Polygamy (Mormons)

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Twelve grieving widows. Caricature on the death of Brigham Young (second President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ) in 1877

The polygamy (English: "plural marriage"), sometimes referred to as "plural marriage" or "celestial plural marriage," is a kind of polygamy that of Joseph Smith , founder of the religious group " Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints " ( also " Rocky Mountain Saints "), and some of his closest confidants. Under Brigham Young , it became increasingly popular with ordinary members of the Church. In the main Mormon church it was abolished de jure in 1890 and de facto in the following two decades . It continues to this day in some small fundamentalist Mormon groups in the western United States, Canada, and Mexico.

It includes polygyny and, in rare cases, polyandry . Most multi-marriage relationships also include sexual contact between the man and every single woman; In addition, some abstinent relationships in plural marriages have come down to us.

The most common occurrence of plural marriage is found among leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, called "Latter-day Saints" (LDS), in the mid- and late 19th century; at that time between four and six percent of the members of the LDS were in plural marriage. Due to pressure from the US government , the Church abandoned this practice in 1890 . Nonetheless, polygamous marriages can be observed until the early 20th century, when the LDS began to excommunicate polygamists .

origin

Joseph Smith relates that while the Bible was being retranslated, he prayed over the passages that reported the patriarchal plural marriages; he received a divine revelation about plural marriage. In it God instructed him to marry several women.

In Todd Compton's book In Sacred Solitude , Smith is quoted as saying:

"The angel came to me three times between '34 and '42 and said that I had to obey this principle or that he would kill me (lay me out)."

Other people, including Benjamin F. Johnson and Joseph B. Noble, stated that they had similar experiences. However, their stories were expanded to include a facet: the angel held a sword in his hands.

In 1842, in his capacity as the operator of the local print shop in Nauvoo, Illinois , Joseph Smith published the treatise The Peace Maker by the otherwise unknown author Udney Hay Jacob. It compiles verses from the Bible that are supposed to establish polygyny. The script was not widely accepted. Smith also spoke out against it in a newspaper article shortly thereafter, but many believed it was written by Smith or his direct associates and that its real purpose was to initiate a discussion in the LDS on the subject of plural marriage and the degree of possible marriage To test acceptance of this teaching.

The practice of polygyny

Joseph Smith had been secretly polygynous since 1833 at the latest, and possibly even since 1831, although plural marriage was not publicly taught until 1852, four years after the Mormons came to Utah and eight years after Smith's death.

Smith introduced the doctrine of polygamy by choosing a few individuals to whom he opened it up. He pointed out some of them, e. B. Brigham Young , suggested taking several wives. Some Mormon leaders objected and eventually left the Church. Others joined in after battles of conscience and, as they said, long prayers. During this phase, strict secrecy was maintained vis-à-vis the general membership and the general public.

Brigham Young became famous when he said that after the apprenticeship had been opened to him, he would have preferred to swap with the corpse that was being dragged down the street in a hearse than to accept the new apprenticeship.

First Mayor of Nauvoo, Illinois , John C. Bennett, a former LDS convert, was expelled from the Church for adulterous "spiritual wifery" as incompatible with plural marriage.

Censuses in various Utah counties showed that the prevalence of plural marriage in 1880 varied widely from ward to ward. Their share of marriages in South Weber was 5 percent, in Orderville it was 67 percent. Research on polygamy in Utah in the 19th century suggests

  • that the majority of the polygamists were married to two women,
  • that the men were often local leaders of the LDS and
  • that the second woman was usually younger.

The wives of Joseph Smith

Even if the research to date is not unanimous, it can be assumed with Compton that Smith was married to 33 women during his life; there is no clarity regarding eight other women.

According to the doctrine of plural marriage, the consent of the first wife should be obtained first. In a revelation, Smith was told that the woman should then believe and stand by her husband or she would be destroyed. In this way she becomes a wrongdoer and he is freed from asking for her permission.

Emma Hale Smith, Smith's first wife, massively opposed this practice in private (although she publicly denied its existence until her death).

Some of Smith's wives were younger than him. The youngest, Helen Mar Kimball, was 14 years old. Even if this does not fit the image of Western culture and was (and is) prohibited in most US states, the girls in those years were often married at that age. There is no evidence as to whether Joseph Smith had sexual contact with Helen Mar. Reports from the wedding suggest that, among other things, the sealing of the two was about creating a closer bond between the two families.

At first it was assumed that such a marriage would take place with a view to eternity. Since Helen Mar claims that she was surprised that her family would not allow her to go to a youth dance event, it seems unlikely that there was sexual contact between her and Joseph; otherwise their astonishment would be hard to understand. Heber C. Kimball, Helen Mars' father, was a close friend of Smith and a devoted member of his Church, which later married 39 women; Stan Kimball even lists 43 women in his biography of Heber C. Kimball.

The anthropologist Richard Francis Burton , who visited Salt Lake City in 1860, suggested that women in a plural marriage were open to this practice because it would have placed less burdens on each woman - sexual as well as other.

Polyandry, sexual contacts and child-bearing

About eleven of Smith's wives were also married to other men, usually well-off Mormons. These women usually went on with their first husband, not Smith. There was no sexual contact. One woman later stated that Smith allegedly fathered children with one or two of these women. There is no evidence that Smith had children from women other than his first wife Emma.

Polygamous groups

There was disagreement among the LDS leadership after Smith's death over who should lead the Church. Eventually, several groups formed. Only two of them practiced plural marriage. The Brigham Young-led Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints continued unbroken until 1890. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Strangites) , headed by James J. Strang, also followed this doctrine after John C. Bennett, the former first mayor of Nauvoo, Illinois, joined the group and Strang above it informed that Smith had practiced plural marriage. In the end, Strang took five wives. With the Strangites, however, the number of plural marriages was few, and the doctrine was not presented as as central as in Young's church. When Strang was murdered in 1856, the practice of polygamy in this Mormon denomination ended.

The Sixth Prophet of the Church Joseph F. Smith 1904 with his wives and children

The end of plural marriage

After the LDS supporters settled in Utah, they began to participate in political life outside of the region. In the United States, polygamy was strictly rejected, especially the then new Republican Party called slavery and polygamy as "the two relics of barbarism", the removal of which played a central role in its party program. On July 8, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act, which banned all polygamous practice in the United States. Lincoln let the Mormons know that he did not intend to force enforcement unless it interfered with his political work; thus the enforcement of monogamy was initially postponed.

After the Civil War , an increasing number of people who were not members of the LDS and were running for public office settled in Utah. The close cohesion of the Mormons discouraged many. By founding the Liberal Party, they tried to improve their political influence. Their goals were general political change and a noticeable reduction in the privileges of the LDS.

In September 1871, Church President Brigham Young was charged with adultery for polygamy. On January 6, 1879, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Morrill Act should be enforced. LDS members and church leaders did not take the decision positively and tried to prevent its implementation.

In February 1882, George Q. Cannon , a prominent LDS executive, was stripped of his seat in the House of Representatives because of his plural marriage . This revived the discussion about polygamy. A month later, the Edmunds Act was passed in Congress. This deprived polygamists of active or passive participation in elections and made a conviction possible without due process. People lost their rights even if they did not live a polygamous life but belonged to a denomination that supported polygamy. Rudge Clawson was jailed in August 1882 for having multiple concurrent marriages prior to the 1862 Morrill Act. According to today's opinion, the threats of imprisonment in the law violated the constitutionally anchored prohibition of laws that subsequently make an offense punishable.

The Edmunds – Tucker Act of 1887 ensured control of the LDS and extended the penalties of the Edmunds Act of 1882. In July 1887, the US Attorney General initiated proceedings to control the Church and all of its branches. The main court ruling was Late Corp. of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. United States from 1890. This threatened the dissolution of the LDS Church.

As a result, the LDS Church apparently lost control of the area government. Both simple and senior LDS members were wanted by the police. Since the leadership of the church was unable to act against it publicly, it went underground. LDS President Wilford Woodruff and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles published a manifesto, Official Declaration 1 , on September 24, 1890 , that members would no longer enter into multiple marriages. Although it continued to be portrayed as a correct doctrine, the LDS leadership no longer endorsed polygamy. Only then did LDS members receive certain rights, and a conversion of Utah from federal territory to a state in 1896 became possible.

The consequences of this development were exacerbated by the fact that leading Mormons increasingly sealed polygamous marriages. According to some significant LDS members, Declaration No. 1 allowed plural marriage anywhere except the United States. Others believed that this merely pushed polygamy out of the public eye into the underground. This resulted in Brigham Henry Roberts not being able to take his won seat in the US House of Representatives because of his double marriage. A later episode was the "Smoot Hearings" in the Senate , during which Mormon apostle and candidate for the post of Senator Reed Smoot was questioned on alleged polygamy. During the hearings, LDS President Joseph F. Smith issued the " Second Manifesto, " in 1904, which excludes anyone who entered into or married a polygamy from the Church. The two apostles John Whittaker Taylor and Matthias Foss Cowley rejected the statement and then left the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles; Taylor was eventually excommunicated for violating the Second Manifesto.

The Church has not allowed polygamy since the Second Manifesto. Those caught attempting multiple marriages at the same time were expelled from the community without a hearing process. The last person to enter into plural marriage with the permission of the LDS died in 1974.

Today the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches about plural marriage that God ordained it for a time in the particular situation of rebuilding the Church, but that since the end of that situation it has again been forbidden and punished with excommunication. A marriage in the temple is for all time and eternity, whereby men can enter into an unlimited number of marriages (but only after the earthly death of the previous wife) and women are only allowed to marry once in their life in the temple. In that sense, there is still a religious polygamy in Mormonism.

Criticism and fundamentalist groups from 1890 to today

Photograph of the handwritten reproduction of the 1886 Revelation by John Taylor

Some of those who expect the LDS Church to officially distance itself from the doctrine of plural marriage by renouncing the teaching office, consider the LDS policy to be dishonest: plural marriage is still a fundamental teaching of the Mormons - even if it is in the church Jesus Christ's LDS is not currently practiced or taught. In addition, in the event of death, civil divorce or exclusion from the Church, the men in the LDS Temple can be "sealed" to more than one woman at the same time, while the living woman cannot be connected to more than one man; devout Mormons believe that such "seals" are eternal and also outlast earthly life and civil marriages. Some LDS critics argue that the Church is not entitled to withhold Mormon doctrine from believers because they adhere to the wording of the Book of Mormon and practice plural marriage.

The abolition of polygamy in 1890 was never recognized by any member of the Mormomentum. Fundamentalist groups split off and still hold on to polygamy today. These include the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, headed by Warren Jeffs, with 6,000 to 10,000 members, and the Apostolic United Brethren, with an estimated 5,000 to 8,000 members. A large number of small and very small groups and individual families also hold on to polygamy.

The connection between current practice and temple seals of plural marriages

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

Marriages ended by divorce

A man who is married to a woman but is later divorced must apply to the First Presidency for “sealing clearance” before he can be remarried. This does not break the first seal. In the same situation, a woman would ask the First Presidency for "unsealing," sometimes mistakenly called a "temple divorce," before she can remarry.

With regard to women, this practice devalues ​​the original meaning of the seal. If divorced women do not consent to the lifting of the seal, they are still considered to have been married to their original spouse. At times, the seals of women divorced under civil law were lifted even though they did not intend to enter into a new marriage; thus they were considered single, and with a view to eternal life they are regarded as women who have never married.

Sealed marriages broken by death

If a sealed marriage ends with the death of one of the spouses, the requirements are different. A widower does not need to seek permission before remarrying in the temple, unless the new wife requires her previous sealing to be lifted. A widow, on the other hand, remains sealed to her deceased husband and must therefore seek the annulment of the previous one before a new marriage. In some cases, women who wanted to remarry married their future husbands in the temple "only for a limited period" but were not sealed with him because the sealing with their first husband was for eternity.

This means that deceased men who were remarried after the death of their first wife are in the state of plural marriage. If a man leaves two or more women to whom he has been faithful in life, his previous relationships continue. In current practice, however, it is impossible for a woman to be sealed to two or more men when she dies.

Power of attorney seals where both spouses died

According to Mormon practice, when a man dies, he can be sealed by power of attorney to any woman he was legally married to. The same applies to women only if all of the husbands with whom she was married during her lifetime have died.

The teaching of the LDS is not fully regulated with regard to the authorized sealing of men and women with multiple spouses. There are at least two options:

  1. Regardless of the number of persons to whom a man or woman is sealed, they are only associated with one person in the Hereafter. The remaining former spouses, who had earned the full exaltation that came from the sealing, would then be entrusted to another person to ensure that each would have an eternal marriage.
  2. These seals de facto create plural marriages that continue after death. However, the LDS does not teach that polyandric relationships can persist in the hereafter. Therefore, this option will not be available to women who have been sealed with multiple men by power of attorney.

Effects

The question posed by those who have been married to multiple spouses is not only directed at polygamous Mormons. Nor can it be used as an argument for or against multiples and the related LDS policy. Every religion that believes in the continuation of marriage after death must comment on the question of marital status in the hereafter, regardless of whether it supports some form of plural marriage or not. One must perceive that the LDS teaches the voluntary nature of marriage in the hereafter; therefore no one may be forced into an eternal relationship by a temple seal.

See also

literature

  • Todd Compton: In Sacred Loneliness. The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith. Signature Books, 1997. ISBN 1-56085-085-X ( Prologue and Chapter 2 in Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith )
  • Phillip L. Kilbride: Plural Marriage for our Times. A reinvented option? Bergin & Garvey, London 1994. ISBN 0-89789-315-8 (Kilbride discusses polygamy in Mormon sects in the US, polygamous tendencies in African American society, the situation of polygamy in West Africa, and its ethical evaluation in American society a, and under what modern circumstances legalizing polygamy could be an advantage for women)

Web links

Commons : Polygamy  - collection of images, videos, and audio files
German
English

supporting documents

  1. Jump up ↑ Doctrine and Covenants 132: 58–66
  2. ↑ In the two chapters of the treatise Peace Maker , Udney Hay Jacob (1781–1860) defends polygamy. Jacob was not a Mormon, but lived around 1830 in Chautauqua NY in a Mormon environment, for example in Mormon-dominated Hancock County in Illinois. In 1843 he was baptized in the LDS. The Peace Maker or the Doctroines of the Millennium can be found in excerpts from Brigham Young University : An extract, from a manuscript entitled The Peacemaker, Or, The doctrines of the millenium: being a treatise on religion and jurisprudence, or a new system of religion and politicks: for God, my country, and my rights (with introduction to background and dating )
  3. ^ A b John C. Bennett (1807–1864) was an American doctor. In the early 1840s, he took on leadership roles alongside Joseph Smith Jr. and was very influential.
  4. ^ Todd Compton: A Trajectory of Plurality. An Overview of Joseph Smith's Wives ; in: In Sacred Loneliness. The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith , pp. 1ff (Prologue) ( Memento November 6, 2012 on the Internet Archive ).
  5. Jump up ↑ Doctrine and Covenants 132: 64–65
  6. ↑ Emma Hale Smith (1804–1879) married Joseph Smith Jr. in 1827. 1842-1844 she was the Relief Society, a women's organization of the LDS, before. When the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was established in the struggle to succeed Joseph Smith and Brigham Young became the de facto chairman of the Mormon leaders, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was formed , headed by Joseph Smith III . Emma Hale Smith stuck to this church from then on.
  7. ↑ Reference point is missing.
  8. ↑ James J. Strang (1813-1856) was one of three applicants for leadership of the LDS during the 1844 crisis of the religious community. After his request was rejected, he became the founder and Prophet Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangites).
  9. ↑ Justin Smith Morrill (1810–1898) was a member of the House of Representatives from 1855–1867 and Senator from Vermont from 1867–1898.
  10. ↑ The Liberal Party of Utah, founded in 1870, dominated like People's Party in Utah until the end of the 19th century.
  11. ↑ In the Reynolds v. United States raised the question of whether a religious belief could be an appropriate defense argument in criminal proceedings. This was denied.
  12. ↑ George Q. Cannon (1827-1901), the "Mormon Premier" or the "Mormon Richelieu", was one of the earliest members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles .
  13. ↑ George Franklin Edmunds (1828-1919) was 1866-1891 Republican US Senator from Vermont.
  14. ↑ See also the article prohibition of retroactive effects .
  15. ↑ Brigham Henry Roberts (1857–1933) was a Mormon leader, historian, and politician who u. a. became known through the publication of a brief history of the LDS.
  16. ^ Roberts had married Sarah Louisa Smith in 1878 and Celia Dibble in 1884; In 1894, she married Margaret Ship.
  17. ↑ In the "Smoot Hearings" the US Senate 1904–1907 discussed whether the LDS Apostle and Senator elected to Utah in 1903 could take his seat, which he was granted for the duration of the hearings. From the point of view of his opponents, Smoot's double marriage was a particular obstacle. Finally, Smoot was granted the seat, and he belonged to the Senate from March 4, 1903 to March 3, 1933, the US Senate.
  18. ^ Reed Smoot (1862–1941) was an apostle of the LDS from 1900 and a senator from 1903 to 1933.
  19. ↑ John Whittaker Taylor (1858–1916) was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles from 1884 to 1911.
  20. ↑ Matthias F. Cowley (1858–1940) was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles from 1896 to 1911.
  21. ↑ Jennifer Dobner: Teens defend polygamy at Utah rally. In: News.Yahoo.com . August 20, 2006, archived from the original on September 2, 2006 ; accessed on December 29, 2018 (English).
  22. ↑ See the “Organization” section in the LDS article
  23. ↑ Church Handbook of Instructions , p. 72, Sealing Policies: Sealing of a Husband and Wife