35. Polygamy Numbers
September 1, 202433. Church teaches Polygamy was Good
September 3, 2024
Other Odds and Ends about Polygamy
Table of contents
- Other Odds and Ends about Polygamy
- A1) Joseph Smith gets new revelation when someone wants to marry one of the women he was going to propose to.
- A2) Joseph Smith gets new revelation when someone is insinuating that he practices polygamy.
- A3) Jesus was a polygamist.
- A4) Polygamy is above the law.
- A5) Polygamy often caused fights and jealousy among the wives.
- A6) Polygamy had others teaching that marriage shouldn’t be about love.
- A7) Adam was a polygamist. (Also, Brigham Young taught that Adam was God…so, by extension, God is a polygamist).
- A8) One was damned if they didn’t obey polygamy and couldn’t enter the highest level of the Celestial kingdom.
- A9) Polygamy is forever.
- A10) Heber C. Kimball followed Joseph’s footsteps by secretly marrying his first plural wife, Sarah Noon, without his original wife’s knowledge. Later in life, Heber admonished missionaries to quit marrying the pretty girls and sending the “ugly” ones back to Utah for him and the other General Authorities.
- A11) One can separate a wife from her husband, if a man holding “higher” keys of the priesthood can come in and take the wife.
- Issues these Facts Raise
- Questions these Facts Raise
A1) Joseph Smith gets new revelation when someone wants to marry one of the women he was going to propose to.
Supporting Sources and Quotes
“[September 15, 1843. Friday.] A.M. at President Joseph’s afterwards at the Temple Office all day. Evening President Joseph met me and I returned with him to O[rson] Spencers to borrow $1400. to clear his farm from an incumbrance laying on it which fact Esq. Skinner has ascertained on searching the Records. President Joseph told me he had lately had a new item of law revealed to him in relation to myself. He said the Lord had revealed to him that a man could only take 2 of a family except by express revelation and as I had said I intended to take Lydia he made this known for my benefit. To have more than two in a family was apt to cause wrangles and trouble. He finally asked if I would not give L[ydia] to him. I said I would so far as I had anything to do in it. He requested me to talk to her.”
(William Clayton journal, 15 Sept, 1843, archive.org)
Were it not for the fact that the revelation came from The Lord, it may have struck Clayton as odd that Joseph should stop him from pursuing a third sister after being given such encouragement to get all the wives he wanted or could – especially after Joseph had just attempted his own “triple sister” hat-trick with Esther M Johnson a few months prior as described in the prior section. In a religious system that gets revelation line upon line and precept upon precept, however, such alterations may be expected. Clayton clearly sustained his Prophet and offered no protest.
A2) Joseph Smith gets new revelation when someone is insinuating that he practices polygamy.
Supporting Sources and Quotes
During the vote to elect a new Mayor, Joseph received a revelation. The topic right before this had been spiritual wifery and Joseph Smith’s character was brought into question. Joseph wrote the revelation on a piece of paper and tossed it across the room toward City Councilor Hiram Kimball – the husband of Sarah Kimball. The revelation read as follows:
“Verily thus saith the Lord unto you, my servant Joseph, by the voice of my Spirit, Hiram Kimball has been insinuating evil, and forming evil opinions against you, with others; and if he continue in them, he and they shall be accursed, for I am the Lord thy God, and will stand by thee and bless thee. Amen.”
(Revelation given to Joseph Smith, 19 May 1842. Journal, December 1841–December 1842, JosephSmithPapers.org)
Joseph Smith Papers Project gives further insight:
“The “evil opinions” mentioned in this revelation may refer to the growing friction between JS and various Nauvoo businessmen, like Hiram Kimball, over the latter’s promoting their own projects ahead of those of the church. Alternatively, or in addition, they may have had something to do with the principle of plural marriage, which JS reportedly taught to Kimball’s wife, Sarah Granger, about this time and which she rejected. In spite of their differences, JS and Hiram Kimball remained cordial, and Kimball joined the church the following year.”
(Footnote 204, Revelation given to Joseph Smith, 19 May 1842. Journal, December 1841–December 1842, JosephSmithPapers.org)
A3) Jesus was a polygamist.
Supporting Sources and Quotes
“The Scripture says that He, the Lord, came walking in the Temple, with His train; I do not know who they were, unless His wives and children; but at any rate they filled the Temple, and how many there were who could not get into the Temple I cannot say. This is the account given by Isaiah, whether he told the truth or not I leave every body to judge for himself.”
- Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, v. 13, p. 309
“... it will be seen that the great Messiah who was the founder of the Christian religion was a polygamist... the Messiah chose... by marrying many honorable wives himself, to show to all future generations that he approbated the plurality of wives under the Christian dispensation in which His polygamist ancestors lived.
“We have clearly show that God the Father had a plurality of wives, one or more being in eternity, by whom He begat our spirits as well as the spirit of Jesus His First Born, and another being upon the earth by whom He begat the tabernacle of Jesus, as his only begotten in this world. We have also proved most clearly that the Son followed the example of his Father, and became the great Bridegroom to whom Kings' daughters and many honorable wives were to be married. We have also proved that both God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ inherit their wives in eternity as well as in time... And then it would be so shocking to the modesty of the very pious ladies of Christendom to see Abraham and his wives, Jacob and his wives, Jesus and his honorable wives, all eating occasionally at the same table, and visiting one another, and conversing about their numerous children and their kingdoms. Oh, ye delicate ladies of Christendom, how can you endure such a scene as this?... If you do not want your morals corrupted, and your delicate ears shocked, and your pious modesty put to the blush by the society of Polygamists and their wives, do not venture near the New Earth; for polygamists will be honored there, and will be among the chief rules in that Kingdom.”
- Apostle Orson Pratt, The Seer, p. 172
A4) Polygamy is above the law.
Supporting Sources and Quotes
“If I had forty wives in the United States, they did not know it, and could not substantiate it, neither did I ask any lawyer, judge, or magistrate for them. I live above the law, and so do this people.”
- Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, v. 1, p. 361
A5) Polygamy often caused fights and jealousy among the wives.
Supporting Sources and Quotes
“There is a great deal of quarrelling in the houses, and contending for power and authority; and the second wife is against the first wife, perhaps, in some instances.”
- Apostle Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses, v. 4, p. 178
“A few years ago one of my wives, when talking about wives leaving their husbands said, ‘I wish my husband's wives would leave him, every soul of them except myself.' That is the way they all feel, more or less, at times, both old and young.”
- Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, v. 9, p. 195
“Plural marriage... is calculated in its nature to severely try the women even to nearly tear their heart strings out of them...”
- Journal and Autobiography of Joseph Lee Robinson, p. 50
“When James Hunter took his second wife, the first who had accompanied the couple to the Endowment House for the ceremony could not sleep and walked the floor all night as she thought of her husband lying in the arms of his bride...
“A person brought up in a polygamist household... told this story: ‘There is one real tragedy in polygamy that I can remember. One evening a man brought home a second wife. It was winter and the first wife was very upset. That night she climbed onto the roof and froze to death.'”
- Isn't One Wife Enough?, by Kimball Young, pp. 147-148
“Thus did Satan sow the seeds of discord in the Prophet's own home, cause a torment of mind to Emma, distress to Joseph, and lay the groundwork of the apostate Reorganized Church, eventually taking Emma and their sons outside the true Church.”
- Brigham Young and His Wives, by John J. Stewart
“Says one brother to another, ‘Joseph says all covenants are done away, and none are binding but the new covenants; now suppose Joseph should come and say he wanted your wife, what would you say to that? I would tell him to go to hell.' This was the spirit of many in the early days of this Church...
“What would a man of God say, who felt aright, when Joseph asked him for his money? He would say, ‘Yes, and I wish I had more to help to build up the Kingdom of God.' Or if he came and said ‘I want your wife?' ‘O Yes,' he would say, ‘here she is, there are plenty more.'…Did the Prophet Joseph want every man's wife he asked for? He did not.... If such a man of God should come to me and say, ‘I want your gold and silver, or your wives,' I should say, ‘Here they are, I wish I had more to give you, take all I have got.”
- Apostle Jebediah M. Grant, Journal of Discourses, v. 2, pp. 13-14
A6) Polygamy had others teaching that marriage shouldn’t be about love.
Supporting Sources and Quotes
“It is the duty of the first wife to regard her husband not with a selfish devotion... she must regard her husband with indifference, and with no other feeling than that of reverence, for love we regard as a false sentiment; a feeling which should have no existence in polygamy... we believe in the good old custom by which marriages should be arranged by the parents of the young people.”
- Zina Huntington, wife of Prophet Brigham Young, New York World, November 17, 1869, as cited in The Lion of the Lord, pp. 229-230
A7) Adam was a polygamist. (Also, Brigham Young taught that Adam was God…so, by extension, God is a polygamist).
Supporting Sources and Quotes
“When our father Adam came into the garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his wives, with him.”
- Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, v. 1, p. 50
“We have now clearly shown that God the Father had a plurality of wives, one or more being in eternity, by whom He begat our spirits as well as the Spirit of Jesus His first Born...”
- Apostle Orson Pratt, The Seer, p. 172
A8) One was damned if they didn’t obey polygamy and couldn’t enter the highest level of the Celestial kingdom.
Supporting Sources and Quotes
“Damnation was the awful penalty affixed to a refusal to obey this law [polygamy]. It became an acknowledged doctrine of the Church; it was indissolubly interwoven in the minds of its members with their hopes of eternal salvation and exaltation in the presence of God...”
- Millennial Star, v. 47, p. 711
“... [Joseph Smith taught] the doctrine of plural and celestial marriage is the most holy and important doctrine ever revealed to man on the earth, and that without obedience to that principle no man can ever attain to the fullness of exaltation in the celestial glory.”
- William Clayton, Joseph Smith's secretary, Historical Record, v. 6, p. 226
“[If I] had not obeyed that command of God, concerning plural marriage, I believe that I would have been damned.”
- Apostle George Q. Cannon, Journal of Discourses, v. 23, p. 278
“The only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy.”
- Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, v. 11, p. 269
“Now if any of you will deny the plurality of wives and continue to do so, I promise that you will be damned; and I will go still further, and say that this revelation, or any other revelation that the Lord had given, and deny it in your feelings, and I promise that you will be damned.”
- Prophet Brigham Young, Deseret News, November 14, 1855
A9) Polygamy is forever.
Supporting Sources and Quotes
“The principle of plurality of wives never will be done away...”
- Apostle Heber C. Kimball, Deseret News, November 7, 1855
“You might as well deny ‘Mormonism,' and turn away from it, as to oppose the plurality of wives.”
- Apostle Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses, v. 5, p. 203
“It would be as easy for the United States to build a tower to remove the sun, as to remove polygamy, or the Church and Kingdom of God.”
- Apostle Heber C. Kimball, Millennial Star, v. 28, p. 190
“If plural marriage be divine, as the Latter-day Saints say it is, no power on earth can suppress it, unless you crush and destroy the entire people.”
- Apostle George Q. Cannon, Journal of Discourses, v. 20, p. 276
A10) Heber C. Kimball followed Joseph’s footsteps by secretly marrying his first plural wife, Sarah Noon, without his original wife’s knowledge. Later in life, Heber admonished missionaries to quit marrying the pretty girls and sending the “ugly” ones back to Utah for him and the other General Authorities.
Supporting Sources and Quotes
He said, “For a man of God to be confined to one woman is small business... I do not know what we should do if we had only one wife apiece” (Heber C. Kimball, Deseret News, April 22, 1857).
Here’s one of several of his well documented comments regarding missionaries and ugly women: “The brother missionaries have been in the habit of picking out the prettiest women for themselves before they get here, and bringing on the ugly ones for us; hereafter you have to bring them all here before taking any of them, and let us all have a fair shake."(Apostle Heber C. Kimball, The Lion of the Lord, New York, 1969, pp.129-30) .
A11) One can separate a wife from her husband, if a man holding “higher” keys of the priesthood can come in and take the wife.
Supporting Sources and Quotes
Another relevant doctrinal statement comes from an 1861 speech by Brigham Young: The Second Way in which a wife can be seperated from her husband, while he continues to be faithful to his God and his preisthood, I have not revealed, except to a few persons in this Church; and a few have received it from Joseph the prophet as well as myself. If a woman can find a man holding the keys of the preisthood with higher power and authority than her husband, and he is disposed to take her he can do so, otherwise she has got to remain where she is … there is no need for a bill of divorcement … To recapitulate. First if a man forfiets his covenants with a wife, or wives, becoming unfaithful to his God, and his preisthood, that wife or wives are free from him without a bill of divorcement. Second. If a woman claimes protection at the hands of a man, possessing more power in the preisthood and higher keys, if he is disposed to rescue her and has obtained the consent of her husband to make her his wife he can do so without a bill of divorcement.
Todd M. Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith. Kindle Edition. loc. 863-71.
In nineteenth-century Utah there are well-documented cases in which married women asked to be joined to a prominent church leader.
Todd M. Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith. Kindle Edition. loc. 875-76.
Jedediah Grant’s 1854 statement already referred to can now be quoted more fully: When the family organization was revealed from heaven–the patriarchal order of God, and Joseph began, on the right and the left, to add to his family, what a quaking there was in Israel. Says one brother to another, “Joseph says all covenants [previous marriages] are done away, and none are binding but the new covenants [marriage by priesthood sealing power]; now suppose Joseph should come and say he wanted your wife, what would you say to that?” “I would tell him to go to hell.” This was the spirit of many in the early days of this Church [i.e., unwillingness to consecrate everything to Smith as the mouthpiece of God] … What would a man of God say, who felt aright, when Joseph asked him for his money? [he would give it all willingly] Or if he came and said, “I want your wife?” “O yes,” he would say, “here she is, there are plenty more.” … Did the Prophet Joseph want every man’s wife he asked for? He did not … the grand object in view was to try the people of God, to see what was in them. If such a man of God should come to me and say, “I want your gold and silver, or your wives,” I should say, “Here they are, I wish I had more to give you, take all I have got.” A man who has got the Spirit of God, and the light of eternity in him, has no trouble about such matters.
Todd M. Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith. Kindle Edition. loc. 879-89.
Mormonism’s intensely hierarchical nature allowed a man with the highest earthly authority–a Joseph Smith or Brigham Young–to request the wives of men holding lesser Mormon priesthood, or no priesthood. The authority of the prophet would allow him to promise higher exaltation to those involved in the triangle, both the wife and her first husband.
Todd M. Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith. Kindle Edition. loc. 983-86.
Issues these Facts Raise
Is this a clear case of evolving doctrine despite God’s clear word in scripture? To me, this appears to be the case.
Questions these Facts Raise
Aren’t the fruits of plural marriage obvious? It caused men to contemplate suicide, pressured girls to make monumental decisions which they found abhorrent, deceit, lies, devastating loneliness, led to claims by Brigham Young that Emma tried to poison Joseph over his infidelity, and on and on. By their fruits ye shall know them?
