The Lord Giveth and the Lord Hath Taken Away 11
4 The Lord Gave, and the Lord Hath Taken
Away: A History of Mormon Polygamy
David D. Peck
Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (more commonly known as “Mormons”) openly practiced polygamy between 1852 and 1890. Since then, observers have struggled to comprehend why men—and particularly women—would advocate and willingly participate in such an exotic marriage arrangement.[1] Nineteenth-century critics of Mormon polygamy ignorantly ascribed participation to over-sexed Mormon men, fantasizing hordes of male-dominated harem slaves reminiscent more of a Turkish seraglio than of reality.[2] When faced with Mormon women who defended its practice, detractors dismissed them as “those wretched and deluded women.”[3] Twentieth-century historians employ more sophisticated analyses, but the concept that the participants were willing (particularly women) presents a serious challenge, particularly to modern feminist scholars.[4] Understanding Vvoluntary participation is compounded by the fact that women in the Territory of Utah enjoyed greater political liberty than virtually any other place in America, transforming a mere challenge into a more serious paradox. Some academics assign an almost subversive motivation to polygamist wives, that they embraced polygamy as a means to political (voting) power, which would then be employed as a means to undermine male power at the poll booth.[5] However, in their own words, those Mormon women and men were not over-sexed, deluded, or subversive; they practiced polygamy because they believed that God commanded them to do so. Their perspective deserves to be told on those these terms.
The Doctrinal Foundations of Mormon Polygamy
Mormon plural marriage was the product of the theocratic restructuring of monogamous marriage based upon modern divine revelation. Knowledge of three key Mormon doctrines and practices is necessary to understand the theological justifications for plural marriage: Direct contemporary revelation from God; the existence of an extensive lay clergy; and the Mormon patriarchal system of eternal family organization.
Joseph Smith (1805-1844) was the first prophet and founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Persons unacquainted with the Mormon Church often experience difficulty understanding the significance of a living prophet in Latter-day Saint culture. A living prophet acts as an oracle, a conduit for divine revelation. Living prophets are comparable to Moses having returned from Mount Sinai. They receive and expound the very words of God, including new commandments and social orders. MThus, modern revelation carries at least equal weight with ancient revelation, the current living prophet acting in his day as Moses did for the ancient Israelites. In a revelation ascribed to Joseph Smith in 1831, Jesus Christ declared, “What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken and … my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same (Doctrine & Covenants 1:38, emphasis added). Rejection of revelation pronounced by the living prophet in the name of God is for devout Mormons a rejection of Jesus Christ’s message. The faith associated with modern revelation cannot be overstated, and the ability of modern revelation to mold the behavior of Mormons must be factored into any discussion of a practice as unique as polygamy.
Mormons claim that Prophets exercise apostolic priesthood authority received from Jesus. Latter-day Saints maintain that this authority was given to Joseph Smith in 1829. They teach that Smith was ordained both to an “Aaronic” (or Levitical) order of priesthood by John the Baptist, and later in the same year to a higher, or “Melchizedek” priesthood order through a visitation from the ancient apostles Peter, James and John. This priesthood authority was (and is) dispersed through a formal church organization including a Quorum of Twelve Apostles, and an extensive lay clergy that potentially includes all worthy male members over the age of eleven years. Since only males are invested with priesthood authority, the system of church government is fundamentally patriarchal. Furthermore, priesthood authority extends potentially into most households since nearly every adult male is an ordained priest. Revelations pronounced by the prophet are thus maintained down through the hierarchy of the church and into the household itself. A uniformity of patriarchal religious practice emerges that is unique in modern Christianity, allowing for a comparatively high degree of clerical consensus concerning polygamy that may confound persons unfamiliar with Mormon priesthood organization.[6]
The Mormon doctrine of plural marriage developed in the 1830s and 1840s within this priesthood and patriarchal context. The LDS church, organized in upstate New York on April 6, 1830, soon began to develop unique practices as the result of constant revelations on a wide variety of subjects. Many of these revelations address explicitly the intentional “restoration” of the same ecclesiastical organization as the ancient Christian church under the Apostles. Likewise, revelations re-established doctrines and practices associated with the Old Testament but which were compatible with ancient Christianity. Joseph Smith taught that God directed him to restore true forms of Christianity as instituted by Jesus Christ and the first apostles in order to fulfill the Pauline prophecy, “That in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him” (Eph. 1:10). The central question faced by Smith as he organized the new church was exactly which institutions, organizations, doctrines, and practices must be restored or gathered “together in one.” In 1831, Smith received revelations correcting certain portions of the Bible that had been textually corrupted, through multiple translations for example, and came across Old Testament passages referring to the numerous wives and concubines of Abraham, Jacob, David and Solomon, raising the issue of whether or not “plurality of wives” was an ancient practice that should be restored in the latter-days.
Although Joseph may have formulated the question of plural marriage in his own mind as early as 1831, there was no official revelation pronounced by him on the subject until July 12, 1843, in what is called “Section 132” of the LDS scripture “Doctrine and Covenants” (D&C). The revelation was privately circulated among selected Mormon leaders in Nauvoo, amid rumors that Joseph was practicing “spiritual wifery” in secret, having married other women in addition to his first wife, Emma Hale. It was unclear up to that point whether or not “spiritual wifery” involved sexual contact or was instead an ordinance intended to establish a heavenly order of marriage without its terrestrial “consummation.” In fact, he was already married privately to two sisters, Emily and Eliza Partridge, months prior to the public announcement of the revelation. There are reasons to believe that Smith considered himself in an impossible position: He believed that he had received a revelation concerning plural marriage and a commandment to live it, even in private if necessary, but feared public reaction. Emma, having learned about the sealings,[7] whereby one man and, at that time, one or more women were married both for all time and for all eternity, was alternately angered and assuaged by Joseph’s entreaties about the divine commandment to marry other women. His brother, Hyrum Smith, was also concerned, and begged Joseph to make the revelation official for the good of the community and of Emma. Pursuant to Hyrum’s request, Joseph dictated the revelation.[8]
The doctrinal implications of “sealing” or “celestial marriage” set forth in the revelation were profound, sharply dividing the Mormon community. The revelation, commonly referred to as “Section 132,” at a stroke addressed the modern restoration of an old Testament patriarchal marital practice, the continuance of the marital order of the Melchizedek Priesthood into the eternities, unveiled the crowning purpose for Mormon temples, pronounced the eternal endurance of family ties based upon marriages made in Mormon temples as well as the transitory nature of all covenants made outside of the temple. It is no exaggeration to suggest that Section 132 was among the most significant pronouncements made by Joseph Smith, and that no other pronouncement has evoked more religious faith while simultaneously creating a greater trial of faith for Mormons, particularly during the next fifty years. As if anticipating the coming socio-political storm associated with polygamy, the revelation, written in the voice of Jesus Christ, warns, personally to Joseph, but by extension to every Mormon:
Prepare thy heart to receive and obey the instructions which I am about to give unto you; for all those who have this law revealed unto them must obey the same. For behold, I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory” (D&C 132: 3–4, emphasis added).
From the date of this revelation onward, the “sealing” marriage ordinance performed in Mormon temples is formally referred to as the “new and everlasting covenant of marriage.” The revelation further clarified that only one living person holds the priesthood “keys” necessary to govern the performance of sealings (just as Peter was given the “keys” of the kingdom in ancient times to bind –or seal together--on earth and in heaven, and to loose on earth and in heaven). It specifically stated that Joseph Smith was anointed to hold the keys of sealing for his day. Sealings were considered to be the same order of marriage known and practiced by ancient and venerated patriarchs like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David and Solomon, restored in modern times by a living prophet. Its religious implications went far beyond the marital relationship per se:
If ye abide in my covenant [of marriage … ye] shall pass … to … exaltation and glory in all things, which glory shall be a fulness and a continuation of the seeds [i.e., a continuation of children] forever and ever (D&C 132:19–20).
Thus, marriage made through a temple sealing promised the faithful Mormon not only individual salvation, but a fullness of glory in connection with a literal continuation of families after death and ultimate resurrection. The revelation ends with the statement “verily, verily, I say unto you, I will reveal more unto you, hereafter; therefore, let this suffice for the present. Behold, I am Alpha and Omega. Amen” (D&C 132:66). From the point of view of the faithful Latter-day Saint, to disregard the revelation was to disobey Jesus Christ. Many felt compelled to choose between their faith in Joseph Smith as a living prophet, and their cultural convictions about the propriety of monogamy.
During the next year, which led to the murder of Joseph Smith in by a mob in June, 1844, the Mormon community was increasingly divided over the issue of plural marriage. As one indication of the coming internal strife, the revelation addressed Emma directly: “Let my Handmaiden, Emma Smith, receive all those that have been given unto my servant Joseph” (D&C 132:52, 54). Her subsequent recorded remarks about the revelation, particularly after Joseph’s death, revealed a near-continual struggle to alternately accept the revelation and then reject it, a struggle common to many other Mormons.[9]
Openly violent opposition to the practice of sealings increased in frequency and ferocity, and in 1847 a sizeable portion of the LDS community began its pilgrimage to the Salt Lake Valley under the leadership of the senior Apostle, Brigham Young. These were pilgrims searching for a safe place where, in the words of a popular Mormon hymn penned during the 1847 exodus to Utah, “none shall come to hurt or make afraid.”[10] For many, the privations of the thousand-mile journey validated their perceived right to practice Mormonism, including the right to practice polygamy.
From an LDS perspective, institutionalized polygamy was not the product of cultural evolution (or devolution, as some would have it), it was not principally a matter of political freedom, or the release of sexual repression, or the institutionalization of patriarchal power. It was a matter of faith and commandment. Emmeline Wells, seventh wife of Apostle Daniel H. Wells, and editor of The Women’s Exponent, restated the deeply religious motivations of many polygamist wives:
These noble [polygamist] women are like other good, pure, virtuous women, industrially, morally and intellectually. Religiously they are far above them in the graces which elevate and adorn human character. It is no wonder that contemplating these noble-minded women many are let to exclaim, “It is not possible that you are like us, for if you were you could not live in such relationships.” … The women who entered into these sacred covenants of marriage for time and all eternity accepted this holy order as a divine revelation and commandment, and in all sincerity, with the purest motives obeyed the same.[11]
Devout Mormon men shared the same religious motivations. For many practitioners of polygamy, rejection of plural marriage constituted a form of rejection of all faith in living prophets and in Jesus Christ. It should come as no surprise that non-Mormon scholars have difficulty accurately identifying the factors that prompted Mormons to practice plural marriage so long as their studies are based upon the premise that religious faith alone was not sufficient motivation.
Polygamy in Utah (1847-1910)