How Do We Teach/Talk about Polygamy?

Stephen Fleming

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So I found Brittany Romanello’s presentation to Dialogue on their series on DC 132 (15:30) interesting in the context of lots of internet talk about polygamy in anticipation for a discussion of DC 132 coming up tomorrow. Romanello talked about getting lessons on polygamy and said that in wards she’s been in as a teenager, the adult female teachers were so uncomfortable that they would bring in men to teach it: bishopric members or husbands. Romanello said the men would teach while the women sat silent which suggests a lot of things, she notes.

I’ve never been in that specific situation, but listening to that story reminded me of a time teaching youth Sunday school very many years ago (2001 I think). I was getting my master’s in history in central California and beginning to learn more about the academic study of Mormonism and the controversies that came with it. I was working on early Mormonism in the Philadelphia area, but was also beginning to try to figure out how to tackle the hard stuff.

I wasn’t terribly troubled by polygamy (sorry for my male cluelessness!) but ran smack dab into a wall as I was called to teach this youth class of 14-year olds.

I think the topic that year was the DC, but as you know polygamy wasn’t central to the curriculum. It came up because I’d had a youth Sunday school teacher who would begin his lessons by opening up for any questions we had, and when I did the same thing, the girls brought up polygamy: “I heard Jospeh Smith had a bunch of wives,” “what’s going to happen in the afterlife?” Standard stuff.

I knew a little about it and tried to draw on what I’d heard to that point. “Polygamy is really confusing as a historical topic” as my BYU prof had used for an explanation. But the questions went on and on, week after week. I drew on what I’d heard my seminary teacher say (yes, I know that was a bad idea, sorry!) “Elder McConkie said that there will be polygamy in heaven because women are more righteous than men.” Yes, I know this idea was ripped apart for decades on the Bloggernacle, but this was before the Bloggernacle! I was doing my best!

It kept coming up. I remember one girl raising her hand weeks later and saying, “Yep, I’m bringing polygamy up again!” At this point, I was waiving the white flag and had wanted to try a way to have them ask someone else. I finally said, “I don’t know. Ask your parents!”

That wasn’t the end of it. A few weeks later the girl said, “I asked my parents and they had completely different answers!”

I can’t remember if it was that week or a later one, but eventually I was totally defeated. I had NO answers and the class found that completely unsatisfactory. In a moment of feeling like I truly knew nothing, I think I said in something of a cowed mumble, “We just don’t know.” One of the less feisty girls even said at that point, “Because women are more righteous than men.” Oops, shouldn’t have said that! Sorry!

I said, “That was one theory. We don’t know.” I think they did eventually stop grilling me because I literally had nothing to say.

Anyway, what have been your experiences of learning/talking about polygamy in church settings? I’d ask if there’s a “right” way to do it, but I’m guessing such opinions on that topic will vary as much as opinions over polygamy.

I did do a lot of study and prayer on the topic after that year and shared thoughts at the Juvenile Instructor, which connected to my dissertation. I came to many similar ideas as Romanello who I linked to above.

https://juvenileinstructor.org/thoughts-on-polyandry/

https://juvenileinstructor.org/when-did-you-first-hear-about-joseph-smiths-polygamy-and-other-difficult-issues/

https://juvenileinstructor.org/talking-about-joseph-smith-polygamy-with-your-kids-one-dads-experience/

https://juvenileinstructor.org/two-quibbles-with-the-churchs-essay-on-joseph-smiths-polygamy-the-date-when-it-was-revealed-and-eternity-only-marriages/

https://juvenileinstructor.org/teaching-polygamy-at-byu/

https://juvenileinstructor.org/my-father-had-but-one-ewe-lamb-joseph-smith-and-helen-heber-and-vilate-kimball/

https://juvenileinstructor.org/plato-gender-and-eternal-marriage/

Comments

12 responses to “How Do We Teach/Talk about Polygamy?”

  1. Tim

    Your response to the “I heard Joseph Smith had a bunch of wives” question was better than the one I heard in my seminary class, from a professional seminary teacher, about five years before your Sunday School class experience. My seminary teacher responded with “there’s a lot of anti-Mormon stuff out there and you have to be careful about what you read.” That was his entire answer, leading a bunch of LDS kids to come away with the impression that Joseph Smith didn’t practice polygamy, and claims that he did were anti-Mormon. No wonder so many people my age still won’t accept the fact that he was a polygamist.

  2. E

    I just want to say you were clearly a superior teacher! I love that you didn’t pretend to know and did not shut down questions. I have rarely teens or adults comfortable enough in a church setting to repeatedly ask questions about things that trouble them. In my experience everyone either knows or quickly learns to avoid certain topics.

  3. Stephen Fleming

    Thanks, Tim. Yes a tricky topic that’s long been avoided. I brought up the issue of disclosure on this topic on the post third from the top that I listed and it generated some pretty intense discussion.

    Thanks, E. I never planned on any formal discussion of the topic for the class since that wasn’t one of the lessons, but when the kids brought it up (now I’m remembering some boys would too, but the girls were the most persistent) I wanted to try to make the point of never engaging in “God said so! Don’t question the prophets or me!” I wanted to make reasonable explanations but soon found that the answers I had fell apart when pressed. So I had to think about that some more.

  4. REC911

    In my area, my son attended an institute class and they were encouraged to ask all the questions. If the institute teacher didn’t know the answer he would call HQ and get it. He had to do this for the Second Anointing question that I asked my son to ask about. HQ gave the teacher the details to share with the class. The students, my son said, were pretty surprised about the ordinance and its details. I was shocked that the church even admitted the ordinance existed let alone share details of it. This was about a year ago.

    The church is trying to help the youth so they will stay in the church. With us old people they are just hoping we dont find out about all this so we will stay in the church.

    It is a shame that we are not even close to doing this in wards. It is needed IMO. Members who question need a place to go to work through it besides xmo sites. (who are very helpful)

    Members in general know about 10% of what really happened with polygamy even tho a lot of us are products of it.

  5. Not a Cougar

    REC911, to your point about adults learning this stuff, one of the problems is simply a lack of time to go through and process the details. A BYU class or an Institute class can conceivably slow down and work through the history, scriptures, and past and present teachings on plural marriage and allow everyone to chew on and ultimately digest (or vomit up) things over the course of a few weeks to a semester assuming the class is approved to do so, but you don’t have that kind of time built into an adult Sunday School.

    Heck, we didn’t even cover D&C 132 in 2021, so, unless the bishopric devoted a 5th Sunday lesson to plural marriage or has some sort of specialized class to focus on it (I’ve never seen either done in my many decades in the Church), you’re going to have one very awkward class about the subject every eight years and spend the rest of the time either ignoring it or trying to work through the issues on your own (or maybe with an informal study group, something the Church frowns upon as I understand it).

  6. jader3rd

    It’s difficult to teach about in a classroom setting because of how diverse where different students will be with their understanding of the gospel, that an answer for some will cause problems for others, whereas answers for others will cause problems for some.
    In a different blog I read a note from someone who mentioned that when create church curriculum, they are encouraged to avoid the topic in the event it looks like the church is supporting current polygamous sects. That also adds complications.

  7. jader3rd

    I was surprised by my Gospel Doctrine teacher really wanting to talk about plural marriage today in the class. She mentioned it in the beginning, and when there was about ten minutes left in class, she said that we had to skip over other Eternal Marriage so we could talk about plural marriage.
    One thing she did was talk about the importance of both the revelation on plural marriage, and President Woodruff’s revelation on ending it. Which I believe is important.

  8. Sute

    Joseph Smith would have just referred them to the parable of the talents.

    But isn’t the easiest option to point to Jacob 2, and say it was for temporary purposes at the Lord’s command to raise up a generation connected to righteous priesthood leadership.

    I mean, that might not be satisfying but it’s scriptural that the standard is no plural marriage but there have been instances of it happening in for temporary time.

    Beyond that in the eternities is just as much speculation as whether our favorite foods will be there.

  9. Stephen Fleming

    I’ll just agree that this is a tough but pressing topic. I do think lots do go to Jacob 2 for some kind of “resolution,” but I think we have several very obvious remaining questions. Why do it at all and for as long as we did? Why was it the government that forced the church to stop? What’s up with men but not women being able to be sealed to another partner?

    Sute, I’m guessing most Mormons find the question of additional afterlife spouses to be more vexing than the menu.

  10. Sute

    “I’m guessing most Mormons find the question of additional afterlife spouses to be more vexing than the menu.”

    Then if you believe in revelation, ask God and trust it will be made known unto you. If you receive an answer, trust that you have no authority to teach anything the church leadership is not currently teaching.

    People who want an argument or debate on this is like the many attempts at confounding or debating with Christ.

    The plural marriage baiters are using emotional spiritual blackmail in a sense to force debate over hypotheticals that Jesus already dismissed without further argument when he was asked who the woman would be married to in the resurrection.

    His response was not to give much satisfaction to anyone and essentially end the debate.

    Do those asking the questions trust the prophets or are they like the Sadducees of old, asking a question about a resurrection they don’t even believe in?

  11. Stephen Fleming

    Sute, I do very much believe in revelation, I did ask God about this and did share the things I learned here. I reject the claim one cannot share their revelation, but do agree it’s something one should be cautious about. My revelations on this topic came between October 2002 and December 2004 and I first blogged about it in 2009 (the first link above). Long story that I won’t go into.

    Not getting a lot of answers on this and other topics from our leaders is another reason why I see the caretaker model as fitting better or our leadership.
    https://timesandseasons.org/index.php/2025/08/differing-view-of-church-leadership-a-caretaker-model/

  12. wayfarer

    Sute, I’d love to hear some happy polygamy stories. At the same time I think it might concern you and undermine your relationships if your wife’s affections were put into doubt into the eternities. I think I’m open, but I sure wish I knew how to nurture my children’s testimonies rather than challenge the tenderness of their belief on this one. I’d love some help.

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