean, really know – that Joseph was a polygamist and what went on in Nauvoo. How many of them have ever even read all of 132, or have read the essay in which the church holds open the possibility of polygamy being practiced again… since it’s what we do whenever God commands it? I know from my son’s missionary experience that virtually no one in the highly-developed Asian country in which he served knew any of this.
“I’d like the Church to be honest about it’d culture and history without promoting the doctrine; that seems an impossible task.” – Rockwell
Exactly. The only way to be do this is to repudiate polygamy in the afterlife. I wish the Church would do this, but I’m not holding my breath.
Mike C – you’re right the Church is being highly disingenuous to you and others, and in the way it talks to outsiders about this. And the “it’ll all work out in the end” line is really not that comforting.
If polygamy is part of God’s kingdom, I will do as Alyosha does in the Brothers Karamazov and respectfully return the ticket. The fact that so many think it will be, and that Joseph Smith taught eternal marriage and polygamy synonymously, makes it hard to have my whole heart in this Church.
I wonder if the church insists on waiting until women are dead before being sealed to multiple husbands because they don’t know which one will call her up in the resurrection (veil ceremony at sealing, revealing new name to husband where he stands in place of the Lord). Presumably, only one husband could do that. Is it related to women giving themselves to their husbands in the sealing ceremony, but husbands not reciprocating? It would be helpful if the church would provide some clarity, or at the very least acknowledge members’ confusion and concerns about this.
Emily U, that is sad to me but is totally understandable. I think that my wife feels essentially the same way. For me, the Church’s doubling down on polygamy has broken my belief in the sealing power and its reality in the afterlife. I hope to be with my loved ones when I die, but I can no longer picture it happening in the way the Church claims it will.
I don’t think these are the effects that the Church wishes to have–alienating committed members by upholding polygamy. I wish they would see more clearly the costs to members like us.
Perhaps my comments will be unpopular but they are what I believe. The LDS Church current policy does not allow a married person with a living spouse to marry a second person and marriages are currently limited to heterosexual (male/female) relationships. However, the Church still considers section 132 of the D&C part of scriptural canon and has policies in place that allow a person married or sealed in the temple to one spouse to marry or be sealed to an additional opposite gendered spouse if their previous spouse has died.
So with a recent change in policy allowing women to be sealed to an additional spouse after the death of a previous spouse, the Church currently practices eternal polyandry for both men and women. With this thankful policy change, no longer are women second class eternal citizens. Under current policy eternal couples can be a man and wife in a monogamous eternal relationship if they so choose; a man with more than one wife; a woman with more than one husband; or a network of men sealed to multiple women and those women sealed to multiple men.
So eternally all heterosexual relationships can endure and you don’t have to choose to give up one relationship and keep another if you die and have previously been married to more than one person sequentially. I think this is a very loving, caring, accepting, policy based on an underlying doctrine that relationships can endure eternally. It could be wonderful or challenging, but not required. If you only want to have one eternal relationship and your spouse agrees, you can marry or be sealed to one person and both agree not to marry again if one person dies. And alternatively you can love and be sealed to multiple people sequentially and be with them in the eternities and potentially share them with others. Now this will take for most a development of character for all parties to be fair and loving and open to all.
Now since currently sealing and marriages are only available for heterosexual couples, to be fully accepting, I believe we must wait for further revelation on the application of the plan of salvation for LGBTQ individuals and couples, which I believe will eventually authorize the use of sealing powers to seal any constellation of loving committed individuals who wish to be joined eternally regardless of chromosomal gender, sexual orientation, or gender expression. There is a promise in Section 132:66 that God will reveal more regarding eternal relationships, which promised revelation, I believe has not yet been given.
Rather than vilifying the tradition of polygamy in the early LDS Church, I believe we should celebrate the possibility that in the fully revealed plan of salvation, it is likely that all forms of monogamy, asexuality, and polyandry will be available to individuals, couples, and family groupings as potentially enduring constellations of relatedness amongst exalted beings. To celebrate choice and agency among human kind to form committed relationships of a variety of types and to not have to choose to end such relationships when entering the eternal world as such choices could be bitter indeed.
Of course to be happy in a poly relationship or any type of eternal relationship, many of us would need to overcome jealousy, learn to share, and value connectedness before we could value being in an enduring, or polyamorous relationship. In addition, as human needs change over time, the ideal would enable changes over time to enduring relationships rather than being eternally fixed, such as the current concept that such sealings must occur on this earth in reality or in proxy.
I am not saying that we should immediately seek to legalize or practice polyamorous relationships or a return to practicing polygamy n this this life, but that we realize and honor that many couples or groups of people may wish to be eternally associated in committed eternal relationships begun in this life and an expanded LDS theology can easily accommodate these desires. Many people may feel justified in wishing to restricting eternal relationships to only monogamous relationships to avoid problems of historical polygamy and their view of fairness, yet what rights do we have to restrict another’s person or group of person’s desires to continue earthly relationships they value eternally as long as all parties consent to such relationships continuing? With the change in LDS policy allowing women to be sealed to more than one man, most equity arguments are resolved. Soon I hope same sex unions will be eligible for marriage and sealings then the only barrier is when we are ready and governments are ready to acknowledge committed relationships among living groups of individuals.
Without the possibility of eternal polyamorous relationships, the plan of salvation is not fair as it requires people to have to choose which earthly relationship to disavow eternally and does not allow such relationships to continue if all parties wish it too. So I submit our polygamous doctrine and history is a foundation for true connectedness rather than a blemish in or moral fiber.