by Dudley Ross Spears
via Sentry Magazine, Vol. 15, No. 2, June 30, 1989

The word polygamy and the thought of religious orders summons up the name "Mormon." The Mormons are one of the few religions professing some relation to Jesus Christ that have openly sanctioned and sometimes required polygamy. Their founder, Joseph Smith, Jr., openly practiced it. Brigham Young, one of the successors to Smith’s heritage, was a polygamist. There are still traces of some brands of Mormonism that engage in polygamy. Their history has a black mark on it due to their blind following of Smith's imaginary revelation regarding the taking of multiple wives.

Mormon pioneers brought polygamy to Utah in the 1840s after it was introduced by the Mormon leader and founder, Joseph Smith, Jr. He claimed it was a divinely inspired plan from God. In one of their "sacred writings," called Doctrine and Covenants, Smith gave his church the revelation. Please read it, but remember, it is only human "sacred scripture," not divinely inspired by the Almighty.

Doctrine and Covenants 131:51-55 reads:

51. Verily, I say unto you: A commandment I give unto mine handmaid, Emma Smith, your wife, whom I have given unto you, that she stay herself and partake not of that which I commanded you to offer unto her; for I did it, saith the Lord, to prove you all, as I did Abraham, and that I might require an offering at your hand, by covenant and sacrifice.

52. And let mine handmaid, Emma Smith, receive all those that have been given unto my servant Joseph, and who are virtuous and pure before me; and those who are not pure, and have said they were pure, shall be destroyed, saith the Lord God.

53. For I am the Lord thy God, and ye shall obey my voice; and I give unto my servant Joseph that he shall be made ruler over many things; for he hath been; faithful over a few things, and from henceforth I will strengthen him.

54. And I command mine handmaid Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abide not in my law.

55. But if she will not abide this commandment, then shall my servant Joseph do all things for her even as he had said; and I will bless and multiply him and give unto him an hundredfold in this world of fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, houses and lands, wives and children, and crowns of eternal lives in the eternal worlds.

The "wives" promised to Smith is the first indication of polygamous doctrines in the history of Mormonism. To both Mormons and non-Mormons alike, it might seem to be adultery. Smith certainly wanted to avoid this allegation. Thus, to remove any such charges against the High Priest of Mormonism, verses 60-66 were added by this accommodative type of "revelation."

60. Let no one, therefore, set on my servant Joseph; for I will justify him; for he shall do the sacrifice which I require at his hands for his transgressions, saith the Lord your God.

61. And again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood—if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified; he cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him; for he cannot commit adultery with that that belongeth unto him and to no one else.

62. And if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him and they are given unto him; therefore, he is justified.

Other Mormon Leaders and Polygamy:

Joseph F. Smith, Journal of Discourses, Volume 20, page 28 said,

"The principle (of plural marriage) is correct, great, enobling (sic.) and calculated to bring joy, satisfaction, and peace if we would but observe and practice it as we should. But in order to do this we must get wisdom and understanding..."

"Some people have supposed that the doctrine of plural marriage was a sort of superfluity, or non-essential to the salvation or exaltation of mankind. In other words, some of the Saints have said, and believe, that a man with one wife, sealed to him by the authority of the Priesthood for time and eternity, will receive an exaltation as great and glorious, if he is faithful, as he possibly could with more than one. I want to here enter my solemn protest against this idea, for I know it is false. There is no blessing promised except upon conditions, and no blessing can be obtained by mankind except by faithful compliance with the condition, or law, upon which the same is promised. The marriage of one woman to a man for time and eternity by the sealing power, according to the law of God, is a fulfillment of the celestial law of marriage in part—and is good so far as it goes—and so far as a man abides these conditions of law, he will receive his reward therefor, and this reward, or blessing, he could not obtain on any other grounds or conditions. But this is only the beginning of the law, not the whole of it. Therefore, whoever has imagined he could obtain the fulness of the blessings pertaining to this celestial law, by complying with only a portion of its conditions, has deceived himself. He cannot do it. When that principle was revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith, he very naturally shrank, in his feelings, from the responsibilities thereby imposed upon him; fore-• seeing, as he did in part, the apparently insurmountable difficulties in the way of establishing it, in the face of popular opinion, the traditions and customs of many generations, the frown, ridicule, slander, opposition and persecution of the world. Yes, this man of God. who dared to meet the opposition of the whole world with bold and fearless front, who dared to dis-nute the religious authority and accumulated learning anl wisdom of the age--who dared everything for the truth and shrank not even from the sacrifice of his own life in testimony of his divine mission, shrank, in his feelings from the weight of the responsibility of inaugurating and establishing this new innovation upon the established customs of the world. But he did not falter, although it was not until an angel of God with a drawn sword, stood before him and commanded that he should enter into the practice of that principle, or he should be utterly destroyed, or rejected, that he moved forward to reveal and establish that doctrine.

"To put this matter more correctly before you, I here declare that the principle of plural marriage was not first revealed on the 12th day of July, 1843. It was written for the first time on that date, but it had been revealed to the Prophet many years before that, perhaps as early as 1832. About this time, or subsequently, Joseph, the Prophet, intrusted (sic.) this fact to Oliver Cowdery; he abused the confidence imposed in him, and brought reproach upon himself, and thereby upon the church by 'running before he was sent,' and 'taking liberties without license,' so to speak, hence the publication by O. Cowdery, about this time, of an article on; marriage, which was carefully worded, and afterwards found its way into the Doctrine and Covenants without authority. This article explains itself to those who understand the facts, and it an indisputable evidence of the early existence of the knowledge of the principle of patriarchal marriage by the Prophet Joseph, and also by Oliver Cowdery." [From a speech entitled, "Plural Marriage," delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Utah, Sunday morning July 7, 1878].

In response to the Mormon leader, polygamy cannot please God for it has never been pleasing to Him for more than two beings to enter any marriage. Jesus objected to deviations from God's original plan for marriage. To the Pharisees, experts at loophole invention, He asked, "Have ye not read, that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh?" (Matthew 19:4-5). Of two, not one or three, God makes a marriage. Any marriage made in heaven and approved by God has only two parties. What comes with more than that comes from man and evil.

The apostle Paul dealt with some family problems in his letter to the church at Ephesus. To correct their problems, he cited the example of the marriage of Christ to the church. Notice, "For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it..." (Ephesians 5:23-25). The language is precise enough. It eliminates any polygamous relationship. It does not say, "husband (singular) love your wives," but puts husband in the plural. It does not say "wives (plural) be in subjection to your husband." Gleason Archer's comment is very appropriate and has already been cited above.

More Accommodative Revelation to the Rescue

A Mormon document called the "Official Declaration" or "Manifesto" contains the following response to their difficulties with polygamy: First, we must realize how polygamy evolved among Mormons and how reactionaries to the practice felt about it. These factors made a balancing "revelation" from the Mormon "Seer" necessary.

Joseph Smith first received "revelation" concerning the principle of plural marriage during the 1830s, but Mormons claim he was not permitted to teach it at that time. It was not until 1841, after the Mormons had settled in Nauvoo, that this principle was taught and practiced secretly. In 1852, the doctrine was announced publicly for the first time.

One Mormon scholar says it is impossible to state exactly how many were involved in the practice of plural marriage. "Reliable estimates vary from 2 to 3 percent if only married men are counted, or about 10 to 15 percent if men, women, and children are included. Church leaders enforced strict standards in connection with authorizing plural marriages. Even though there were some abuses which attracted publicity, most plural families enjoyed rich spiritual blessings and a variety of other advantages if they were willing to put forth the requisite effort to live in this system of marriage." [Richard O. Cowan, Doctrine & Covenants, Our Modern Scripture, Young House, Brigham Young University Press, Revised Edition, 1979, pages 207-208].

The U.S. Congress passed the first anti-bigamy law in 1862, but the Civil War and Reconstruction delayed its enforcement. In 1882, the Edmunds Law made it a crime to marry a plural wife (new plural marriage) or to live with one (polygamist cohabitation). The decade of the 1880s was a period of very bitter anti-Mormon agitation, resulting in the passage of the Edmunds-Tucker Law in 1887, under which church property was confiscated, and many Latter-day Saints were prevented from voting and holding office. By May 1889, the Supreme Court had upheld the Constitutionality of this law, and members of Congress were considering even stricter measures.

Cowan adds, "In this setting, the President of the Church, Wilford Woodruff, had a most difficult decision. His choice was not between obeying a law of God or a law of man, but rather between two divine precepts, because the Lord had commanded obedience to the Constitutional law of the land. (See D&C 98:5; 58:21.) President Woodruff received a revelation showing him that under existing conditions it would be best to suspend the practice of plural marriage." [Ibid.]

Next, the Endowment House, an adobe structure on Temple Square that had been built as a place where Mormonism's "sacred ordinances" could be performed until the Salt Lake Temple was finished, was torn down during the spring of 1889 when Woodruff learned that unauthorized marriages were being performed there. For a year and a half, charges persisted that the Mormons were still sanctioning polygamous marriages. President Woodruff issued the "Official Declaration" or "Manifesto" before the October Conference in 1890 to answer these attacks. He subsequently explained :

The Latter-day Saints should not get the idea that the Lord has forsaken His people, or that He does not reveal His mind and will; because such an idea is not true. The Lord is with us, and has been with us from the beginning. This Church has never been led a day except by revelation.
Read the life of Brigham Young and you can hardly find a revelation that he had wherein he said, "Thus saith the Lord;" but the Holy Ghost was with him; He taught by Inspiration and by revelation ... Joseph said "Thus saith the Lord" almost every day of his life in laying the foundation of this work. But those who followed him have not deemed it always necessary to say "Thus saith the Lord;" yet they have led the people by the power of the Holy Ghost.

I have had some revelations of late, and very important ones to me, and I will tell you what the Lord has said to me.

The Lord showed me by vision and revelation exactly what would take place if we did not stop this practice (polygamy).

I should have let all the temples go out of our hands; I should have gone to prison myself, and let every other man go there, had not the God of heaven commanded me to do what I did do ... I went before the Lord and I wrote what the Lord told me to write. [Deseret News, November 7, 1891.]

It was agreed by Church leaders and non-Mormon officials that new polygamous marriages would not be allowed, but that those who had entered plural marriage before the Manifesto was issued could continue to live with these families without fear of prosecution. Under these terms, Utah was admitted as one of the United States in 1896. In 1904, President Joseph F. Smith again upheld the principles outlined in the Official Declaration and stressed that the Church would not sanction plural marriages anywhere in the world. Since that time, a few small groups have gained notoriety by their practice of polygamy, but such persons are subject to excommunication from the Church.

There is more than the endorsement of polygamy in all this. The foolishness of conjured and created revelations is blatantly false. This, however, offers us a little background into the past teachings and practices of Mormonism. There are still some who claim that "Joseph Smith is the prophet of God" and vow and declare that he alone makes monogamy a less than desirable marriage relationship. That is why, from time to time, one reads of some "wildcat" Mormon group that must be legally forced to cease and desist this immoral practice.

Much more could be said about this practice, but hopefully, enough has been said to provoke thought further into this topic, the other marital difficulties that are engendered when God's sacred laws are not revered and practiced with the strictness they naturally demand.