{"id":41995,"date":"2021-08-09T23:14:32","date_gmt":"2021-08-10T04:14:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.timesandseasons.org\/?p=41995"},"modified":"2021-08-09T23:22:35","modified_gmt":"2021-08-10T04:22:35","slug":"so-you-want-to-talk-about-polygamy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2021\/08\/so-you-want-to-talk-about-polygamy\/","title":{"rendered":"So You Want to Talk About Polygamy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve long had an interest in understanding how and why my ancestors chose to practice polygamy.\u00a0 During my time at Utah State University, I spent most of my spare time reading Mormon Studies materials and went on a polygamy binge at one point.\u00a0 While reading Kathryn Daynes\u2019s More Wives Than One: Transformation of the Mormon Marriage System, 1840-1890<\/em> during some downtime in the laboratory, a visiting biologist from Pakistan saw what I was reading and asked if I was preparing to take a second wife.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t quite sure how to respond, so explained that I was not and tried to steer him away from his joking about picking up a second wife himself while in Utah.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s perhaps understandable that someone who was from the opposite side of the world and a culture that does nominally accept polygamy would have some misunderstandings, it seems like many Latter-day Saints also have little grasp of polygamy beyond that it happened in the Church in the past and struggle with what they do know (myself included for most of my life).\u00a0 For example, I had a mission companions who swore up and down that it was only practiced to support widows and the poor, but the husbands never had children with the plural wives (as a descendant of a couple second wives, I\u2019m living proof that he was wrong).\u00a0 Another mission companion was visibly shaken for days after an investigator talked about Joseph Smith marrying women who were already married to other men and I confirmed that it had happened.\u00a0 I also remember a teenage girl giving a talk in sacrament meeting in a ward in Illinois where I served where she wrestled with the fact that early Latter-day Saints practiced plural marriage.\u00a0 Based on observations like these, it seems like there has been a need for an accessible overview of plural marriage for members to gain a better understanding about the principle in a setting that is not hostile to the Church.\u00a0 A recently-published book\u2014Let\u2019s Talk About Polygamy by Brittany Chapman Nash (Deseret Book, 2021)<\/a><\/em>\u2014is a small, readable paperback that fills that need.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s Talk About Polygamy <\/em>is the second book in a series<\/a> being published by Deseret Book that is intended to include small, approachable books on important Latter-day Saint topics, written by trusted faithful scholars.\u00a0 It is small and a quick read\u2014clocking in at 4.25\u201d x 7\u201d and 144 pages, it can easily be read in one evening.\u00a0 In fact, the experience of reading it reminded me of reading a volume in the Very Short Introduction series by Oxford University Press, but with more testimony and faith promotion included.\u00a0 Like the Very Short Introduction books, this volume presents through a concise, but well-researched and clearly-communicated survey of its central topic.\u00a0 To do so, the book is broken up into three main sections.\u00a0 The first (and largest) is a chronological history of polygamy in the Church, with chapters covering specific time periods of Church history.\u00a0 The second is a section devoted to how polygamy was practiced and why the earlier Saints chose to practice it.\u00a0 The third section is devoted to sharing descriptions of relationships within plural marriage, given by those who lived the Principle.\u00a0 While brief, it provides an introduction to most of the major discussion points with enough depth to walk away with an increased understanding of Mormon polygamy.<\/p>\n

Another point in which Let\u2019s Talk About Polygamy <\/em>resembles the Very Short Introduction series is that it provides a thorough notes section that points readers to further reading on the topic.\u00a0 One of the major criticisms of the Gospel Topics essays on polygamy was that they avoided some important studies of polygamy like Martha Bradley and Mary Woodward\u2019s Four Zinas: A Story of Mothers and Daughters on the Mormon Frontier<\/em> (2000); Lawrence Foster\u2019s Religion and Sexuality: The Shakers, the Mormons, and the Oneida Community <\/em>(1981); George D. Smith\u2019s Nauvoo Polygamy: \u201c\u2026 But We Called It Celestial Marriage\u201d<\/em> (2008; 2nd ed. 2011); D. Michael Quinn\u2019s research on post-manifesto polygamy; or The Persistence of Polygamy<\/em> books in favor of sources like Brian Hales\u2019s work that is heavily apologetic.\u00a0 In contrast, most of the aforementioned works are cited in Let\u2019s Talk About Polygamy<\/em>, with the Persistence of Polygamy<\/em> series being the first recommendation in the \u201cFurther Reading\u201d section; Foster\u2019s Religion and Sexuality <\/em>being cited in the introduction; Todd Compton\u2019s In Sacred Loneliness<\/em> appearing repeatedly in the notes section; while also maintaining a surprisingly intense focus on using primary sources for such a small survey on the topic (including\u2014as one would expect from a specialist in women\u2019s history\u2014many female voices).\u00a0 It provides a solid roadmap for more in-depth study of the subject for those who are serious about learning more.<\/p>\n

As mentioned, this volume does come from a place of faith and commitment to the Church.\u00a0 It is written by a believing Latter-day Saint with believing Latter-day Saints as the primary audience.\u00a0 Because of this, there are apologetic elements woven into the fabric of the book.\u00a0 I appreciated, however, that it didn\u2019t feel like it was being crammed down my throat while reading.\u00a0 The author openly acknowledges that she began her journey of studying polygamy \u201cangry by what I saw as injustice that God required such a difficult principle to be lived\u201d before coming to a place where she \u201cfound peace\u201d in accepting what the polygamous Saints did and believed on their own terms.\u00a0 She also wrote her view that: \u201cWe can sit in the discomfort of not having all of the answers and accept the reality that, even in important questions about polygamy, the answers may not be known right now,\u201d even while seeking to deepen our faith by understanding and honoring their devotion.\u00a0 Her style of accepting that we don\u2019t necessarily have the answers here and openly acknowledging things like how people didn\u2019t always find happiness in the principle, calling out coercing teenage girls to marry older men as abuses of polygamy in the Church rather than defending that reality, and bringing up other complexities and concerns about the principle permeated the book.\u00a0 I loved that it was able to at least discuss difficult topics and talk openly about painful and difficult aspects of the history in a rigorous way without feeling the need to defend the Church at every turn.\u00a0 Yet, alongside all of that it did so in a way that didn\u2019t feel threatening as a member of the Church.<\/p>\n

The only area that I felt a serious lack while reading the history section of the book was the failure to discuss Fundamentalist Mormon splinter groups.\u00a0 While it does openly discuss post-Manifesto polygamy, the Reed Smoot Hearings and the Second Manifesto, the book essentially jumps from the removal of John W. Taylor and Matthias F. Cowley from the Quorum of the Twelve to declaring that “polygamy became a relic of the past in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”\u00a0 There is virtually no effort to discuss the debated revelation attributed to John Taylor, the formation of polygamous splinter movements, or the Church’s ongoing antagonism towards and struggles with polygamists throughout the twentieth century.\u00a0 Perhaps this omission is justified by stating that the Fundamentalists are not members of the Church and thus aren’t a part of our history, but it’s an important topic to cover when discussing Mormon polygamy and its ongoing effects for Latter-day Saints.<\/p>\n

In any case, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Brittany Chapman Nash\u2019s Let\u2019s Talk About Polygamy<\/em>.\u00a0 In addition to being readable, brief, and thorough, it\u2019s also highly affordable, at $11.99 for the paperback.\u00a0 I would definitely add this as a must-read for any member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who is looking to understand more about polygamy and might even recommend it to non-members too as a way to gain insight.\u00a0 And, gratefully, I was able to read the whole book on the train without anyone asking me if I was considering taking a second wife.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve long had an interest in understanding how and why my ancestors chose to practice polygamy.\u00a0 During my time at Utah State University, I spent most of my spare time reading Mormon Studies materials and went on a polygamy binge at one point.\u00a0 While reading Kathryn Daynes\u2019s More Wives Than One: Transformation of the Mormon Marriage System, 1840-1890 during some downtime in the laboratory, a visiting biologist from Pakistan saw what I was reading and asked if I was preparing to take a second wife.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t quite sure how to respond, so explained that I was not and tried to steer him away from his joking about picking up a second wife himself while in Utah. While it\u2019s perhaps understandable that someone who was from the opposite side of the world and a culture that does nominally accept polygamy would have some misunderstandings, it seems like many Latter-day Saints also have little grasp of polygamy beyond that it happened in the Church in the past and struggle with what they do know (myself included for most of my life).\u00a0 For example, I had a mission companions who swore up and down that it was only practiced to support widows […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10397,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-church-history"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10397"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41995"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41997,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41995\/revisions\/41997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}