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Plural Marriage: In That Day Seven Women Shall... - Page 69

Nothing to see here. Move along. It isn't important, so let's not worry about it. After all, it is really only of interest to scholars and historians.

Another example of how Brigham Young was mistaken when he explained that Plural Marriage was essential for our exaltation.

Elder Ballard is right, though. Very few members of the Church have anywhere near enough knowledge on the subject to be able to discuss it. Just listen when someone DOES try to explain it. You know, there were so many widows, its purpose was to provide for them, etc. Some very silly and/or interesting speculations come when people start trying to justify why such an important doctrine was dropped.

Of course, Elder Ballard glossed over the fact that the Church didn't actually stop people from practicing it for at least a couple of decades AFTER it supposedly stopped the practice.

Shall Women Day That Marriage Plural

Those interested in this Topic may like to see my latest Post in the Polygamy an Answer to Social Ills Thread. Keep in mind that the Thread is not LDS so if you Reply please leave out the Religion.

Plural Marriage: In That Day Seven Women Shall... Studies Doctrine Mormon

I was reading some heartbreaking letters of Elder Henry B. Jacob to his wife Zina Huntington. The story brought tears to my eyes. In the books "History of Henry Bailey Jacobs" and "Short Sketch of the Life of Henry B. Jacobs" by Ora J. Cannon it explains that when Zina was 6 months pregnant, the Prophet Joseph Smith explained that the Lord told him she was to be his Celestial wife. After they were sealed together and Joseph Smith died, she was re-sealed to him through proxy and in that same session she was sealed to Brigham Young for time. Elder Jacob was a witness to both ceremonies.

Some suggest both of them were separated before she was sealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith but she continued living with him and when she was pregnant with her second child is when she was re-sealed to the prophet. Imagine seeing your wife sealed for eternity to to a different man and because the man is now dead and there is a proxy on Earth for him, he must take your wife for "time".

Then Brigham Young sent him to a mission but he still in love with his wife and he wrote a letter to her that said:

He was so devastated when he left for a mission that they had to put him on a blanket and carry him to the boat to get him on his way according to witnesses that day.

Page 69 Shall Women Day That Marriage Plural

Stories like this bother me a lot. It bothers me for several reasons:

1. The Church tries to hide it yet not deny that it happened
2. The way it is done makes women like commodities rather than equal with their husbands. In other words they are transferred with material possessions, etc.
3. What's it the use of selecting a wife and falling in love only to have someone come and say, sorry she is mine.
4. What will justify taking a man's wife, making him SINGLE, to add to someone who already has MANY? I can see this plausible where the man is abusive or unworthy, but it was not the case most times.

In any of these have I ever read anywhere in the Standard Works anything similar.

Shall Women Day That Marriage Plural

I think in this case, the position of the Church is the following:

The thing is, when she was sealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith, she continued living with her husband AND had a second child with him. It is when Brigham Young sends him away to go to a mission is when Young takes her as a wife for time, how can a marriage endure all that? It is obvious to me they would end up separated.

Plural Marriage: In That Day Seven Women Shall...

In the recent PBS coverage about Polygamy something was said that is quite true that we also bring up here and that is that Plural Marriage was introduced as a part of Salvation and could not be denied. It is what made Mormons at that time peculiar. It was mainly the interest in the Church leadership of time to be part of the US that caused it to be taken away. What I do not get though and have never found anyone to give me a justifiable answer:

1. Why did leaders practice something like this for so many years without telling anyone? Couldn't this men that leadership can be practicing something at this very moment and we do not know about it?

2. If William Law, who by the way was a former Member of the First Presidency but later Law created his own True Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and became its President, did not print that first copy of Nauvoo Expositor would it have remained hidden and Nauvoo have grown?

Plural Marriage That Day Women Shall... - Page 69

I wanted to discuss a little bit about the first alleged plural wife of Joseph Smith, Fanny Alger. Is there any irrefutable proof (documents) that can say for sure he married her? I remember years ago checking the church site and her name was not listed. It's an important issue for me because she is the first alleged wife he took. Interesting enough, good sources and bad sources indicate that Emma found out about the relationship and she was very upset.

She agreed that Joseph could marry two sisters Emily and Eliza Partridge who also lived at the Smith's home but then she had double thoughts and asked the two sisters to leave her home.

I am trying to make sense of all the information I have studied and that I continue to study and my question is: Why did Joseph kept it as a secret from his first wife (Emma)? It makes no sense to me.

There is also a third hand account post 1844 that may indicate that Emma admitted Joseph Smith practiced Plural Marriage:

Plural Marriage That Day Women Shall... Mormon Doctrine Studies - Page 69

According to The Contributor, Vol. V, pp. 251-260 Joseph Smith once said, "I have got nothing up of myself. The same God that has thus far dictated me and directed me and strengthened me in this work, gave me this revelation and commandment on celestial and plural marriage, and the same God commanded me to obey it. He said to me that unless I accepted it and introduced it, and practiced it, I, together with my people, would be damned and cut off from this time henceforth." Ref. Source 5