Mormon Polygamy

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose members are sometimes nicknamed Mormons, do not practice polygamy today. This was discontinued in the 1800s and even then was only  a minority practice. Those who practice polygamy and call themselves Mormons are not part of the official church, but are separate religions entirely. Any Mormon who begins to practice polygamy is excommunicated from the Church.

Polygamy, as it was practiced by the Mormons in the 1800s, was very different than the polygamy practiced by many offshoot religions today. Joseph Smith, the first prophet of Mormonism, introduced the doctrine as a result of revelation. However, he was always very uncomfortable with it and attempted to avoid practicing it. When God commanded him with a warning that his leadership would be taken from him and given to another, he relented. Although he did enter into polygamous marriages, they were “spiritual marriages,” meaning that there was no intimacy. The marriages existed to join the wives to him in the eternities. (Mormons believe marriage is eternal, not temporal.) One amused wife said the marriage was performed, he shook her hand, and they eacg went off to their own homes. DNA studies have shown that all those listed as possible children of Joseph Smith by a popular anti-Mormon author who still have living descendents are actually the children of the listed fathers. None contain the DNA of Joseph Smith. Although Mormons would not be uncomfortable discovering he did have offspring, since the restoration of polygamy for a brief time was a part of the required restoration of all things, this has not been proven to be the case.

Polygamy was openly practiced during the time of Brigham Young. It was not mandatory and not required for salvation, unlike the teachings of some modern offshoots. Men had to receive permission to take multiple wives, and this permission included demonstrating the ability to financially support another wife and also required the permission of the first wife. Brigham Young did not select wives for men unless he was asked to do so. Women were not required to accept marriage proposals of any kind, and so all women entering into a polygamous relationship did so voluntarily. A woman who entered into a polygamous marriage and then found she could not handle it was nearly always granted a divorce, even though divorce in other circumstances was discouraged. Men, however, were instructed to go home and work harder on the marriages. It is estimated that only about a third of married Mormon women were in polygamous marriages and most such marriages involved only two wives.

Polygamy offered protection to women living in a very different time. Women in this era had very few legal rights and few opportunities to support themselves if they were single. For many women, a polygamous marriage offered financial and legal protection. Thirty percent of women in polygamous relationships were previously widowed or divorced. Since there were far more women than men in the church, polygamy offered women a way to fulfill the commandment to marry. In addition, it offered many women the opportunity to live more autonomously. Brigham Young encouraged women in these relationships to pursue advanced educations or careers, since there were multiple women to share the housework and parenting. Brigham Young believed women ought to be allowed to hold any career they chose, including those normally restricted to men. He often approached specific women he felt were capable of far more than they imagined and suggested they pursue education in a specific non-traditional career, such as medicine. He said:

“As I have often told my sisters in the Female Relief Societies, we have sisters here who, if they had the privilege of studying, would make just as good mathematicians or accountants as any man; and we think they ought to have the privilege to study these branches of knowledge that they may develop the powers with which they are endowed. We believe that women are useful not only to sweep houses, wash dishes, make beds, and raise babies, but that they should stand behind the counter, study law or physic [medicine], or become good book-keepers and be able to do the business in any counting house, and this to enlarge their sphere of usefulness for the benefit of society at large (DBY, 216–17).

The sisters in our Female Relief Societies have done great good. Can you tell the amount of good that the mothers and daughters in Israel are capable of doing? No, it is impossible. And the good they do will follow them to all eternity (DBY, 216). (Brigham Young, Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young.)

 Martha Cannon became a doctor and then ran for office as a Democrat, intending to draw attention to the need for improved health care. Her opponent was her own husband. She won, becoming the first female senator in Utah.

In the early church, married men served long missions away from home. Having more than one wife allowed the women to have companionship and help with the complicated chores of pioneer life while the men were away. Because men had to have permission to take a second wife, from both the church and their first wife, they were motivated to be good husbands and women deciding whether or not to accept a proposal could see for themselves how the man treated a wife.

Mormon women were far more “liberated” than were most women of the time. They were first given the right to vote in Utah in 1870. However, when the federal government took control of the state, it promptly removed that right, as well as many other political rights Mormon women held. This led to many women to become suffragettes, often working through the Relief Society, the official women’s auxiliary.  Emmeline B. Wells, whose husband Daniel had six wives, was a magazine editor. With her husband’s support, she traveled often to the east to work for women’s suffrage. She became a close friend of Susan B. Anthony.

Mormon women were strong and knew how to handle hardship and to defend themselves. During the years of persecution, they had their homes destroyed and their children and spouses killed. Mormons had been the target of an extermination order by a governor and had been chased from homes in the dead of winter. They had crossed the plains through great hardship. No one dared consider them fragile or unable to make decisions for themselves.

In 1870, a month before women got the vote the first time, the women of the church held a conference to discuss women’s rights and the status of Mormon women. Eliza R. Snow, one of Brigham Young’s wives and the leader of women, spoke at the conference:

““Our enemies pretend that, in Utah, woman is held in a state of vassalage—that she does not act from choice, but by coercion. What nonsense!

“I will now ask of this assemblage of intelligent ladies, Do you know of any place on the face of the earth, where woman has more liberty and where she enjoys such high and glorious privileges as she does here as a Latter-day Saint? No! the very idea of a woman here in a state of slavery is a burlesque on good common sense … as women of God, filling high and responsible positions, performing sacred duties—women who stand not as dictators, but as counselors to their husbands, and who, in the purest, noblest sense of refined womanhood, are truly their helpmates—we not only speak because we have the right, but justice and humanity demands we should!” (See Jaynann Morgan Payne, “Eliza R. Snow: First Lady of the Pioneers,” Ensign, September 1973.)