Posted on 07/02/2011 6:05:43 PM PDT by Colofornian
(To see Cal Grondahl’s cartoon that goes with this post, click here) I spent some time re-reading the late Richard S. Van Wagoner’s excellent book, “Mormon Polygamy: A History.” The 19th century tales of harems and never-ending teenage-girl hunting were, of course, lies to excite Eastern U.S. readers. Polygamy was a contradictory doctrine, and extremely dysfunctional. Brigham Young once said that he wished it wasn’t a doctrine, but later also raged that those who disbelieved in polygamy — and even monogomous LDS men — were in danger of damnation. And polygamy led to divorce among LDS elite leaders in numbers that would shock today. According to Van Wagoner, more than 50 marriages of LDS leaders ended in divorce in the mid 19th century.
Indeed, two early wives of LDS apostle brothers, Orson and Parley Pratt, gave their husbands the heave-ho for their enthusiastic embrace of polygamy, and penchant for young, teenage brides. And not every faithful LDS elder with a feisty wife was brave enough to try polygamy. Van Wagoner recounts the tale of one husband who abandoned plans to take a plural wife after his wife informed him that she had received a revelation from God directing her to shoot any spare wife who darkened the family doorstep.
As Van Wagoner writes, though, there was a somber paradox to polygamy, particularly for faithful LDS women who reluctantly embraced the doctrine as a commandment of God yet suffered personal heartache and financial pain due to their husband’s extracurricular wives. Emmeline B. Wells, early Mormon women’s leader and feminist, wrote publicly that polygamy “gives women the highest opportunities for self-development, exercise of judgment, and arouses latent faculties, making them truly cultivated in the actual realities of life, more independent in thought and mind, noble and unselfish.” In her private journal, though, Wells despaired of how polygamy had robbed her of the love of her husband, Daniel H. Wells, member of the church’s first presidency.
Emmeline wrote, “O, if my husband could only love me even a little and not seem to be perfectly indifferent to any sensation of that kind. He cannot know the cravings of my nature; he is surrounded with love on every side, and I am cast out.”
“He is surrounded with love on every side, and I am cast out,” is an appropriate indictment of polygamy, and no doubt a reason that it has long been discarded by the LDS Church.
As Van Wagoner recalls, another LDS women leader, physician Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon, the first female state senator in the U.S., yearned in her personal letters for one husband who would be hers only to cherish. Despite these yearnings, she clung to her LDS faith in “the Principle.” Martha wrote her husband, Angus, that only her divine knowledge of the sacred principle of plural marriage made it bearable to endure. Nevertheless, Martha also wrote this scolding to Angus: “How do you think I feel when I meet you driving another plural wife about in a glittering carriage in broad day light? (I) am entirely out of money …”
For Emmeline Wells, there was a sort of happy ending that was denied many others. As Van Wagoner recounts, in his final years, her frail and aging husband, Daniel, seeking tender care and companionship, returned to Emmeline’s home and side, after mostly ignoring her for 40 years. In her eyes, that probably counted as a blessing due after decades of suffering.
Despite lurid tales and even the teenage bride races, sex was a distant reason for polygamy. It was the result of an odd doctrine, now mostly forgotten in the LDS Church, that taught that the more wives and children one accumulated on earth would increase one’s post-life eternal influence and kingdoms. Yet, one will rarely hear that explanation today.
Mormons killed more non-Mormons (Gentiles) than vice-versa...Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857...attacks on the army around same years...it was a two-way struggle in Missouri in the 1830s, with non-Mormons dying, too.
Many men died. In fact, especially years past men tended to die prematurely more often and on average were outlived by their wives considerably.
Yes, many men died, but there was actually a documented shortage of women in Utah. Most polygamous wives were NOT in their 40s, 50s, & 60s.
Thanx for the link...I’ve seen quotes from her that the Tanners have cited. She “outed” Mormons on how young (pre-teens) the Mormons were lining up “brides.”
The Mormons were persecuted. Many men died. In fact, especially years past men tended to die prematurely more often and on average were outlived by their wives considerably.
What some make into a sexual agenda today, was nothing more than a way of dealing with women without men, children without fathers in a time before big government and social programs.
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Wrong on all of these accounts. Many fewer LDS died as a result of the ‘perscution’ than claimed. Most of those who died on the trek west were a result of poor planning and greed on Brigham Youngs part, and as far as the care of widows and orphans? Nope. 11 of Smiths plural wives still had living husbands when he ‘married’ them. And the population of Utah during polygamy was about equal, men and women, with many men having little choice to remain single because of polygamy. Most plural wives, were wives in every sense (including bearing children) and well over 80% were never married when they became plural wives and the young ones had the consent of a parent, so the ‘widow and orphans’ angle is just another lie Mormons put forth.
Don’t believe the Mormon propaganda, there are several good sources about the truth about Mormon polygamy out there, I can provide some if you wish.
http://www.utlm.org/topicalindexb.htm and http://www.i4m.com/think/polygamy/ for starters
Interesting that only the little group of Mormons came up with that idea.
Was the polygamy idea from God, or was that something that the Mormons were forced to adopt by later generations after struggling for decades to figure out a way to deal with all of the widowed Mormon mothers and their kids?
Hagar wasn’t a full wife, but the relationship made Sarah miserable, which was my point.
You wrote:
“Throughout history, even within Europe, there were times and places where similar behavior occurred for similar reason, but that too is forgotten.”
Not really. Oh, there were rare instances of polygamy here and there, but who calling themselves “Christians” adopted polygamy as a religious practice in the modern era? There are only a few groups that have done that and all of them are considered fringe groups led by nuts. What does that tell us?
Hmm ~ there’s really no good excuse for that. I’d encourage LDS women to get out there and learn to use firearms. You never know what’s going to happen!
By the way, here’s a modern example of European polygamy:
http://www.nccg.org/fecpp/bouquet/list.html
Fringe is an understatement.
The grandchildren of those who practice(d) the custom are not at all happy with it feeling it marks their country as LESS civilized than it otherwise is.
Thailand, which actually is far more primitive than Malaysia, but more progressive than Indonesia, has polygamy ~ again, among the Moslems in the Southeast and the Chinese Buddhists elsewhere.
It is known in Taiwan (not sure it's legal though) and is considered a barbaric practice ~
I suppose there are folks who practice it in Big China but it has to be difficult since the state is so intrusive there.
Growing up we knew a family where there were "two mothers" and their kids were all very angry with the "father" ~ as some of them grew into adulthood they ran him off.
They weren't Mormons, just hillbillies, but there you have it.
I think the early Mormon leaders got away with it because they could move away from civilization. Once civilization crowded in the practice was suppressed. It persists in subtropical and tropical regions because you can isolate yourself pretty much from the civilized world (and still eat, and you don't need heating or clothes either).
Regarding serial polygamy I've known a woman (at work only guys) who had 11 husbands over the years, and some of Tony Bennett's kids ~ and one of Mel Torme's "extra" live-ins (pretty girl who grew up in the same old neighborhood ~ got entranced by Hollywood and next thing you know she was a sex slave).
And your point is????? Polygamy existed because there were too many women. bzzzzzt go back and study up red - that was not the case.
Did God command Abraham to make hagar his wife? Does the Bible relate hagar as his wife?
Point of the matter - mormonism claimed that God commanded polygamy. The biblical examples you cited were not commanded by God.
That should go for ALL women, LDS or not.
In short, there’s not as much polygamy going ‘round as we imagine, and few, if any of the folks who post here have ever met a polygamist,
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I knew several when I lived in Utah, including some in the Mainstream LDS church (the called the sister wives ‘nannies’ or ‘cousin’ or something similar to Big Love).
Once I was even approached by a good male LDS friend of mine (the one who got me into the Mormon church) to be a ‘sister wife’. He was 45 and I was 19. I said no, obviously.
It happens more than you know. The numbers are hard to come by but the estimates are between 40,000 and 250,000 polygamist adults in the US today.
Folks outside that territory just never meet anyone like that.
Rarely outside the territory, although Warren Jeff’s group (TX) also has compounds in South Dakota, AZ, CA, ID, UT, and one other state. They are branching out.
Living in Utah, however, it is very common to know polygamists and usually which companies will hire them. Enrich (health food MLM) was widely known under their founder Ken Brailsford to be sympathetic to polygamists and hire them in non MLM capacities even though the Brailsford family were not polygamists themselves.
The company picnic was interesting in that way.
Mormonism is to Christianity....what Christianity is to Judaism. Remember...Christianity makes Mormonism possible. Both are false.
Which Judaism?
The awe-inspiring Judaism that were used of God to give us and preserve for us the Old Testament? Or, the "give us Barabbas" Judaism that killed Jesus Christ and the prophets before him?
***Isn’t it time for a good Mormon undergarment joke? ***
I dated a mormon girl many years ago. She didn’t have on anything at all! ;-D
Happy?
Here's the problem with the revisionist and politically correct version of how we want to see ourselves, men died more frequently and at a younger age, many women were left fending for themselves in a patriarchal society, not always stable and secure, where family and agriculture was the means to survival. During times like the hundred year war, you literally had entire generations of men wiped out, there were no “social systems” that provided either for the woman nor their children.
The childless or one child family that today has become common in Western society is in reality an ingredient for social self destruction even today, but back in those days the relationship was direct and not removed by a larger government bureaucracy and institutions/systems that obfuscates the fact that you can't eat money and it's your kids that feed you in old age, even today. Families were generally very large and (most likely) even those of your ancestors if you looked into it. The point is this; yes, it did happen even in Europe/Middle East....... repeatedly as far back as we have recorded history.
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