Polygamy was openly ignored for the most part up until about the 1980s.
It wasn’t widespread, but it was around. I went to school with three or four kids (boys and girls) who were from a polygamous family. That would have been in the 1960s and 70s right in a fairly good section of Salt Lake City.
Apart from the rather severe clothing (kind of like the Amish dress in the movies) and being very polite and well behaved compared to most teenagers, they seemed pretty normal. Everybody in the area knew they were a polygamous family, nobody seemed to care much. I had a couple of math classes with the older brother and he was a good kid. We occasionally worked together on classwork.
It seems like the first time I remember them getting all the bad press was in the 1980s when a couple of the families apparently were in some kind of feud. I think the LaBarons put a hit on some other family leader and things went downhill fast from there.
After that even the more mainstream polygamous started to go more underground. They tried to blend in a little more, many moved away from the main population area, or at least hid more effectively.
As far I know, the law still doesn’t bother them much if they aren’t coercing children into underage marriages. But even that may be changing, I heard a sound bite on the radio yesterday that seemed to indicate the state is considering going after all of them.
I should clarify that when I say openly ignored, I’m speaking more about the law then about the LDS Church itself.
There was no feeling among anyone I knew that the polygamists were a part of the LDS church who got a “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” pass from the other members. Instead, from everything I saw they were treated pretty much like members of every other non-LDS religion in the area, i.e. with more or less (sometimes much less) polite disdain.
Respectfully, if a particular group espouses a particular ideology, and certain members of that group decide to alter that ideology, while others don’t, why is the group that *changes *the ideology the “official” group?" Why can’t a case be made that the adherents of the the *original *ideology are the true members?
It’s fine if you want to debate that, just start another thread in GD. I am just trying to avoid having this thread sidetracked into that discussion.
Frankly, I don’t care whether anyone refers to the institutional LDS church in Salt Lake or any of the other groups that espouse the Book of Mormon as “Mormons.” But the LDS is the one that most people recognize as being the “official” Mormon church.
Correct of both accounts, although there were more factors that just that. Polygamy was thought to be a serious moral offense by many people and there was large pressure on the federal government to act against the Mormons from the 1850s and onward.
There were a number of increasingly punitive laws against polygamy and the Mormon church, including the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act of 1862, and then the big gun, the Edmunds–Tucker Act of 1887, which disincorporated the Church and authorized ceasing of Church property. It also strengthened sanctions against individuals who practiced it. This started putting enough pressure on the Church to where the First Manifesto was declared in 1890.
The manifesto wasn’t a strong condemnation of polygamy. It was taken by many to be a declaration against the further marriages but most polygamists continued to live with current wives.
Utah was accepted as a state in 1896 with the provision that polygamy would be prohibited in its constitution. However, this again didn’t stop Mormons from continuing to practice polygamy, although new polygamous marriages within the United States were tapering off.
From 1903 to 1907 the United States Senate held a series of hearings concerning Senator Smoot in which the relationship of the Church and polygamy was closely examined. The Church caved in and issued a second manifesto which promised that it would excommunicate anyone who performed or was a participant of a polygamous marriage. It, again, did not repeal the principle of polygamy, and the current teachings of the church is that polygamy will be practiced in the next world.
Actually, there is a factual answer to this. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the big one headquartered in Salt Lake City) believes in latter-day prophecy.
That is to say that the President of the Church is also considered a Prophet, just like Moses and the other Biblical prophets. As such, the Church President/Prophet can issue doctrinal pronouncements that change the practices and ideology of the Church. Because the Church has, by its own governing principles, the ability to change ideology, anyone who doesn’t like a change properly made by the church hierarchy and therefore leaves the church must be considered the ones in schism.
Actually, the denomination to which you refer is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There’s another, and much smaller, denomination that uses the spelling you used.
I am against a 60 year old git marrying an 18 year old girl. Or even a 16 year old girl. Or a 12 year old girl.
IN GENERAL women tend to prefer men who are actually reasoanbly close to their own age. There are enough generational differences between people of 20 year difference in age that the common reference of shared culture is almsot nonexistant.
Before the rocket age of the 60s and 70s it wasnt that big a deal, look at the music you have the kid generation and the parent generation listening to much the same music. Move to the boomer years, and you start having a cultural difference between generations. Look at PeggySue Got Married, the Nick Cage character refers to his ex girlfriend by saying that He had been talking about the Big Bopper and she thought it was a hamburger.
Today, we have gen x gen y and gen whatever. Can you see some little teenybopper of 18 who is into the text message Beyonce dance club scene getting interested in some guy who drinks beer, likes MC Hammer or Kenny Rogers, watches football and works in a warehouse?
Relationships work best when the 2 people share a culture, and have similar expectations. Not many 18 year old girls want to stop having fun, doing what they want when they want and restrict themselves to having kids, making the house clean and having dinner ready when the husband gets home. I know that if I had been told at 18 that I had to stop thinking of working and going to school, marry some git that I had either never seen before or knew as the father of a kid I went to school with/baby sat last weekend and do what he told me to do, and have nothing outside the home I would have been extremely pissed off.
And, in fact, in some quarters, polygamy is still considered a moral offense. That is my only gripe with Jon Krakauer’s book (see above recommendation). He asserts in many places through the book that it is a problem, and never lays out even the slightest support for that claim. The reader is led to assume that he is really placing his own values in the text. Polygamy: bad - seems to be his take.
Then say that. But the 18 year old and the 60 year old are both adults, provided, of course, that there’s nothing legally hindering such a marriage (like still being married to someone else). There’s nothing wrong with two consenting adults getting married. Obviously, there’s a problem with a 60 year old adult marrying a 12 year old minor.
aruvqan. You’ve been around long enough to know you can’t call someone a jerk in General QUestions. You can say they’re picking nits, but don’t call them names.
Is the difference the hyphenation and capitalization of “Latter-day” or is there something else I missed? I wasn’t aware that the different groups got so specific. That’s why I clarified the Salt Late City-based group.
I agree that the term “Mormon” should be reserved for the LDS church and its adherents.
The Mormon church has stated that no one can be a “Mormon fundamentalist” because anyone who breaks from the Mormon church is no longer Mormon and should not be referred to as such. I understand their desire to not wish to be associated with splinter groups, but I don’t know if they can dictate this to the larger world.
(As an aside) Previously, the LDS church referred to itself and its members as “Mormons” but is trying to get away from that now. It seems to firmly embedded into the general vocabulary and is proving difficult to change.
Monty, do you have a cite for that? I was unaware of any other denomination with the same name, but only differing in punctuation and capitalization.
All of the breakaway sects that I’m aware of have changed the name in some other way, like the Jeffs clan calling themselves the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
I understand. When I said “in principle, the mormon church does not oppose polygamy” I meant that they are not opposed to the practice altogether since they allow it in the afterlife. But it sounds like a more accurate way to express it would be that polygamy, while you are alive on Earth, is sinful; but polygamy in the afterlife is not.