With so many emails on my article on Polygamy, I thought it would be worthwhile to tell more of the story of polygamy. Polygamy seems to have been involved in almost all societies and cultures: Africa, Asia, China, the American Indians, the Middle East, the Hebrews, and even Europe in its early days before monogamy took over from the Romans. Go back a few thousand years and we learn polygamy was universal. Usually only a wealthy man could have more than one wife as he had to provide her with her own home and wealth. Today a study of 565 of the world's societies found that over 75% favored polygamy. With the American Indians in warfare the victors would kill all the men and carry off the women as secondary wives, the prize of war was females as polygamist wives.
Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church, was concerned about all the polygamy in the Bible and he said he received a revelation explaining the ways of polygamy in Old Testament times, including a commandment to the people today, saying that if a man "espouses a virgin" and his wife consents he may marry her and there is no adultery, D&C 132:61. It says a man can have 10 virgins and it is not adultery, but she cannot have another man that is adultery on her part. It is obvious with the revelation directed in part to Emma, Joseph Smith's wife, she was not in favor of it, claiming he never had any other wives but her, and started the Reorganized LDS Church with her son as the head, repudiating polygamy. It is today a good size church still maintaining that polygamy was Brigham Young's idea.
On the other side the main Church led by Brigham Young left the city of Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1846 and headed for Mexican Territory only to learn it became US Territory two years later, consequence of the US v. Mexican War. Word of the practice of polygamy became known and in 1867 polygamy was prohibited in the territories. It was a dead letter until the Supreme Court in Reynolds v. U. S. (1879) refused to apply religious freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment to religious polygamy. That was the 19th century. In the 21st century things might be different.
With Moslems almost a billion strong believing in the religious practice of having 4 wives, the case for religious practice of polygamy has new strength. There are many hundreds of thousands maybe a million Moslems living in western societies believing in polygamy as a religious right. Mohammed placed only one condition that the man deal justly with his wives. Having invited the Moslems in our society by the hundreds of thousands we are going to find it impossible to not respect their religious practices on marriage.
The Edmunds Act (1882) and Tucker Act (1887), and then the federal government cracked down on the Mormon Church, dissolving its charter in The Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (1893). The Church had no choice other than to abandon polygamy, or be destroyed with all its vast property confiscated. They adopted a Manifesto in 1890 stating that polygamy was no longer being sanctioned in the Territory. This was said to be full of loopholes and a second manifesto came out in 1910 making abandonment unequivocal.
It is estimated in May of 2008 by a Utah newspaper The Daily Herald, there are 60,000 practicing polygamy in Utah and Arizona. The leading Democratic Senator, Harry Reid, wants the federal government to get involved and stamp out polygamy. The Attorneys General for Utah and for Arizona think he is unwise (actually, stupid), knowing nothing about the problem. They crack down when children are involved and other laws, often the punishments are brutal, far more severe than in other states, but not consenting adults. A man named Warren Jeffs was given a life sentence for promoting child marriages. I noted that the assault on the Arizona group in Short Creek in 1953 was not successful. The governor of Arizona was behind it. At the next election he was kicked out of office.
Polygamy: Two Great Grandmothers
Alan Andersen, a lawyer in Salt Lake City, recently read my polygamist article and told me the sad story of his great grandmother, said to be in love with a man her age, but ordered by a Mormon Apostle or President to marry an older man with wives. Her story contrast with the account of my great grandmother I had written about who bucked Church leaders and said No to polygamy. They both were converted in England and came to America and Salt Lake City very young. That is where their stories differ. This woman did as ordered and was put up in a cabin in Nevada by the Utah border avoiding prosecution for plural marriage. Her husband died while she was young, and she could have remarried but for the Mormon polygamist doctrine that married you for time and eternity so she would belong to her older husband in this and the next life. Any children she had by a new husband would belong to the older dead husband. Who would want that? She lived an unhappy long life with a small family by the older man, mostly alone. His first wife was bitterly jealous and did not approve of the marriage to the younger wife.
In another account, a man brought home his new 2nd wife and the first wife seemed to tolerate things until she heard his boots hit the floor in the bedroom above her then she broke down and cried. For many women it was a painful ordeal. It is obvious from the D&C 132, Joseph Smith's wife Emma didn't like it. Then there is the Lion House where Brigham Young provided little one room cubbyhole for each of his wives now on display in Salt Lake City. It looks like an unpleasant arrangement for his 27 wives. One of them fled and wrote a book about her life as one of his wives, not very complimentary.
Polygamy: A woman's view in favor of polygamy
There have been women in favor of polygamy in the 19th century as well as now. The women of the 19th century liked plural marriage because it protected them from too many pregnancies. Women often died in childbirth and with a lot of wives to service a woman would have fewer births and better health. Instead of 14 children she might have 4 children (Brigham Young's wives averaged only 2 children). Limited childbirth was one of the advantages, wrote a 19th century polygamist wife.
Today one woman told me in polygamy a woman has freedom from domination by a man. Men are too controlling when they have only one woman to boss around. Polygamy offers protection from male domination.
It was good for the children. I met a polygamist wife in a restaurant in southern Utah, one of 4 wives. While she was working the children were in their own home being looked after by a co-wife. They were not hauled off to a day care center.
The Churches dilemma
When polygamy was adopted it was said to be God's doing, his commandment, but when the government cracked down on polygamy, revoked the Church's charter and would have destroyed the Church, the 1890 Manifesto makes it clear this was the main reason to end polygamy. The law says no, polygamy is against the law and the government means to end it at all costs, even if it means destroying the Church. So the Church had no choice in the matter. Now however, the law looks the other way; we as a society will tolerate all kinds of sexual adult behavior. No longer is oral sex between a married couple punished, or gays punished with long and even life sentences. A man can have another mate, a mistress, known as a concubine in ancient times. That is not the government's business. Just keep it among adults. This means that the Church can once again authorize plural marriages as long as it is among consenting adults. It is easy to avoid bigamy laws calling one a mistress. Some call these arrangements spiritual wives. It looks as if the Fundamentalist are on solid ground after struggling for over a hundred years avoiding the bigamy and "cohab" laws, short for cohabitation, and avoiding the Church's assault on those who believe in polygamy as its early religious teachings.
With the US Supreme Court ruling that the government has no business in matters of sex between consenting adults, the many State old anti-plural marriage laws, anti-gay laws, anti-mistress, adultery and cohabitation laws, etc., will not and cannot be enforced. Now that plural marriage is no longer prosecuted it would seem the Church could revive its older teachings, but don't count on it. The Church has spent over a century trying to get rid of its cult label, and to be part of mainstream Christianity. Reviving plural marriage would send it back to a wacky religious cult status. Thus things have gone full circle. A hundred years ago the Church battled hard to get its plural marriage practice protected by the First Amendment that protects religion from government interference. It lost in the end by the Supreme Court in Reynolds v United States, a poorly researched and written opinion, almost absurd. Now things are reversed with a government saying you can have your religious marital practices with consenting adults. And we now have the Moslems joining the fray. But now the Church does not want to go back to its old polygamist ways. Such are the mysterious ways of history.
May 10, 2008
