The recent DNA findings regarding the paternity of Josephine Lyon have sparked renewed interest in the question of Joseph Smith’s polyandry: was it sexual or non-sexual? Brian Hales is the leading scholar advancing the “non-sexual polyandry” theory. Yet Hales finds himself virtually alone among scholars on this question, as illustrated in this visual he created. Because his theory is the only one in line with the conservative LDS mainstream, he has become an apologist for Joseph Smith on behalf of the church. This visual makes it seem like he is the lone faithful scholar willing to stick up for Joseph Smith in the face of scholastic prejudice. But this is not exactly true. In the minds of more liberal scholars and members, the sexual-polyandry theory actually redeems Joseph Smith’s character.
How Sexual Polyandry Vindicates Joseph Smith
Polygamy is almost universally detested, especially by Mormons. But Mormons differ in why they detest polygamy. Here are the two main reasons:
- It feels sexually unholy, akin to promiscuity.
- It feels unfair to women.
The first reason is an example of what morality scholar Jonathan Haight would call “conservative morality,” and the second “liberal morality.” Conservative morality emphasises the importance of purity and authority while liberal morality emphasises equality and fairness.
If Joseph Smith practiced sexual polyandry, he is redeemed from the 2nd objection. Suddenly polygamy is no longer unfair to women. Women can have more than one husband, just as men can have more than one wife. Liberal-leaning members could look at sexual polyandry as a vindication of Joseph Smith’s ultimate objectives regarding plural marriage. Polygamy could have been in the service of what Joseph Smith saw as an egalitarian, if overly-utopian sexual ideal. But conservative members might feel the opposite. If the idea of polygamy already feels sexually unholy, the idea of sexual polyandry feels doubly so, as bad as the hippy love communes of the 60s.
The Moral Unfairness of Non-Sexual Polyandry
The non-sexual polyandry theory argues that Joseph Smith married married women only for the after-life. This eases the conservative consciences of those who value purity and see polyandry as sexually unholy. But this interpretation also turns Joseph Smith into the embodiment of the parable the prophet Nathan gave to King David after he had taken Bathsheba from Uriah:
A rich man had a great many flocks and herds. But the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb which he bought and nourished; and it grew up together with him and his children. It would eat of his bread and drink of his cup and lie in his bosom, and was like a daughter to him. Now a traveler came to the rich man, And he was unwilling to take from his own flock or his own herd, To prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him; Rather he took the poor man’s ewe lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.”… 2 Samuel 12:3-4
Joseph Smith, like the rich man Nathan’s parable, had been promised in D&C 132 “an hundred-fold in this world, of fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, houses and lands, wives and children, and crowns of eternal lives in the eternal worlds.” But with non-sexual polyandry, even with all he has, even with the 25+ virgins he has married, Joseph takes other men’s wives unto himself in the eternal world, wives who have lived, sacrificed, and born children with poor men of lesser stature. This is not sharing. This is not the law of consecration. This is not “the linking of families” for dynastic purposes. Non-sexual polyandry is theft, pure and simple. The non-sexual polyandry theory effectively separates loving husbands from wives, whether in this life, or the life to come. There is nothing in the LDS religion that remotely justifies such an act. Apologists can try and argue individual cases: “well, the husbands were non-members” or “well, the husbands got to have other wives,” or “well, the husbands were on good terms with Joseph,” or worst of all “well, God commanded Joseph to marry them, because the wives were REALLY supposed to be with him.” None of these arguments tempers the reality that non-sexual polyandry destroys the possibility of an eternal relationship for a loving couple on earth.
Sexual polyandry eliminates all this. It is egalitarian. It evokes the Law of Consecration, which was being practiced concurrently. It challenges unhealthy cultural notions of possessiveness, reflecting the Lord’s admonition to Martin Harris not to “covet thy own property.” Is the conservative desire for purity so strong that they are willing to turn Joseph Smith into a miserly tyrant, stealing a poor man’s only lamb? Could conservatives not embrace this one liberal possibility, just to avoid the terrible inequalities non-sexual polyandry suggests?
The Scriptural Evidence for Sexual Polyandry
Apologetic bodies like FAIR and lds.org will no doubt continue to argue against the idea of sexual polyandry, as they reflect conservative, mainstream LDS morality. However, I think it might be in the best interest of all to keep the question open, allowing those with liberal morality to believe in a more egalitarian Joseph Smith, while still giving space for conservatives to interpret the evidence in a way that keeps polyandry non-sexual. This would be easy to do because the evidence for and against sexual polyandry is inconclusive.
Brian Hales makes his theory for non-sexual-polyandry look like a slam-dunk. His argument is dismissively titled: “Joseph Smith’s Sexual Polyandry and the Emperor’s New Clothes.” I’m not a scholar, nor have I read all that Hales and others have written on the subject, but I did want to point out what I think is an important omission in Hales’ argument, an omission which I would like to see more scholars try and tackle. It concerns what is written about polyandry and adultery in D&C 132: 41-42. Brian Hales argues that D&C 132 unequivocally teaches that sexual polyandry is adultery:
What did Joseph Smith teach about sexual polyandry? Does anybody think he taught about sexual polyandry? Yes, he did. He describes in D & C 132, three possible sexual polyandrous situations. One of them is verses 61 to 63: “…as pertaining to this law of the priesthood–if any man espouse a virgin, and… if one… after she is espoused, shall be with another man,”- could be a legal husband, could by anybody, another man, “she has committed adultery, and shall be destroyed, for [she is] given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth…” Verses 41 and 42 are the other two. We won’t discuss those…but they label them all adultery.
Brian doesn’t go into depth about verses 41-42, casually stating that they condemn polyandry as adultery. But on closer inspection, these verses actually present compelling evidence that sexual polyandry can be authorised in some cases:
41 And as ye have asked concerning adultery, verily, verily, I say unto you, if a man receiveth a wife in the new and everlasting covenant, and if she be with another man, and I have not appointed unto her by the holy anointing, she hath committed adultery and shall be destroyed.
42 If she be not in the new and everlasting covenant, and she be with another man, she has committed adultery.
If these verses were simply clarifying that polyandry was adultery, they would say “if she be with another man, she has committed adultery.” But that is not what these verses are saying. They are presenting exceptions to what constitutes adultery for women, not rules. This exact same argument has been used to reject polygamy in the Book of Mormon. People who argue that Jacob 2 preaches against polygamy often forget to cite the exception clause at the end of verse 30. By arguing that verses 41-42 condemn polyandry, Brian Hales falls into the same trap.
Jacob 2:27-30: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none. For I, the Lord God, delight in the chastity of women…For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.
Polyandry and the Abrahamic Test
Verse 51 and 54 in Section 132 present what looks like another illusion to polyandry:
51 Verily, I say unto you: A commandment I give unto mine handmaid, Emma Smith, your wife, whom I have given unto you, that she stay herself and partake not of that which I commanded you to offer unto her; for I did it, saith the Lord, to prove you all, as I did Abraham, and that I might require an offering at your hand, by covenant and sacrifice.
54 And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abide not in my law.
We don’t know for sure if these verses refer to a potential polyandrous relationship for Emma. WVS, in his exhaustive analysis for BCC notes several possibilities:
“Joseph may have offered her a divorce with financial guarantees…Another possibility was the choice of another partner—a kind of polyamory—even “revenge sex” if you will (and see vs. 54). It has even been suggested that this passage refers to suicide as an out. I think that unlikely. “
I believe polyandry is the most likely scenario given “Abrahamic tests” Joseph had given to others, most notably with Heber C. Kimball and his wife Villate. Orson F. Whitney recounts in The History of Heber C. Kimball:
He (Joseph Smith) put him (Heber) to a test which few men would have been able to bear. It was no less than a requirement for him to surrender his wife, his beloved Vilate, and give her to Joseph in marriage! The astounding revelation well-nigh paralysed him. He could hardly believe he had heard aright…Three days he fasted and wept and prayed. Then, with a broken and a bleeding heart, he led his darling wife to the Prophet’s house and presented her to Joseph…who wept at this proof of devotion, and embracing Heber, told him that was all that the Lord required. He had proved him, as a child of Abraham, that he would “do the works of Abraham,” holding back nothing, but laying all upon the altar for God’s glory. The Prophet joined the hands of the heroic and devoted pair, and then and there, by virtue of the sealing power and authority of the Holy Priesthood, Heber and Vilate Kimball were made husband and wife for all eternity.
If Joseph’s demand of Vilate as a wife was an Abrahamic test, how do we know whether Joseph Smith was “in on it?” Abraham didn’t know his sacrifice of Isaac was going to be an “Abrahamic” test. When Joseph initially asked, was he initiating it on his own just to prove Heber, or did he really expect to have Vilate as a wife? After all, Joseph did end up marrying 14 women who already had husbands. Could it be that the “Abrahamic” nature of this commandment reflected some uncertainty in Joseph’s mind over whether or not he was actually supposed to go through with these polyandrous relationships? Could it be that verse 51 is as much for Joseph Smith as it is for Emma, seeing that he was the one who gave the previous commandment to Emma? Given that verses 41-42 propose circumstances under which polyandry can be authorised, it seems that there could have been some ambivalence in Joseph Smith’s mind about how far he and everyone else were supposed to take their polyandrous relationships.
Conclusion:
While I am not enough of a historical expert to argue about whether sexual polyandry was practiced in individual cases, such as with Sylvia Sessions, I think there is enough evidence within D&C 132 itself, that concurrent polyandrous relationships are theoretically possible in this life and the life to come. The sexual polyandry theory resonates with the Law of Consecration and other utopian ideals being experimented with at the time. Sexual polyandry feels more consistent with the benevolent and effusive character of Joseph Smith, unlike the non-sexual polyandry theory, in which he comes across as a miserly tyrant. Joseph Smith was not a miserly tyrant. He was an open-hearted, open-minded prophet. He wanted to link families and couples together, not separate them.
Questions:
- Do you subscribe to the sexual or non-sexual polyandry theory? Does this reflect your own conservative or liberal preferences?
- If you believe in non-sexual polyandry, how do you defend Joseph in the face of the injustice it represents?
- If you believe in sexual polyandry, does the “sexual unholiness” of one woman having concurrent relations with two men bother you?
- Do you agree that D&C 132:41-42 suggests the possibility of sexual polyandry?
- Were Joseph Smith’s “Abrahamic tests” only for his followers or for him as well? Do you think he initially could have believed that the Lord asked Heber C. Kimball to give him Vilate, just as he went on to take other men’s wives as well? Does verse 51 suggests a similar situation with Emma?
Wheat & Tares 
Fascinating write up.
“and I have not appointed unto her by the holy anointing.”
Does anyone have further information on what this could have meant? What is the holy anointing? Seems pivotal to understanding these passages.
I listened to Brian’s presentation at MHA. He and the other presenters were in agreement that Josephine Lyon’s mother told her that she was Joseph Smith’s daughter. Unless we are suggesting some sort of immaculate conception, this is strong evidence that, whether the claim was true or not, Joseph had sex with Josephine’s mother. Now, I believe Brian presented the possibility that Sylvia and her husband, Windsor, may have parted company about the time Josephine would have been conceived. In those days, this sort of informal “divorce” was common, so any intimate relations with Joseph would have been “okay.” This scenario I find unconvincing. The fact that Sylvia thought Joseph was the father and the fact that DNA evidence pretty much proves that Windsor and not Joseph was the father combine to indicate that Sylvia was having sexual encounters with both men at about the same time. Call it what you want, but if it walks like a duck . . .
Rt,
I wonder if it’s referring to the Quorum of the Anointed?
I despise the fact that husbands felt that they had the right to give their wives to other men. Women were bartered and treated like property.
How could such bartering have been “Ordained of God?” We are told that God doesn’t change. So either God thinks women should always be treated like property .. Or not. I believe in the “Or Not”.
Rt, my contention is that ” appointed to the holy anointing” would probably be an illusion to some kind of priesthood marriage, which also goes in line with the second verse: “in the new and everlasting covenant.” Therefore, a woman CAN have a second husband, provided they are sealed “in the new and everlasting covenant” “by the holy anointing.”
Others might argue that “holy anointing” means “calling and election made sure,” and is a peculiar way of saying that people who commit adultery could still be saved. But to me, this is a stretch.
AmateurParent, it sounds like for you, the idea of sexual polyandry DOESN’T redeem polygamy by making it more egalitarian (women can have more than one husband just as men have more than one wife.) You still see polyandry, like polygamy, as treating women unfairly. Is this ONLY because you perceive it as being practiced coercively, or is there something degrading about the idea of a woman having more than one husband, if it were not practiced coercively?
My sense is that, if given the opportunity to live in a culture where a woman could have more than one husband, most women would reject this opportunity, because women value the principal of monogamy as the highest form of love and companionship. Biologically, plural marriage caters more to the male instinct. So polyandry doesn’t make things equal, it just tries to treat women more like men, instead of listening to what THEY want.
It’s interesting that Brian puts me in the definite Yes column. My own feeling is that Joseph probably engaged in sexual relations with at least some of his wives who were already married civilly. This makes the most sense to me since Joseph’s practice was Fanny Alger, then Louisa Beaman, both single women, following by a series of already married women. I understand the counter argument, but it seems to me that Joseph saw marriage as procreative in intention.
The link Pete supplied is super interesting too. It seems likely that at the very least this group is where Emma’s holy anointing would have occurred. The group was called the Quorum of the Anointed or the Holy Order.
Many of Joseph Smith’s plural wives were part of it. Three of the women were married to men other than Joseph also (Marinda Hyde, Sarah Kingsley, Mary Pratt) and their husbands were members too. So the idea of wife sharing was definitely present. Which does make me think that Joseph may have opened up the possibility of Emma being married to a second man. It’s a logical place to go when Joseph is marrying their wives. Which then fits pretty perfectly with vs. 51.
Of course we’ll never know for sure.
And at the end of the day, while I don’t like the idea of sexual polyandry, I don’t hugely object to it as a matter of form. I strongly object to the women being passed around as objects, even if it is just spiritual objects. I haven’t seen a single reference where a woman picked her own second husband. I see lots of men telling women who belongs to who and who is passed to who, etc.
So going with AmateurParent, either God really does see women as property or its all bunk or _________________ (feel free to fill in the blank as that’s all I can come up with).
Yes, thanks Pete for linking about the Quorum of the Anointed. This is the line of research that could start getting to the bottom of Joseph Smith’s intentions with plural marriage. If D&C 132:41 links polyandry to practices within the Quorum of the Anointed, it gives us an idea of what Joseph Smith thought about sexual relationships within the Celestial Kingdom, and how they might be practiced among a select group of faithful members on earth.
Practices within the Quorum of the Anointed have been highlighted by LDS feminists seeking to portray Joseph’s views as more egalitarian regarding women and the priesthood. It could be that what became mainstream Utah polygamy, was originally intended as a sacred practice among a small group of initiates that included both polygamy and polyandry.
To continue the argument, for those who have read the chapter on Marinda Hyde in “In Sacred Loneliness,” you might remember that (if the evidence is correct, such as Joseph F Smith’s Affidavit’s Books) Marinda was the only one of Joseph’s polyandrous wives who was sealed for time and all eternity to two different men…at least from 1846 until 1870, when she divorced Orson Hyde.
I’ve gotta go with AmateurParent on this. Women as property to be given from one man to another does not fit any sort of egalitarian system. Some women had choice in the matter of who’d they be sealed to, but when Joseph was asking the Q12 members for their wives, I don’t think many of them consulted their wives before giving their answer. 19th century culture itself worked against what we would today consider informed consent. Even though young girls like Helen Mar Kimball made the final decision on becoming plural wives themselves, the responsibility of uniting their families together in essentially arranged marriages would have weighed heavily in their decisions. Same with any believing wife of church leaders (like Vilate).
It’s like there’s this idea that if we can unravel Joseph’s thinking on polygyny and polyandry then we’d uncover the system to expect in heaven. Is it really impossible to believe that we are currently operating with greater light and knowledge than what Joseph was working with?
So… how does “the Family” work into all of this?
In a Robert Heinlein world of polyandry, women got to choose for themselves. But he wrote science fiction. In reality, that dynamic hasn’t occurred. With modern birth control and increased financial independence of women, we are moving closer to that model. But, in our time, violence still occurs when men become possessive and competitive about a woman.
I think the average woman would enjoy a society that allowed her to flirt, pursue multiple partners, and live a more polyandreous life.
Alas, so much of society and religion are built around controlling women and their sexuality.
MaryAnn: “It’s like there’s this idea that if we can unravel Joseph’s thinking on polygyny and polyandry then we’d uncover the system to expect in heaven. Is it really impossible to believe that we are currently operating with greater light and knowledge than what Joseph was working with?”
It’s hard to argue that WE have access to greater light and knowledge than Joseph, when he had so many more spiritual gifts. But it could be that Joseph Smith was confused about the messages he was receiving from the spiritual world and their implementation.
Our “greater light” if we have it, is simply hunkering down and sticking with monogamy. This is hardly rocket science. Monogamy is probably the best compromise in dealing with human sexuality, but it is still a compromise. It fosters jealousy, possessiveness, and frustration even as it keeps our unwieldily sexual appetites under control. I think it is natural that Joseph Smith would feel inspired to question its supremacy, particularly in the context of his eternal cosmology.
It seems clear that Joseph’s experiment with plural marriage was a failure, but it should still reminds us that our system of fallen-world-monogamy is not an ideal situation either. Joseph’s example should teach us all to be patient with the paradoxes and problems that sexuality throws our way in the modern world. It should remind us to be less judgemental towards those who have dared to question monogamy today, those who we say have committed “a sin next to murder.” Yet, we are still excommunicating people for it..
AmateurParent, I was interested to hear you say that you think most women would enjoy living in a more polyandrous society. Apart from any coerciveness of women in LDS historical practice, does Joseph Smith’s sexual polyandry in any way “redeem” his practice of plural marriage in your mind? If you knew that Joseph was moving towards trying to build a Robert Heinlein-like group marriage situation, would that redeem him in your eyes?
With Mary Ann and amateur parent that the polyandry described doesn’t sound remotely empowering for woman. At what point do women actually get to be agents unto themselves!
Nate – “It’s hard to argue that WE have access to greater light and knowledge than Joseph…”
Not for me. And at this point in the Restoration, if we don’t have access to greater light and knowledge, something is wrong.
The church is perfectly happy to acknowledge some obvious light shortages of the past, if it means progress for men – priesthood ban – so it’s doubly hurtful to LDS women to have them doubling down on coercive, unequal marriage arrangements as the will of God.
I’m a bit skeptical about wives being passed around as property. Even in the 1840’s, woman had a say so in what they did. If women were having sex with more than one man, my guess is they willingly participated in it. (I haven’t read where any of Joseph Smith’s plural wives claimed to have been raped.) Because of the convoluted and scant information we have, we’ll never know what really happened. I’m more interested in whether we’ll have eternal polyandry in light of our sealing policies.
I’m really more interested in how the “eternal family” with absolute loyalty between husband and wife can exist when either partner is “allowed to flirt [and] pursue multiple partners.”
I don’t see how the current (1990-present) emphasis on the eternal doctrine of families can be squared with the “everlasting” covenant of plural marriage.
So many assumptions.
Do we have DNA from one of Joseph Smith’s bones? * (See below)
Are the samples being compared the right samples to really answer the questions being asked?
Do we even know for sure where his remains are located?
(BY said he was resurrected.)
Can we exclude his brothers from being fathers of his “known children?” (Mitochondrial DNA is the same in siblings from the same mother).
Was Joseph Smith infertile?
Does presumption of innocence apply to history? Or is that only confined to the courtroom. Who has the burden of proof? The defenders or the accusors?
How can we verify anything about sexual contact beyond he said/she said? Not reliably, not without children or DNA. No topic than this upon which there is more lying and speculation.
How can we separate rape from consensual sex? Especially in women who had essentially no real voice and were subject to horrendous shame and who had no economic independence? In a previous century?
Sexually transmitted diseases were common among those with multiple partners before antibiotics were available. Any reason to conclude Joseph Smith or any of his wives were excused from this natural and common consequence?
Syphilis particularly is associated with infertility and brain disease; including cognitive impairment, mood alterations, hallucinations, delusions of grandeur, and eventually dementia and paralysis.
How did women prevent/eliminate unwanted children before effective contraceptive methods? Abortion. How do you exclude that as the most probable explanation of no living children among plural wives? Who was Nauvoo’s most reliable abortionist? Emma? Eliza? Lucy?
When people start taking shots with horse hockey pucks, in fairness, lets trot out a few specualtions along these lines. I care less about all the spiritual /touchy-feely conceptional optics that bother so many others. This topic is as down and dirty as it gets.
* Concerning the burial of Joseph Smith: We have descriptions of empty coffins, sandbags, secret internment, at least one re-internment, an old Indian graveyard, essentially no security for decades and literal resurrection. In 1928 RLDS archeologists, after extensive excavation, thought they had found the bodies of Joseph and Hyrum. After some study they reburied them in Nauvoo in the family cemetery. I don’t think anyone kept even a few bones or anyone has messed with them since. So I doubt we have an irrefutable confirmed sample of his remains to do DNA. If we do, that is where this discussion should begin. We are extrapolating from his descendants, assuming they are his descendants to demonstrate other descendants. Not very sound logic when we have only historical evidence not DNA proof of it.
If we really want to know, lets dig him up again. And all of the rest of the first family of Mormonism. Get out the shovels.
Mike–you missed how they did the DNA study.
Threadjack for Mike: Nauvoo’s most reliable abortionist was probably John C. Bennett.
” Monogamy is probably the best compromise in dealing with human sexuality, but it is still a compromise. It fosters jealousy, possessiveness, and frustration even as it keeps our unwieldily sexual appetites under control.”
And there’s no jealousy, possessiveness, and frustration in polygamous marriage? Who do you think you’re kidding?
I don’t think that sexual polyandry helps our perception of Joseph. In general, when Joseph was sealed to a married woman, that woman was not sealed to her legal husband. Whether or not Joseph and the legal husband both had sex with the woman after the sealing, the woman would only be with Joseph in the celestial kingdom. It still looks like Nathan’s parable either way. The story of Zina Jacobs Smith Young’s relationship with Henry looks exactly like the parable and I can’t reconcile the story with the teaching that families can be together forever.
I don’t think purity and fairness are the only possible reasons to think that polyandry is wrong. Civil and non-temple religious marriage ceremonies include a mutual vow of fidelity. I made a sacred vows with my wife when I got married. I don’t think that free love and Oneida style complex marriage are wrong, but I won’t be participating in those kind of sexual arrangements because I plan to honor my vows. If an angel with a sword appears in a vision and tells me to break my wedding vows, I still won’t do it. I keep the vow of fidelity because breaking it would hurt my wife. It isn’t my place to tell her that she needs to outgrow her jealousy.
Joseph made a vow to Emma and he broke it when he took additional wives and he taught other men and women to follow his example. In my mind, that is not moral. Allowing women to break their vows also doesn’t make the practice less dishonorable.
Nate wrote:
“AmateurParent, I was interested to hear you say that you think most women would enjoy living in a more polyandrous society. Apart from any coerciveness of women in LDS historical practice, does Joseph Smith’s sexual polyandry in any way “redeem” his practice of plural marriage in your mind? If you knew that Joseph was moving towards trying to build a Robert Heinlein-like group marriage situation, would that redeem him.”
My answer: No. Whether or not JS had spiritual gifts, on a personal relationship level, he was a sneaky SOB. If he and Emma agreed as a couple to have a open relationship, that is acceptable JS snuck around. He had various relationships, then lied to his wife and to the community. He publically denounced polygamy while being involved in it at the same time.
The more I read about him and his personal character, the less I trust anything he testified about. I grieve that loss of belief in JS.
If a person cannot be honorable in their most basic relationships, how can we trust them in situations that give power and prestige?
“…he was a sneaky SOB”
“…he had so many more spiritual gifts”
These are two sides of the same coin I don’t care about.
I care about what we are telling women and girls. And I think it borders on emotional abuse to keep polygamy, polyandry, and any other “-y” in which women are pawns warm on the back burner.
Riiigghhtt? It doesn’t even matter!!!
Ruth:
Amen and amen.
One phrase of yours outweighs a 200 foot long scroll of mine.
We damage those who are listening. The trouble is that they are not listening to this and it is only one more small step to not listening to any of the message of the Restoration.
Bro Marsh:
I did miss how they did the DNA study. Was it buried somewhere in the article (that reactivated my narcolepsy)?
They have an indisputable biological sample from Joseph Smith?
Andy, technically, you are right that Joseph’s polyandrous wives were NOT sealed to their other husbands, so its Nathan’s parable either way.
However, D&C 132:41-42 seems to give a scriptural context for polyandry within a temple sealing situation. Although church practices may never have advanced to this level, it is possible that this is how Joseph Smith saw polyandry: as an eternal, egalitarian sexual practice. This gives us a slightly more palatable way of trying to interpret Joseph Smith’s practice of plural marriage.
It’s very tempting to simply look at the evidence and condemn Joseph Smith on this front, a serious accusation which could threaten our testimony of the church. It’s hard to ignore the evidence, “if it walks like a duck…”
But we should also take into account the many other measures of Joseph Smith’s character and work. If we feel the Holy Ghost in the temple ceremonies or in the current doctrines on temple marriage, we should remember that the genesis of those ceremonies came from D&C 132, same as plural marriage. This is a paradox. There seems to be bad fruit and good fruit coming from the same tree.
Resolving the paradox may be impossible, but we must at least try. Was Joseph Smith really as lecherous as the evidence paints him to be? Are there other interpretations? Are there contexts in which Joseph Smith’s actions might be sympathised with, such as a vision of a more egalitarian system of marriage, which, however doomed it might have been, still came from an honest and noble desire?
Nate wrote: “It’s very tempting to simply look at the evidence and condemn Joseph Smith on this front, a serious accusation which could threaten our testimony of the church. It’s hard to ignore the evidence, “if it walks like a duck…””
Could threaten???? We are supposed to ignore horrible things because other things he did were not horrible? The more I read .. The uglier the history is.
Nate – “If we feel the Holy Ghost in the temple ceremonies….”
This isn’t as easy for many women as it seems to be for most men. The same questions arises. Does God really mean for women to be subordinated to men?
I used to agree to the language. I used to happily promise to hearken. I’m old enough that I promised to obey. Because I thought it was all a holdover from another time and place, not something “real” or doctrinal. Then out come the polygamy essays and I find out that coercion and subordination are fine. Disappointed doesn’t begin to describe it.
Why must we resolve the paradox of Joseph at women’s expense?
Nate,
I admire your attempt to find an interpretation of Joseph’s actions that preserves the beauty you see in the temple sealing. With how little mormon theology really has to say about the nature of heaven, it might be worth considering if the temple ceremonies are Joseph’s attempt to symbolically represent a deeper concept that he was having difficulty expressing.
Maybe instead of heaven being a patriarchal hierarchy of sexual ownership, heaven is a connected graph of relationships of love. Maybe a person’s level in the next life isn’t determined by what ordinances they have performed, but by how many people they loved in life. From this perspective, the ordinances are a meaningful symbolic recognition of the relationship, but not necessary for the relationship to persist in the afterlife.
Those sealing relationships would include romantic relationships, but also parental relationships, deep friendships, and relationships formed through service to others. We know that Joseph was performing non-sexual adoption sealings between men, so this theory has some support in actual church practice.
This theory also has advantages for situations where a marriage was abusive; a woman could be sealed to her children in the next life without being sealed to their abusive father. A broader view of sealing would also be helpful to all the single women in the church because their worth would no longer be dependent on finding a mormon man to marry.
Andy, I think that is a more positive direction to take this. I think we should remember that Joseph grew up in a completely patriarchal society where no one, man or women, had even given any thought to questions about whether a woman should have a right to vote, etc. Cultural and sexual hierarchies were simply the realities of heaven and earth.
That Joseph Smith seems to be inching towards a more egalitarian view, however imperfectly, should be something to take into consideration.
this comment is incredibly insightful and pushing much closer to truth
I like many of these ideas. They really are beautiful, but what is actually taught?
“I think that is a more positive direction to take this.”
The church hasn’t gone in that direction. There are serious men all over the church, some of them leaders and bishops answering the heartfelt questions of heartsick girls, who simply state that the polygamy switch could be turned to “on” at any moment. They may not relish saying it, but they’ve been given no other way to read the doctrine.
“I think we should remember that Joseph grew up in a completely patriarchal society where no one, man or women, had even given any thought to questions about whether a woman should have a right to vote, etc.”
What on earth is the point of an unfolding, ongoing restoration President Uchtdorf talks about if our scriptures, doctrines, curriculum and culture are like bugs stuck in amber?
“Cultural and sexual hierarchies were simply the realities of heaven and earth.”
As a woman I can’t say this in the past tense.
“That Joseph Smith seems to be inching towards a more egalitarian view, however imperfectly, should be something to take into consideration.”
Is it an honorable choice on the church’s part to tell girls sitting in seminary that monogamy is God’s standard unless he commands otherwise? To STILL intimate that they are not high-minded, righteous and selfless enough unless they can contemplate sharing a husband in mortality? Re. egalitarianism: not sure. I don’t tend to give Joseph the benefit of the doubt on this, but he bequethed us the tools to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. And I think God is pleased with us for doing it. What is his will?Is he pleased with the dug-in unwillingness to condemn the sexism of LDS polygamy? It’s so easy to see what this has launched a thousand faith crises.
You are absolutely right, Ruth. Except for the part about we’ve been given no other way to look at it. The link is buried somewhere in here in other comments.
Nate: “I think we should remember that Joseph grew up in a completely patriarchal society where no one, man or women, had even given any thought to questions about whether a woman should have a right to vote, etc.” Don’t bet those women didn’t give it a thought. Maybe some of the married ones didn’t, but I would bet the widows and spinsters gave it some thought.
Nate, I think as many have pointed out here, the problem with polyandry isn’t that “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.” It’s that it’s still horse trading women as property and using women as a reward for male righteousness.
You also talked about women not questioning that they didn’t get the vote. Brian Hales’ essay actually linked to the reprehensible Law of Sarah in the footnotes, citing this as doctrinal foundation. This “law” states, much like D&C 132, that if a woman refuses to consent to plural marriage, then it happens anyway. Her “consent” only counts in the affirmative. If she withholds it, she gets no vote and it happens anyway. In sexual consent, we call this rape. In a marriage this means that men have no obligation for fidelity, only women. Since that is in fact how JS lived polygamy by all the accounts we have (Emma’s consent was a flip-flop at best, often withheld or withdrawn), then basically women are no better than property, and a good deal worse because we have the curse of sentience.
Hawkgrrrl, I agree that all this looks bad for Joseph Smith. What I’m trying to suggest is that their might be room for a more charitable interpretation from the liberal perspective. You are right that nothing in the way polyandry was practiced suggests that it was necessarily done in an egalitarian way. And perhaps polyandry is “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander” in the sense that women probably don’t want it even when its offered to them.
This is a religion, and religions are about authority and commandments, and Joseph was the prophet of this religion. Somehow, he got mixed up in polygamy, which, when practiced within the context of a religion looks patriarchal and authoritarian, and this looks especially bad when applied to marriage and sexuality. BUT, their is some evidence that polyandry could have been seen by Joseph Smith as an egalitarian and empowering spiritual practice for women, whether or not it actually worked in real life.
Nate: For JS to see polyandry as empowering for women, he would have to give them the choice in the matter, not horse-trade them between male members of the quorum.
I also question this assumption that men want variety of sexual partners whereas women want monogamy–I understand the biology argument, but I am not sure I buy it. Things don’t happen in a vacuum. If women don’t want sex that much, maybe the men aren’t trying hard enough. Maybe they aren’t good lovers. Maybe they aren’t considerate or thoughtful in their relationships. Maybe they don’t bother to make themselves attractive physically. Maybe all the sexual control exerted on women in religious environments puts a serious damper on female sexuality (no maybe about that). Maybe the women feel unsexy in their garments.
In polygamy, with no competition for the men, but women all competing for the same man, the onus is always on women to please men and never on men to please women. The dismissive and unkind things BY said about his wives are utterly shocking given that they had no power in the relationship and he had free sexual access to so many women at once.
I don’t necessarily think a man will seek multiple sexual partners if he has a fulfilling monogamous sex life (which I realize is a rarity, particularly for many religious people). And of course, we are also taught that the natural man is an enemy to God, so even if he wanted sexual variety, that’s an impulse to overcome, not create a doctrine to accommodate.
Nate,
I wish we were discussing what God thinks are egalitarian and empowering spiritual practices for women that actually work in real life.
So are we pinning polygamy/polygny/polyandry on Joseph Smith or God? I sure hope it was just a crazy idea that Joseph had, because the thought of God imposing this on women is so hurtful. I am confused why Brigham was allowed to carry the practice to such an extreme degree. Reading about his wives and how he treated them is heart breaking. It’s so hard to believe that a prophet of God would be allowed to act as he did.
Hawkgrrrl, I agree that women have just as much desire for excitement and romance and are just as attracted to attractive men as men are attracted to attractive women. I’ve heard that women are somewhat more turned on when they feel desired and loved, whereas men are more turned on by physical appearance. So I think you are right that IF married women were wooed in this way, if it were a possibility in a culture, many if not most, would be up for multiple partners.
The whole thing can seem like a cruel joke played by God on us, given the fact that women literally sacrifice their youth and their bodies to bear children, a sacrifice men don’t have to make. The possibilities for multiple partners for a woman is thus more diminished than it is for a man. Thus the woman makes the greater sacrifice, and is sexually punished for it. Then the man goes ahead and has other younger women. And I agree that garments do horrible things to women’s bodies aesthetically.
Monogamy is the very least that men can offer women for all the sacrifices they are making. Monogamy, and maybe polyandry.
Astute. The current mood within the Church and culture is highly unsexy. It’s lame.
Nate: “So I think you are right that IF married women were wooed in this way, if it were a possibility in a culture, many if not most, would be up for multiple partners.” Although I was just saying that with the right partner and mindset, monogamy can be sufficient for either sex.
“And I agree that garments do horrible things to women’s bodies aesthetically.” Not just aesthetically. Psychologically, sensually, and even physically (rashes & infections for many women).
True.
Joseph Smith absolutely practiced sexual polyandry – whether or not he was supposed to is debatable and whether or not he took advantage is also but ultimately it doesn’t matter anymore as long as we right all the wrongs caused by earlier miscommunication. Doesn’t change the fact that he was a prophet, saw God and His son, restored the Church, etc. etc. As Mormons, we didn’t learn the correct lesson in this section and it’s really freaking annoying. Susan Easton Black (and others) wrote that Joseph Smith knew about this revelation long before he wrote it down but he likely shared it with Hyrum early in his knowledge and that had influence on Hyrum’s encouragement of him writing it down. The prophet likely knew it was going to cause trouble and possibly was because of his own struggle to understand it completely and hence hesitation to put it down and therefore, the ultimate cause of his demise. I don’t think my personal sexual preferences are relevant outside of consent and safety being requirements. In order to look at the specific meanings of certain verses, it would be requisite to accurately define words such as adultery, marriage, vow, innocent, new and everlasting covenant, etc. I don’t think Mormons currently have defined those correctly. My theory is that the main idea in this section is Agency and much of the explanations of that law is in the form of examples or a parable. I plan on writing a scholastic paper to explain. This section was ahead of it’s time when written and today we are still looking at it archaically and it’s causing serious problems in the culture that will more than likely cause federal problems yet again if we don’t it check it.
There are definitely loads of details like that to take into coinrdeiatnos. That could be a nice level to carry up. I supply the thoughts above as basic inspiration but clearly there are questions like the one you carry up the place an important thing will likely be working in trustworthy good faith. I don?t know if best practices have emerged round things like that, but I’m positive that your job is clearly identified as a good game. Each girls and boys feel the impact of only a second’s pleasure, for the remainder of their lives.
Since anything other than monogamy feels so foreign it might be helpful to read about some ways other societies practiced sex.
Here’s a link from NPR which referencrs the TED talk that Dr. Christopher Ryan gave. He’s one of co-authors of the book Sex at Dawn. http://www.npr.org/2015/02/06/378567856/what-did-cavemen-think-about-lust
Here’s another
http://www.alternet.org/sex-dawn-9-interesting-things-weve-learned-about-sex-studying-our-ancient-ancestors