Polygamy in North America - Wikipedia
A number of Smith's "marriages" occurred after his death, with the wife being sealed to Smith via a proxy who stood in for him. Compton , documented at least 33 plural marriages or sealings during Smith's lifetime. Faulring came up with a list of 29 wives of Joseph Smith. It is unclear how many of the wives Smith had sexual relations with. Many contemporary accounts from Smith's time indicate that he engaged in sexual relations with several of his wives. Sorenson in association with Professor Scott R.
Lyon's mother, Sylvia Sessions Lyon, left her daughter a deathbed affidavit telling her she was Smith's daughter. Kimball had 43 wives, and had 65 children by 17 of those wives. Friction first began to show in the James Buchanan administration and federal troops arrived see Utah War. Buchanan, anticipating Mormon opposition to a newly appointed territorial governor to replace Brigham Young, dispatched 2, federal troops to Utah to seat the new governor, thus setting in motion a series of misunderstandings in which the Mormons felt threatened.
For the most part, the rest of the United States considered plural marriage offensive. Lincoln made a statement that he had no intentions of enforcing it if the LDS Church would not interfere with him, and so the matter was laid to rest for a time. But rhetoric continued, and polygamy became an impediment to Utah being admitted as a state. Brigham Young preached in that if Utah will not be admitted to the Union until it abandons polygamy, "we shall never be admitted.
After the Civil War, immigrants to Utah who were not members of the church continued the contest for political power. They were frustrated by the consolidation of the members.
Polygamy in North America
Forming the Liberal Party , non-Mormons began pushing for political changes and sought to weaken the church's dominance in the territory. In September , Young was indicted for adultery due to his plural marriages. In February , George Q. Cannon , a prominent leader in the church, was denied a non-voting seat in the U. House of Representatives due to his polygamous relations. This revived the issue of polygamy in national politics.
Even if people did not practice polygamy, they would have their rights revoked if they confessed a belief in it. In August, Rudger Clawson was imprisoned for continuing to cohabit with wives that he married before the Morrill Act. In , the Edmunds—Tucker Act allowed the disincorporation of the LDS Church and the seizure of church property; it also further extended the punishments of the Edmunds Act. In July of the same year, the U. Attorney General filed suit to seize all church assets. The church was losing control of the territorial government, and many members and leaders were being actively pursued as fugitives.
Without being able to appear publicly, the leadership was left to navigate "underground". Following the passage of the Edmunds—Tucker Act, the church found it difficult to operate as a viable institution. After visiting priesthood leaders in many settlements, church president Wilford Woodruff left for San Francisco on September 3, , to meet with prominent businessmen and politicians. He returned to Salt Lake City on September 21, determined to obtain divine confirmation to pursue a course that seemed to be agonizingly more and more clear.
As he explained to church members a year later, the choice was between, on the one hand, continuing to practice plural marriage and thereby losing the temples , "stopping all the ordinances therein," and, on the other, ceasing plural marriage in order to continue performing the essential ordinances for the living and the dead. Woodruff hastened to add that he had acted only as the Lord directed:. I should have let all the temples go out of our hands; I should have gone to prison myself, and let every other man go there, had not the God of heaven commanded me to do what I do; and when the hour came that I was commanded to do that, it was all clear to me.
The final element in Woodruff's revelatory experience came on the evening of September 23, The following morning, he reported to some of the general authorities that he had struggled throughout the night with the Lord regarding the path that should be pursued. The result was a word handwritten manuscript which stated his intentions to comply with the law and denied that the church continued to solemnize or condone plural marriages.
The document was later edited by George Q. Cannon of the First Presidency and others to its present words. On October 6, , it was presented to the Latter-day Saints at the General Conference and unanimously approved. While many church leaders in regarded the Manifesto as inspired, there were differences among them about its scope and permanence.
Contemporary opinions include the contention that the manifesto was more related to an effort to achieve statehood for the Utah territory. As a result, over plural marriages were performed between and It was not until , under the leadership of church president Joseph F. Smith , that the church completely banned new plural marriages worldwide. The ambiguity was ended in the General Conference of April , when Smith issued the " Second Manifesto ", an emphatic declaration that prohibited plural marriage and proclaimed that offenders would be subject to church discipline.
It declared that any who participated in additional plural marriages, and those officiating, would be excommunicated from the church. Those disagreeing with the Second Manifesto included apostles Matthias F. Cowley and John W. Taylor , who both resigned from the Quorum of the Twelve. Cowley retained his membership in the church, but Taylor was later excommunicated.
Although the Second Manifesto ended the official practice of new plural marriages, existing plural marriages were not automatically dissolved. Many Mormons, including prominent church leaders, maintained existing plural marriages into the s and s. In , the First Presidency learned that apostle Richard R. Lyman was cohabitating with a woman other than his legal wife. As it turned out, in Lyman had begun a relationship which he defined as a polygamous marriage.
Unable to trust anyone else to officiate, Lyman and the woman exchanged vows secretly. By , both were in their seventies. Lyman was excommunicated on November 12, , at age The Quorum of the Twelve provided the newspapers with a one-sentence announcement, stating that the ground for excommunication was violation of the law of chastity. Over time, many of those who rejected the LDS Church's relinquishment of plural marriage formed small, close-knit communities in areas of the Rocky Mountains. These groups continue to practice "the Principle".
Petersen coined the term " Mormon fundamentalist " to describe such people. Today, the LDS Church objects to the use of the term "Mormon fundamentalists" and suggests using the term "polygamist sects" to avoid confusion about whether the main body of Mormon believers teach or practice polygamy. Mormon fundamentalists believe that plural marriage is a requirement for exaltation and entry into the highest level of the celestial kingdom. These beliefs stem from statements by 19th-century Mormon authorities including Brigham Young although some of these leaders gave possibly conflicting statements that a monogamist may obtain at least a lower degree of "exaltation" through mere belief in polygamy.
For public relations reasons, the LDS Church has sought vigorously to disassociate itself from Mormon fundamentalists and the practice of plural marriage. Mormon fundamentalists themselves embrace the term " Mormon " and share a religious heritage and beliefs with the LDS Church, including canonization of the Book of Mormon and a claim that Joseph Smith is the founder of their religion.
Although the LDS Church has abandoned the practice of plural marriage, it has not abandoned the underlying doctrines of polygamy. According to the church's sacred texts and pronouncements by its leaders and theologians, the church leaves open the possibility that it may one day re-institute the practice. It is still the practice of monogamous Mormon couples to be sealed to one another. However, in some circumstances, men and women may be sealed to multiple spouses. Most commonly, a man may be sealed to multiple wives: A deceased woman may also be sealed to multiple men, but only through vicarious sealing if they are also deceased.
As early as the publication of the Book of Mormon in , Latter Day Saint doctrine maintained that polygamy was allowable only if it was commanded by God. The Book of Jacob condemned polygamy as adultery, [71] but left open the proviso that "For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise, they shall hearken unto these things. According to this view, the Manifesto and Second Manifesto rescinded God's prior authorization given to Joseph Smith.
McConkie controversially stated in his book, Mormon Doctrine , that God will "obviously" re-institute the practice of polygamy after the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. In the case where a man's first wife dies, and the man remarries, and both of the marriages involve a sealing , LDS authorities teach that in the afterlife, the man will enter a polygamous relationship with both wives. Under LDS Church policy, a man whose sealed wife has died does not have to request any permission beyond having a current temple recommend and an interview with his bishop to get final permission for a living ordinance, to be married in the temple and sealed to another woman, unless the new wife's circumstance requires a cancellation of sealing.
However, a woman whose sealed husband has died is still bound by the original sealing and must request a cancellation of sealing to be sealed to another man see next paragraph for exception to this after she dies. In some cases, women in this situation who wish to remarry choose to be married to subsequent husbands in the temple "for time only", and are not sealed to them, leaving them sealed to their first husband for eternity.
As of , however, women who have died may be sealed to more than one man. In , the LDS Church created a new policy that a woman may also be sealed to more than one man. A woman, however, may not be sealed to more than one man while she is alive. She may only be sealed to subsequent partners after both she and her husband s have died. Proxy sealings, like proxy baptisms, are merely offered to the person in the afterlife, indicating that the purpose is to allow the woman to choose the right man to be sealed to. A man who is sealed to a woman but later divorced must apply for a "sealing clearance" from the First Presidency in order to be sealed to another woman.
Receiving clearance does not void or invalidate the first sealing. A woman in the same circumstances would apply to the First Presidency for a "cancellation of sealing" sometimes called a "temple divorce" , allowing her to be sealed to another man. This approval voids the original sealing as far as the woman is concerned. Divorced women who have not applied for a sealing cancellation are considered sealed to the original husband. However, it is generally believed that even in the afterlife the marriage relationship is voluntary, so no person could be forced into an eternal relationship through temple sealing that they do not wish to be in.
Divorced women may also be granted a cancellation of sealing, even though they do not intend to marry someone else. In this case, they are no longer regarded as being sealed to anyone and are presumed to have the same eternal status as unwed women. According to church policy, after a man has died, he may be sealed by proxy to all of the women to whom he was legally married while he was alive.
The same is true for women; however, if a woman was sealed to a man while she was alive, all of her husbands must be deceased before she can be sealed by proxy to them. Church doctrine is not entirely specific on the status of men or women who are sealed by proxy to multiple spouses. There are at least two possibilities:. Critics of polygamy in the early LDS Church claim that plural marriages produced unhappiness in some wives.
Critics of polygamy in the early LDS Church claim that church leaders established the practice of polygamy in order to further their immoral desires for sexual gratification with multiple sexual partners. Others conclude that many Latter-day Saints entered into plural marriage based on the belief that it was a religious commandment, rather than as an excuse for sexual license.
For instance, many of the figures who came to be best associated with plural marriage, including church president Brigham Young and his counselor Heber C. Kimball , expressed revulsion at the system when it was first introduced to them. Young famously stated that after receiving the commandment to practice plural marriage in Nauvoo , he saw a funeral procession walking down the street and he wished he could exchange places with the corpse. He recalled that "I was not desirous of shrinking from any duty, nor of failing in the least to do as I was commanded, but it was the first time in my life that I had desired the grave, and I could hardly get over it for a long time.
He was later shocked to learn that he was to marry a younger woman. Critics of polygamy in the early LDS Church claim that church leaders sometimes used polygamy to take advantage of young girls for immoral purposes. Smith studied men who took plural wives in the early years of the Latter Day Saint movement, and found that two of the girls were thirteen years old, 13 girls were fourteen years old, 21 were fifteen years old, and 53 were sixteen years old. However, it seems that Brigham Young attempted to stamp out the practice of men being sealed to excessively young girls.
In , he stated, "I shall not seal the people as I have done. I would not seal them to him. They would not be equally yoked together The Conference upholds monogamy as God's plan, as the idea of relationship of love between husband and wife; nevertheless recommends that a polygymaist who responds to the Gospel and wishes to join the Anglican Church may be baptized and confirmed with his believing wives and children on the following conditions:. Latter Day Saints portal. This scripture was used by John Taylor in to quash Mormon polygamy rumors in Liverpool, England.
Kimball took multiple wives. Mormon elders who publicly taught that all men were commanded to enter plural marriage were subject to harsh discipline. After Joseph Smith was killed by a mob on 27 June , the main body of Latter Day Saints left Nauvoo and followed Brigham Young to Utah where the practice of plural marriage continued.
Additional sermons by top Mormon leaders on the virtues of polygamy followed. The key plank of the Republican Party 's platform was "to prohibit in the territories those twin relics of barbarism, polygamy and slavery". The LDS Church believed that their religiously based practice of plural marriage was protected by the United States Constitution , [] however, the unanimous Supreme Court decision Reynolds v. United States declared that polygamy was not protected by the Constitution, based on the longstanding legal principle that "laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices.
Increasingly harsh anti-polygamy legislation in the US led some Mormons to emigrate to Canada and Mexico. Anti-Mormon sentiment waned, as did opposition to statehood for Utah. By the LDS Church excommunicated those who entered into, or performed, new plural marriages.
Even so, many plural husbands and wives continued to cohabit until their deaths in the s and s.
- Wolf Story (New York Review Collections (Hardcover)).
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Enforcement of the Manifesto caused various splinter groups to leave the LDS Church in order to continue the practice of plural marriage. Polygamist churches of Mormon origin are often referred to as " Mormon fundamentalist " even though they are not a part of the LDS Church. Such fundamentalists often use a purported revelation to John Taylor as the basis for their authority to continue the practice of plural marriage. Buhman that the portions of Utah's anti-polygamy laws which prohibit multiple cohabitation were unconstitutional, but also allowed Utah to maintain its ban on multiple marriage licenses.
The Council of Friends also known as the Woolley Group and the Priesthood Council [] [] was one of the original expressions of Mormon fundamentalism , having its origins in the teachings of Lorin C. Woolley , a dairy farmer excommunicated from the LDS Church in For most of his career, Smith denied that his father had been involved in the practice and insisted that it had originated with Brigham Young.
Smith served many missions to the western United States where he met with and interviewed associates and women claiming to be widows of his father, who attempted to present him with evidence to the contrary. Smith typically responded to such accusations by saying that he was "not positive nor sure that [his father] was innocent", [] and that if, indeed, the elder Smith had been involved, it was still a false practice. However, many members of the Community of Christ , and some of the groups that were formerly associated with it are not convinced that Joseph Smith practiced plural marriage, and feel that the evidence that he did is flawed.
In Islamic marital jurisprudence , under reasonable and warranted conditions, a Muslim man may have more than one wife at the same time, up to a total of four. Muslim women are not permitted to have more than one husband at the same time under any circumstances. Based on verse And among His Signs is this, that He created for you mates from among yourselves, that ye may dwell in tranquillity with them, and He has put love and mercy between your hearts: The polygyny that is allowed in the Koran is for special situations. There are strict requirements to marrying more than one woman, as the man must treat them equally financially and in terms of support given to each wife, according to Islamic law.
However, Islam advises monogamy for a man if he fears he can't deal justly with his wives. This is based on verse 4: If ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly with the orphans, Marry women of your choice, Two or three or four; but if ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly with them , then only one, or one that your right hands possess, that will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing injustice.
Muslim women are not allowed to marry more than one husband at once. However, in the case of a divorce or their husbands' death they can remarry after the completion of Iddah , as divorce is legal in Islamic law. A non-Muslim woman who flees from her non-Muslim husband and accepts Islam has the option to remarry without divorce from her previous husband, as her marriage with non-Muslim husband is Islamically dissolved on her fleeing. The verse also emphasizes on transparency, mutual agreement and financial compensation as prerequisites for matrimonial relationship as opposed to prostitution; it says:.
Also prohibited are women already married, except those whom your right hands possess: Thus hath Allah ordained Prohibitions against you: Except for these, all others are lawful, provided ye seek them in marriage with gifts from your property,- desiring chastity, not lust, seeing that ye derive benefit from them, give them their dowers at least as prescribed; but if, after a dower is prescribed, agree Mutually to vary it , there is no blame on you, and Allah is All-knowing, All-wise.
Muhammad was monogamously married to Khadija , his first wife, for 25 years, until she died. After her death, he married multiple women, mostly widows, [] for social and political reasons. The Qur'an does not give preference in marrying more than one wife.
One reason cited for polygyny is that it allows a man to give financial protection to multiple women, who might otherwise not have any support e. In such a case, the husband cannot marry another woman as long as he is married to his wife. Usually the wives have little to no contact with each other and lead separate, individual lives in their own houses, and sometimes in different cities, though they all share the same husband.
In most Muslim-majority countries, polygyny is legal with Kuwait being the only one where no restrictions are imposed on it. Countries that allow polygyny typically also require a man to obtain permission from his previous wives before marrying another, and require the man to prove that he can financially support multiple wives.
In Malaysia and Morocco , a man must justify taking an additional wife at a court hearing before he is allowed to do so. In , the United Nations Human Rights Committee reported that polygamy violates the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ICCPR , citing concerns that the lack of "equality of treatment with regard to the right to marry" meant that polygamy, restricted to polygyny in practice, violates the dignity of women and should be outlawed.
Faith and polygamy: which religions permit plural marriage?
Bigamy is illegal in the United Kingdom. In the UK, adultery is not a criminal offense it is only a ground for divorce []. In a written answer to the House of Commons, "In Great Britain, polygamy is only recognized as valid in law in circumstances where the marriage ceremony has been performed in a country whose laws permit polygamy and the parties to the marriage were domiciled there at the time. In addition, immigration rules have generally prevented the formation of polygamous households in this country since The Government in the UK decided that Universal Credit UC , which replaces means-tested benefits and tax credits for working-age people and will not be completely introduced until , will not recognize polygamous marriages.
A House of Commons Briefing Paper states "Treating second and subsequent partners in polygamous relationships as separate claimants could in some situations mean that polygamous households receive more under Universal Credit than they do under the current rules for means-tested benefits and tax credits. This is because, as explained above, the amounts which may be paid in respect of additional spouses are lower than those which generally apply to single claimants.
In October there was media attention in the UK concerning website over a dating website offering Muslim men an opportunity to seek second or third wives. Website founder Azad Chaiwala created the website when he was seeking a second wife for himself. Polygamy is illegal in the United States. Federal legislation to outlaw the practice was endorsed as constitutional in , despite the religious objections of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Mormons , by the Supreme Court, in Reynolds v.
On 13 December , a federal judge , spurred by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups, [] struck down the parts of Utah's bigamy law that criminalized cohabitation, while also acknowledging that the state may still enforce bans on having multiple marriage licenses. Authors such as Alyssa Rower and Samantha Slark argue that there is a case for legalizing polygamy on the basis of regulation and monitoring of the practice, legally protecting the polygamous partners and allowing them to join mainstream society instead of forcing them to hide from it when any public situation arises.
In an October op-ed for USA Today , George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley argued that, as a simple matter of equal treatment under law, polygamy ought to be legal. Acknowledging that underage girls are sometimes coerced into polygamous marriages, Turley replied that "banning polygamy is no more a solution to child abuse than banning marriage would be a solution to spousal abuse". Stanley Kurtz , a Conservative fellow at the Hudson Institute , rejects the decriminalization and legalization of polygamy.
Marriage, as its ultramodern critics would like to say, is indeed about choosing one's partner, and about freedom in a society that values freedom. But that's not the only thing it is about. As the Supreme Court justices who unanimously decided Reynolds in understood, marriage is also about sustaining the conditions in which freedom can thrive. Polygamy in all its forms is a recipe for social structures that inhibit and ultimately undermine social freedom and democracy. A hard-won lesson of Western history is that genuine democratic self-rule begins at the hearth of the monogamous family.
Canada has taken a strong stand against polygamy, and the Department of Justice of Canada has argued that polygyny is a violation of International Human Rights Law, as a form of gender discrimination. It extends the definition of polygamy to having any kind of conjugal union with more than one person at the same time. Also anyone who assists, celebrates, or is a part to a rite, ceremony, or contract that sanctions a polygamist relationship is guilty of polygamy.
Polygamy is an offence punishable by up to five years in prison. In , two Canadian religious leaders have been found guilty of practising polygamy by the Supreme Court of British Columbia. Polygamous marriages are not recognized in Russia. The Family Code of Russia states that a marriage can only be contracted between a man and a woman, neither of whom is married to someone else.
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For polygamy in plants, see Plant reproductive morphology. This article is missing information about polygamy in history. Please expand the article to include this information. Further details may exist on the talk page. Cicisbeo Concubinage Courtesan Mistress.
Breakup Separation Annulment Divorce Widowhood. Murray Michelle Rosaldo David M. Social Bonding and Nurture Kinship. Legal status of polygamy. Portrait of Ira Eldredge with his three wives: Current state of polygamy. List of Latter Day Saint practitioners of plural marriage.
Archived from the original on 1 February Dictionary of Standard Modern Greek in Greek. Center for the Greek Language. Dictionary of Modern Greek in Greek. Proof from the Bible that God did not intend "One man - One woman". A Comparative Study of the Domestic Domain. Polygyny, Economy and the Role of Women.
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'It's a revolution': polygamist sect loses power over Utah town for first time
Ecology, Economy, Kinship, and Warfare". American Anthropologist , Volume 90, Issue 4, December , p. Family Structure and Interaction: A Comparative Analysis 2nd, revised ed. University of Minnesota Press. Comparative and Historical Studies of the Domestic Group. University of California Press. The Dynamics of polyandry: University of Chicago Press.
Archived from the original on 25 September An Ethnographic Approach to Divorce and Separation. Follow the author here: Meet The Polygamists airs Tuesday at 8: Signout Register Sign in. Polygamy usually refers to a man taking multiple wives. Previous Next Show Grid. Previous Next Hide Grid. Polygamy is taboo in Western society and Christianity but other cultures and faiths permit plural marriage.
Polygamy is legal in 58 out of countries around the world.
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