Joseph Smith and Plural Marriage

Jane_the_Bane said:

I gave you a LONG reply. If you want me to write more, I need more in return.

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Lol okay

ChetSinger said:

Withwonderingawe, I appreciate the work you've put into this.

But I don't accept this "revelation" because I see it flying in the face of 1 Timothy 3. Paul says that anyone desiring oversight in the church is to be "the husband of one wife", among other things. And I can't accept any teaching that supersedes the words of Paul. Sorry, but that's how it has to be.

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Most scholars would say that the pastoral letters (Timothy and Titus) are second-century works not written by Paul.

withwonderingawe said:

Later in Nephi 4 after the Lord appears to them they start living the higher law and they "did multiply exceedingly fast" so they must have started living a plural marriage lifestyle. Each dispensation has it's own directions from the Lord.

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Plural marriages will only lead to an increase in population in situations where there aren't enough males to go around.

ChetSinger said:

Polygamy existed in the Roman empire (although not among the Jews of that time).

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Exactly the opposite is true. Polygamy was prohibited according to Roman Law, but some conquered people's (like the Jews) continued to practice it. I think at the time, however, Jews only took a second wife if the first was infertile. Probably the church adopted monogamy so early in its history precisely because it was prohibited by Roman Law and because the church tended to associate sex with sin.

Jane_the_Bane said:

I think this mechanism was also at work in Islam, where the pragmatic law had first decreed that no one should have more than three partners, only to suddenly grant special privileges to the Prophet when it suited his needs.

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Actually, the Qur'an says four and that is conditioned on justice, which as Artha points out is impossible. As for the Prophet's 'needs' it wasn't his own needs that were at stake here. With the exception of one, all these additional wives were widows, divorcees, women who would have been without protection in this society. It should be added that these additional wives were all taken after the death of his first wife.

The association you make between polygamy and cult leaders holds true only in those societies which insist on monogamy to begin with. In those cases polygamy appears as an especially abhorrent act. This was not true of Arabia during Muhammad's time where polygamy was the norm.

Arthra said:

But the issue of polygamy has sometimes come up for Baha'is because Baha'u'llah had three wives under Islamic Shiah law... which permits four wives...When the Kitab-i-Aqdas was revealed it appeared to allow two wives as it was permitted by the Bab... The Interpretation of the Aqdas by Abdul-Baha Who was the given the role of Interpreting His Father's Writings by Baha'u'llah was that Monogamy only was permitted:

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I think the reason why we stress monogamy in the Baha'i Faith while acknowledging the legitimacy of polygamy in past religions is because of our belief in the equality of women and men. For a lot of reasons, economic and biological, such full equality was not possible in the past.

smaneck said:

Actually, the Qur'an says four and that is conditioned on justice, which as Artha points out is impossible. As for the Prophet's 'needs' it wasn't his own needs that were at stake here. With the exception of one, all these additional wives were widows, divorcees, women who would have been without protection in this society. It should be added that these additional wives were all taken after the death of his first wife.

The association you make between polygamy and cult leaders holds true only in those societies which insist on monogamy to begin with. In those cases polygamy appears as an especially abhorrent act. This was not true of Arabia during Muhammad's time where polygamy was the norm.

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In the end, it matters little whether Mohammed acted out of selfish interests, or whether he did it all for the greater good/the women's benefit. From an outsider's perspective (i.e. by someone who does NOT believe that he received direct messages from the One True God), the picture remains the same: prudent laws were made (and attributed to the One God), yet when those laws interfered with Mohammed's intent, lo and behold, heaven decreed a special exempt status for the prophet.

smaneck said:

I think the reason why we stress monogamy in the Baha'i Faith while acknowledging the legitimacy of polygamy in past religions is because of our belief in the equality of women and men. For a lot of reasons, economic and biological, such full equality was not possible in the past.

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Although I grant you that polygyny is considerably more patriarchal (since women are NOT at liberty to have several partners), the roots of monogamy are just as sexist. In fact, I find it highly likely that this is one of the reasons why the model fails so hard, now that socio-economic conditions have changed and women are not utterly dependent on their husbands any longer.

smaneck said:

Exactly the opposite is true. Polygamy was prohibited according to Roman Law, but some conquered people's (like the Jews) continued to practice it. I think at the time, however, Jews only took a second wife if the first was infertile. Probably the church adopted monogamy so early in its history precisely because it was prohibited by Roman Law and because the church tended to associate sex with sin.

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Yes, I've learned you're right about polygamy being permitted in Israel at that time.

ChetSinger said:

Yes, I've learned you're right about polygamy being permitted in Israel at that time.

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and for quite a while afterwards in Judaism. There are, in fact, some Sephardic communities where it isn't officially against practice.

LoAmmi said:

and for quite a while afterwards in Judaism. There are, in fact, some Sephardic communities where it isn't officially against practice.

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In Iran it was being practiced up until the end of the 19th century. Jews also performed animal sacrifices there. In fact some Iranian Jewish immigrants to the US caused quite a stir when they sacrificed a lamb inside of their LA condo.

withwonderingawe said:

A question was asked about Fanny Alger so I thought I would pump this up.

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Would you let your teen daughter be a housekeeper in Joseph Smith's house?

withwonderingawe said:

Yes, there is no indication that he ever took advantage of anyone, there was a system of asking family. Except to the outside world it was not hidden, those in his encircle understood. According to the one account Fanny's parents were taught the principle and were there when he married her. They followed Brigham Young out to Utah and were polygamist themselves.

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I'll have to go back and find it, but there's a hypothesis floating about which holds that Alger was already pregnant by a former lover when Joseph took her on. The support for this hypothesis comes from DNA testing which found that none of Alger's known descendants are related to the Smith family.

withwonderingawe said:

Well I’ve had a suspicion about Philastus Hurlbut but that would place the marriage between 1833-34. He was exed for improper behavior in 33, we would call it date rape. Not once but twice. The Algers including Fanny left Kirtland for Missouri in 1836, if she had a baby no one saw it or mentioned it.

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Wikipedia does have a little something.

To quote them: Though there were allegations of paternity in some of these polygamous marriages, no children have ever been proven to be Smith's. There is ongoing genetic research to determine if any descendants of alleged children have Smith's genetic markers, and so far all tests have been negative.

Ironhold said:

Wikipedia does have a little something.

To quote them: Though there were allegations of paternity in some of these polygamous marriages, no children have ever been proven to be Smith's. There is ongoing genetic research to determine if any descendants of alleged children have Smith's genetic markers, and so far all tests have been negative.

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So is there any evidence that Smith's 'celestial marriages' were ever consummated?

smaneck said:

So is there any evidence that Smith's 'celestial marriages' were ever consummated?

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I could never find any

smaneck said:

So is there any evidence that Smith's 'celestial marriages' were ever consummated?

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IIRC, many of Smith's marriages could be classed as "marriages of convenience". We also, IIRC, have a few sealings (not marriages, but sealings) that were done posthumously in a mistaken notion about how such things worked. Because of this, the number of "consummated" marriages is unknown so near as I can tell.

Likewise, Brigham Young's first plural wife IIRC was a widow well beyond child-bearing age; she had no financial support network or assets to her name, and so this was her only option besides the poor house.