{"id":51856,"date":"2025-11-15T09:44:35","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T16:44:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=51856"},"modified":"2025-11-15T13:48:26","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T20:48:26","slug":"how-do-we-teach-talk-about-polygamy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2025\/11\/how-do-we-teach-talk-about-polygamy\/","title":{"rendered":"How Do We Teach\/Talk about Polygamy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

So I found Brittany Romanello\u2019s presentation<\/a> 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

I think the topic that year was the DC, but as you know polygamy wasn\u2019t central to the curriculum. It came up because I\u2019d 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: \u201cI heard Jospeh Smith had a bunch of wives,\u201d \u201cwhat\u2019s going to happen in the afterlife?\u201d Standard stuff.<\/p>\n

I knew a little about it and tried to draw on what I\u2019d heard to that point. \u201cPolygamy is really confusing as a historical topic\u201d as my BYU prof had used for an explanation. But the questions went on and on, week after week. I drew on what I\u2019d heard my seminary teacher say (yes, I know that was a bad idea, sorry!) \u201cElder McConkie said that there will be polygamy in heaven because women are more righteous than men.\u201d Yes, I know this idea was ripped apart for decades on the Bloggernacle, but this was before the Bloggernacle! I was doing my best!<\/p>\n

It kept coming up. I remember one girl raising her hand weeks later and saying, \u201cYep, I\u2019m bringing polygamy up again!\u201d 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, \u201cI don\u2019t know. Ask your parents!\u201d<\/p>\n

That wasn\u2019t the end of it. A few weeks later the girl said, \u201cI asked my parents and they had completely different answers!\u201d<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t 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, \u201cWe just don\u2019t know.\u201d One of the less feisty girls even said at that point, \u201cBecause women are more righteous than men.\u201d Oops, shouldn\u2019t have said that! Sorry!<\/p>\n

I said, \u201cThat was one theory. We don\u2019t know.\u201d I think they did eventually stop grilling me because I literally had nothing to say.<\/p>\n

Anyway, what have been your experiences of learning\/talking about polygamy in church settings? I\u2019d ask if there\u2019s a \u201cright\u201d way to do it, but I\u2019m guessing such opinions on that topic will vary as much as opinions over polygamy.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/juvenileinstructor.org\/thoughts-on-polyandry\/<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/juvenileinstructor.org\/when-did-you-first-hear-about-joseph-smiths-polygamy-and-other-difficult-issues\/<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/juvenileinstructor.org\/talking-about-joseph-smith-polygamy-with-your-kids-one-dads-experience\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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

https:\/\/juvenileinstructor.org\/teaching-polygamy-at-byu\/<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/juvenileinstructor.org\/my-father-had-but-one-ewe-lamb-joseph-smith-and-helen-heber-and-vilate-kimball\/<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/juvenileinstructor.org\/plato-gender-and-eternal-marriage\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I found Brittany Romanello\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10406,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latter-day-saint-thought"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51856","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\/10406"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51856"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51860,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51856\/revisions\/51860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}