What exactly Is Wrong with Polygamy anyway?

[KevinSim]

Smith kept it hidden because he knew Emma was strongly opposed to it. Just because one's spouse is strongly opposed to something doesn't necessarily make it wrong.

That's a fantastic point. Having made it, now it's time to put your money where your mouth is. Please tell your wife that you want to begin practicing polygamy--not necessarily due to some connection with Mormonism, but because there's nothing wrong with it in principle--then tell us whether she is able to find anything wrong with it.

Does it follow that a heterosexually married man, realizing that same sex marriage should be legal, should put his money where his mouth is, divorce his wife, and marry another man? Or keep his wife, add a husband, and become a sort of reverse Patricia Ireland?

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

That's a fantastic point. Having made it, now it's time to put your money where your mouth is. Please tell your wife that you want to begin practicing polygamy--not necessarily due to some connection with Mormonism, but because there's nothing wrong with it in principle--then tell us whether she is able to find anything wrong with it.

Does it follow that a heterosexually married man, realizing that same sex marriage should be legal, should put his money where his mouth is, divorce his wife, and marry another man? Or keep his wife, add a husband, and become a sort of reverse Patricia Ireland?

[drumdude]

Smith kept it hidden because he knew Emma was strongly opposed to it. Just because one's spouse is strongly opposed to something doesn't necessarily make it wrong.

This is an obvious troll guys. Come on.

[doubtingthomas]

Even worse, in this case, is the fact that the claim in the essay contradicts actual evidence. The rationale used in the essay assumes that there was a shortage of men to marry. But the evidence shows that LDS men outnumbered LDS women in the Territory and in the church throughout the period that Polygamy was practiced in Utah.

I have some questions. Is it possible that most church members in the 1800s were old men? Perhaps the Church looked like US Congress with mostly men in their 50s, 60s, and 70s.

Was it common for a Mormon man to marry a non-Mormon woman? Was it safe for a woman in her 30s to get married and have children? Marcus pointed out

her late-30s aged husband leaving for a week so he could court an 18 year old in an arranged vacation-type setting. He brought her home and married her, with his heavily pregnant wife in attendance, and then gave all his attention to his new bride. A couple of weeks later, she died shortly after a difficult childbirth.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

https://mormonpolygamydocuments.org/

[doubtingthomas]

. But the evidence shows that LDS men outnumbered LDS women in the Territory and in the church throughout the period that Polygamy was practiced in Utah.

You also have to take into account that the majority of new converts were women. Do you have evidence that Mormon men in their 20s outnumbered young women?

[KevinSim]

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has run DNA tests on all [t]he children born to Joseph Smith's polygamous wives during the times he might have fathered them, and none of them matched Smith's DNA. So it didn't keep in line with Jacob 2:30. This has puzzled me to no end. Joseph Smith was a very fertile man. He and Emma got pregnant nine times during the relatively short time they were married. How does a man as fertile as Smith was consummate forty marriages without a single plural wife getting pregnant? I haven't been able to figure this one out.

John C. Bennett was Joseph's abortionist. No, that's not a joke.

Have you given a lot of consideration to that assertion, Dr. Shades? Really thought about it? Joseph Smith tried very hard to keep Emma (and, it could be argued, the rest of the world) from knowing about his polygamous marriages. And yet Todd Compton was able to write a book listing tidbits of information on forty of those wives. Is there reason to believe there were more than that forty? I don't know. I'm actually curious. We also have the names of every child born to those wives that might have been fathered by Joseph Smith. Did Joseph Smith try harder to keep his aborted children a secret than he did try to keep his marriages secret? Think about it. It has been pointed out that the whole rationale for polygamy was so that more children could be born. So Joseph Smith tells each of his pregnant wives that John Bennett is going to abort her baby, and none of those wives ever say anything about it? I find that very hard to believe. So maybe Smith didn't tell them it was going to happen; maybe Bennett just aborted the babies, without any input from Smith. But that's even harder to believe. A few years later Bennett is excommunicated in disgrace, and those women think that they could have been the mother of Joseph Smith's child if it hadn't been for surgery by that evil man. And yet, nobody ever said anything about aborted babies. There's evidence of Bennett aborting his own children. Why should he do a worse job of keeping the abortions of his own children secret than he did the abortions of Joseph Smith's children, that he performed?

[KevinSim]

And the fraction mentioned in (c) is on average the same fraction we have today.

NO IT ISN'T! A monogamous woman has 100% of a relationship with her partner, since her partner isn't splitting his relationship with any other woman.

Ah, so monogamous women that have partners are the only ones that count! I've got it now. People like the Shirley Cook that used to live in my ward don't really exist, or maybe they're not really real humans if they do exist. They don't matter, right, Dr. Shades?

[KevinSim]

1. More men than women do not desire to marry, in perpetuity.
2. Church recruits(converts) more women than men, in perpetuity.
3. Women are married at a younger and younger age (not sustainable- eventually marry at birth and then program hits a wall).

Dr. Moore, it's (1).

[KevinSim]

Moksha, why are child brides inevitable?

Because there aren't two women for every man under normal circumstances.

Right. So not all men can practice polygamy. If there are two men willing to marry for every three women willing to marry, then not all the men can have multiple wives. I'm not saying that I know the ratio is two to three; that's just a very rough guess.