If you are LDS, at some point in your life, you may have asked perplexed, even agonizing questions, about the early practice of plural marriage in the Church. In its on-going series of articles aimed at tackling the toughest, sometimes sticky areas where the Church is often misunderstood, the LDS Church website has published two new articles on plural marriage on the LDS Church’s website under the heading“Gospel Topics”
The two new essays are “Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo” and “The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage. Difficult questions are not side-stepped in these highly footnoted papers.
The article acknowledges that “Latter-day Saints believe that monogamy—the marriage of one man and one woman—is the Lord’s standing law of marriage.” Plural marriage “was among the most challenging aspects of the Restoration—for Joseph personally and for other Church members. Plural marriage tested faith and provoked controversy and opposition. Few Latter-day Saints initially welcomed the restoration of a biblical practice entirely foreign to their sensibilities. But many later testified of powerful spiritual experiences that helped them overcome their hesitation and gave them courage to accept this practice.”
Here’s a brief sampling of some the questions often asked about plural marriage, each with an excerpt from these new articles from the Church.
Why don’t we know more about the early practice of plural marriage in the Church?
“Many details about the early practice of plural marriage are unknown. Plural marriage was introduced among the early Saints incrementally, and participants were asked to keep their actions confidential. They did not discuss their experiences publicly or in writing until after the Latter-day Saints had moved to Utah and Church leaders had publicly acknowledged the practice. The historical record of early plural marriage is therefore thin: few records of the time provide details, and later reminiscences are not always reliable. Some ambiguity will always accompany our knowledge about this issue. Like the participants, we “see through a glass, darkly” and are asked to walk by faith.3”
Why was plural marriage instituted?
“The revelation on plural marriage was not written down until 1843, but its early verses suggest that part of it emerged from Joseph Smith’s study of the Old Testament in 1831.”
“When God commands a difficult task, He sometimes sends additional messengers to encourage His people to obey. Consistent with this pattern, Joseph told associates that an angel appeared to him three times between 1834 and 1842 and commanded him to proceed with plural marriage when he hesitated to move forward. During the third and final appearance, the angel came with a drawn sword, threatening Joseph with destruction unless he went forward and obeyed the commandment fully.”
Did Joseph practice plural marriage in Kirtland?
“Fragmentary evidence suggests that Joseph Smith acted on the angel’s first command by marrying a plural wife, Fanny Alger, in Kirtland, Ohio, in the mid-1830s. Several Latter-day Saints who had lived in Kirtland reported decades later that Joseph Smith had married Alger, who lived and worked in the Smith household, after he had obtained her consent and that of her parents.”
Why were the Latter-day Saints willing to practice plural marriage?
Latter-day Saints’ motives for plural marriage were often more religious than economic or romantic. Besides the desire to be obedient, a strong incentive was the hope of living in God’s presence with family members. In the revelation on marriage, the Lord promised participants “crowns of eternal lives” and “exaltation in the eternal worlds.”17 Men and women, parents and children, ancestors and progeny were to be “sealed” to each other—their commitment lasting into the eternities, consistent with Jesus’s promise that priesthood ordinances performed on earth could be “bound in heaven.”
How widely spread was early polygamy?
“The first plural marriage in Nauvoo took place when Louisa Beaman and Joseph Smith were sealed in April 1841.19 Joseph married many additional wives and authorized other Latter-day Saints to practice plural marriage. The practice spread slowly at first. By June 1844, when Joseph died, approximately 29 men and 50 women had entered into plural marriage, in addition to Joseph and his wives. When the Saints entered the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, at least 196 men and 521 women had entered into plural marriages.20 Participants in these early plural marriages pledged to keep their involvement confidential, though they anticipated a time when the practice would be publicly acknowledged.”
Was Joseph Smith sealed to women who were already married?
“During the era in which plural marriage was practiced, Latter-day Saints distinguished between sealings for time and eternity and sealings for eternity only. Sealings for time and eternity included commitments and relationships during this life, generally including the possibility of sexual relations. Eternity-only sealings indicated relationships in the next life alone.
“Evidence indicates that Joseph Smith participated in both types of sealings. The exact number of women to whom he was sealed in his lifetime is unknown because the evidence is fragmentary…”
“Following his marriage to Louisa Beaman and before he married other single women, Joseph Smith was sealed to a number of women who were already married. Neither these women nor Joseph explained much about these sealings, though several women said they were for eternity alone. Other women left no records, making it unknown whether their sealings were for time and eternity or were for eternity alone.
There are several possible explanations for this practice. These sealings may have provided a way to create an eternal bond or link between Joseph’s family and other families within the Church. These ties extended both vertically, from parent to child, and horizontally, from one family to another.“
Both essays answer many more important questions and are valuable for our understanding of something Latter-day Saints are often probed about.
[email protected]January 28, 2015
Minnie - you have perfectly valid questions, and like every good and reasonable question the answer pre-exists the question (in other words, there ARE answers). I remember feeling the exact same way that you expressed yourself! Feel free to join us at The Wonder Women, where we have just finished a series of posts about coming to peaceful terms with the deep and abiding LDS theology of plural marriage. Come and see why it is a principle about, because of, and FOR women. https://thewonderwomen.squarespace.com/
MinnieJanuary 12, 2015
You have missed some of the most important questions. Why was Emma not consulted prior to these sealings when the revelation in Section 132 specifically required she be asked for her consent? Why would this be considered part of the Restoration of All Things? Animal sacrifice was not restored. The Mosaic Law was not restored. Indeed many Old Testament practices were not restored. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I cannot find a report in the Old Testament of a happy polygamous family. This practice seems to have caused extreme heartache and disunion in the families that practiced it. Consider Hagar, the second wife of Abraham. I know the story is incomplete, but what we have is a story of a completely dysfunctional family, complete with the second wife and child being thrown out to fend for themselves so that the chosen child could get everything. No respect for his marriage vows to that wife or to the rights of the child, who was only conceived in the first place so that Abraham would have physical posterity. And Jacob and his marriages are just creepy! Two sisters fighting for the attention of their shared husband. Two other women sacrificed in the attempt to have the most children. Jacob clearly favoring Rachel and her children, causing untold jealousy between the sisters, their servants and the children. If these are the patterns we are supposed to emulate, I want no part of it.