liz3564 wrote:But wouldn't that undermine the principle of plural marriage just as much?
Rollo Tomasi wrote:liz3564 wrote:But wouldn't that undermine the principle of plural marriage just as much?
I don't think so -- right now, it's all just policy anyway (since D&C 132, the real 'doctrine' on the subject, did not foresee the Manifesto). It can be looked at as a temporary suspension consistent with present-day understanding that polygamy has ceased in this life, and any changes will be done after the return of Christ.
MormonMendacity wrote:Do you think that they'll never change D&C 132? I often wonder if removing it and then reverting back to the original Book of Commandments declaration wouldn't be better.
Brackite wrote:liz3564 wrote:Dale has an interesting perspective on this one, and has weighed in on it before. I actually brought this topic up in the Fellowship Forum on FAIR about a year ago. At that time, I was unaware of the Law of Adoption.
It seems like the apologetic stand on this is that Joseph may have misinterpreted this Law of Adoption. He was trying to seal everyone to him because he thought that was the only way they would all be together in the Celestial Kingdom. Later, Brigham Young corrected this, stating that worthy priesthood holders could be sealed to their wives and children and the Law of Adoption was not needed.
I'm sure I'm muddling my facts, so anyone who has done research on this, please feel free to jump in with the proper time frames, etc.
Hi liz3564,
Dale is a member of the Community of Christ Church (formally known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). Dale has a different perspective and view about Jospeh Smith and his getting married and/or sealed to other women, than does the traditional Utah LDS Church's perspective and view of Joseph Smith and his marriages to his plural wives. A lot of the LDS Apoligsts on the 'FAIR'/MA&D Board believe in Dale perspective and view of Joseph Smith and his getting married and/or sealed to other women, even though they are members of the Utah LDS Church. The following is from Todd Compton, from his Book titled, 'In Sacred Loneliness.' Here it is:Sexuality in Joseph Smith's Plural Marriages
Joseph Smith's first wife, Emma, allegedly told the wife of Apostle George A. Smith, Lucy, that Joseph Smith's plural wives were "celestial" only, that he had no earthly marital relations with them. "They were only sealed for eternity they were not to live with him and have children." Lucy later wrote that when she told this to her husband:He related to me the circumstance of his calling on Joseph late one evening and he was just taking a wash and Joseph told him that one of his wives had just been confined and Emma was the Midwife and he had been assisting her. He [George A. Smith] told me [Lucy Smith] this to prove to me that the women were married for time [as well as for eternity], as Emma had told me that Joseph never taught any such thing.
Because Reorganized Latter Day Saints claimed that Joseph Smith was not really married polygamously in the full (i.e., sexual) sense of the term, Utah Mormons (including Smith's wives) affirmed repeatedly that he had physical sexual relations with them—despite the Victorian conventions in nineteenth-century American culture which ordinarily would have prevented any mention of sexuality.
For instance, Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner stated that she knew of children born to Smith's plural wives: "I know he had six wives and I have known some of them from childhood up. I know he had three children. They told me. I think two are living today but they are not known as his children as they go by other names." Melissa Lott Willes testified that she had been Smith's wife "in very deed." Emily Partridge Young said she "roomed" with Joseph the night following her marriage to him, and said that she had "carnal intercourse" with him.
Other early witnesses also affirmed this. Benjamin Johnson wrote "On the 15th of May ... the Prophet again Came and at my hosue [house] ocupied the Same Room & Bed with my Sister that the month previous he had ocupied with the Daughter of the Later Bishop Partridge as his wife." According to Joseph Bates Noble, Smith told him he had spent a night with Louisa Beaman.
When Angus Cannon, a Salt Lake City stake president, visited Joseph Smith III in 1905, the RLDS president asked rhetorically if these women were his father's wives, then "how was it that there was no issue from them." Cannon replied:
All I knew was that which Lucy Walker herself contends. They were so nervous and lived in such constant fear that they could not conceive. He made light of my reply. He said, "I am informed that Eliza Snow was a virgin at the time of her death." I in turn said, "Brother Heber C. Kimball, I am informed, asked her the question if she was not a virgin although married to Joseph Smith and afterwards to Brigham Young, when she replied in a private gathering, 'I thought you knew Joseph Smith better than that.'"
Cannon then mentioned that Sylvia Sessions Lyon, a plural wife of Smith, had had a child by him, Josephine Lyon Fisher. Josephine left an affidavit stating that her mother, Sylvia, when on her deathbed, told her that she (Josephine) was the daughter of Joseph Smith. In addition, posterity (i.e., sexuality) was an important theological element in Smith's Abrahamic-promise justification for polygamy.
(Todd Compton, In Sacred Lonelinesss)
While Todd Compton does believe that Joseph Smith had sexual relationships with most of his plural wives, he does Not believe that the main reason why Joseph Smith entered into Polygamy was just because Joseph Smith wanted to have sex with multiple women. Todd Compton believed that the main reason why Joseph Smith entered into Polygamy was because of his Theological beliefs. That is what I also believe too. The followoing is also from Todd Compton, Book titled, 'In Sacred Loneliness.' Here it is:The Number of Joseph Smith's Wives
Though thirty-three is less than forty-eight, it is still a remarkably large, polygamous family. One may wonder why Smith married so many women when two or three wives would have complied with the reported divine command to enter polygamy. However, the church president apparently believed that complete salvation (in Mormon terminology, exaltation, including the concept of deification) depended on the extent of a man's family sealed to him in this life. Benjamin Johnson, a brother of Smith's plural wife Almera, wrote:The First Command was to "Multiply" and the Prophet taught us that Dominion & powr in the great Future would be Comensurate with the no [number] of "Wives Childin & Friends" that we inheret here and that our great mission to earth was to Organize a Neculi [nucleus] of Heaven to take with us. To the increace of which there would be no end—
The emphasis on increase echoes the Abrahamic promise, in which God promised Abraham that his posterity would be as plentiful as the dust of the earth, the stars in the sky, and the sands of the seashore (Gen. 13:16, 16:10, 17:6, 18:18, 22:17). Early Mormons taught that the doctrine of plural marriage was revealed to Smith "while he was engaged in the work of translation of the Scriptures," and historian Danel Bachman concludes that it was specifically the translation of Genesis, the Abraham passages, that caused Joseph to pray about polygamy in February 1831 and receive his first revelations on the topic. The example of Abraham and the Abrahamic promise are prominently mentioned in the LDS church's Doctrine and Covenants (D&C 132), the officially canonized revelation on polygamy and exaltation.
The idea that one had to be sealed to one's family nucleus in this life probably depended on another biblical passage, Matthew 22:30, in which Jesus states that "in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage." Smith apparently interpreted this to mean that one had to create one's "extended family," one's kingdom, by marriage while on earth. Orson Pratt, in a discourse given in 1859, taught this explicitly.
(Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness.)
While Todd Compton does believe that Joseph Smith had sexual relationships with most of his plural wives, he does Not believe that the main reason why Joseph Smith entered into Polygamy was just because Joseph Smith wanted to have sex with multiple women. Todd Compton believed that the main reason why Joseph Smith entered into Polygamy was because of his Theological beliefs.
liz3564 wrote:That is always given as the excuse for God intermittently sanctioning polygamy to begin with. Can't "righteous seed" be raised in monogamous relationships? I'm sorry...I just don't understand this.