We Americans seem to feel rather strongly about marriage. Take a look at the recent fun we’ve
had trying to determine whether gays and lesbians have a right to marry. Should they be
allowed to marry, or is this something that only heterosexuals have a right to do? We’ve
certainly not come to anything even slightly close to a consensus on this issue, as evidenced by
the many on the conservative side, and the liberal side, generally taking opposite positions on
this issue. I can recall asking my Mormon friends, who are conservative, why they don’t accept
gay and lesbian marriages. They would respond by arguing that the Church only allows
marriages between a man and a woman. Having grown up LDS, I’m familiar with this line of
reasoning. After all, God created marriage to be this way. As I contemplate this issue, I think of
my grandma and grandpa, who were married happily for over fifty years, prior to their deaths.
My grandpa was married prior to meeting my grandma. He and this woman were married in the
Salt Lake Temple, for time and all eternity. As anyone who possess even rudimentary logical
facilities can deduce, if both marriages are valid, my grandfather will have two wives in the
afterlife, and for all eternity! How my grandma felt about this I don’t know, although I cannot
imagine her performing cartwheels of joy over it. Clearly, someone not familiar with the LDS
Church, except for some vulgar renditions of it in the media, might conclude that this anecdote
of mine conforms to his notion of what the LDS Church believes, concerning marriage, that
polygamy is alive and well! Another person, also not well versed in the doctrines of the LDS
Church, might be rather confused. He might say to himself: “I thought that they gave up that
polygamy in the nineteenth century”? Both, oddly enough, might have some grains of truth in
their notions here. Yes, the LDS Church has stopped polygamy, but it also, in some respects, in
1
the eternal scheme of things, hasn’t! I recall asking other members, after learning of my “two
grandmas’’ situation in the next world, whether this applies to Brigham Young. And they told
me yes. Brigham Young does keep all his wives for eternity, as does Joseph Smith and every
other Church member who became a polygamist prior to the Church officially abandoning the
practice of polygamy. And, yes, any man now, who marries another woman in the temple, and
she subsequently dies, and he re-marries, in the temple, he will be married to both women for
eternity. Theoretically, even if in practice this may be unusual or unlikely, he could marry
dozens of women. That is, let’s say he marries a woman in the temple, she dies, he then marries
another woman, in the temple, and she dies, and this goes on, say, ten times. Aside from the
fact that law enforcement might want to look in to the rather unlucky circumstances of this
man, he will be married to them all, for eternity. This seems to imply that the LDS Church has
not abandoned polygamy, entirely. There seems to be these vestiges, if you will, of it, in the
mainstream LDS Church. To fully understand why, it’s important to look at the history of the
nineteenth century LDS Church, vis a vis polygamy, as well as the polygamy practiced by
members of the splinter LDS Church, in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. There are
certainly remarkable differences. And, although I have great respect for the LDS Church, I left it
many years ago, and I’ve realized how ignorant I am of it, and its doctrines Although I
remember vividly the memory of my grandparents, and the Church’s position on remarrying,
when the women spouse dies, I realized I know really zero concerning how the nineteenth
century mainstream LDS Church polygamy differs from LDS Church splinter groups of the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries. And there are remarkable differences! But we must start
with the leader of both factions, Joseph Smith, JR.
2
Certainly, when one examines how the beliefs and practices originally emerged in the newly
formed LDS Church of the nineteenth century, it’s absolutely necessary to start with the LDS
Church’s founding prophet, Joseph Smith JR. He was a remarkable man. And one can accept
this, regardless of whether one accepts that he’s a true prophet. He has clearly influenced his
religion through space and time. He’s, one could say, the ‘ground zero’’, as it were, of
Mormonism, and everything proceeds to branch from there.
The historian, Richard Bushman, provides excellent insight into Smith: “Around 1820, when he
was fourteen, Smith began to receive the revelations that started him on his course as a
prophet. Ten years later, on April 6, 1830, he organized the church first known as the Church of
Christ.’’1 Hence, we have the beginnings of Mormonism.
When does polygamy fit into this picture? Smith established it on the basis of a revelation he
had. Bushman points out: “Joseph Smith instituted plural marriage secretly in Nauvoo in the
1840’s, but by the time the Saints had established their beachhead in Utah, its existence was
common knowledge. The practice was publicly announced at a church conference in 1852.
Smith had married his first plural wife in the early 1830’s in response to a revelation he
apparently received in 1831 but said nothing about it for a decade. In 1841, he began to marry
additional women until the number grew to more than thirty. (Incomplete records make it
impossible to determine the exact number.) Smith probably understood the explosive nature of
this new revelation and seems to have resisted complying himself. In 1843, in an effort to
11
MORMONISM: A Very Short Introduction, By Richard Bushman, Pages 9, 10. OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2008.
3
persuade his resistant first wife, Emma, he dictated a transcription of the words he claims to
have received.’’2
Certainly the early United States was not exactly conducive to the idea of polygamy being a
legitimate option, even though the Christian Bible was near the bedside of perhaps most early
Americans; they were likely to be a little rusty about the polygamy in the Old Testament. Joseph
Smith certainly believed that his modern incarnation of polygamy had its ration basis in the Old
Testament. As Bushman notes: “The revelation offered no rationale for plural marriage
satisfactory to modern understanding. The chief justification was that Abraham and the ancient
patriarchs had several wives, and Joseph and the church were to follow their lead as part of the
restoration of all things. Smith had turned to the Hebrew Bible for the temple and priesthood;
now that same search yielded plural marriage.’’3
One might be forgiven for assuming that, subsequent to Smith’s death in 1844, polygamy would
have gone to the casket with him. But, under Brigham Young, it continued, and flourished. As
Bushman notes: “Plural marriage reached its peak in the decade after its announcement in
1852. In the decennial federal censuses, the highest percentage of the population in
polygamous families was in 1860: 43.6 percent. After that the number of plural marriages
declined until only 25 percent of the population was in polygamous families in 1880 and 7.1
percent in 1900. The main reason for marrying plurally was religious. The plural marriage rate
shot up when church leaders emphasized the principle and declined as the preaching relaxed.
The 1850’s, a period of religious reformation in Utah, produced many plural marriages. If asked
2
3
MORMONISM: A Very Short Introduction, Pages 86, 87.
MORMONISM: A Very Short Introduction, Page 87.
4
why they entered these relationships, both plural wives and husbands emphasized the spiritual
blessings of being sealed eternally and of submitting to God’s will.’’ 4 As the above statistics
indicate, Mormonism was in no way completely flooded with plural marriages, even at a time
when this practice reached its peak. It reflects that the view, common in the non-Mormon
imagination, that more or less every Mormon was involved in a plural marriage, belongs, wel, in
the imagination.
Although it’s certainly true that the Mormon church taught and practiced polygamy because it
was believed that God commanded it, one wonders if there might be non religious reasons for
them to practice it? It turns out that the answer is yes. As Bushman explains it: ‘’Besides the
doctrinal reasons, the practice made some economic sense. The close study of the marriages in
one nineteenth century Utah community revealed that a disproportionate number of plural
wives were women who arrived in Utah without fathers or brothers to care for them. As
immigration surged, so did plural marriages, integrating single women without support into the
society. Since better-off men more frequently married plurally, the practice distributed wealth
to the poor and disconnected.’’5
So, we can see that there were some advantages. But, clearly, there existed disadvantages. For
example, legally, we see a plethora of bans crafted by the US Congress, in order to eradicate
polygamy. Finally, the LDS Church decided to officially abandon the practice of polygamy. This
occurred in 1890, by LDS Church President Wilfred Woodruff.
4
5
MORMONISM: A Very Short Introduction, Page 88.
MORMONISM:A Very Short Introduction
5
This decision on the part of the LDS Church Prophet was certainly not embraced entirely by all
members. And to what extent it was a decision forced by pragmatism, as opposed to purely
being the product of divine revelation, we may be required to remain agnostic. But the
abandonment of polygamy appears to have been necessary for the Utah territory to become a
state. Bushman explains this well: “The Church renounced plural marriage in 1890 as a
necessary condition for Utah to achieve statehood. It had been long denied-when the state was
otherwise qualified-because of objections to the practice. The Manifesto, as the announcement
by church president Wilfred Woodruff was called, did not repudiate polygamy as a principle but
declared only that no more plural marriages were being performed. The original plural marriage
revelation is still included in the canon of Latter-day Saint scripture. The reason is that the
revelation also contains the doctrine of eternal marriage, one of the preeminent tenets of
contemporary Mormonism.’’6
Understandably, not everyone found this decision on the part of President Woodruff to be
acceptable. It naturally produced uncomfortable questions. Why would God command
Mormons to abandon such a seemingly essential doctrine? What was the basis for God
“changing his mind’’, if that’s the right way to put it? There seems to be only one discernible
reason for Woodruff to declare this Manifesto, and that is to placate the secular officials who
had the power to give statehood to the Utah territory. But surely God, being all powerful,
would find another way to get statehood, without having to sacrifice his essential doctrine of
polygamy? I’m not taking up for the fundamentalists, but I can certainly see why they were a bit
troubled. Whether any thought in precisely the terms I mentioned, I don’t know, but I can
6
MORMONISM: A Very Short Introduction, page 89.
6
imagine that they would have comparable questions; anyone would, as a thinking human being.
The fundamentalists were clearly troubled by Woodruff’s decision, enough to declare him a
“false prophet’’. As Bushman explains the situation: “in the early twentieth century, another
split took place following the abandonment of plural marriage in 1890. So-called fundamentalist
groups held on to polygamy and claimed to continue authentic Mormonism. They believed that
the main body of the church had strayed. The fundamentalists are the groups now notorious in
the press for their practice of plural marriage in opposition to anti-bigamy laws.’’7 (Bushman’s
statement about “another split’’, refers to the fact that there were two splits. One, after
Smith’s death, which produced the RLDS Church, and the fundamentalist one). Did Woodruff
simply lack the courage to continue the fight for polygamy? Or did his decision represent a
courageous one on its own terms, in that it required the Church to deviate from a divine
doctrine, for the sake of survival in this earthly realm? Or, is “courage’’ the wrong word for it.
What happened, perhaps, was God let Woodruff know that polygamy had served its purpose,
and no longer needed to be explicitly practiced here on earth? Whatever the case may be here,
clearly those who believed that the practice of polygamy was essential to being a faithful
Mormon rejected the Manifesto. Hence, Mormon fundamentalism was born. Bushman explains
some aspects of the fundamentalists: “ They did not give up plural marriage at the end of the
nineteenth century, and some still follow the communal economic practices in the manner of
the early Mormons. Some of the groups are run by powerful, unchecked male prophets They
seem to live up to the fanatic, anti-modern image of isolated Mormonism.’’8
7
8
MORMONISM: A Very Short Introduction, Page 14.
MORMONISM: A Very Short Introduction, Page 14.
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It’s certainly easy, when one considers the plethora of news stories about fundamentalists
allowing underage girls to marry much older men, and of child and sexual abuse, (Warren Jeffs
being a particularly prominent example), to have no sympathy for them, and consider them in a
principally pejorative way. And while it’s certainly justified to view those who engage in the
above mentioned crimes as being completely morally reprehensible, it’s important to
understand the conundrum, from a belief standpoint, the fundamentalists are in. They believe
that the principle of polygamy is God given. And if they abandon it, they’re abandoning an
essential doctrine necessary for their salvation. Certainly they don’t wish to be denied salvation
for themselves or their families. Hence it becomes possible to empathize and sympathize with
them, if not agree with them.
As mentioned, fundamentalists deny that Woodruff is a true prophet. J. Max Anderson explains
further their views: “Fundamentalists claim to believe in the four LDS Standard Works, the early
history of the Church, and the prophets of the restoration up to, and including, John Taylor.’’9
Certainly this indicates some common ground between mainstream Mormons and
fundamentalist Mormons, since they all believe in the passage noted above. Hopefully, both
groups can work together, for the good of each.
One wonders what the relations between these two groups will look like one hundred or so
years from now. Hopefully the relations will be good. Both will need to see the common ground
that they share, and use that as a basis for better relations.
9
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MORMONISM: The History, Scripture, Doctrine, and Procedure of The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter Day Saints. Edited By Daniel H. Ludlow. Volume 2. “FUNDAMENTALISM’’ entry by J. Max Anderson, Page
531.
8