Or if we lived in a world where 80% of live births were female. Or if we lived in a world where everyone was born female and the ones who live long enough and grew large enough turned into males. Or…
There are lots of ways that could work. It’s just that none of them apply to humans.
One way to solve the problem is a new doctrine* that I’m calling “transsexual resurrection”. Given that the male genome contains both an X and a Y chromosome, we simply replace the Y with a duplicate copy of the X and then the resurrected body grows into a woman**. Voila! Tons more wives for the more “faithful/worthy” men to marry in heaven! 
* not an actual LDS doctrine! They don’t know how the resurrection is accomplished so we’re left to come up with theories of our own!
** nevermind their actual doctrine that “gender is eternal”. This wasn’t always the case… one of the older prophets claimed that unfaithful souls would be resurrected as a “smoothie”, like a Ken or Barbie doll. So why not give them the choice: Do you want to be a smoothie in a lower kingdom, or a plural wife in a higher one? 
yep. We’re in agreement.
The polygyny policy can’t work in the real world. Therefore it was clearly invented by human men for their personal convenience / aggrandizement. Not something created by an all powerful god who could easily have made it work perfectly well if they existed to make it so.
Here on Earth or in the afterlife?
For the FLDS, @Broomstick has answered it, but see FLDS Lost Boys. A number of young males get kicked out to reduce competition.
For Mormons in the 19th century, some wound up without spouses, many others married second wives after the polygamous man died.
They would be married “for time”, only here and not in the afterlife instead of “for time and all eternity.”
Some may have left Utah, but I don’t know that much about that.
For the afterlife, when I was growing up, it wasn’t ever talked about, or at least I don’t remember.
We were strongly discouraged from asking too many questions or even thinking about theology too much. Accept what they say and don’t go down any rabbit holes.
Historically, the initial doctrine was that only a small percentage of people would get into the highest level of the Celestial Kingdom so it wasn’t an issue.
Joseph Smith’s theology tended to be that there was an elite who would have special powers, privileges or authority. He would then allow more people to have the privilege and then it would get spread out to more people, then the general population.
During Smith life, it was first that only he was allowed to have polygamy, then a few close lieutenants, then more of the senior leadership, then the next rank and then more of the general population.
The origin of Mormon polygamy is not completely clear, despite many historians studying it.
The first plural wife is likely to be Fanny Algers, a servant in the Smith household, and likely in the mid 1830s, which Fanny would have been 19 to 20, while Smith was 12 years her senior.
Oliver Cowdary, the second most important figure in Mormon, called it “dirty, nasty, filthy affair,” and this was one reason for him leaving the Church.
According to the LDS website:
Joseph married many additional wives and authorized other Latter-day Saints to practice plural marriage. The practice spread slowly at first. By June 1844, when Joseph died, approximately 29 men and 50 women had entered into plural marriage, in addition to Joseph and his wives. When the Saints entered the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, at least 196 men and 521 women had entered into plural marriages.20 Participants in these early plural marriages pledged to keep their involvement confidential, though they anticipated a time when the practice would be publicly acknowledged.
Nevertheless, rumors spread. A few men unscrupulously used these rumors to seduce women to join them in an unauthorized practice sometimes referred to as “spiritual wifery.”
I’ve read that 20% to 30% of Mormons were in polygamous families at the time, so the number of men would be smaller than that.
PBS says": 1894: The Church of the Latter-day Saints has 201,047 members.
Several of the influential apostles taught this in the second half of the 1800s. However, Brigham Young was the president and never taught this directly himself. Young taught that only people in polygamous marriages would become gods and goddesses, but he personally never taught a number.
The teachings were all over the place in the 1850s to 1880s. Some apostles were teaching that Jesus had three wives, but you can’t really point to any one quote and say this was the official doctrine.
However, I think it was universally taught that polygamy was a requirement for exaltation.
Walking a tightrope is never fun.
About nine or ten years ago, someone in the church headquarters leaked a presentation made to the top leadership discussing threats to the Church.
At the time, there was an Ordain Women movement which was attracting liberal Mormons. John Dehlin has a podcast / Youtube channel and draws a lot of liberal Mormons as well as ex-Mormons. I used to listen until I got my fill of the subject.
The blue are the sins which the Church believes that draws people away from the Gospel.
On the right, in green are people who have made claims that the LDS church as lost it’s way. This graphic is dated, but this popped in the Lori Vallow Daybell. , this was kind of respresentive on the movement, although fortunately, most of these groups don’t believe in killing people.
I have a close relative who was approached to be a plural wife. My aunt and uncle were in a study group and some polygamous people heard about the group and joined to get recruits.
Ha, I saw that graphic back when I was reading more liberal/ex-Mormon stuff. Aw, that is rather a blast from the past.
Interesting too to think about how the Church has changed policies and/or focus at least somewhat in response. For example, I feel like the (unspoken) policy when I was growing up was to hide any controversial Church history/theology so that the only people who learned about it were the old Mormon families. But what happened is that with the rise of the internet, people like me would learn about stuff like that from anti-Mormon sources, so we’d learn about it anyway but from hostile sources. So now starting in 2013 we have e.g. the Gospel Topics Essays that talk about this stuff from an apologetics viewpoint instead. But it was a big big deal when those came out and actually talked about this stuff publicly!
I wonder if pornography is a big issue now. I remember there were a couple of years when that subject got hit very hard and I was a little bewildered. Lately I don’t think I’ve heard nearly so much about it, so I guess probably not so much.
I was told the same thing in the 1970s: that you didn’t get to be a Mormon church leader by studying theology.
On one reading, this has, for a long time, balanced the inherited cult structure of the church: on the one hand, it’s constitutionally a cult, on the other hand, the cult leaders are just guys running a non-profit community organization. The non-theological top-down cult structure of the church means that it changes theological direction every now and then, but as long as it’s only the theology that’s changing, nobody cares.
That was an outsiders view, from people who studied comparative religion. My parents view of Mormon polygamy (which, unofficially, was still a thing in the 60’s) was amused intolerance.
From a secular perspective, an awful lot of my friends are polyamorous. Of course, that’s different because the women have multiple partners, too. (It’s still mostly one-to-one relationships. People draw graphs of their polycules with a line between each pair of people who are partners.) So i generally take a live and let live attitude, in that, if the people involved are happy, I feel like it’s not my problem.
I understand that there are abusive situations where young girls are basically sold off to old men and have little say in the situation. But I’m pretty sure that’s not the only kind of polygamy.
Although I’m sure you didn’t intend to mean it that way, I’m going to object to the blanket term “anti-Mormon” as it mischaracterizes the nature of many sources.
This term goes all the way back to the early days of Mormon history with the apocalyptic view of the world. You were either with us or against us. And, if you were against us, you were allied with Satan.
Joseph Smith himself, as well as other leaders, both historically and recently, have not been candid about all of the beliefs and actions of the church or the leaders.
Disillusioned former followers have been tarred with that term, despite simply telling the truth. See Oliver Cowdery in my previous post.
There are a large number of blogs, podcasts, YouTube channels, TikTok, and such of former Mormons as well as neutral historians who openly discuss what had been kept secret from the general membership.
It’s a mischaracterization to call all sources like this “anti-Mormon” because a good number of them are simply providing unbiased information.
Of course, there are people and organizations who are actively attempting to discredit the Church and some take content out of context to purposely paint the Church in a bad light.
I don’t think that all ex-Mormons should be lumped in the catagory of “anti” because the connotation within Mormonism is that the anti people are active agents of the Dark.
A lot of ex-Mormons are negative about the church, but there are a lot more who are just trying to expose things which were purposely withheld from the members. John Dehlin (from the chart) has made a career with a podcast / YouTube discussing things about the Church, including topics which
There are neutral scholars such as the well-respected Dan Vogel:
Daniel Arlon Vogel (born 1955)[1] is an independent researcher, writer, and author on a number of works that include Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet and is most known for his work on early Mormon documents.
From the article:
Many of Vogel’s books have been critically reviewed by members of FARMS, a Mormon apologetics institute.[10] For example, in 1991, Mormon religion professor and FARMS scholar Stephen E. Robinson suggested that Vogel’s naturalistic arguments closely resemble those of Korihor, an atheist polemicist in the Book of Mormon.[11]
Korihor was specifically called an Anti-Christ in the Book of Mormon:
12 And this Anti-Christ, whose name was Korihor, (and the law could have no hold upon him) began to preach unto the people that there should be no Christ. And after this manner did he preach, saying:
13 O ye that are bound down under a foolish and a vain hope, why do ye yoke yourselves with such foolish things? Why do ye look for a Christ? For no man can know of anything which is to come.
14 Behold, these things which ye call prophecies, which ye say are handed down by holy prophets, behold, they are foolish traditions of your fathers.
Because Vogel rejects taking a faith-based view of history, he’s called an Anti-Christ. The LDS teachings has been if you aren’t pro-Mormon, you are anti-Mormon, and that just isn’t the case.
Organizations tend to need bogeymen and a lot of conservative churches see porn and a root of all evil. Unfortunately, the LDS church apparently went through a phase where guys wacking off to pics on a screen were treated as if they were taking the express road to hell. Maybe the eventually figured they were losing more members by making it into a big deal.
The last time that theology went wild started in the 1850s for a couple of decades. That didn’t go particularly well.
From the mid-20th century, they have really worked on simplifying the message and distancing from what had be unique Mormon teachings.
Having looked at Mormon polygamy, I can’t see how polygamy can exist ethically in a patriarchal society. While not all relationships are abusive, too many are.
Is the problem polygamy or patriarchy?
Based on what I’ve read, and in some cases seen with poly people I’ve met in real life, most of the bad is patriarchy. Not just some patriarchy (human societies by and large lean patriarchal) but a particular sort.
One can find instances of plural marriages where the women retain agency and rights. You can even find that in some of the polygamous Mormons currently around, not all of them are Fundy LDS. When you have mature, adult women entering of their free will into plural marriages, when those women have education and careers, you don’t find the sorts of oppression you see until someone like Warren Jeffs.
It’s the societies that refuse education to girls and women, who deny them anything outside the household and motherhood, that you get the really oppressive shit going on. I’m not saying the situation is ideal otherwise, but societies where women actually have some choice plural marriage is not inherently harmful IMO.
I get what you’re saying, and should probably have reworded that, though at the time I personally was in fact looking at true anti-Mormon sources (like The God Makers) in addition to liberal Mormon sources (including people like John Dehlin) and ex-Mormon sources (both very bitter ones – some of whom I would characterize, and they might too, as anti-Mormon – and more neutral ones). In fact I probably learned about most of the really wacko historical stuff from what I would indeed call anti-Mormon sources (while the more neutral sources I read tended to focus more on issues in the current church, though of course sometimes wading into the historical stuff as well).
Ironically, I could tell that a large percentage of what stuff like God Makers said was taking things out of context and mischaracterizing it, and it didn’t affect my faith nearly as much as going and reading what the apologetics had to say about it (especially the part that wasn’t mischaracterization), which was, like, uhhhhh yeah I am good with focusing on testimony and the Spirit and the ineffability of spiritual things, but you are trying to apply logical argument to this and that’s just not a winning strategy here.
From my history, many years ago….
As a missionary we were teaching a couple and their pastor gave them Mormonism: Shadow or Reality by Gerald and Sandra Tanner. As I was taught, I said this was full of lies and half-truths. I had a choice. Either I could borrow the book and answer a specific question they had (about The Book of Abraham), or drop them. I borrowed the book and peeked through other parts of the book. I saw that the book had a lot of documentation and had things I had never heard of.
Through another missionary I got a book that had answers to some of those things. Some of the answers was weak, but I started with the belief that the Mormon church was true, so any explanation was good enough. However, those things were in the back of my mind.
A few years later I found The Bible Answer Man on a radio station. This had Hank H. (I can’t spell the last name) who was successor to Walter Martin who wrote Kingdom of the Cults. I was impressed by how he could answer the questions intelligently, and the difference between how the Mormon books answered the questions. (Side note: I checked the website Hank H. and it seems to be different than it was in the past. Or maybe I’m remembering things differently).
Those seemed to be the big “Anti-Mormon” resources back in the day.
That’s why the attitude of my parents was only amused intolerance. They didn’t object to Morman polygamy, they thought the dishonesty was amusing, (some guy having two wives, but pretending not, how does that work 
) but they would have been very intolerant towards family (or leaders of their own church) if we had demonstrated that kind of behaviour.
That’s one of the reasons I said that it’s not just anti-Mormon sources.
As you said, it was up until the Internet when they could keep secrets but there is too much information available now.
I never watched the God Makers, et all, because their mischaracterizations were absurd.
I was really disappointed with the apologists because I wanted truth rather than their contorted “logic”.
Back in the 80s a man named Mark Hoffman forged a number of early Mormon documents with embarrassing details, and got the Church to buy them in an attempt to hide them away. He would then leak the contents after the sale so he got the money and embarrassed the Church anyway.
(He wound up killing a couple of people with bombs when his plot was about to be discovered. Before they determined it was Mark doing the killing, a number of associates went into hiding, including a guy who grew up in my ward and was the same age as my older brother.)
One of the documents he forged was a letter which gave an alternative version of Joseph Smith receiving the Golden Plates, from which Mormons believe he translated the Book of Mormon.
In the orthodox version, Angel Moroni comes to meet JS. This is one of the most important foundational stories of Mormonism, and demonstrates the divine nature of the calling.
In the forged document, a white salamander appears. The apostles were falling over themselves in trying to explain away the connection to the folk magic. Ironically, the Tanners, the long time Mormon critics that @Author_Balk posted about, publicly doubted the authenticity of the letter while the LDS church accepted it.
Perhaps in some societies where males and females are treated equally, and where plural marriages are afforded to anyone, then it may be different, but I believe there are going to be inherent problems in any society system where particular groups are given power.
My father was extremely abusive and one of the reasons my mother stayed in the relationship was because of the pressure to obey the priesthood leader of the family.
Reading and listening to podcasts about Mormon polygamy convinced me that the practice in this context is inherently flawed.
Polygamy and Mormonism is a standard punchline, but I think it’s because people don’t understand the problems.
So, like, I have been contributing to this hijack as much as anyone else (okay, more, lol), but I think I’d prefer to keep this thread on recent changes vs. various embarrassments in church history. (How am I so old that stuff from the 80’s is now church history rather than recent changes!)
So to wrest it back at least semi-on-topic, I became aware of the Hofmann stuff when I was looking into all of this (maybe twenty years or so after it happened?), but I haven’t heard about it in years. I was curious and went to see what the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saint website currently has to say about it. First. I was surprised that there was an article at all. It does say he deceived church leaders but doesn’t get into any more detail than that (I’m actually rather impressed it says that much). The article ends by talking about how the Church has started publishing a lot more of church history documents, etc. – which is true, and a very good thing not just for religious people; I applaud anything that makes historical documents of any sort (in general) more accessible – and that this makes it easier to evaluate new discoveries for current scholars.
And huh, I hadn’t actually ever realized that the Hofmann stuff might have been one of the catalysts for all of the early history publishing, but that makes sense. (I’m sure it wasn’t the only reason, of course, but still.) And of course that there’s an article at all is indicative of the new attitude towards church history that I’ve noted in previous comments.
(Sorry Rasbery_H, but the thread dies anyway)
I’ve just been reading “A Study in Scarlet”, the novel which introduced Sherlock Holmes and Watson. Watson was just 18 months out of medical school, and Sherlock was about the same age: still hanging around the university, but by this stage it was clear he wasn’t going to take a degree. Although ‘Study’ is framed by SH & W, the guts of the novel is a genre Western, with stock Mormons: and Abusive Male Patriarchy. So that idea certainly isn’t new.
On the other hand, history seems to indicate that there was always a Feminist thread of support for Mormon Polygamy, based apparently on the idea that marriage and Half-a-Man was better than marriage and a Whole man.
I once read… Maybe a wsj op ed piece? by a woman who said she was one of ten co-wives to a Mormon man. She was a lawyer, and she lived with another wife who also had a hi powered job. They hosted their husband for dinner once a week, and had a big fancy dinner when he was there. Two or three of the wives did all the child care, the other 7 or 8 had full time jobs, most fairly responsible, well-paying jobs. They lived in seven or eight houses, all walking distance from each other.
As she described it, it read like she lived in a co-op of women who happened to keep a stud that they shared. I mean, she had a line somewhere about how important he was to her, but the rest of the article didn’t really support that.
Was it real? Dunno, it’s not implausible as a possibility.
I’d not be surprised at all to find that a lot of modern economically secure women really only want a fraction of a man, if that much. If there was no social stigma about assumed lesbianism, I’d bet lots of heterosexual women would happily form all-female group homes of 2-4 like-minded women. If the women were of reproductive age the source of any pregnancies would almost be immaterial to them.
I see this in my own dating. Lots of women in my demographic (post child-rearing, economically secure) want a BF. But only one day a week; the rest of their life is full of fun activities with all their girl-buddies. A man is seen is a condiment in their life, not a main meal or major pillar.
Clearly the demographics of this don’t work on a society-wide scale, but I’d not be surprised to see the current trends for less kids, less romance, less marriage, etc., lead at the limit to these small all-female enclaves, and to a horde of ever more angry, ever less civilized individual men on the outside looking in.
Eventually if the assumed gay stigma faded, men could form themselves into corresponding male group home situations. Sort of a perpetual frat house where they could hang out, live like slobby bachelors in a group, and always have somebody to watch TV with, share a beer and pizza with, etc. Like a multi-way Odd Couple, but probably self-sorted so the Oscar Madison types live together in one group, while the Felix Ungers live in a different group.
IMO the future will be weird to us.
I agree with most of your post, but vehemently disagree with:
Pregnancies are expensive. Kids are important. Every women I’ve ever talked with about sperm selection cares a great deal about the “source of the pregnancy”. Most women express this concern by selecting a husband or partner, but i know a few women who’ve done it alone, with donated sperm. They care a lot about the source.