Confession: Morridor born and bred. Full believer in every sense. Never doubted or wavered (why doubt? It's obviously true.). Couldn't get enough of the kool aid. Completely committed and then..... I stumbled into details (online) about Joseph Smith polygamy and it dawned on me that the church had an agenda (which being honest about our history wasn't part of). Then it all changed as I spent the next several years reading anything and everything about our church's history and JS.

My question is what was your understanding of JS's role in polygamy before you learned the truth about it?

Personally, I had some vague understanding that the practice was revealed to him (for the "restoration of all things"), but he didn't personally practice it. Of course, he was completely committed to Emma. After his death, numerous (dozens?) of women were sealed to him. This was my understanding. And frankly, I never spent much time thinking about it.

I knew he had initiated it and practiced it himself. I had been told and believed that most were "spiritual" marriages and not real consummated ones. I had believed the younger ones (I didn't know how young!) we're normal for the time, which it turns out was not the case. I knew vaguely of the polyandry, but again, I didn't know the circumstances or that these were mostly fully consummated relationships. I didn't know about the manipulation, the sending away of husbands, or the extreme secrecy he employed or the degree he ramped things up before he was murdered.

I was made to understand that polygamy only happened because of the deaths of pioneer husbands.

It was made to seem like only a handful of men practiced, and Joseph Smith was never mentioned as having any wife other than Emma.

Excellent point. It was common for post-Joseph polygamy to be characterized as a welfare program. That widows were altruistically married off to select church leaders in order to make sure that their temporal needs were taken care of..... Gag.

HA! "Take your bloomers off sister, I am going to see to your temporal wellfare". God thats a great line.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/19/2013 04:17PM by jesuswantsme4asucker.

Haven't stopped laughing for the last few minutes! Thanks for that. :)

My answer when some air-headed TBM spouts this nonsense is to
tell about my grandmother.

My grandmother was married off, in an arranged marriage, at age
17 to my grandfather who was twice her age, already married and
had a wife and kids. Her autobiography mentioned that she was
not supported by my grandfather, but had to work all her life to
support herself and her (also his) children.

So it wasn't a "widow" but a teen-age girl. And she WASN'T
supported. So totally backwards on both claims.

JS really, really, really, REALLY (33 times).... liked sex.

My understanding was that he was commanded by God and reluctantly obeyed. I was told that there were some marriages that weren't even consummated. That's how reluctant he was. And that's how ill-informed I was.

I never thought he was reluctant. I guess I always looked at my own sex drive and thought for sure he was living it up. I did however buy into the bull that it was only widows and very homely "sweet spirits" that couldnt land a man any other way. Also, I was dumb enough to buy that it was so that they could rapidly expand the church through a massive breeding program which in and of itself should have sickened me.

+1 This is what I was taught too. Joseph was a martyr. He didn't want to do it! But that dang angel with a flaming sword made him!

Before I learned the truth, my understanding was that there was polygamy within the cult before the Liar Smith was killed, & that he had instituted it, but that he didn't practice it himself. Oh & I thought that he & Emma just had a bad marriage because he was irresponsible & a scam artist. I didn't know that he had personally been polygamous until later.

I WAS A BIC closet doubter. The first time I even heard about polygamy,was in HS.(in CA). From some born again christians,(I was horrified to find out from my fam it was true).!! But they then Proceeded to explain to me that there werent enough men and that only the most worthy could practise it. (deep down I knew it was an excuse).I was lead to believe JS only had E.R. SNOW as a second wife. But latter even that wasnt talked about. So much for an "open book".

As in about 99.9 % of MoThings... what you were told/taught depended a lot on who was doing the talking/teaching.

a Great Deal of Mormonism is & was left that way, 'Plausible Deniability'.

most definitive statement of recent times: "Let's Go Shopping".

I was taught exactly the same. I was a card carrying TBM. Seminary, and all the hundreds of classes, magazine articles,visits to historical sites across the country, through several decades. Not once did I ever hear a hint that JS had other wives. It was completely and totally kept out of all church teachings.

www.mormonthink.com/joseph-smith-polygamy.htm
If you ask the average members, they will likely state many of these things as .... of that revelation in 1843 if a man married more wives than one who were living at .... 1850 Census information for Utah records 6,020 males and 5,310 females.

This was interesting information to me, because I was always taught that there were more women than men. This was one reason I was given as a justification for polygamy.

My view of polygamy was that it's a necessary inconvenience to compensate for more men ultimately rejecting the gospel than women. It wasn't just based on a temporal earthly shortage of men, but based on the eternal factor that women are naturally more apt to become exhalted. God can't force an equal number of men to accept exhaltation, and marriage is required for exhaltation...so polygamy actually gave women a way out of manlessness, so as to respect their agency to become exhalted and respect the agency of men to not be exhalted.

Polygamy is more problematic in life because of our "infirmities", that is, jealousy etc. But in Heaven, we won't have jealousy by definition (or we wouldn't be there)...so it's not an issue there. Women aren't jealous of each other because they're all perfect, and men don't play favorites because all their wives are perfect goddesses. Everyone just understands there. Polygamy was inequitable in life because we didn't live the "higher law" under which it works. So, I thought the reason polygamy was discontinued was that we weren't "ready for it". It was tested, because God being just cannot deny a blessing for which we haven't actually demonstrated our unworthiness for.

So I viewed polygamy as a utopian ideal, not in itself, but that to make it work you needed to be free of worldly trappings like jealousy and insecurity and favoritism. I believed perfect people could do it happily, just that the church wasn't collectively perfect enough to pull it off. By extension, I believed polygamy would be restored in the millennium and a normal part of exhalted life in CK. Even if you didn't actually ever become a polygamist, everyone in the CK could do it as perfect beings by definition if it were necessary.

I bought the "flaming sword" story of Joseph Smith's entry into polygamy, and the myth that he didn't typically if at all consummate his plural marriages. I thought his plural wives were older, needy, or were simply to lock in their election to the CK.

I didn't know that he actively trolled and prowled for young women and teenagers as wives, was observed having sex or sharing a bed overnight and implying he had sex, propositioned women who were appalled by it, defamed women who rebuffed him, used obvious coercion like take-or-leave-your-whole-family's-salvation-now, and that some of his wives were miserable and traumatized by it, lied about it to Emma, publically lied, used obvious deception on converts, and a number of abuses.

amos2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "higher law" under which it works. So, I thought
> the reason polygamy was discontinued was that we
> weren't "ready for it". It was tested, because God
> being just cannot deny a blessing for which we
> haven't actually demonstrated our unworthiness
> for.

That is some grade A bullshit right there. You should be proud.

(I'm only partly sarcastic. That is impressive.)

That is the line used by practicing Mormon polygamists (FLDS)
The women believe that if they were really really good and grew spiritually that they will accept and be happy and not jealous

I knew that he practiced it--sec. 132, and also knew that some of the "women" were in their mid-teens when married. I just assumed that was maybe a little early, but normal for the time.

What I did not know was the nature of some of the relationships, and how Joseph Smith leveraged his spiritual authority to get new wives. I did not know about polyandry, and the fact that he married the Lawrence sisters (his wards). I was quite disgusted with Smith when reading Todd Compton's book. After that I understood that this guy was not a decent human being, much less God's chosen prophet.

Actually, I never thought about it much.. Until I became curious about it one day and decided to Google that shit. The next day, I decided Mormonism was all a fraud. Now I'm not a Mormon.

First I had heard of polygamy was when I watched Paint Your Wagon and Lee Marvin scored the mormon's hot wife.

Honestly I thought polygamy was the ONLY good thing the church had going for it.

Joe Smith got more ass than a toilet seat.

Women have the opposite reaction.

... probably with Spanish subtitles.

I was too clueless to think about inviting my investigators to watch it so they could learn about Mormons.

That would be if I HAD any investigators at the time.

Back then missionaries were allowed to see a movie on P-day. Some elders got to sit with their girlfriends in the dark.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/23/2013 12:10AM by beyondashadow.

Well growing up I knew Mormons had practiced polygamy but I thought it started with Brigham Young and that it was a way to increase the Mo population. I thought there was a shortage of men due to persecution, that many of the wives were widows and that they only had two or three plural wives. Somehow I was able to buy into that story and it didn't bother me.

Once I started learning about all the dirty details the my testimony started cracking, but that was all my own research and it was the beginning of the end for me.

I was a convert so the polygamy never sat well with me and I was always sceptical of it, no matter how it was portrayed.

I think you got it. " we didn't think about it much"
Big JS was not involved. Hinkley said in an interview that it did not start until after the saints reached salt lake.

We were taught to avoid anti- mormon material. And if we came across anti we would set it aside. You would be sinning! At some point we all knew something was not right. But we just let it all go for the promises the cult threw at us.

It's sad to see the GA's still preaching the gospel while knowing the truth of the history. When these leaders have to hide "EVIDENCE" of church history they become the most evil of men. Period!

We have to go through the discovery process outside the church. They avoid disclosure and discovery. Why? Because they have have some major historical problems with an abundance of negative information.

Heart breaking, soul crunching agony...poor souls they have sin ned greater than their members.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/23/2013 08:31AM by oldklunker.

I have been to the Lion House in SLC many times since I was a young kid. I remember seeing photos of BY and all his wives there on the wall. I believed JS practiced polygamy, but never thought about the details or questioned them.

However, I always wondered why we never got many lessons on the subject. I also wondered why something that was said to be so important and was revealed to a generation prior to current times was pulled from the earth. I guess I should have smacked my head against the wall a little harder.

I did bring it up once in discussion with other members before I left. I asked, "if polygamy was so important, and God felt we were ready for it in Joe's era, then why are we not teaching it now or practicing it? Have we retarded ourselves spiritually and intellectually since Joe's days?"

I knew pretty much everything about Joseph Smith's polygamy since I researched on online many years before leaving the church.

However, before I found the stuff on the Internet, I knew Joseph Smith practiced polygamy, however I assumed he just had a few wives (now I know he probably had 30+). I also assumed Joseph Smith lived with all his wives, and that they all knew about each other, and that he had children with all of them (whilst in reality it seems he hardly knew some of his wives, and they didn't all know who else he was married to).

I really don't remember. But I'm reading Becoming Sister Wives, and they call it: "The principle"