discussing polyandry with the missionaries

[il Padrino Ute]

Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.

Intimidation gets things done.

Not that this has anything to do with you flattering UD.

[scottie]

As I've posted before, I am far from an expert on these subjects. As a personal matter, I am not terribly interested in historical Church controversies at a granular level. On many of those issues, it's too hard to know what actually happened in a particular case (and yes, my professional training and experience has left me with a definite skeptical orientation about many kinds of evidence, particularly conflicting eyewitness accounts composed long after the fact). But I do not begrudge anyone's approach that puts more faith in the historical record and in our ability to sort out such evidence in a way that allows definitive "factual" judgments.

So it's no surprise that on Joseph Smith's polyandry, I am relatively ill-informed. I do remember reading this book review of Todd Compton's book, "In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith," from a while ago, and I dug it up tonight. Here are a couple of paragraphs that support my brand of historical agnosticism: ...

LA, I don't know if this will shed any light, but...

The Preface of The Joseph Smith Papers, Journals, V. 1 (I have a copy of it in front of me) reads, "The Joseph Smith Papers are being prepared under the auspices of the office of the historian of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and published by The Church Historian's Press." I share that in case you're not familiar with the Papers or question who signed off on the content of the publication. In the General Introduction section, page XXX, it reads, "During his lifetime, he was married to approximately thirty women. Although conjugal relations were apparently involved, he spent little time with these women, the need for secrecy and the demands on his time keeping them apart." Isn't it logical to presume that the only way higher-ups at the COB would allow the statement I've bolded to be published is if they have in their possession evidence to back it up? else why print it? For those who don't have the book, trust that I'm not taking the above out of context; it doesn't later say anything like "The apparent conjugal relations were only with the non-polyandrous wives" -- the reference to conjugal relations comes immediately after the reference to ~30 wives.

And in case anyone is wondering, the FARMS review of Compton's book that LA references above, under the heading "Status of Women at the Time They Were Sealed to Joseph Smith", lists JS as having 29 wives, 8 which were polyandrous marriages. (In case you were wondering if the "approximately thirty women" included the polyandrous ones).

[Pheidippides]

Marsupial is out tonight and one of my home teachers dropped by tonight with the missionaries. Apparently he was on splits with them and they had no appointments, so he thought he'd get in some home teaching. So while the kids ran around wild, I decided to ask them what they thought about Joseph's polyandry. Here are the highlights:
- None of them had believed that he was involved in polyandry and all stated that it was just a "rumor" and that there was no good evidence of this.
- One missionary admitted that he just recently found out that JS was a polygamist of any kind.
- The other missionary stated that JS's polyandry, if it did occur, was most likely because the womens' other husbands were sterile (the best comment o the night).
- One missionary stated that it was OK because Abraham was a polygamist but didn't have an answer for whether Abraham was into polyandry.
- They insisted that I shouldn't be so "hung up about this" because JS was a prophet and thus it must have been inspired. When asked if there was any behavior that a prophet would do that would make them question him, they could not identify one.

I'm sure I wouldn't have done any better when I was their age though. The notion that there is nothing a prophet could do that would be questionable was a scary level of kool-aid drinking.

I am shaking my head and laughing at the same time. Next time, would you invite me over too?

[UtahDan]

By the way, I don't believe this because either Indy or Tex (can't recall who) has persuaded me that no one gets through an LDS upbringing without knowing these things. So I think these missionaries are putting you on.

[UtahDan]

On many of those issues, it's too hard to know what actually happened in a particular case (and yes, my professional training and experience has left me with a definite skeptical orientation about many kinds of evidence, particularly conflicting eyewitness accounts composed long after the fact).

I have a couple comments. The first is, having read Compton's book and some others, that this reviewer is taking a truism (that is, with the passage of time all we have is evidence of what occurred and it is often poor or contradictory) and expanding it into the idea that in the end, we don't really know anything. That is an argument that is not to be accepted, IMO. Simply because the evidence is not perfect in some respects and some details missing shouldn't give anyone (not saying you) and "out" to say to themselves "well, that is ancient history and therefor unknowable."

What I consistently find is that the evidence of some things is a lot better than you might think and not as good as you might regarding other things.

I have another point to make which I will PM you.

[Indy Coug]

By the way, I don't believe this because either Indy or Tex (can't recall who) has persuaded me that no one gets through an LDS upbringing without knowing these things. So I think these missionaries are putting you on.

You need to work on your powers of recollection.

[Rosebud]

It still bugs me that many of you view JS's polyandry as more problematic than his polygamy. There isn't much of a difference besides that polyandry is more personally threatening to men. Women in the church have had to deal with similar feelings of disgust towards polygamy for years. Just a thought from a woman's point of view.....

[wuapinmon]

It still bugs me that many of you view JS's polyandry as more problematic than his polygamy. There isn't much of a difference besides that polyandry is more personally threatening to men. Women in the church have had to deal with similar feelings of disgust towards polygamy for years. Just a thought from a woman's point of view.....

Well, polyandry would equal adultery in some minds.
Marrying single women wouldn't be the same thing, even if you called it adultery, because it would only be breaking one marriage covenant instead of two. And, technically, JS didn't practice polyandry...his wives did.

However, if I found out that the prophet was banging my wife; dead prophet.

[mUUser]

But I do not begrudge anyone's approach that puts more faith in the historical record and in our ability to sort out such evidence in a way that allows definitive "factual" judgments.

I don't spend much time thinking about this either, but, wherever you fall on it, it's clear to me that early church leaders were pretty messed up in the "relationship" area. Questions abt polyandry/polygamy (as well as BINP) will continue to dog us forever. Yet, many continue to engage in impossible mental gymnastics to justify past behavior -- usually ending with the position that is was commanded of God.

I've yet to hear a reasonable explanation for polygamy/polyandry. I'd be embarrased to try to defend it (at least with BINP, I can understand that the leadership was not beyond being influenced by the time in which they lived). Polygamy/polyandry has no such fallback position.

Having said that, since its been rightly corrected, I have no problem letting it simmer in the background while considering current, more pressing issues.

[Indy Coug]

I don't spend much time thinking about this either, but, wherever you fall on it, it's clear to me that early church leaders were pretty messed up in the "relationship" area. Questions abt polyandry/polygamy (as well as BINP) will continue to dog us forever. Yet, many continue to engage in impossible mental gymnastics to justify past behavior -- usually ending with the position that is was commanded of God.

I've yet to hear a reasonable explanation for polygamy/polyandry. I'd be embarrased to try to defend it (at least with BINP, I can understand that the leadership was not beyond being influenced by the time in which they lived). Polygamy/polyandry has no such fallback position.

Having said that, since its been rightly corrected, I have no problem letting it simmer in the background while considering current, more pressing issues.

1. In order to hear a reason for polygamy/polyandry, first you would have to assume that one was actually given to Joseph. That may or may not have happened. There is no precedent that I can think of that a commandment from God requires an accompanying rationale.

2. We don't understand what the nature of relationships are in the hereafter and we certainly don't know how monogamous relationships play into that, let alone polygamous ones.

3. No matter how thorough nor how honest researchers may have been on this topic, there inescapbly is a lot of blank filling going on here, both on the part of the researcher and of the reader. Much of the information is not first hand and a lot of it comes from accounts given long after the events in question occurred and where the context is not always clear. Does that discount or dismiss everything that has been said or written on the subject? No, but it certainly makes it hard to have a solid fundamental understanding of the whys and wherefores and knowing what information is credible.

Personally, this all is really besides the point. Over the years I have developed a knowledge of the truthfulness of the Gospel re-introduced by Joseph Smith but which is now completely independent of Joseph Smith. I took Physics from Stephen Jones at BYU. He showed me how to conduct experiments that proved scientific principles. Once I applied those principles and learned of their validity in a laboratory, I no longer relied on Dr. Jones' opinion of whether or not they existed. The fact that Stephen Jones had connections with Pons and Fleischman's fusion in a fish bowl and went off the deep end with WTC #7 conspiracy theories has absolutely no bearing on the knowledge that he imparted to me and that I independently verified for myself.

[ERCougar]

As I've posted before, I am far from an expert on these subjects. As a personal matter, I am not terribly interested in historical Church controversies at a granular level. On many of those issues, it's too hard to know what actually happened in a particular case (and yes, my professional training and experience has left me with a definite skeptical orientation about many kinds of evidence, particularly conflicting eyewitness accounts composed long after the fact). But I do not begrudge anyone's approach that puts more faith in the historical record and in our ability to sort out such evidence in a way that allows definitive "factual" judgments.

So it's no surprise that on Joseph Smith's polyandry, I am relatively ill-informed. I do remember reading this book review of Todd Compton's book, "In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith," from a while ago, and I dug it up tonight. Here are a couple of paragraphs that support my brand of historical agnosticism:

What is left to our imaginations, and Compton's speculations, is the nature of these "polyandrous" marriages. Were these unions simply dynastic sealings—the practice of sealing women to certain senior priesthood leaders for eternity only, with little or no temporal relationship—or were they relationships including intimacy and offspring? Compton points to about a half-dozen marriages to single women where physical intimacy is documented. But arguing parallels does not establish such relationships. There is a logical chasm between single and married sealings, and, for the latter, there is no responsible report of sexual intercourse except for Sylvia Sessions Lyon. In 1915, her daughter, Josephine Lyon Fisher, signed a statement that in 1882 Sylvia "told me that I was the daughter of the Prophet Joseph Smith, she having been sealed to the Prophet at the time that her husband Mr. Lyon was out of fellowship with the Church" (quoted on p. 183). The Fisher document is somewhat supported by Angus Cannon's recollection of hearing that Patty Sessions said the Prophet fathered Sylvia's child (see p. 637). Compton acknowledges Sylvia may have meant that her 1844 child was conceived during Windsor's four years out of the church, from 1842 to 1846 (see p. 183). Though he thinks it "unlikely" that Sylvia denied her husband cohabitation during this period (p. 183), that is a serious possibility. This is implied in the family tradition of her daughter some three decades later.

Reliable evidence indicates that Joseph Smith fathered some children through his plural marriages with single women, but that evidence does not necessarily support intimacy with polyandrous wives. Compton's own discussion of "Sexuality in Joseph Smith's Plural Marriages" (pp. 12—15) is muddled. He generalizes without specifying which category (single, widowed, divorced, separated, married) of plural wives supposedly took part in this most private aspect of plural marriage. For example, Compton concludes this discussion: "Though it is possible that Joseph had some marriages in which there were no sexual relations, there is no explicit or convincing evidence for this. . . . And in a significant number of marriages, there is evidence for sexual relations" (p. 15). Which marriages? Compton does not specify or quantify or document his generalized conclusion that "in a significant number" of these plural marriages Joseph Smith had sexual contact with his partner. If by "significant" Compton implies that a majority of these marriages had what he terms the "sexual dimension," his statement is not supported by the data he presents. But Compton several times extrapolates with unwarranted confidence, as in the case of Zina Huntington Jacobs: "Nothing specific is known about sexuality in their marriage, though judging from Smith's other marriages, sexuality was probably included" (p. 82). This is an example of many questionable conclusions in this book that are overly broad, nonspecific, or undocumented.

All that discussion tells me is that the record is murky. Maybe someone who's spent time on the issue will tell me that there's new information clarifying the record, or that the book reviewers are wrong, or something else along those lines. If so, I'm all ears. But for me, such matters are not the kinds of things on which I am going to hang either my faith or my lack of faith.

I also don't think these unresolvable debates are something we need to share with unsuspecting 19 year-old missionaries, but that's a topic for another time.

Just my opinion and my approach.

LA, I generally really like your posts, but this is a pretty weak apologetic attempt. What I glean from the review is that we only have firm evidence that JS had sex with one married woman, and may have used his spiritual calling to do so. Great. Given the fact that he considered these marriages in every sense with the single women (and at least one married one), I don't think it's a huge leap to say that sexual intimacy was involved in the others.

Secondly, as RB points out, I'm not sure it matters. The second covenant allegedly being broken, as wuap puts it, was on the wives' part, not JS'. It does point to a possible abuse of spiritual influence.

[Rosebud]

Well, polyandry would equal adultery in some minds.
Marrying single women wouldn't be the same thing, even if you called it adultery, because it would only be breaking one marriage covenant instead of two. And, technically, JS didn't practice polyandry...his wives did.

However, if I found out that the prophet was banging my wife; dead prophet.

Okay.... look at it this way:

If a man decides to take a second wife, it is polygamy. If a woman decides to take a second husband, it is polyandry. If you, Wuap, decide to take a second wife, Mrs. Wuap shares you. If I decide to take a second husband, Mr. Rosebud shares me. Same thing.

Polyandry in Joseph's case was only worse because BOTH partners were already married.... NOT because he was asking for another man's wife. The single women he married were taking another woman's husband. Exactly why is one so much worse than the other?

The way sane men feel about polyandry is the way sane women feel about polygamy.


Of course.... I like the way that you put it better .

[RobinFinderson]

Okay.... look at it this way:

If a man decides to take a second wife, it is polygamy. If a woman decides to take a second husband, it is polyandry. If you, Wuap, decide to take a second wife, Mrs. Wuap shares you. If I decide to take a second husband, Mr. Rosebud shares me. Same thing.

Polyandry in Joseph's case was only worse because BOTH partners were already married.... NOT because he was asking for another man's wife. The single women he married were taking another woman's husband. Exactly why is one so much worse than the other?

The way sane men feel about polyandry is the way sane women feel about polygamy.


Of course.... I like the way that you put it better .

One significant difference, RB. Presumably, everyone entering into a polygamous relationship does so with eyes wide open. In other words it is a choice made with all of the facts in hand. Polygamy could be fair to the women if the addition of future wives required the full consent of all prior wives (Joseph Smith certainly wasn't fair on this point. I'm just outlining a form of polygamy that would be hypothetically fair).

Polyandry too could be fair, if the first husbands gave their consent.

But you are right in pointing out that polygamy, as practiced by Joseph (keeping it a secret from Emma), is the same breach of trust as polyandry, as practiced by Joseph (keeping it a secret from the other husbands). But all of these system, if practiced in the light of day by consenting adults, could be fair.

[TripletDaddy]

When the missionaries come to eat at my house, I ask them if they are excited to go to Disneyland in the last week of their mission. I also ask them if they like college football or the NBA. That is usually the extent of my discussions with the Elders or Sisters.

[LA Ute]

3. No matter how thorough nor how honest researchers may have been on this topic, there inescapbly is a lot of blank filling going on here, both on the part of the researcher and of the reader. Much of the information is not first hand and a lot of it comes from accounts given long after the events in question occurred and where the context is not always clear. Does that discount or dismiss everything that has been said or written on the subject? No, but it certainly makes it hard to have a solid fundamental understanding of the whys and wherefores and knowing what information is credible.

You've said what I tried to say, only much better.

LA, I generally really like your posts, but this is a pretty weak apologetic attempt. What I glean from the review is that we only have firm evidence that JS had sex with one married woman, and may have used his spiritual calling to do so. Great. Given the fact that he considered these marriages in every sense with the single women (and at least one married one), I don't think it's a huge leap to say that sexual intimacy was involved in the others.

Secondly, as RB points out, I'm not sure it matters. The second covenant allegedly being broken, as wuap puts it, was on the wives' part, not JS'. It does point to a possible abuse of spiritual influence.

I am a Lincolnophile and read a lot about him. I've been comparing Joseph to Lincoln lately, in the sense that they are both very challenging men to get to know as historical figures. It's much easier to get close to Lincoln than to Joseph, because there's such an extensive written record from the hand of Lincoln himself. Even so, there are probably thousands of Lincolns, depending on "the eye of the beholder." He was not perfect by any means, and yet he is revered for saving the Union.

Joseph, OTOH, almost never wrote anything himself. He was not a man of letters, or even close to being one. How do you get close to such a man? We are left to the accounts of others in order to know him. To his friends he was a saint and to his enemies he was a devil. I am reminded of what Moroni said about his name being had for good and evil throughout the world. That has certainly come to be true. (More comments below.)

Personally, this all is really beside the point. Over the years I have developed a knowledge of the truthfulness of the Gospel re-introduced by Joseph Smith but which is now completely independent of Joseph Smith. I took Physics from Stephen Jones at BYU. He showed me how to conduct experiments that proved scientific principles. Once I applied those principles and learned of their validity in a laboratory, I no longer relied on Dr. Jones' opinion of whether or not they existed. The fact that Stephen Jones had connections with Pons and Fleischman's fusion in a fish bowl and went off the deep end with WTC #7 conspiracy theories has absolutely no bearing on the knowledge that he imparted to me and that I independently verified for myself.

I agree, and will add: The question is, what do we do with the information we do have about Joseph Smith? I guess one could say, "Aha! It's all a bunch of hogwash after all. I quit." My personal opinion is that such a reaction is just that, a reaction. There are more mature ways to respond, both intellectually and spiritually, IMO.

Picking through conflicting historical accounts of what JS did or didn't do, sexually, seems to me, in the end, to be an unrewarding effort! Assuming, for purposes of argument, that Joseph sinned in secret, he sinned, and that's between him and God. The question of what I should do in light of that information, is really what this thread, and the entire controversy, is all about, isn't it?

I ask myself if the three elements of the Church's message to the world are still there for for me:

(1) The divine sonship of Jesus Christ? Check.

(2) The divine mission of Joseph Smith? Check. (His imperfections do not mean God did not call him, restore the priesthood, cause the BofM to be translated, and so forth.)

(3) The divinity of the Church today? Check. (Yes, there are annoying things to deal with and there is correlation, that great bugaboo of so many people. Am I going to walk away over those things if #1 and #2 are true - and #3 is true, except for the Church's approach to lesson manuals or architecture or whatever may bug me? No.)

This is all deeply personal and comes down, in the end, to matters of belief and personal conscience. This is just the way I see it.