Polygamy: Deception to the Core

The LDS church recently published an article that addresses polygamy. You can read the article in its entirety here. After reading the article at work, I decided that I needed to look for more information and went directly to mormonthink.com. I needed something that could explain the multiple facets involved in polygamy, something that would present evidence rather than try to cover it up or pass it off as just something that we can't fully understand right now, but will be revealed to us in the eternities. Polygamy has been one of those things about Mormonism that never sat right with me, but after asking why and receiving the answer "because God commanded it", I stopped pushing for a reason and tried to ignore it.

 

In a conversation with my boyfriend the other day, I was relating to him all of the information that I could remember from the portion of the polygamy section that I had read that day. Like myself, he had accepted polygamy as "one of those things that God commanded so it must be true", and didn't push the issue further while still involved in Mormonism. But it also wasn't something he felt the need to learn more about after he severed ties with the Mormon church because he already inherently knew that it was a whacky and just plain awful period of time in Mormon history. He was more disturbed by the information avenues regarding historical and geographical discrepancies in the Book of Mormon, of which there are many.

 

In a weird way it's kind of fun having these different interests regarding the validity of the Mormon church because we're each able to share unknown information to the other, giving us both a sense of control over our opinions while simultaneously teaching the other. It's important for me to feel like I'm in control of any aspect of my life, but religion was something that I had relinquished control of as a child without even being aware that it had happened, until very recently. In the initial stages of my doubt so to speak, I relied entirely on my boyfriend to share what he had learned, to show me videos of people he found inspiring and of information relevant to the subject of atheism. I never hated it, but there were many times that I felt uncomfortable. I realize now, that a lot of it was because I had no idea what many of these people were talking about or where a lot of my boyfriends information had come from. I knew next to nothing about the more intimate aspects of the religion I had grown up in, and it bothered me. But I was daunted by the enormity of information that was out there, so I didn't start researching things for myself until recently.

 

While we were talking, I had to think about why the idea of polygamy made me angry initially and why reading the information provided on mormonthink made me even more irate. Let me clarify though. I wasn't irate at the information as far as thinking that it wasn't accurate. I was irate because this information hadn't been available to me through the institution that I had implicitly trusted for 25 and half years of my life. I realized that the concept of polygamy felt so wrong to me was because it was linked so close with the concept of celestial marriage. It's also another indication of the patriarchal nature of the church itself. The women involved in polygamy were coerced into it, manipulated into believing that they were saving their families and were lied to about the intimate nature of what the marriage itself would entail and left to exist in an unfulfilling relationship that they had no choice but to stay.

 

I found it laughable, in a thoroughly depressing way, when I came across an ultimatum that Brigham Young issued to his female members in a conference after he had received so many complaints from the men that their women weren't happy and complained about their situations. He basically said that the women had two weeks to decide if they wanted to leave the marriages, thus severing themselves from their society and their "eternal blessings". If they did not leave at the end of those two weeks, they were agreeing to remain in the polygamous marriages and would no longer be allowed to complain about their lot in life. I've watered his words down quite a bit. This man ruled his followers with an iron fist. How many of these women do you think left their marriages? These women lived in a time where they really could not support themselves and their children without a husband. Respectable married women could not obtain jobs at that time and therefore had no way of supporting themselves, other than to get re-married. How could they leave?

 

Being a female, it hurts to imagine what these women had to endure, all in the name of "truth". The amount of information I read is too much to share in its entirety on a blog post. This post would turn into an essay. My boyfriend suggested that I write about how it made me feel, more or less, which sounds cliché, but it's a great option. Honestly, I'm going to share some of the info, or at least the issues and stories about polygamy that I find really disturbing.

 

First I want to address a few points in the LDS article entitled  Polygamy in Kirtland and Nauvoo. The Church admits that the participants of polygamy were asked to keep their actions confidential. However, the wording of this particular phrase makes it sound as if they were doing it for righteous reasons, like the Lord asked them to. The Church also acknowledged that there is very little information about the early plural marriage era. They said that few records of the time provide details, and later reminiscences are not always reliable.  With this sentence, they've planted the seed of doubt in their followers by telling them, subtly mind you, that any negative stories that they've heard or will hear are unreliable, and should not be believed.

 

The Church also acknowledges that Joseph Smith married a girl before she turned 15, the young

Helen Mar Kimball, the daughter of Heber C. Kimball. However, while they admit that she was sealed to him, they say that she spoke of this sealing as being "for eternity alone", which to them, suggests that there were no sexual relations. Right. Mormonthink provides a few more quotes from Helen that make the reader feel otherwise, such as: "I would never have been sealed to Joseph had I known it was anything more than ceremony. I was young, and they deceived me, by saying the salvation of our whole family depended on it." or "I had, in hours of temptation when seeing the trials of my mother, felt to rebel. I hated polygamy in my heart." or "She (Helen's mother) had witnessed the sufferings of others, who were older and who better understood the step they were taking, and to see her child, who had yet seen her fifteenth summer, following the same thorny path, in her mind she saw the misery which was as sure to come as the sun was to rise and set; but it was hidden from me."

 

Helen believed that her marriage to Joseph Smith was only dynastic, meaning it was just a ceremony and a means by which her family would be saved. She would be his wife in name only. However, she was surprised to discover that it became more than that. Helen wasn't even allowed to mingle with her friends anymore. She wrote a letter saying: "I felt quite sore over it,(her father wouldn't allow her to go to a dance, which suggests that she still lived under her parents roof) and thought it a very unkind act in father to allow William to go and enjoy the dance unrestrained with other of my companions, and fetter me down, for no girl danced better than I did, and I really felt it was too much to bear. It made the dull school more dull, and like a wild bird I longed for the freedom that was denied me; and thought to myself an abused child, and that it was pardonable if I did not murmur."

 

Many believers of the LDS faith like to excuse Joseph for marrying teenage girls, of which there are a documented 4, Helen being the youngest, by saying that it was a different time. In that era, it was okay to marry 14 year old girls. Yes, it would be considered statutory rape now, but it was okay then. It's weird to me that the changing of a standard makes a practice like this okay in so many people's eyes today. This girl was stripped of her freedom to be like other young girls, to be courted by young men her own age, to gossip freely, to participate in school activities and just to be uninhibited by being tied to a man at least 20 years her senior, all for the sake of "guaranteeing" her family a place in the highest degree of glory.

 

Another story really upset me. I'll try to summarize it as best I can. A man by the name of Henry Jacobs wanted to marry a woman named Zina. At the time (1841), Zina was living in the Smith home. Zina and Henry asked Joseph Smith why he had not honored them by performing their marriage. He replied that "the Lord had made it known to him that (Zina) was to be his Celestial wife." Elder Jacobs firmly believed that whatever the prophet said was right and that his (meaning Joseph's) wisdom was beyond the reasoning of a normal man, so he allowed his wife, who was 6 months pregnant with his child, to be sealed to Joseph Smith. Although she was sealed to Joseph, she continued her connubial relationship with Henry Jacobs. When the prophet was murdered in 1846, she was re-sealed by proxy to Smith (why, I don't know) and then, in the same session, she was also sealed to Brigham Young. Zina was pregnant with Henry's second child at the time and Henry stood by as an official witness to both ceremonies.

 

While that grated on my sensibilities, it's this next part that pushed me over the edge. (Keep in mind I'm at work, surrounded by a group of faithful LDS members that have no idea I'm even questioning my faith, so I can't immediately voice these frustrations.) So Zina and Henry lived as husband and wife until the pioneers reached a city in Iowa. It was here that Brigham Young announced that "it was time for men who were walking in other men's shoes to step out of them. Brother Jacobs, the woman you claim for a wife does not belong to you. She is the spiritual wife of Brother Joseph, sealed up to him. I am his proxy, and she, in his behalf, with her children, are my property. You can go where you please, and get another, but be sure to get one of your own kindred spirit." What the hell? Zina was his property!? She's a human being. It's equivalent, in my mind, of a white plantation owner referring to his slaves as his property. Human beings. Anyway, while that angered me, I was also upset by Brigham Young, a prophet of the Church, calling this man out in front of his followers and telling him that he could no longer be the husband of the wife he had loved for nearly a decade, or to the children that he had fathered. Brigham then called Jacobs to a mission to England, and still being a devoted follower, Jacobs followed his directive. A witness to his departure commented that he was so emotionally ill they had to "put him on a blanket and carry him to the boat to get him on his way." When he returned from his mission, Jacobs settled in California, still in love with his wife. He wrote many letters to her; heartrending letters that told her how miserable he was without her, how he would be happy if he could only see her and his little children. His oldest child at this point is under 10 years of age! But despite all of the heartache, he still wrote to her imploring Zina to tell Brother Brigham that he held no ill feelings toward him and that he wanted the Lord to bless Brigham with all the blessings that pertain to him forever. He wrote that "all is right according to the Law of the Celestial Kingdom of our god Joseph (Smith)" What logical reason did Brigham Young have in telling Henry that Zina wasn't really his wife? By telling men that they couldn't be the ones sealed to their wives, people like Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were essentially telling the men, faithful men mind you, that they would never be worthy enough to make it into the Celestial Kingdom, meaning that they needed to sacrifice being with their wives for eternity and let them be sealed to men that were more or less guaranteed a fast pass into the Kingdom. What a slap in the face!

Also, I find it interesting in Henry Jacob's letter that he says the "Law of the Celestial Kingdom of our god Joseph." I honestly just picked up on that. He just called Smith a god. That just shows how much Smith had these people in his power. He created an image of himself that people equated to a godlike figure. That's despicable.

 

The whole idea of polygamy being the only way into the Celestial Kingdom is just so sad to me. This concept was taught in the Church until fairly recently. I don't fully understand the sealing process, but the way it was explained on mormonthink (keeping in mind that they admit to this only being how they understand it, meaning they don't fully know either) was that children are sealed to the father and the wife is sealed to the father (not necessarily the man to the woman), meaning the whole family is sealed together. If this is accurate though, doesn't that mean that if the seal is broken due to divorce or something, that the father will remain sealed to the children, but the mother wont? Unless by breaking the seal everyone loses out on the blessings. Anyway, as far as this pertains to Joseph Smith, he also married women that were already married. If he is being sealed to this woman, and she already has or eventually has children, then the first husband, the one that actually raises and loves these children, will not be sealed to either them or his wife in the next life because Joseph took that right away from him and sealed himself to those wives and children. Is this really something that God intended to happen? So much for a plan of happiness.

 

There are just so many inconsistencies with what Joseph "translated" in the Book of Mormon and what "revelations" he is said to have received regarding the subject of polygamy. In the BOM, God declared that monogamy was the standard, but then every once in awhile he would command that plural marriage was okay so that His people could "raise up seed unto (Him)". There was an entire section of the Doctrine of Covenants that was taken out after Joseph finally published his "revelation" on plural marriage because it contradicted the idea of polygamy. This section preached that monogamy was the only acceptable practice for marriage. "Inasmuch as this Church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication and polygamy, we declare that we believe that one man should have one wife, and one woman but one husband, except in the case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again." (History of the Church, Vol. 2, p. 247) If you read section 132 you will see why they needed to get rid of that other section.

 

The Church continually denied the practice of polygamy. Joseph threatened people, mostly women, that if they ever disclosed that they were married to him or had been approached by him to marry and refused, that he would make them the scourge of society. Their reputations would be ruined. The Church said in their recently published article that they were asked to keep polygamy a secret, but it wasn't because God asked them to, like the Church still professes. It was because polygamy was illegal and because Joseph Smith just couldn't keep it in his pants.

 

His very first polygamist wife was one Fanny Alger, one of the teen brides. It's rumored that the reason he had this "revelation" on polygamy was because he was caught with his pants down with this girl in a barn, and he needed a way to keep his image pure and cover up the scandal at the same time. Oliver Cowdery is quoted to have witness the scandal and said that it was a vile and filthy act of adultery. He was later excommunicated for such remarks.

 

In many instances, the leaders of the Church sent young men and husbands on missions so that they could marry the women. These young men and husbands believed completely in the Prophet and rarely questioned his motives. If questions arose, their reputations were ruined or they were excommunicated.

 

The Church just added lie upon lie upon lie as far as polygamy was concerned. Wilford Woodruff issued a Manifesto while he was prophet, having finally realized that the fight to remain a polygamist society was endangering their very existence, and said that he had received a "revelation" saying that the time was no longer right to practice polygamy. This was all for show though, because they continued to practice polygamy until 1904, when the Prophet at the time, Joseph F. Smith, had to give a second Manifesto that actually ended the practice of polygamist marriages. While these marriages more or less stopped in 1904, those who were already in polygamist marriages lived out their lives as such, the last of which dying sometime in the 1940's and 50's.

 

Saints today like to use the argument that the reason they don't practice polygamy now and why they frown upon FLDS practitioners is because polygamy is illegal now. These members have been led to believe as much, but with a little fact checking, one quickly comes to realize that polygamy has ALWAYS been illegal, even in the 1800's. The Mormons tried to circumvent the law by establishing their home in Utah, which was a Mexican territory at the time, even though polygamy was illegal even in Mexico. The prophets that pushed polygamy basically told their followers that God's law was higher than man's law, even though they believed in being subject to Kings, President's, Rulers etc.

 

At one point in Utah, one of Brigham Young's wives filed for divorce and wanted alimony from him. However, the court sided with Brigham Young because he declared that his marriage to the woman was illegal, therefore he shouldn't be responsible for any such alimony and that she couldn't even file for divorce because they were never legally married. By that admission, Brigham Young admitted that he, as well as all the other practitioners of polygamy, were doing so illegally, which also meant that all of the children born under the practice were illegitimate.

 

This is becoming a really long post again, but there is SO much information on mormonthink and so much I wasn't aware of and that just upsets me. Mostly it comes down to how much Joseph Smith and the other high ranking Church leaders, but especially Joseph Smith, covered up and lied about the practice. The Church continues to cover up Joseph Smith's involvement in it. So many members of the Church today don't even realize that Joseph Smith is the person who started the whole thing. They think it was Brigham Young.

 

Joseph went to great lengths to cover up his multiple marriages, even from his first wife Emma, who the Church claims that he "loved" so dearly. He would excommunicate members that practiced polygamy and then re-baptize them after, just so it would appear that he didn't actually support the practice. He would marry girls without Emma's permission, which is in fact a part of the "revelation" in section 132. In one case, he married two sisters that happened to be living with the Smith's at one point. (It seems that if you were a woman and ever slept under the same roof as the prophet, you were destined to become one of his wives.) Emma was not aware of it, but Joseph, after he married them, asked Emma if she would be okay with his marrying a few more women. She said yes, as long as she could choose the women. Miraculously, she chose the very sisters that Joseph had just married. Rather than coming clean and just telling Emma that he had already married those two, he went through a second ceremony to both of them, including being re-sealed to them! Seriously!? A part of me suspects that Emma sensed that he was already married to the two sisters, or figured he'd do it eventually without her mission. Emma was not happy with the polygamous wives thing and ended up kicking the two sisters out of the Smith home. I honestly don't blame her.

 

I am incensed that apologists of the LDS faith say that it is a members own fault if they don't know anything about polygamy. They claim that the church is very open about the practice, but they're not! Just read the articles provided on lds.org. Read through the lesson manuals for Sunday School, Relief Society and Priesthood. Their "openness" about the subject is really just a white washing of some general facts and a complete dismissal of accounts of the time. The bulk of actual facts regarding polygamy is found in websites like mormonthink, and various books written by now ex-Mormons. Yes, these are readily available to all Mormons, but when you learn from infancy that anything that speaks against the church or that may hold a different opinion about a principle is of the devil, evil and sinful to read, you avoid such literature at all costs. Physically the information is available, but mentally, many members wont even think about researching such issues for themselves. They are led to believe that they will be damned if they find any of this "contrary" information to be true.

 

I just want to close with a little hymn that used to be found in the hymnal:

 

"Now, sisters, list to what I say:
With trials this world is rife,
You can't expect to miss them all,
Help husband get a wife!

"Now, this advice I freely give,
If exalted you would be,
Remember that your husband must
Be blessed with more than thee.

"Then, O, let us say,
God bless the wife that strives
And aids her husband all she can
T' obtain a dozen wives."

(Used as a Hymn in an edition of Songs of Zion- 1856 Reformation Song)

Really? Not only were these women manipulated into participating in polygamy, they had to sing a song that directed them to help their husbands find more wives.

 

What kind of god bases his "true" religion on such deception and manipulation?