Why Do So Many Cults Practice Polygamy?

[ransomme]

I tend to think of a deity being the same as a god. Much like I can't get my head around how legal and lawful are any different, but just represent the Germanic and Latinate words for the same thing.

Tara and Kwannon come to mind. The current Dalai Lama had a quarrel with the Shugden cult some years ago. Shugden seems to be one of the more sinister figures in the Tibetan Buddhist/Bonpo pantheon.

Well the difference between legal and lawful is not easily represented in concise language. As far as the temple goes for instance, legal is according to man's traditions/laws whereas lawful is according to God's law.

Legal is just from the Latin word "lex" (law) via the French, whereas Lawful is just the Germanic word for much the same. Lawful and lawless are near synonyms of legal and illegal. One lot's Anglo-Saxon and the other's Norman/Latin.

Much like deity comes from dieu and deus, and God is the old Germanic term.

As far as the temple goes for instance, legal is according to man's traditions/laws whereas lawful is according to God's law.

I would argue that such a distinction is not standard English. There are probably other ways to make such a distinction. It is worth pointing out that when I was interacting with LDS Bot that it kept emphasising human laws, even when I pointed out some legislation can be anti-Christian. You can bet the Mark will be "legally enforced", since whether or not it is constitutional or moral, it will have secular power behind it. (De facto rather than de jure.)

I agree that it does not make sense linguistically. But it usually carries that meaning in scripture, it was president hinckley's answer to my friend who was a translator asking about the text for sealings in the temple because in his language it used to read legal and legal.

D&C 49
12Believe on the name of the Lord Jesus, who was on the earth, and is to come, the beginning and the end;
13Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, according to the holy commandment, for the remission of sins;
14And whoso doeth this shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, by the laying on of the hands of the elders of the church.
15And again, verily I say unto you, that whoso forbiddeth to marry is not ordained of God, for marriage is ordained of God unto man.
16Wherefore, it is lawful that he should have one wife, and they twain shall be one flesh, and all this that the earth might answer the end of its creation;
17And that it might be filled with the measure of man, according to his creation before the world was made.

3 Nephi 26
18And many of them saw and heard unspeakable things, which are not lawful to be written.

Matthew 12
10¶ And, behold, there was a man which had his hand withered. And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days? that they might accuse him.

Ezekiel 33
19But if the wicked turn from his wickedness, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall live thereby.

[ransomme]

sorry to disappoint you, but no...I am not Ymar. His God was one of vengeance which, in actuality, is the same God that most follow.

As far as Buddhism, I used the term "God" because the average person doesn't understand the word "nothing". Nothing to man is everything outside of the time/space construct. The nothing (incomprehensible existence) is our destiny, whether it takes a 100 or a trillion years in time. Until then, there will be processions of Gods, planets, and peoples working through time. Christ could not begin to relate this to people when he was here so , he talked in parables and never spoke in terms of hard doctrine. "Love" and Forgiveness was his message.

In my point of view, we all go home, without exception, because it is impossible not to. Home is where "God" lives and where Christ lives. We are the image of God, but in this world, we cannot begin to comprehend what that means exactly because we believe in bodies, weakness, adversity and conditional love.

Posts like these do belong in the heretic subforum. My apologies .

I think you mean "likeness", not "image". Image in the creation story is a status not a set of qualities.

Buddhism has truth but misses on many points and misses out on much. And Jesus taught more than love and forgiveness.

I used the word image because it describes the concept of my perception. Not 'likeness'.

My point of view of Buddhism as it is relative to Christian theology differs from yours.

No worries, Christians (including Mormons) get it wrong too all the time too.

[FrankOne]

I think you mean "likeness", not "image". Image in the creation story is a status not a set of qualities.

Buddhism has truth but misses on many points and misses out on much. And Jesus taught more than love and forgiveness.

I used the word image because it describes the concept of my perception. Not 'likeness'.

My point of view of Buddhism as it is relative to Christian theology differs from yours.

No worries, Christians (including Mormons) get it wrong too all the time too.

Isn't it enough to just disagree and let it go?
Is it really necessary to try to tell others they are 'wrong'?

[Yeliab]

Well, I must confess here, I had three wives and one wannabe. The wannabe was accepting of my others but the wives could not and can not stand the thoughts or sight of the other. Of course, these wives were all at different times...Gotcha. Sorry but I had to throw this in because on a serious note, when word gets out that I have been married three different times, and had 1 woman whom I was 1000% committed to and she me, until...anyway back on point. When the word gets around in my Wards or Branches and even Stakes, I am almost instantly castigated by the older members and get tons of questions from the younger ones and my peer groups. It used to bug the tar soup out of me but, I learned to roll with it.

Ironically, the very self same holier than thou uber righteous people who were denigrating me and sometimes even berating me, proudly talked about their polygamous ancestry. I started asking them if they were fortunate/blessed enough to see the marriage license(s) or even sealing documents?? Many of their responses were something akin to, "well, there wasn't a requirement for paperwork in those days or, they weren't very good at keeping up with documents BUT, they had the marriages logged into their journals." I would just usually grin at them and say, uh huh... If they ever ask me to explain my incredulity, I almost always say, so what's to say or prove they were NOT committing adultery, after all, there are hundreds and hundreds of notations about many of these polygamous "wives" having had their own homes and ranches and frequently lived many miles away from the husband....That sounds more like a stop-over of fun and convenience. That almost always ends my conversations with them. My point was and is, NOT to case aspersions on the "Saints," for polygamy. It is to show that there are always more information to learn before we cast aspersions. Heck, I think every person has the right to decide if they want to live in a polygamous relationship. If the husband is capable of properly caring for his wives and likely children, and he can totally avoid playing favorites and IF ALL the women are 100% on board willingly, then it's their choice.

Yes, I am well versed in the counsel/commands in the scriptures concerning polygamy or wandering willies, but at the same time, it's all about personal choice and personal accountability. As for me and my three wives and the one extra, three of those were a long long time ago AND at separate times with legal and lawful divorces in between each. The one extra, and I somehow got separated by distance and time and we slowly drifted apart. She was 1000% opposed to any form or infidelity (as I was/am) and when she and I started dating, she noticed the ring shadow and hit the brakes until I showed her the divorce decree. When she and I drifted apart, I wound up in marriage #2 and when that fell apart due to my wife's inability to abide by certain moral codes, (documented) the extra, heard about it and called me up. She asked if I was in fact divorced and upon the affirmative, we got back together for a long time. Because of our different jobs and such, marriage just could not seem to come together. Then, my job started taking me out for a week or more at a time and at times, emergencies would see me having to immediately interrupt our togetherness, and after a while that began to take its toll until finally one day after a supercharged weekend, (yes it is entirely possible to spend a weekend together without crossing the threshold of immorality) she told me that she had taken a job that, like mine would take her out and away for days or even weeks on end and we decided to see where time, would take us. Then after a while, we were totally apart for good. The reason I include all this, is simply to cast a level of understanding as to how things happen, why they sometimes happen, and when we are talking about cultist leaders, they somehow have the ability to quickly exploit weaknesses in their "followers" and they capitalize on that. I am not at all certain, there wasn't a LOT of that type of thing happening from the days of Nauvoo to Utah.

[Alexander]

The viewpoint you are describing is a modern LDS "woke" narrative, and you really won't find it anywhere else.

“Eve set the pattern. In addition to bearing children, she mothered all of mankind when she made the most courageous decision any woman has ever made and with Adam opened the way for us to progress. She set an example of womanhood for men to respect and women to follow, modeling the characteristics with which we as women have been endowed: heroic faith, a keen sensitivity to the Spirit, an abhorrence of evil, and complete selflessness. Like the Savior, ‘who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross,’ Eve, for the joy of helping initiate the human family, endured the Fall. She loved us enough to help lead us.” – Sheri Dew

Basically framing the temptation of Satan (literally Satan) as a moment of righteous foresight instead of a moment of weakness. Eve is great, but let's not pretend that following the devil and convincing Adam to do the same was this noble thing. The point is, we all sin.

Just because the LDS org parrots something, doesn't mean there isn't truth there. They are master plagiarizers.

Do you think there was another way, other than partaking of the fruit, for the Fall to happen?

The spiritual progeny could not ascend if it were not for the condescension of Adam. And how could they ascend if they were not ushered into the temporal realm? How could they arrive unless the first man and woman opened the door?

If Adam had not condescended, everything would have remained in its state and there would be no progression. The spirit progeny would be damned having no purpose and no joy.

Adam and Eve would have had no children unless they condescended.

If Adam immediately partook of the tree of life (returned to the Throne), he would have lived forever (remained in his current state), having no space for repentance (to bring to pass the salvation of man) and the word of God would have been void, and the great plan of salvation would have been frustrated. (The entire plan to save the new spirit progeny would be void.)

Simply put, if Adam returned to the throne after prematurely obtaining knowledge of his former power and glory, there wouldn’t be a time for mankind to be born and enter probation, because Adam is the first man who will bring the new generation of spirit children into mortality. There also would be no sacrifice/atonement of a Redeemer to bring them back into the presence of God. Adam had to condescend to earth, mankind had to enter mortality, and a sacrifice had to be made. Otherwise there is no progression; you can’t repent and ascend; it’s stagnation; everything stays as it were.

If Adam didn’t leave the garden, then it’s the same result; everything remains as it were and nothing progresses. Thus the sin of Adam in partaking of the forbidden knowledge was not that the knowledge was evil, but that it was PREMATURE.

If it were possible that our first parents could have gone forth and partaken of the tree of life they would have been forever miserable, having no preparatory state; and thus the plan of redemption would have been frustrated, and the word of God would have been void, taking none effect. (They would have never progressed, and all creation would cease to move forward.)




The command to not partake of the forbidden fruit was simply because it was premature; it wasn’t the right time.

That Adam and Eve would condescend was the design from the beginning. It would have happened in lieu of some other natural decision/outcome. What was not intended was obtaining the forbidden knowledge when it wasn’t ripe.

[LDS Physician]

"The second one on justification for Jospeh Smith's polyandry (he married 12 women in Nauvoo who already had living husbands also living with their wives in Nauvoo). "

No he didn't.
No record of these "marriages"
No record of these "sealings"

Your statement is inaccurate.

[ransomme]

I used the word image because it describes the concept of my perception. Not 'likeness'.

My point of view of Buddhism as it is relative to Christian theology differs from yours.

No worries, Christians (including Mormons) get it wrong too all the time too.

Isn't it enough to just disagree and let it go?
Is it really necessary to try to tell others they are 'wrong'?

I did say no problem. I suppose I should start using emojis more to indicate the emotion and intent of my posts. Sorry for the (choose your adjective) humor.

Although truth is still important. The garden story was given to instruct, and the charge to image God is fundamental.

[Arm Chair Quarterback]

"The second one on justification for Jospeh Smith's polyandry (he married 12 women in Nauvoo who already had living husbands also living with their wives in Nauvoo). "

No he didn't.
No record of these "marriages"
No record of these "sealings"

Your statement is inaccurate.

Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs

Joseph’s first polyandrous wife was Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs (1821-1901). In August 1839 Zina and most of her family were taken into Joseph and Emma’s home for about three weeks after Zina’s mother died of malaria. While there, Zina met Henry Jacobs, whom she would later marry. The following summer (1840) her father William Huntington married Lydia Partridge, the mother of Eliza and Emily Partridge, and most of the Huntingtons moved into the Partridge house, while Zina moved into her brother Dimick’s house.5 On March 7, 1841, Henry and Zina were married by John C. Bennett, who at the time was the mayor of Nauvoo. However, Joseph, who evidently had talked to Zina about her becoming his wife even before she married Jacobs, told them that it was still the Lord’s will that she be Joseph’s wife. She relented a few months later and was sealed to Joseph in a ceremony that she later dated as taking place on October 27, 1841.

In her autobiography, Zina commented on her decision, “I made a greater sacrifice than to give my life, for I never anticipated again to be looked upon as an honorable woman by those I dearly loved.”6 It makes no sense that she would be concerned that those closest to her might think her not an honorable woman if all she had done was agreed to be “sealed” to Joseph Smith “for eternity.” The “sacrifice” clearly implied that the union with Joseph was at least intended to include sexual relations.

Joseph Smith sent Henry away on at least four missions over the next two and a half years. These missions kept him away from home for varying periods of time ranging from a couple of weeks to five months.7 In all he was away from home for roughly ten months out of the thirty-two months that Zina was Joseph’s plural wife.

When Zina was questioned in 1898 by John Wight of the Reorganized LDS Church about her being married to Joseph at the same time as to Henry Jacobs, she responded, “What right have you to ask such questions? I was sealed to Joseph for eternity.” She also claimed that she had been married to Henry “but the marriage was unhappy and we parted,” implying that the sealing to Joseph took place only after her separation from Henry. However, this is known to be false, since her sealing to Joseph took place only a few months after her marriage to Henry, and since she remained Henry’s legal wife and bore him a son a few years later.8 In short, Zina was legally married to Henry and the two of them “had never stopped living together as husband and wife” throughout the time that she was also Joseph’s plural wife.9 It thus would appear that Zina’s responses were less than fully truthful, no doubt because admitting to polyandry would have been embarrassing to her and dishonoring to the Prophet. Zina’s story only became more shocking after Joseph’s death, because a couple of months later Brigham Young took her for his plural wife as well, later having a child with her.10 Since Zina had been sealed to Joseph, obviously her sealing to Brigham could not have been to secure her exaltation.

Less than two months after Zina was sealed to Joseph, her sister Presendia Lathrop Huntington (1810-1890) was also sealed to Joseph (Dec. 11, 1841). This was the first of three pairs of sisters sealed to Joseph as plural wives. Presendia was also married, to Norman Buell. When Presendia was sealed to Joseph, she and her husband lived about thirty miles south of Nauvoo, and “Presendia was able to make frequent trips to Nauvoo.”11 She made those visits no doubt in part because of her sister living there and in part because she, unlike her husband Norman, was a devout Mormon. Once she was sealed to Joseph, seeing him likely became a more significant factor in the visits. No specific information about her relationship with Joseph is available, but presumably it was comparable to her sister Zina’s relationship with him.

Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner

Another of Joseph’s polyandrous wives was Mary Elizabeth Rollins (born 1818), who had married Adam Lightner in 1835 (the two had ten children and remained married until his death in 1885). Mary gave a signed statement in 1902 affirming that in February 1842 Brigham Young had sealed her to Joseph “for time and all eternity.”12 This statement indicates that Mary’s relationship with Joseph was one in which sexual activity would have been considered (by LDS standards) proper.

Sylvia Sessions Lyon

Arguably the clearest instance of Joseph’s polyandry was his relationship with Sylvia Sessions Lyon, who had married Windsor Lyon (Joseph himself officiating) in 1838. Adding to the offense of this relationship is the fact that Joseph was also sealed to Sylvia’s mother Patty Bartlett Sessions. In the case of Patty, who was 47, it is plausible that the relationship was not sexual, but even so claiming as one’s wives a mother and her daughter is especially troubling (and unbiblical, see Lev. 18:17). One might reasonably speculate that Joseph persuaded Patty to become one of his plural wives in order to make it easier to persuade Sylvia to do likewise.

In a deathbed confession in 1882, Sylvia told her daughter Josephine, who had been born in 1844, that Joseph Smith was her father: “She told me then that I was the daughter of the Prophet Joseph Smith, she having been sealed to the Prophet at the time her husband Mr. Lyon was out of fellowship with the Church.” Josephine did not make her mother’s statement public knowledge until more than three decades later in 1915, no doubt due to its embarrassing nature. Josephine’s first name is obviously consistent with her being the daughter of Joseph Smith. That she was in fact his biological offspring is now widely acknowledged.13

Sylvia’s sealing to Joseph is usually dated in February 1842, but Hales has shown rather convincingly that the sealing probably took place a year later.14 Josephine’s account of her mother’s deathbed confession explicitly states that Sylvia was sealed to Joseph when her legal husband Windsor Lyon “was out of fellowship with the church,” and the date of his excommunication is known to have been in November 1842. Evidently, then, Joseph was sealed to Sylvia in early 1843, which fits with the fact that their daughter Josephine was conceived in about May 1843 and born in February 1844.

The fact that Windsor Lyon had been excommunicated did not mean, of course, that he had also stopped being Sylvia’s husband. Hales argues that Windsor and Sylvia separated shortly after his excommunication—that he moved to Iowa City while she chose to stay behind in Nauvoo. Even if this were true, it would mean at most that the couple had been separated briefly (perhaps only a few weeks) when Joseph was sealed to Sylvia. However, the reference on which Hales is relying at this point comes from 1945, more than 110 years after the fact, and Hales is vague as to the date that Windsor Lyon moved to Iowa City.15 Compton provides specific details showing that Windsor continued to reside in Nauvoo until the summer of 1846. Moreover, Windsor was on friendly terms with Joseph right up to the end of Joseph’s life, since he actually lent Joseph $500 (a large sum then) in February 1843, apparently the very month that his wife Sylvia was sealed to Joseph!16 Windsor “was called as a witness” to testify on Joseph’s behalf the day before he was killed at the Carthage jail (June 27, 1844), and rejoined the LDS Church in early 1846, shortly before he and Sylvia moved to Iowa City.17

These facts contradict Hales’s claim that Sylvia’s marriage to Windsor had de facto ended in late 1842, leaving her morally (if not quite legally) free to remarry. To the contrary, Windsor and Sylvia remained married and living in the same house throughout the time she was sealed to Joseph as a plural wife, and Windsor continued in good, friendly relations with the Mormons (even with Joseph himself) and even rejoined the LDS Church before his death in 1849.

Thus, Joseph and Sylvia conceived the child Josephine Lyon while Sylvia was still living as Windsor Lyon’s wife. Windsor had been excommunicated for less than three months when Sylvia was sealed to Joseph, and only about six months when they conceived Josephine. Throughout that period of time, Windsor and Sylvia continued to live in the same house as husband and wife. By any and all definitions, Sylvia was a polyandrous wife.

“Did the Prophet Joseph Want Every Man’s Wife He Asked For?”

The attitude of faithful, devout Mormons in the nineteenth century was that of unqualified compliance with Joseph Smith. That attitude is exemplified in a sermon given by Jedediah Grant in 1854 in the Salt Lake City Tabernacle:

When the family organization was revealed from heaven—the patriarchal order of God, and Joseph began, on the right and on the left, to add to his family, what a quaking there was in Israel. Says one brother to another, “Joseph says all covenants are done away, and none are binding but the new covenants; now suppose Joseph should come and say he wanted your wife, what would you say to that?” “I would tell him to go to hell.” This was the spirit of many in the early days of this Church….

If Joseph had a right to dictate me in relation to salvation, in relation to a hereafter, he had a right to dictate me in relation to all my earthly affairs….

What would a man of God say, who felt aright, when Joseph asked him for his money? He would say, “Yes, and I wish I had more to help to build up the kingdom of God.” Or if he came and said, “I want your wife?” “O yes,” he would say, “here she is, there are plenty more.”

…Did the Lord actually want Abraham to kill Isaac? Did the Prophet Joseph want every man’s wife he asked for? He did not, but in that thing was the grand thread of the Priesthood developed. The grand object in view was to try the people of God, to see what was in them. If such a man of God should come to me and say, “I want your gold and silver, or your wives,” I should say, “Here they are, I wish I had more to give you, take all I have got.” A man who has got the Spirit of God, and the light of eternity in him, has no trouble about such matters.18

It is not much of a defense of Joseph Smith’s polyandry to argue that he did not really “want every man’s wife he asked for.” The fact is that he wanted, and got, quite a few men’s wives. Hales tries to negate the significance of Grant’s statement by arguing that there is no historical evidence that Joseph ever actually demanded other men give up their wives to him.19 Given Joseph’s secrecy in the matter, however, perhaps Grant knew something the historical record does not reveal or at least that it does not substantiate to Hales’s satisfaction. What the historical evidence does make clear, in any case, is that Joseph claimed as his wives a dozen or more women who had living, legal husbands, and that he had sexual relations with at least several of them. The Bible is explicit that such polyandrous relationships are adultery:

For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man. (Romans 7:2-3 NASB, emphasis added).

The word of God in the Bible clearly states that what Joseph Smith practiced was adultery. Now, Christians are sinners saved by grace, and Christian men have been succumbing to temptation and committing adultery for two thousand years. However, Joseph claimed that his adultery was really sacred marriage commanded by God. It is simply not possible for a true prophet of God, acting in his capacity as God’s prophet, to claim that God commanded him to do something that is in reality adultery. Thus, Joseph’s multiple adulterous relationships, practiced under the cloak of prophetic authority, unmistakably mark him as a false prophet—what Jesus called a wolf in sheep’s clothing:

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits (Matthew 7:15-20 ESV).

If ever a situation merited Jesus’ description of a false prophet as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, it would be Joseph Smith’s polyandrous marriages.


1. “Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo,” LDS.org, 2014.

2. Brian C. Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, 3 vols. (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2013), 1:308-309.

3. Ibid., 1:310-14, 515-93.

4. Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), 84.

5. Ibid., 78-79.

6. Zina Young, in her autobiography or “Biographical Sketch,” quoted in Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 81; Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, 1:254 (spelling has been regularized here).

7. Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 82.

8. Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, 1:255.

9. Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 83.

10. Ibid., 83-84, 113.

11. Ibid., 122.

12. Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, 1:265.

13. Ibid., 1:349-54.

14. Ibid., 1:354-64.

15. Ibid., 1:361.

16. Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 181-82.

17. Ibid., 183-85.

18. Journal of Discourses, 2:13-14.

19. Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, 1:305.

[Arm Chair Quarterback]

An excerpt from an article titled "How an 1843 Revelation on Polygamy Poses and Problem to Modern Mormonism", reporter Benjamin E. Parks writes:

https://religiondispatches.org/how-an-1 ... mormonism/

The Spring and Summer months of 1843 were among the toughest of Joseph and Emma Smith’s marriage. They had already faced a number of crises in their nearly two decades together, including the death of children, threats of violence, and forced migrations. Being the founding family of a growing and controversial church with tens of thousands had taken its toll.

Yet nothing had challenged their union as much as their first few years in Nauvoo, where they settled in 1839. It was there, in a quickly growing Mormon city-state, that Joseph Smith began preaching his most radical doctrines, none more controversial than plural marriage.

Details of the practice’s origins are murky due to the paucity of contemporary records. While some posit Joseph Smith’s first plural union to take place in Kirtland during the 1830s, polygamy truly began in earnest during the winter months of 1840-41, alongside his evolving ideas of priesthood rituals, all formulated in the shadow of a towering temple then being built on the bluff overlooking the growing town.

Indeed, it was on the eve of the Nauvoo Temple’s cornerstone ceremony, on April 5, 1841, that Smith likely entered his first plural marriage. On that day, Smith and his bride, Louisa Beman, who was disguised in men’s clothing, held a secret rendezvous in a grove of trees just outside the city. By the end of the year, Smith was sealed—the Mormon term for married for eternity—to at least two more women.

Over the next eighteen months, the theology that justified and framed the practice continued to evolve. What remained consistent, however, was Smith’s belief in the importance of the doctrine, as well as the growing number of people initiated into the order. And though the prophet tried to stop the rumors from spreading, an increasing number of prominent figures outraged by the alleged practice were dedicated to root out the truth.

Among those trying to expose the practice and its participants were Joseph’s brother, Hyrum, as well as his wife, Emma.

Then, in May of 1843, in a radical reversal based on a mixture of theological reasoning and pragmatic cooperation, the two members of Joseph’s close family surprisingly shifted course and accepted the practice. Hyrum, exultant at the chance of being united with the two women he loved, could then be sealed to his current wife, Mary Fielding, as well as to his deceased wife, Jerusha.

Emma, for her part, initially approved her husband being sealed to two sets of sisters—one pair, Emily and Eliza Partridge, had already been sealed to Joseph months before, but they orchestrated a second union to hide the existence of the first—and was then finally sealed to Joseph herself.

Yet if Hyrum remained polygamy’s most ardent convert, Emma’s support proved fleeting. It’s likely she didn’t know all the details or scope of her husband’s unions—by the end of that summer, the number of women sealed to him was in the thirties—and every time she encountered new information a conflict would follow

Finally, in early July, things reached a breaking point. Hyrum, eager to help, invited Joseph to his office on the morning of July 12 and urged him to dictate a revelation outlining the theology of plural marriage. He hoped that just as the doctrine had permanently converted him, it could finally do the same for Emma. Joseph acquiesced and produced a 3,300-word revelation “on the order of the priesthood.” Hyrum, still convinced that he was the one who could finally reach his sister-in-law, then rushed the text, ink still wet, over to Emma’s home, armed with what he believed were infallible truths.

The mission failed. When Hyrum returned, he reported that he had received the sternest rebuke of his life. The next day, after he had already made a copy of the text, Joseph allowed Emma to destroy the document that symbolized, for her, so much pain.

Circumstances did not immediately improve over the next few weeks. At one point, Joseph worried that Emma was going to take a plural spouse of her own; at another, Emma threatened Joseph with divorce. Eventually, they reached a truce, but only when Joseph promised to not take any more plural wives. A tenuous peace then remained until the next March, when Emma once again publicly denounced her husband’s private doctrines.

Yet even after that heated moment eventually subsided, which culminated in a dissident movement and Joseph’s death at the hands of a mob, that fateful summer still resulted in a number of legacies.

[LDS Physician]

"The second one on justification for Jospeh Smith's polyandry (he married 12 women in Nauvoo who already had living husbands also living with their wives in Nauvoo). "

No he didn't.
No record of these "marriages"
No record of these "sealings"

Your statement is inaccurate.

Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs

Joseph’s first polyandrous wife was Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs (1821-1901). In August 1839 Zina and most of her family were taken into Joseph and Emma’s home for about three weeks after Zina’s mother died of malaria. While there, Zina met Henry Jacobs, whom she would later marry. The following summer (1840) her father William Huntington married Lydia Partridge, the mother of Eliza and Emily Partridge, and most of the Huntingtons moved into the Partridge house, while Zina moved into her brother Dimick’s house.5 On March 7, 1841, Henry and Zina were married by John C. Bennett, who at the time was the mayor of Nauvoo. However, Joseph, who evidently had talked to Zina about her becoming his wife even before she married Jacobs, told them that it was still the Lord’s will that she be Joseph’s wife. She relented a few months later and was sealed to Joseph in a ceremony that she later dated as taking place on October 27, 1841.

In her autobiography, Zina commented on her decision, “I made a greater sacrifice than to give my life, for I never anticipated again to be looked upon as an honorable woman by those I dearly loved.”6 It makes no sense that she would be concerned that those closest to her might think her not an honorable woman if all she had done was agreed to be “sealed” to Joseph Smith “for eternity.” The “sacrifice” clearly implied that the union with Joseph was at least intended to include sexual relations.

Joseph Smith sent Henry away on at least four missions over the next two and a half years. These missions kept him away from home for varying periods of time ranging from a couple of weeks to five months.7 In all he was away from home for roughly ten months out of the thirty-two months that Zina was Joseph’s plural wife.

When Zina was questioned in 1898 by John Wight of the Reorganized LDS Church about her being married to Joseph at the same time as to Henry Jacobs, she responded, “What right have you to ask such questions? I was sealed to Joseph for eternity.” She also claimed that she had been married to Henry “but the marriage was unhappy and we parted,” implying that the sealing to Joseph took place only after her separation from Henry. However, this is known to be false, since her sealing to Joseph took place only a few months after her marriage to Henry, and since she remained Henry’s legal wife and bore him a son a few years later.8 In short, Zina was legally married to Henry and the two of them “had never stopped living together as husband and wife” throughout the time that she was also Joseph’s plural wife.9 It thus would appear that Zina’s responses were less than fully truthful, no doubt because admitting to polyandry would have been embarrassing to her and dishonoring to the Prophet. Zina’s story only became more shocking after Joseph’s death, because a couple of months later Brigham Young took her for his plural wife as well, later having a child with her.10 Since Zina had been sealed to Joseph, obviously her sealing to Brigham could not have been to secure her exaltation.

Less than two months after Zina was sealed to Joseph, her sister Presendia Lathrop Huntington (1810-1890) was also sealed to Joseph (Dec. 11, 1841). This was the first of three pairs of sisters sealed to Joseph as plural wives. Presendia was also married, to Norman Buell. When Presendia was sealed to Joseph, she and her husband lived about thirty miles south of Nauvoo, and “Presendia was able to make frequent trips to Nauvoo.”11 She made those visits no doubt in part because of her sister living there and in part because she, unlike her husband Norman, was a devout Mormon. Once she was sealed to Joseph, seeing him likely became a more significant factor in the visits. No specific information about her relationship with Joseph is available, but presumably it was comparable to her sister Zina’s relationship with him.

Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner

Another of Joseph’s polyandrous wives was Mary Elizabeth Rollins (born 1818), who had married Adam Lightner in 1835 (the two had ten children and remained married until his death in 1885). Mary gave a signed statement in 1902 affirming that in February 1842 Brigham Young had sealed her to Joseph “for time and all eternity.”12 This statement indicates that Mary’s relationship with Joseph was one in which sexual activity would have been considered (by LDS standards) proper.

Sylvia Sessions Lyon

Arguably the clearest instance of Joseph’s polyandry was his relationship with Sylvia Sessions Lyon, who had married Windsor Lyon (Joseph himself officiating) in 1838. Adding to the offense of this relationship is the fact that Joseph was also sealed to Sylvia’s mother Patty Bartlett Sessions. In the case of Patty, who was 47, it is plausible that the relationship was not sexual, but even so claiming as one’s wives a mother and her daughter is especially troubling (and unbiblical, see Lev. 18:17). One might reasonably speculate that Joseph persuaded Patty to become one of his plural wives in order to make it easier to persuade Sylvia to do likewise.

In a deathbed confession in 1882, Sylvia told her daughter Josephine, who had been born in 1844, that Joseph Smith was her father: “She told me then that I was the daughter of the Prophet Joseph Smith, she having been sealed to the Prophet at the time her husband Mr. Lyon was out of fellowship with the Church.” Josephine did not make her mother’s statement public knowledge until more than three decades later in 1915, no doubt due to its embarrassing nature. Josephine’s first name is obviously consistent with her being the daughter of Joseph Smith. That she was in fact his biological offspring is now widely acknowledged.13

Sylvia’s sealing to Joseph is usually dated in February 1842, but Hales has shown rather convincingly that the sealing probably took place a year later.14 Josephine’s account of her mother’s deathbed confession explicitly states that Sylvia was sealed to Joseph when her legal husband Windsor Lyon “was out of fellowship with the church,” and the date of his excommunication is known to have been in November 1842. Evidently, then, Joseph was sealed to Sylvia in early 1843, which fits with the fact that their daughter Josephine was conceived in about May 1843 and born in February 1844.

The fact that Windsor Lyon had been excommunicated did not mean, of course, that he had also stopped being Sylvia’s husband. Hales argues that Windsor and Sylvia separated shortly after his excommunication—that he moved to Iowa City while she chose to stay behind in Nauvoo. Even if this were true, it would mean at most that the couple had been separated briefly (perhaps only a few weeks) when Joseph was sealed to Sylvia. However, the reference on which Hales is relying at this point comes from 1945, more than 110 years after the fact, and Hales is vague as to the date that Windsor Lyon moved to Iowa City.15 Compton provides specific details showing that Windsor continued to reside in Nauvoo until the summer of 1846. Moreover, Windsor was on friendly terms with Joseph right up to the end of Joseph’s life, since he actually lent Joseph $500 (a large sum then) in February 1843, apparently the very month that his wife Sylvia was sealed to Joseph!16 Windsor “was called as a witness” to testify on Joseph’s behalf the day before he was killed at the Carthage jail (June 27, 1844), and rejoined the LDS Church in early 1846, shortly before he and Sylvia moved to Iowa City.17

These facts contradict Hales’s claim that Sylvia’s marriage to Windsor had de facto ended in late 1842, leaving her morally (if not quite legally) free to remarry. To the contrary, Windsor and Sylvia remained married and living in the same house throughout the time she was sealed to Joseph as a plural wife, and Windsor continued in good, friendly relations with the Mormons (even with Joseph himself) and even rejoined the LDS Church before his death in 1849.

Thus, Joseph and Sylvia conceived the child Josephine Lyon while Sylvia was still living as Windsor Lyon’s wife. Windsor had been excommunicated for less than three months when Sylvia was sealed to Joseph, and only about six months when they conceived Josephine. Throughout that period of time, Windsor and Sylvia continued to live in the same house as husband and wife. By any and all definitions, Sylvia was a polyandrous wife.

“Did the Prophet Joseph Want Every Man’s Wife He Asked For?”

The attitude of faithful, devout Mormons in the nineteenth century was that of unqualified compliance with Joseph Smith. That attitude is exemplified in a sermon given by Jedediah Grant in 1854 in the Salt Lake City Tabernacle:

When the family organization was revealed from heaven—the patriarchal order of God, and Joseph began, on the right and on the left, to add to his family, what a quaking there was in Israel. Says one brother to another, “Joseph says all covenants are done away, and none are binding but the new covenants; now suppose Joseph should come and say he wanted your wife, what would you say to that?” “I would tell him to go to hell.” This was the spirit of many in the early days of this Church….

If Joseph had a right to dictate me in relation to salvation, in relation to a hereafter, he had a right to dictate me in relation to all my earthly affairs….

What would a man of God say, who felt aright, when Joseph asked him for his money? He would say, “Yes, and I wish I had more to help to build up the kingdom of God.” Or if he came and said, “I want your wife?” “O yes,” he would say, “here she is, there are plenty more.”

…Did the Lord actually want Abraham to kill Isaac? Did the Prophet Joseph want every man’s wife he asked for? He did not, but in that thing was the grand thread of the Priesthood developed. The grand object in view was to try the people of God, to see what was in them. If such a man of God should come to me and say, “I want your gold and silver, or your wives,” I should say, “Here they are, I wish I had more to give you, take all I have got.” A man who has got the Spirit of God, and the light of eternity in him, has no trouble about such matters.18

It is not much of a defense of Joseph Smith’s polyandry to argue that he did not really “want every man’s wife he asked for.” The fact is that he wanted, and got, quite a few men’s wives. Hales tries to negate the significance of Grant’s statement by arguing that there is no historical evidence that Joseph ever actually demanded other men give up their wives to him.19 Given Joseph’s secrecy in the matter, however, perhaps Grant knew something the historical record does not reveal or at least that it does not substantiate to Hales’s satisfaction. What the historical evidence does make clear, in any case, is that Joseph claimed as his wives a dozen or more women who had living, legal husbands, and that he had sexual relations with at least several of them. The Bible is explicit that such polyandrous relationships are adultery:

For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man. (Romans 7:2-3 NASB, emphasis added).

The word of God in the Bible clearly states that what Joseph Smith practiced was adultery. Now, Christians are sinners saved by grace, and Christian men have been succumbing to temptation and committing adultery for two thousand years. However, Joseph claimed that his adultery was really sacred marriage commanded by God. It is simply not possible for a true prophet of God, acting in his capacity as God’s prophet, to claim that God commanded him to do something that is in reality adultery. Thus, Joseph’s multiple adulterous relationships, practiced under the cloak of prophetic authority, unmistakably mark him as a false prophet—what Jesus called a wolf in sheep’s clothing:

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits (Matthew 7:15-20 ESV).

If ever a situation merited Jesus’ description of a false prophet as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, it would be Joseph Smith’s polyandrous marriages.


1. “Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo,” LDS.org, 2014.

2. Brian C. Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, 3 vols. (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2013), 1:308-309.

3. Ibid., 1:310-14, 515-93.

4. Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), 84.

5. Ibid., 78-79.

6. Zina Young, in her autobiography or “Biographical Sketch,” quoted in Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 81; Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, 1:254 (spelling has been regularized here).

7. Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 82.

8. Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, 1:255.

9. Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 83.

10. Ibid., 83-84, 113.

11. Ibid., 122.

12. Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, 1:265.

13. Ibid., 1:349-54.

14. Ibid., 1:354-64.

15. Ibid., 1:361.

16. Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 181-82.

17. Ibid., 183-85.

18. Journal of Discourses, 2:13-14.

19. Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, 1:305.

We've gone through this before. Journal entries 3 decades after the supposed secret marriage do not evidence make.

I could today write in my journal that RMN operated on my heart on June 24th, 1982 ... and give all sorts of details and nuanced memories of how wonderful he was etc ad nauseum ... but that wouldn't change the absolute fact that he never operated on my heart. But some guy in 35 years could pick up my journal and read my account and tell all the family that "look! My grandfather was operated on by RMN!"

You're doing the exact same thing bringing up these sorts of accounts.

You need to give real evidence:

sealing records
CHILDREN with verified DNA results
marriage certificates

None of these exist. Not a one. Any sealing records that exist were created AFTER Joseph's death and IN Utah.

If you believe that Joseph was a polygamist, you have to discard:

EVERYTHING he preached about polygamy
EVERYTHING he published about polygamy
EVERYTHING printed in his 1835 version of the D&C about polygamy
EVERYTHING Emma every said about polygamy and if her husband practiced it

So ... quoting women like you just did is declaring that you believe that Joseph and Emma are LIARS and that this random woman ISN'T

That's what you're doing.

When it is all said and done ... I promise you ... you will find out that you are wrong. The liars aren't Joseph and Emma.

[Ciams]

Because procreation is a biological imperative and the desires innate in us to fulfill that imperative lead to the same pathologies that are driving other biological necessities like eating/overeating.

Polygamy is nearly always the result of the adulterous pathology at work with a attempt to build a formal familial structure around it.

There are times when eating an excess is necessary. Almost always not. The are times when the Lord commands Polygamy, almost always not.

Author Matt Whitney writes:

Interestingly, you see polygamous patterns in cults that range from those that mimic much of Christianity to those that have drifted far from it. Early leaders in the Latter Day Saints practiced it>4 and even venerated it5. The modern horrors of Warren Jeffs’ Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) were headline news only a few years ago. David Koresh and the Branch Davidians (of Waco massacre fame), Jim Jones (of Jonestown massacre fame), and Charles Manson (of, well, Charles Manson fame) were all cult leaders who either practiced polygamy or practiced partner sharing extensively and abusively.

Here's the full article: https://gospel.vision/why-do-so-many-cu ... -polygamy/

I like your logic. I'm just not sure that this metaphorical comparison isn't a stretch. I get the biological angle for both, but eating seems so necessary. Polygamy. Not so much.

Err, procreation is necessary from a species perspective. It's necessary from an individual genetic line perspective. Your line literally dies if you don't procreate. The inpulse drive is nearly exactly same only the time scope is different.

[ILiveIDieILiveAgain]

7 pages and Occam's Razor has been screaming the whole time: Because its hella fun to have sex with lots of women. Polygamy is a way to make it Ok.
Go outside of the religion realm, and the whole world is high on having lots of sex with so many all the time, starting from the teen years.
Lots of sex is just hella fun.

[FrankOne]

7 pages and Occam's Razor has been screaming the whole time: Because its hella fun to have sex with lots of women. Polygamy is a way to make it Ok.
Go outside of the religion realm, and the whole world is high on having lots of sex with so many all the time, starting from the teen years.
Lots of sex is just hella fun.

I'm not sure if I should laugh or agree. it think it's a Castor/Pollux thing.