Believing that all exalted men are practicing polygamists generates logistical problems that are not easily resolved. Eugene England observed that there are 104 males born for every 100 females and that more male children die before the age of eight than female children. Accordingly, if we take into account that the children dying before reaching the age of accountability will all be exalted (D&C 137:10), then we actually have an abundance of men in the celestial kingdom. Eugene England, “On Fidelity, Polygamy, and Celestial Marriage,” in Multiply and Replenish: Mormon Essays on Sex and Family, edited by Brent Corcoran (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994), 118; printed originally in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 20 (Winter 1987): 138-54; see esp. 151-52.

My sentiments exactly.

I think it was commanded (not allowed or permitted) for several reasons.

My guess is it has something to do with your being short an X chromosome. :)

More seriously, yes, polygamy is a very large thing to chuck. But I guess the way I look at it is that if you are willing to chuck 100 small things, does that have a greater or smaller effect than chucking one large thing? Further, I think motive matters. “Polygamy was the result of an overactive libido” is a far cry from “polygamy was the result of a misunderstanding of the OT that God chose not to correct.”

That said, I think you articulate a very reasonable position. It is ironic that you declined to call me an apostate devil because not five minutes before my 10-y-o called me a “she-devil.” But I had tried to hug him, so I suppose that’s fair.

But this post forces me to think about how much of early Mormon teaching I’m willing to jettison without throwing out the whole baby with the bath water, so to speak. And while I really, really, really, really, really would like to agree with Julie and Ronan, I’d be lying if I said I did. Sorry, but I just can’t make it work. I loathe polygamy, I cannot make sense of it, but to completely jettison the idea that polygamy was God’s will feels to me like a stake in the heart of the Restoration and the idea that Joseph Smith was a Prophet in any real sense. This doesn’t mean I think Julie and Ronan (and others) are crazy apostate devils. It does mean that I think the rejection of polygamy as divinely-mandated is a step too far. It bends the plausibility of Joseph Smith as a “prophet” to the breaking point. Note that there are lots of troubling aspects of 19th Century polygamy that I can dismiss as excessive and not-in-keeping with God’s will, but to dismiss the whole practice is to dismiss too much of early Mormon teaching for it to remain a viable faith system.

I am fully committed to the idea that “a prophet is only a prophet when acting as such,” and I am not uncomfortable listing specific examples where the prophets have most emphatically been not acting in that role. But I suspect most of us who believe this still imagine that there is a line beyond which the invocation of this principle goes too far. I think wholesale rejection of polygamy crosses mine.

Aaron B

But this post forces me to think about how much of early Mormon teaching I’m willing to jettison without throwing out the whole baby with the bath water, so to speak. And while I really, really, really, really, really would like to agree with Julie and Ronan, I’d be lying if I said I did. Sorry, but I just can’t make it work. I loathe polygamy, I cannot make sense of it, but to completely jettison the idea that polygamy was God’s will feels to me like a stake in the heart of the Restoration and the idea that Joseph Smith was a Prophet in any real sense. This doesn’t mean I think Julie and Ronan (and others) are crazy apostate devils. It does mean that I think the rejection of polygamy as divinely-mandated is a step too far. It bends the plausibility of Joseph Smith as a “prophet” to the breaking point. Note that there are lots of troubling aspects of 19th Century polygamy that I can dismiss as excessive and not-in-keeping with God’s will, but to dismiss the whole practice is to dismiss too much of early Mormon teaching for it to remain a viable faith system.

I am fully committed to the idea that “a prophet is only a prophet when acting as such,” and I am not uncomfortable listing specific examples where the prophets have most emphatically been not acting in that role. But I suspect most of us who believe this still imagine that there is a line beyond which the invocation of this principle goes too far. I think wholesale rejection of polygamy crosses mine.

Aaron B

#40
I believe our view of this is colored greatly by our inability to conceive of any other structure for marriage than one that includes a sexual component.

No kidding, Ray. In fact, I’m counting on it. What a drab eternity it would be otherwise.