# Mormon church: Joseph Smith married girls and other men's wives **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 27, 2014, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652 "2014-10-27T15:25:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2014, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/101 "2014-11-12T21:27:09Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > I’ve found Mormonism and Mormon history fascinating since I was a small child, so all this is a great read to me. Thank you. I know a lot of people wonder why the hell do I care so much, but this is something which divides my birth family to this day. The programming which children undergo is insidious. It manifests in thousands of ways. Because of the church teachings on LGBTQ issues, and for decades their doctrine that any such feeling itself was a mortal sin, my mother rejects one of my sisters and her partner. In a passive-agressive bullshit move, my mother wrote my sister’s name wrong on her will. After she and her partner were committed for a while, my sister legally changed her last name from “Doe” to “Smith.” My mother had a list of her children and included Jane Doe, AKA Jane Smith. So, when she was to die, she could give one final slap to her face. I had tried for years to get her change that out of humanity, in nothing else. Finally I snapped and threatened her with contributing my share of the estate to the American Nazi Party (if there is one, it was an empty threat) in her name if she didn’t do that. When I finally talked to my mother about by brother raping me, she admitted that he had rapped my younger brother and several other boys. I asked her why the hell could she not say anything to him. Why she would be neutral on this issue and her response was that all of her kids had done things which really hurt her. My brother raping little boys for him, and me leaving the church. That is equated in her eyes. Technically, by Mormon doctrine and teachings, what I did was worse. You would have to know my mother to understand how fucked up the church is to produce those types of thoughts. While everyone things their mother is special, of course, many, many people have told me how sweet, kind and loving she is. Anyway, that’s a rant that is neither her nor there. > [@](#): > > Is blood atonement known to most Mormons? And if so is it taught as something like the Satanic Verses or as a “sometimes Brigham got a little carried away when he was talking” or how exactly? Good god no. People who know about it assume that it is a principle of God that we really don’t know much about but that it’s a way for murders to have a degree of redemption in the afterlife. Very few people know the real extent of the “doctrine” if it actually existed as one and not simply an excuse for allowing top leader to have people they hated killed. I don’t, and I’m fairly well informed. It was taught in secret and not documented. What we do know is that it predates Brigham and goes all the way back to Joseph and even before his megalomania Nauvoo years when he secretly ordained himself King of the World (more about that on another post). Blood atonement first appears in the early chapters of the Book of Mormon (which were written last because of the lost pages) so they don’t necessarily represent his earliest beliefs. I’ll try to find a post I made on another board about that because it’s horrible. God at his worst. There is evidence that Smith ordered the hit on the former governor of Missouri. I’ll put a link to that later because I’ve got to run now. Several dissents were threatened with death, and there is indication that Brigham had some people killed. However, if you ask a Mormon, they will say that this is anti-Mormon lies. If you think about it, when you have Mormons in this thread who get offended with the suggestion that Brother Joseph drank alcohol, you can’t really expect people to know anything about blood atonement, do you? More later. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2014, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/102 "2014-11-12T21:30:19Z")
> [@Not\_Carlson](#): > > Also, my sincere thanks to all those who have posted links and information on what is some really fascinating history. > Mormon history really is so much richer (and darker) that the fairytale versions taught in church meetings and textbooks. How long ago did you leave? I grew up in the 60s and 70s and hear things which younger people never knew about, but still, it was like listening to bedtime stories for four-year-olds. ---
**Author:** ![Not\_Carlson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bc79bd/32.png) [@Not\_Carlson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Not_Carlson)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/103 "2014-11-13T00:12:06Z")
My mother converted when I was in primary school at the beginning of the 80s, and I finally decided to leave almost 2 years ago. I do resent the church for feeding me bullshit all these years, while I agonized over my lack of faith as I struggled to swallow it, but I don’t hate the church, and I can’t say whether I would have been better off if I’d grown up without it. I think the majority of members I’ve known are good folks who’re trying to be the best they can. Except for the beliefs on homosexuality and the role of women (and not questioning authority, and a bunch of other stuff), the sanitized principles and teachings of the church today generally range from benign to positive, and I think it can help a believer to live a good and happy life, just as long as they can keep believing the fairy-tale. My mother is a very faithful believer who has pinned all her hopes on the truth of the Mormon gospel. My rejection of the church and Christianity has hurt her deeply and strained our relationship, for which I resent the church all the more. But I think if I had experienced what you’ve been through, **TokyoBayer** , I would be very bitter toward the church. ---
**Author:** ![Emtar\_KronJonDerSohn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/58956e/32.png) [@Emtar\_KronJonDerSohn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emtar_KronJonDerSohn)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/104 "2014-11-13T00:29:55Z")
When I was 4 years old I had a gullible little sister and I really liked telling her fantastic stories and explanations to see if she would repeat them to adults and what kind of response she would get with them. One day she told me that she was special because prior to her birth, mom went to heaven and chose _her_ over all the other preexistent babies who will ever be born in the entire future of the world. It blew my mind! Mom always seemed like such a stiff, but really she not only _gets_ my joke, she’s jumping right in with her own improv, and she’s _really freaking good at it_! ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/105 "2014-11-13T06:03:52Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > I really have wondered what it was that would make people like Brigham Young and Heber Kimball, who could read and write but had no formal education, actually read the Book of Mormon (assuming they did) and then pick up family and farm to follow Smith. Both became wealthy many years later but they went through years of poverty and struggle before they got there, and I’d love to know the appeal. I really wish I were a better writer. Living overseas for almost 30 years have degenerated my English writing skills back to junior high school level. In short, they didn’t. Various early members joined for different reasons, and like now, very few are converted strictly by reading the Book of Mormon. Most Mormons themselves actually don’t really think that much about the book, which was famously labeled as chloroform in print by Mark Twain. Mormonism went through a number of distinct stages, none of which were ever explained to us. We were taught that the Gospel was [del]faxed[/del] revealed to Joseph Smith in a completed form and there were no changes. In fact, the Gospel and the Church are exactly how the ancient Israelites and Jesus established things. There had been a Great Apostasy (everything in Mormonism is Capitalized) after all of the original disciples were killed and the power of god was taken from the World. God and Christ restored the ancient church through Smith. Now that the history has been understood, we now know more about the phases. There isn’t a scholarly consensus, of course, and I’m not going to get into all of the debates. The apologists will simply “bear their testimonies that it’s true” so I’ll skip that. Phase I. The Gold Diggers. Smith and his family were into the occult and looked for buried treasures with spirits who guarded them. Smith was tried and found guilty of being a “looker” in connection with his activities. The original story of the Gold Bible grew out of this, and many parts of Mormonism go back to these days. Brother Joseph was carrying a magical Jupiter talisman on the day he was shot. Smith transitioned from digging to gold to writing a book. He and his treasuring seeking, divining rod-welding distant cousin, Oliver Cowdrey, produced the BoM. They found a rich, but overly naive and unstable farmer, Martin Harris, to fund the printing. Smith and his family were dirt poor at the time, and it seems that writing the book was a way to make money. That failed so they went to Plan B. Phase II. Let’s make a church: the Seekers meet the Cambellites Joesph and Oliver founded the church wish a small number of followers, mostly the Smith and another couple of key early families. An early convert was Parley P. Pratt, a member of Sidney Rigdon’s congregation. Rigdon, an early Cambellite leader also joined and brought hundreds of his followers, quickly became number two in the organization, eventually replacing Oliver Cowdery who was excommunicated for telling people about Joseph and his first “polygamous wife,” Fanny Alger. The scare quotes are because there is zero evidence that Joseph made the claim that it was polygamy or authorized by God, and Cowdery labeled it the “dirty, nasty, filthy affair of his and Fanny Alger’s…in which I strictly declared that I had never deserted from the truth in the matter, and as I supposed was admitted by himself.” It’s interesting that the recent essay now admits the relationship between Joseph and Fanny where Oliver Cowdery, the cofounder of the Mormon church, was excommunicated for talking about it. The Seekers were people of the era who were interested in finding what they supposed was the original, primitive church of Christ with the various spiritual gifts. Many of the converts in the early years were these Seekers. Both Brigham and Heber C. would be good examples. Both joined after witnessing pentecostal type of gifts such as speaking in tongues, which was really common in early Mormonism. Brigham himself would speak in tongues. The best source for information on the Seekers and Mormonism is Dan Vogel and his book _Religious Seekers and the Advent of Mormonism_. [See this page here](http://signaturebookslibrary.org/?p=4764). He also has a [video on youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxHTRzelAYg). Vogel is one of the leading scholars on early Mormonism and his series on youtube is an absolute must for people wanting to understand the period. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/106 "2014-11-16T14:27:19Z")
Someone earlier in the thread has asked for a forum where this is discussed by Mormons. [A recent post in By Common Consent](http://bycommonconsent.com/2014/11/12/plural-marriage-as-discussed-in-the-church-today/) does just that. For the most part, these are true believing Mormons (TBM), the people who defend the church the most, and it’s interesting to hear their take. Here are some of the comments: > [@](#): > > “it seems reasonable to say that the issue for many disaffected Latter-day Saints has more to do with feeling betrayed or lied to by the Church on this issue due to the Church’s downplaying of polygamy than with being upset about the actual historical fact that Joseph Smith had more than one wife.” > > * * * > > “these sources all point to the fact that Joseph instituted polygamy and the church acknowledging it. I doubt that much disaffection is due to Joseph actually being a polygamist, but finding out he lied, hid most of it from Emma, used coercion on young girls, etc” > > * * * > > “In reading the comments after several of the prolific news stories the past couple of days, it is clear many members still don’t believe polygamy was a practice of Joseph Smith. Many Mormons were defensive in comments and said the article(s) were lies.” > > * * * > > “I think when some people say “I didn’t know about Joseph Smith’s polygamy” they mean “I didn’t know that JS had more than one wife,” but most of them mean “I didn’t know the gory details regarding ages, numbers, coercion, polyandry, public denial, and Emma’s lack of knowledge.” And as far as I know, none of these “gory details” has been mentioned in any official church publication until last month. And while they were mentioned in unofficial venues, there has also been a soft community norm against reading and/or believing those things. Which is to say that I am extremely sympathetic to people who either didn’t know the details or who had been told that they were just anti-Mormon lies. And thus the newsroom piece claiming that “well-read” members knew all of this makes me pretty rage-y, _especially_ given the number of non-English speaking saints, who may have had no access to these things in their own language.” > > * * * > > “Deseret books along with correlation play a big part as to why so many know so little of the details. Mix in a bit of leaders saying, “don’t read the lies you get outside the church/deseret books” and can anybody be surprised that at least those outside of Utah don’t (or didn’t) know the details?” > > * * * > > “Why are we not even mentioning Elder Andersen’s recent GC talk, “don’t believe everything you read on the internet about Joseph” speech that helped most of my TBM associates not even care about the essays when they came out. There is still a strong cultural orthodoxy that distrusts anything _not_ put out by the church. I find it disingenuous to claim if you don’t know the details it’s because you aren’t well-read.” > > * * * > > “I agree with Julie that many or most Mormons are unaware of the details of the implementation of polygamy and that these details haven’t been found in official church sources until these essays. In fact, authors who published on this topic and specifically discussed these details were often hounded out of the church either by local leaders or fellow members who found these facts so disturbing that the person relating them must be lying to try to destroy the church, or even by general authorities, many of whom probably also did not know many of these details and thus thought they must be an effort to tarnish the church. Now these same facts are available on the church’s own website, so we members can no longer (or should no longer) ostracize those who assert them.” > > * * * > > “The Joseph Smith manual skipped polygamy and had a lesson on good marriage built around a collection of letters to Emma from Joseph and talked about how much they loved each other and had a great marriage. None of his other wives was mentioned. As a teacher at the time, this was a incredibly difficult lesson for me to teach. I tried to add letters from Emma to Joseph from Mormon Enigma (likewise, love letters) and was pulled aside by the RS President afterwards as this book was seen as anathema.” > > * * * > > “I don’t know of a single video or piece of art that depicts or discusses polygamy. In other words, the references to polygamy outlined in this post are far outweighed by church materials that don’t mention polygamy.” > > * * * > > "According to the Family Proclamation, “God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife,” How does the Church justify the fact that the plural marriages were not legal? This practice also defies the Twelfth Article of Faith: “We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.” > > * * * > > "I am 40 years old and raised in the church. I have been told repeatedly, and as recently as 6 months ago, that rumors of Joseph Smith’s polygamy “were just anti-Mormon lies.” > > * * * > > “I’m 41, raised in the church and I just found out about JS’s other wives 2 or 3 years ago. I learned that BY was a polygamist as a young adult when visiting the Beehive House in Salt Lake City. I got into a disagreement with an ex-mormon friend over whether or not JS was a polygamist; I vehemently denied it while she told me basically the same facts the essays contain. I believed they were just lies.” > > * * * > > “Count me among those RS teachers faced with the impossible task of teaching this stinker of a lesson strongly implying that the marriage between Joseph and Emma was a straightforward faithful, monogamous love story of equals with no hint of storms beyond the unwarranted persecution for his beliefs: [Chapter 20: A Heart Full of Love and Faith: The Prophet’s Letters to His Family](https://www.lds.org/manual/teachings-joseph-smith/chapter-20?lang=eng). The manual (as outlined in Blair’s essay) specifically forbade teachers from discussing polygamy in the Joseph Smith lessons, not that I wanted to anyway. I just refused to teach this lesson… I don’t know whether the correlation committee members who wrote that lesson were being deliberately deceitful or if they really believed and hoped that was an accurate depiction.” > > * * * > > “the Church made a point of not only downplaying his polygamy in official church manuals (where the majority of rank-and-file members get their church history from, let’s be honest), but also discouraging members from going to “outside sources” to get any sort of information about church-related topics. When correlation is specifically designed to withhold major information about the nature and depth of Joseph’s polygamy, and is also designed to discourage members from going elsewhere to learn about Joseph’s polygamy, and also designed to discourage teachers from delving too far into the subject, you have a clear pattern of the church deliberately keeping its members ignorant about it.” > > * * * > > The following is one long post, too good to copy just an excerpt: > > [https://www.lds.org/manual/doctrine-and-covenants-and-church-history-student-study-guide/the-church-in-nauvoo-illinois/doctrine-and-covenants-135-martyrs-for-the-truth?lang=eng](https://www.lds.org/manual/doctrine-and-covenants-and-church-history-student-study-guide/the-church-in-nauvoo-illinois/doctrine-and-covenants-135-martyrs-for-the-truth?lang=eng) > > “the Prophet taught and prepared the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles to lead the Church. He felt impressed that his time was short. Meanwhile, some who left the Church could not leave the Church alone. In early June 1844, some former Church members and enemies of the work printed a newspaper, the Nauvoo Expositor, that published lies about the Prophet and other Church leaders. This added fuel to a fire that was already burning among anti-Mormons in the area who were king for ways to remove the Saints from western Illinois.” > > [https://www.lds.org/manual/church-history-in-the-fulness-of-times-student-manual/chapter-twenty-two-the-martyrdom?lang=eng](https://www.lds.org/manual/church-history-in-the-fulness-of-times-student-manual/chapter-twenty-two-the-martyrdom?lang=eng) > > “Leaders of the conspiracy were exposed in the Times and Seasons and were excommunicated from the Church. Thwarted in their plans, the dissenters decided to publish an opposition newspaper. The first and only issue of their paper, which was called the Nauvoo Expositor, appeared on 7 June 1844. Throughout the paper they accused Joseph Smith of teaching vicious principles, practicing whoredoms, advocating so-called spiritual wifery, grasping for political power, preaching that there were many gods, speaking blasphemously of God, and promoting an inquisition.” > > “Moreover, they reasoned that if nothing were done to stop the libelous paper, the anti-Mormons would be aroused to mob action.” > > These quotes are straight from student manuals on [LDS.org](http://LDS.org). What are these lies in the Nauvoo expositor? What is the libelous paper talking about – mainly that Joseph smith practiced plural marriage. That is why Joseph Smith was murdered. Of course the average member is confused when the above inaccurate, I would argue dishonest, narrative is what members are being taught in the churches own manuals. .Couple this with the quote of Joseph Smith saying “when I can only find one” and a desire to belief Joseph was a prophet and a good human being and you can understand why members think that Josephs polygamy or at least the extent and details were anti-mormon lies." > > (End long post) > > “It is evident how vague the subject was intended to be throughout all the sources. Sometimes the references feel as if the author assumes the audience is supposed to learn about it in more detail elsewhere, except, that elsewhere did not exist within the endorsed sources. Another interesting aspect about polygamy is how absolutely mute the Church is regarding the complex web of doctrinal ramifications used to justify the practice, persuade members (especially already married subjects) into it, and provide a solid frame within the official doctrines to gain salvation and different statuses in the life to come. It was secretive then thanks to the close link to the temple and it is hard to understand now as the Church seems to have made efforts to blur as much as possible the bizarre doctrines. I think this is in part what was most disappointing to me, the doctrinal side of it. Members were pressured, and in my opinion, sometimes cruelly compelled to live the lifestyle under what almost amounts to threats to their personal salvation and the salvation of their loved ones. This is what nobody is talking about, and what the Church continues to leave untouched. Which I find strange since it is this is the very tactic that is still employed by polygamists today to coerce their members to live the lifestyle.” > > * * * > > “The practice in the Church during my lifetime, as expressed in manuals and enforced by culture, is to discourage discussion of polygamy in Church. I cannot recall a single lesson that I have attended as an adult that directly addressed the question of polygamy. I can recall a few cursory mentions of the practice and then quickly moving on. If you wanted to discuss polygamy you went to an evil symposium, read publications by alternate voices, or (more recently) went online.” > > * * * > > “As near as I can tell, you’ve compiled every interesting official statement by the church about polygamy in recent memory. And it comes out to a few pages. So let’s make sure to keep the significance of the project in perspective. > Against these few pages, we have a mountain of other official materials (lessons, conference talks, paintings, sculpture, movies, history museums, promotional materials, etc., etc.,) pertaining to the Nauvoo period generally and Joseph and Emma in particular that has been put out by the church over the past 50 years. When seen together from a broader perspective, it’s not terribly hard to see how someone might have missed the handful of needles for the bales of hay.” > > * * * > > “In the late 80′s I attended an institute class taught by a full time CES instructor. He is now a BYU Religion professor. The topic he prepared for the class that day was a discussion on polygamy. He told us that his information showed that only a very small percentage \<10% of members participated, and that it was primarily to take care of widows. He also taught that the practice was revealed to Joseph Smith, but implemented by Brigham Young. None of this was correct. I don’t believe that he was intentionally misleading the class, so I conclude that either it was difficult for an institute teacher to get correct information on the subject, or that this was an area where research was not encouraged. The class received the same sanitized version of history commonly held by many members at the time.” > > * * * > > “I was taught this exact same version by CES in Mexico and I was also taught this as I asked the missionaries teaching me the discussions. At least part of this version, was also uttered by President Hinckley as a response during his 60 minutes interview. I don’t think this is the result of someone doing serious research, I think this is a carefully concocted PR answer that was perpetuated by the Church as quick and easy damage control to the polygamy question. I don’t know who put it together, but I find it really hard to believe whoever did actually believed it to be true. This is part of the misinformation the Church has spread and one of the elements in keeping so many in ignorance about the realities of polygamy in LDS history.” > > * * * > > “the messages we hear to this day, telling us that Joseph’s character was “unimpeachable” – well, this is where the rubber meets the road for me, and right now it’s burning and squealing and stinking and smoking and leaving a black skidmark on a pavement of pain.” > > * * * > > “the motives behind the church’s retreat from anti-intellectualism—stay away from Sunstone symposia, don’t listen to “alternate voices,” intellectuals are one of the three pillars of the axis of evil—are of great importance to me and others who feel that the institution has been something less than forthcoming in its handling of difficult historical and doctrinal issues. The church’s motives have a direct bearing on my willingness to trust its future pronouncements on these subjects… I, for one, am much more inclined to follow a leader who admits his errors than one who makes a dubious promise to never lead me astray.” > > * * * > > When correlation\* is specifically designed to withhold major information about the nature and depth of Joseph’s polygamy, and is also designed to discourage members from going elsewhere to learn about Joseph’s polygamy, and also designed to discourage teachers from delving too far into the subject, you have a clear pattern of the church deliberately keeping its members ignorant about it. > > That’s what your post seems to gloss over. It’s not just a footnote. It’s the crux of the problem. > > * * * > > (Note: \*correlation is the term used by the Mormon church to ensure that every lesson taught is standandized and contains only approved material. Some of the material referenced in the comments can be found online on the [LDS.org](http://LDS.org) site. One lady was complaining about a lesson ([Chapter 20: A Heart Full of Love and Faith: The Prophet’s Letters to His Family](https://www.lds.org/manual/teachings-joseph-smith/chapter-20?lang=eng)) she was asked to give in the women’s meetings (the men go the priesthood meeting, the women to “Relief Society”) on Joseph and his family. Not once was polygamy mentioned. None of his other wives at all. The lesson was from a manual for a year-long series on the Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. The number of times polygamy was introduced: zero. It’s like having a biography of Richard Nixon and skipping that part about Watergate. [Another lesson](https://www.lds.org/manual/doctrine-and-covenants-and-church-history-student-study-guide/the-church-in-nauvoo-illinois/doctrine-and-covenants-135-martyrs-for-the-truth?lang=eng) from another manual on Church history concerns Smith’s death. > [@](#): > > In early June 1844, some former Church members and enemies of the work printed a newspaper, the Nauvoo Expositor, that published lies about the Prophet and other Church leaders. This added fuel to a fire that was already burning among anti-Mormons in the area who were king for ways to remove the Saints from western Illinois. In response to the Nauvoo Expositor,the Prophet Joseph Smith—acting in his role as mayor of Nauvoo—and the Nauvoo city council ordered that theNauvoo Expositor press be destroyed and all copies of the paper burned. Ironically, what was called the lies about the Prophet was simply what the church admitted in the essay. Anyway, the good news is that it’s disturbing enough members that there will be fewer missionaries knocking on doors now. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/107 "2014-11-17T04:43:10Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > [A new essay](https://www.lds.org/topics/plural-marriage-in-kirtland-and-nauvoo?lang=eng) by the Mormon church admits that founder Joseph Smith married many women, including those who were already wed to other men, and girls as young as 14. > > For many of those who are Mormon, former members or study the religion, this admission is unprecedented. Polygamy was practiced in secret for over a decade until they made it safely to Utah. They publicly proclaimed their adherence to the practice in 1852 and continued until pressured by the Federal government to abandon it in the early 1900s. I can’t help but feel like this is a prelude to the church looking at the success of same-sex marriage and marijuana in the last decade and thinking that if the world has finally accepted that people should be free to choose how they want to live their life, then polygamists should be able to be polygamists. If you can’t beat them, join them. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/108 "2014-11-17T16:34:18Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > …In a passive-agressive bullshit move, my mother wrote my sister’s name wrong on her will. After she and her partner were committed for a while, my sister legally changed her last name from “Doe” to “Smith.” My mother had a list of her children and included Jane Doe, AKA Jane Smith. So, when she was to die, she could give one final slap to her face… There’s been a patrilineal name feud going on among my relatives for quite a while now. No-one can agree on what the name of the lineage should actually be, and each choice represents or can indicate loyalty to certain ancestors and their associated attitudes. It’s becoming a trend for people to grow up with one name, become an adult, decide that “my dad sucks”, and switch over to the other name. In fact, a majority of the relatives that I know who had one of the names have done so. 200 years from now, our genealogy is going to be horribly confusing to look at. John Smith’s sons were William Jones, Thomas Smith, and Charles Jones. The sons of William Jones were Nathan Smith, William Jones, and Francis Smith. The sons of Nathan Smith are Brian Jones, Hubert Jones, and Victor Jones. Brian Jones had one son, Lucas Smith. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/109 "2014-11-17T19:44:48Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I can’t help but feel like this is a prelude to the church looking at the success of same-sex marriage and marijuana in the last decade and thinking that if the world has finally accepted that people should be free to choose how they want to live their life, then polygamists should be able to be polygamists. > > If you can’t beat them, join them. No, they can’t. They’ve worked so hard at fighting off the enemies on the right, the FLDS and other polygamous groups, that mainstream Mormons hate polygamy. This is one reason the essay was such a shock to the common member. Speaking of which, for the person who asked about links to how members are discussing it, [this is an interesting read](http://community.babycenter.com/post/a53525962/all_things_polygamy). It’s a Mormon subforum on baby center and these are fairly conservative mothers. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/110 "2014-11-17T19:56:07Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > . . . my mother wrote my sister’s name wrong on her will. After she and her partner were committed for a while, my sister legally changed her last name from “Doe” to “Smith.” My mother had a list of her children and included Jane Doe, AKA Jane Smith. So, when she was to die, she could give one final slap to her face. . . . For what it’s worth, such a designation will not interfere with carrying out the will. If fact, it sounds very much like a birth name with a married name, which is what it is. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/111 "2014-11-17T20:09:50Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > For what it’s worth, such a designation will not interfere with carrying out the will. If fact, it sounds very much like a birth name with a married name, which is what it is. Except that my other sister who is married to a man was not given the same treatment (here name was written as Mary Smith Johnson, no AKA BS) and my mother herself admitted that it was passive-aggressive bullshit. OK, she didn’t use those terms, but she said it was because of her displeasure. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/112 "2014-11-17T20:11:52Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > No, they can’t. They’ve worked so hard at fighting off the enemies on the right, the FLDS and other polygamous groups, that mainstream Mormons hate polygamy. This is one reason the essay was such a shock to the common member. > > Speaking of which, for the person who asked about links to how members are discussing it, [this is an interesting read](http://community.babycenter.com/post/a53525962/all_things_polygamy). It’s a Mormon subforum on baby center and these are fairly conservative mothers. Well as example, the people of Japan are overwhelmingly pascifists yet every government for the last 30+ years has wanted to get rid of Article 9. I wouldn’t view it as a safe assumption that what the average Mormon and what a person at the top end of the leadership would view as “good” is the same thing. I also wouldn’t assume that safety and logic are the leading agendas for a group of men who are in charge of a religious organization which was clearly founded with the premise that each of them should have lots of pretty young wives. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/113 "2014-11-17T22:01:08Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > Someone earlier in the thread has asked for a forum where this is discussed by Mormons. [A recent post in By Common Consent](http://bycommonconsent.com/2014/11/12/plural-marriage-as-discussed-in-the-church-today/) does just that. For the most part, these are true believing Mormons (TBM), the people who defend the church the most, and it’s interesting to hear their take. > > \ > > Anyway, the good news is that it’s disturbing enough members that there will be fewer missionaries knocking on doors now. My daughter isn’t going to consider that good news. Ever since she first saw _The Book of Mormon_, she thinks Mormon missionaries are just the most adorable things EVAR, and she squees every time she sees [del]one[/del] two on the street. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/114 "2014-11-17T22:05:25Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > My daughter isn’t going to consider that good news. Ever since she first saw _The Book of Mormon_, she thinks Mormon missionaries are just the most adorable things EVAR, and she squees every time she sees [del]one[/del] two on the street. They _are_ adorable. You rarely see an ugly one, I’ll give them that. A gay friend of mine in Arizona admits that during his more promiscuous youth he almost exclusively dated closeted Mormons due to their hotness ratio. ---
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/115 "2014-11-17T22:14:55Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Well as example, the people of Japan are overwhelmingly pascifists yet every government for the last 30+ years has wanted to get rid of Article 9. I wouldn’t view it as a safe assumption that what the average Mormon and what a person at the top end of the leadership would view as “good” is the same thing. I also wouldn’t assume that safety and logic are the leading agendas for a group of men who are in charge of a religious organization which was clearly founded with the premise that each of them should have lots of pretty young wives. Well, I think you’ll have to take our word for it that the Mormon church (both membership and leadership) has changed enormously since the 1800s. I’ve posted it before here but it’s still true: modern Mormons crave nothing as much as mainstream acceptance and recognition as a World Religion. They aren’t going to revert to weird unpopular sexual practices when they’re trying to become as accepted as possible. The current gerontocracy isn’t interested in polygamy either. Neither is the current membership. The few people who are interested in polygamy have a ready-made community full of polygamists they can join outside of Mormonism so the existence of fundamentalist Mormons actually works as a release valve to drain extremists from the mainstream church. That’s why I’d peg the interest level of Mormons reintroducing polygamy at \<1%. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2014, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/116 "2014-11-18T00:21:16Z")
> [@Erdosain](#): > > Well, I think you’ll have to take our word for it that the Mormon church (both membership and leadership) has changed enormously since the 1800s. I’ve posted it before here but it’s still true: modern Mormons crave nothing as much as mainstream acceptance and recognition as a World Religion. They aren’t going to revert to weird unpopular sexual practices when they’re trying to become as accepted as possible. The current gerontocracy isn’t interested in polygamy either. Neither is the current membership. The few people who are interested in polygamy have a ready-made community full of polygamists they can join outside of Mormonism so the existence of fundamentalist Mormons actually works as a release valve to drain extremists from the mainstream church. That’s why I’d peg the interest level of Mormons reintroducing polygamy at \<1%. You were around for that change, weern’t you? Late 80s to 90s? I was already gone, so I missed it. Growing up in the 60s and 70s, we were still happy being a weird religion. It must have been around then that people were actively discouraged from reading non-approved material. The Mormon claim to fame is divinely led leadership, and flip-flopping on polygamy would’t help. Then all of the fundamentalist Mormons could cry that they were right after all. There’s been an online battle between the more liberal and more conservative members for a while and this essay has pulled the rug out from under a lot of the faithful members, especially those who went along with what they were told and stuck to the approved, whitewashed material. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2014, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/117 "2014-11-18T01:32:56Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > For what it’s worth, such a designation will not interfere with carrying out the will. If fact, it sounds very much like a birth name with a married name, which is what it is. I think you’re right, it shouldn’t. The English Common Law legal system, which is used in most of the English speaking world, considers names to be nothing more than descriptions of a person. Misspellings or even misnomers typically don’t matter as long as the person in the document can be identified. So if I have two children, William Columbia and Ann Columbia, and I write in my will that “Willie C gets the house, and his stupid sis gets the antique car collection.”, the fact that I didn’t spell the names out correctly or even provide a name for one is immaterial to the validity of the will. It could cause some procedural delays in probate, but it would be held valid with respect to the two kids as long as William didn’t have any other sisters that I could reasonably have intended. ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2014, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/118 "2014-11-18T02:49:26Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > The Mormon claim to fame is divinely led leadership, and flip-flopping on polygamy would’t help. Then all of the fundamentalist Mormons could cry that they were right after all. I’m a recovering Catholic. The Catholic Church has centuries of papal infallibility before Joseph Smith ever pulled the rock out of his hat. You want to talk about issues that had to get plastered over later… 😛 ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2014, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/119 "2014-11-18T16:35:52Z")
So there is a fight going on in the comments to [a blog post](http://www.gregtrimble.com/stop-hating-on-mormons-about-polygamy/) by a True Believing Mormon (TBM). From a ex-Mormon > [@](#): > > It wasn’t the polygamy per se that people are angry about. Joseph lied to Emma his wife about it all. He lied to the married women and teenagers (Helen Mar and Zina) he coerced into marrying him with tales of the angel with a sword (catch 22 - either be sestroyed or have your family destroyed. God doesn’t work that way, especially in secret). He lied in public numerous times that he had only one wife (History of the Church). He illegally destroyed a printing press for printing the truth. He falsely accused and attempted to destroy the honor and integrity of those who told of his activities and telling the truth all along. He coerced teenage Zina into marrying him when she was seven months pregnant with Henry Jacobs son destroying her family, her husband and ultimately her faith in humankind. Joseph Smith Jr’s practices of polygamy, polyandry, plural marriage, whathaveyou were the most anti-family, and the most un-Christ-like things imaginable. The persecutions of the Saints were brought upon them by JOSEPH SMITH’S abhorrent behavior, not by other sects afraid of the true church. We are not upset at polygamy, WE’RE PISSED AT JOSEPH SMITH, OUR FAITH’S FOUNDER, FOR BEING A COMPLETE AND TOTAL LYING JACKASS TO HIS WIFE, TO THOSE WHO LOVED HIM, AND FOR MANIPULATING AND ABUSING MARRIED AND SINGLE WOMEN AND TEENAGERS AND DESTROYING THEIR FAMILIES CAUSING THEM TO SCURRY ABOUT IN CLOAK AND DAGGER SECRECY AND DEPRIVING THEM OF THE HONOR AND INTEGRITY TO WHICH THEY WERE ENTITLED AS CHILDREN OF GOD. > > JOSEPH SMITH WAS A REPREHENSIBLE HUMAN BEING. From a TBM > [@](#): > > In my mind this is what it boils down to. Either Joseph Smith saw God the Father and His son, Jesus Christ, at age 14 and restored the true gospel of Jesus Christ to the earth OR he was the greatest con man who ever lived. A person must read RELIABLE sources, read Joseph Smith’s own words, pray about it and decide for themselves what is true. I believe Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. I highly suggest you do the same. When you look at the amazing gospel messages of Jesus Christ and the leaders we have today and their loving, wise messages, it is incredibly hard to believe that it all came from a con man who created it all to justify having sex with lots of women. I think this pretty much sums up the two sides. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2014, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652/120 "2014-11-18T16:42:03Z")
> [@DinoR](#): > > I’m a recovering Catholic. The Catholic Church has centuries of papal infallibility before Joseph Smith ever pulled the rock out of his hat. You want to talk about issues that had to get plastered over later… > > 😛 Exactly but for some reason, it doesn’t seem as bad when the events happened several hundred years ago. There’s a joke that the Catholic doctrine is papal infallibility but no one believes it and that the Mormon doctrine is that prophets are fallible but no one believes it. Joseph Smith just had the bad luck of starting up his religion after the invention of the printing press. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-church-joseph-smith-married-girls-and-other-mens-wives/702652.md?page=7)