Jesus Christ

Mormon polygamy was discontinued over a century ago. Today, anyone practicing polygamy is excommunicated, so those who are practicing it today are not members of the Church, and are not following the guidelines used by the church when it did practice polygamy.

Historically, when polygamy was practiced by the Church, spouses were not assigned by the Church, and polygamy was not mandatory. In fact, only a small number of people were permitted to practice it, and only with the permission of the current wives and the Church. They had to demonstrate they could care for a larger family and meet everyone’s needs. Frequently it was the wives who asked their husbands to take on this responsibility, in a time when women were far less able to care for themselves if they were unmarried, and so needed a husband for legal protection and financial support. Because of the fact that in the early days of the Church, married men often served missions without their families (which is not done today), the women often wanted another woman to share the work and to save them from having to live alone.

Women often saw many benefits to being in a plural marriage in this time when women had few rights. Immigrant women often had difficulty finding husbands, since cultures were less likely to blend in the 1800s. However, men who had multiple wives were frequently willing to marry a woman from another country, and this not only allowed the woman to have financial care, but it helped her learn to “Americanize” very quickly and to fit in.

Women who were widowed frequently found it extremely difficult to provide for their children, because so few fields were open to women. A man who added her to his family was required to care for those children.

Mormon Polygamy also forced men to work harder at their marriages. No woman was going to enter into a polygamist marriage if she saw the man was neglecting his current wives or treating them badly. Because women had complete control over who they married, a man had to demonstrate he was a good husband. In addition, Utah had perhaps the most liberal divorce policy in the country. While men who took on additional wives were expected to make the situation work, a woman who entered into a marriage and then found she couldn’t cope with polygamy after all, or who was neglected by her husband, was allowed to leave and obtain a divorce without penalty of any kind. Although Brigham Young disliked divorce, he understood how difficult this could be for women.

Large polygamist families were rare, partly due to the financial burdens. Most families had only two wives. Because there were two women in the home, often one woman would decide she’d like to return to school or take on a career, knowing the children were loved and cared for by the other wife. As a result, there were probably more polygamist women in traditionally male careers than in most locations. Some women went on to be journalists, doctors, and lawyers at a time when such a thing was rare. There were few “working mothers” in non-homebased careers at that time. Until Utah became a state and the federal government repealed women’s suffrage in Utah, women could vote and had many other rights, and their very challenging Mormon history of  persecution and suffering made them very strong-willed. When their rights were taken from them, many of them became leaders in the women’s rights movement.

As you can see, there are considerable differences between polygamy practiced in pioneer days by the Mormons, and the polygamy practiced by apostate groups today.  Confusion has been increased by the fact that a large polygamist group has (in the 1990′s) registered the name of their group as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  The proper name of the Mormon Church is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  This fundamentalist group also identifies itself as “Mormon,” even though no member of the group is associated with the real Mormon Church.  The fundamentalist group has been raided recently and accused of arranging marriages against the will of the women involved, arranging under-age marriages, and banishing young men and boys to keep the population of females high.  Whether these accusations are true or not, they are situations that never existed in the history of polygamy within the true Mormon Church.

Mormons practiced polygamy historically, because God commanded it through his prophet, Joseph Smith, and validated the commandment through succeeding prophets.  There was not one single Latter-day Saint, not even Joseph Smith, who was eager to participate, and most recoiled from the idea.  Some members left the Church rather than accept the commandment.  The commandment was in order to “raise up seed” unto the Lord, to re-institute plural marriage temporarily as part of the “restoration of all things,” and to try the Saints and see if they would be obedient to a law that would surely increase the persecution against them.  As U.S. government opposition grew, sanctions were imposed against the Mormons which became impossible to bear.  Prophet Wilford Woodruff went to the Lord several times about the increasing oppression mounted against the Mormons.  Finally, the Lord showed him in vision what would happen to the Church if they didn’t abandon the practice—the temples would be lost, and all the men (who held priesthood power and served their families and the Church) would be taken.  The Lord then rescinded the commandment, and President Woodruff issued the “Manifesto” revoking the law of plural marriage in 1990.  The membership of the Church ratified the Manifesto, but there were a few holdouts who continued the practice.  In 1904 Prophet Joseph F. Smith attached a punishment of excommunication, and the practice ceased.  A few enclaves of apostates persisted, and the participants were excommunicated.

To learn more about Mormon polygamy, go to Mormon-Polygamy.org