Bushman article from the NYT

[_Nevo]

Hey Nevo... :-) Nice to "see" you!

Thanks for your insights on this.

In any case, I don't think Bushman just made this up.

I do not think Bushman made it up nor I do not think he is lying... not at all.

I think he knows that Joseph Smith did not start polygamy to take care of the poor single girls and women.

I think Bushman cleverly "floated" a theory that was incorrect.

I'm open to learning here... did Joseph Smith mention anything about starting polygamy to help the poor girls and young women and single women?? Did Joseph Smith marry other men's wives to protect them? Did the girls he married need protection and help because they did not have any male family members?

Hi truth dancer, nice to see you too! Just to clarify, the excerpt I quoted from Bushman wasn't referring to Joseph Smith's practice of polygamy.

Bushman notes that Joseph gave "few rationales for it" and that D&C 132--where polygamy is depicted as part of the restoration of the ancient order of things--"is virtually all he said on the subject." "The injunction for polygamy is to go and do the works of Abraham. Beyond that, it's hard to understand."

[_beastie]

Since the fact that there were more men in Utah than women has become too well known (at least on the internet) the current apologetic twist is that there weren't enough RIGHTEOUS men for these women.

(tell that to Henry Jacobs)

[_Nevo]

WOW. I didn't even know about this Carmon Hardy book!

for what it's worth, I think Hardy is right, but also share Dr. Shades' understanding that there were more men than women in Utah. How can both be right? Because the latter quantity is derived from the census, which, of course, includes both LDS and non-LDS. The excess of men in Utah was because of the mining industry, not because of the Mormons.

Don

Hi Don,

I don't own Daynes's book (my bad!) but I did look up her JMH article and she makes some interesting observations about sex ratios.

She writes:

In 1850 the sex ratio for those fifteen to twenty-nine [the prime marrying age range] was quite high. There were 124 males for every 100 females, not an unusual ratio for a frontier area in its earliest stages of settlement. Rapid immigration into Utah during the 1850s both greatly expanded and changed the population. By 1860 the sex ratio for those in the prime marrying ages dropped to 93 [males for every 100 females]; within a decade the shortage of women had turned into a surplus. By 1870 the numbers of men and women of prime marrying age were almost equal, by 1880 men again outnumbered women slightly (sex ratio of 105), and by 1890 the sex ratio had climbed to 116 for those fifteen to twenty-nine. These sex ratios indicate that men of this age group significantly outnumbered women of similar age only in 1850 and 1890; in the intervening decades there was a shortage of young men or they were only slightly more numerous than young women. Thus the marriage market was not as disadvantageous for young men as the sex ratio for the entire Utah population would suggest.

It is unclear, though, how many non-Mormon men, such as soldiers, merchants, and miners, were included in each census. Dean May has calculated that non-Mormons accounted for 12 percent of Utah's population in 1860 and 21 percent in 1880. Because non-Mormon men undoubtedly outnumbered non-Mormon women in nineteenth-century Utah, the preponderance of men, as shown in the census, is unlikely to reflect the sex ratio within the Mormon population.

-- Kathryn M. Daynes, "Single Men in a Polygamous Society: Male Marriage Patterns in Manti, Utah," Journal of Mormon History 24, no. 1 (1998): 91.

[_Nevo]

Further to beastie's comment above, here is some more from Daynes's article:

From the 1850s to the 1880s, then, the number of women receiving their temple blessings exceeded the number of men who did. Thus, in the marriage market containing only those desiring temple ordinances, men were at a decided advantage--or they would have been so in a monogamous system. Under such a system, women who wished to be sealed to a mate would have experienced a marriage squeeze; that is, they would have encountered a scarcity of endowed males.

In short, a Mormon woman who wished to be married in the temple would have had reduced chances of such a marriage under a monogamous system. The marriage squeeze against endowed women eased slightly in the 1870s, but there still would have been a conspicuous shortage of men (Daynes, "Single Men in Manti," 92).

[_truth dancer]

Hi Nevo... :-)

Hi truth dancer, nice to see you too! Just to clarify, the excerpt I quoted from Bushman wasn't referring to Joseph Smith's practice of polygamy.

Yes, thank you for clarifying. I do understand Bushman was discussing a particular community but I fail to see how this has anything whatsoever to do with why Joseph Smith began polygamy. The thing I have a problem with is, (smile), that folks try to make excuses for polygamy by claiming all sorts of things when in fact, the reasons for polygamy as given by the very prophet who started the whole thing were quite different than the stories other use to justify it all. In fact, Joseph Smith's very example would show that these theories are unsound.

Bushman notes that Joseph gave "few rationales for it" and that D&C 132--where polygamy is depicted as part of the restoration of the ancient order of things--"is virtually all he said on the subject." "The injunction for polygamy is to go and do the works of Abraham. Beyond that, it's hard to understand."

in my opinion, this is the honest response. No need to continue "floating" untrue theories.

Joseph Smith claimed to have restored the ancient order of things.

He married girls who had fathers and brothers. He married women who had righteous husbands. He married single girls and women who would have had much opportunity to marry young men of their choosing who were not already married. He married girls and women who did not need him as a protector.


~dancer~

[_harmony]

Bushman notes that Joseph gave "few rationales for it" and that D&C 132--where polygamy is depicted as part of the restoration of the ancient order of things--"is virtually all he said on the subject." "The injunction for polygamy is to go and do the works of Abraham. Beyond that, it's hard to understand."

I thought Bushman was supposed to be a good historian? If he's such a good historian, how could he have missed what Joseph said about plural marriage? Excuse me, but Joseph said quite a lot about it... mostly he denied it, lied about it, and led people astray about it, but he said quite a lot, and it's all recorded in newspapers, letters, and journals. How did Bushman ever miss that?

[_truth dancer]

Hi Harmony,

I thought Bushman was supposed to be a good historian? If he's such a good historian, how could he have missed what Joseph said about plural marriage? Excuse me, but Joseph said quite a lot about it... mostly he denied it, lied about it, and led people astray about it, but he said quite a lot, and it's all recorded in newspapers, letters, and journals. How did Bushman ever miss that?

You make an excellent point!

Joseph Smith did say a LOT about polygamy.

I should mention that I disagree with Bushman when he states, "it is hard to understand."

I don't think so! I also do not think it was hard for the other male leaders of his day to "understand."

~dancer~

[_harmony]

I should mention that I disagree with Bushman when he states, "it is hard to understand."

I don't think so! I also do not think it was hard for the other male leaders of his day to "understand."

~dancer~

It's only hard to understand if you're trying to preserve a reverence for Joseph Smith. Once you get past that, and understand that he was just an ordinary guy with a king-sized libido who found a way around his marriage vows, it's easy to understand. Bushman's problem is he's not unbiased, and it shows.

[_huckelberry]

Beastie, I think you have a good eye for the telling detail. Yes indeed any rational reason for polygamy I can conceive suffers, to my mind anyway, from have better responses not involving poloygamy. That includes the possible explanation, a desire for more sex.

"it is hard to understand."

I almost got the impression this phrase appeared first in this thread from a believer, as an awed expression.. I almost expected to read, and thus it must have been of divine origen. A human like Joseph Smith could not have produced something so hard to fathom.

Maybe I heard that only because I infact continue to have some difficulties fathoming why polygamy was instituted. My attempts are not limited by a need to preserve a particular reputation. But even if I allow the possibity of high ideals to be behind it, it looks irrational. I think all sorts of people shy away from irrational as an actual historical cause. I think that shyness leads skeptics to overestimate sex as reason. It is quite likely that sex would have some contributing factor but I have a hard time seeing it as explaining the whole cumbersome emotionally brutal and absurd process.

I have a hard time imagining that the whole 30 wives thing could develope any of the emotional entheusiam required for sexual expression. I can as easily suspect sexual repression as not only outcome but intention. But of course that would be a unusual repression, one which simultaneously suggested at least a bit of sexual expression. ( is there a lasciviousness in stories of licked cupcakes?)

I will float a few more what ifs.

What if people actually have a desire to be given hard things to obey?

Obedience gives a preson the feeling of moral rectitude with out the ambiguity of helping people. Obedience can give the effect of accomplishing something righteous. Even more emotionally stimulating if the obedience is scary and entirely within the possiblity of being done.(unlike varies New Testament demands which we all fail at)

What if people actually desire to either be at the center of all attention and power or be in the inner circle around that power. What if that desire is stronger than the desire for sex or closely associated with it.

I do have a hard time not seeing Joseph Smith marring all sorts of people as a need to restructure the world about him as a big circle with him in the center.

I am not sure if these explain completely. I suspect that, it was irrational, might actually be an active contributive cause. Not that a rational person was choosing something because it is irrational but simply the choosing being done was subrational.

[_Inconceivable]

The fact that Bushman floats this theory may be that the various "accepted" doctrinal justifications just don't set very well with him either.

Why fluff it up if the accepted doctrine is what it is.

Bushman, tell us how you really feel about this.