Posted by:
MormonThinker
(
)
Date: December 17, 2013 01:02PM
The article is fairly brief and focuses on polygamy between 1847 and 1890 (after Joseph Smith). The article states "Latter-day Saints do not understand all of God’s purposes for instituting, through His prophets, the practice of plural marriage during the 19th century."
The article postulates that per the Book of Mormon, polygamy may have been instituted to increase the population. However, this makes little sense because a group of women can have far more children if they each have their own husband instead of sharing one man. For example Brigham Young reportedly had 55 children by some 29 child-bearing capable wives but had those women had their own husbands they may have had 150 or more children in total. This reasoning only makes sense if there was a shortage of men but census records show that there were always more men than women in Utah during that time period.
The article completely avoids the most troubling issue that knowledgeable LDS have on polygamy which is the way Joseph Smith practiced it. Joseph Smith practiced polyandry where he married other men's wives as well as polygamy. Joseph married 33 women of which 11 were married to other men. Although many LDS believe that Joseph did not have sexual relations with those women, many faithful historians acknowledge that there is evidence he did. Often Joseph would send men on missions overseas then marry their wives. Also not mentioned is Joseph's marriages to young girls as young as 14 and to what lengths Joseph went to hide these marriages from his first wife Emma.
The article also makes it seem that all the LDS women were more than willing to practice the principle and to defend it. The very sad stories of women like 14 year-old Helen Kimball who was pressured to marry Joseph Smith and to keep it a secret as she was promised exaltation for her family and faithful men like Henry Jacobs who had his wife Zina taken from him and sealed to Joseph Smith and later to Brigham Young.
To get a more complete view on polygamy and the many problems not discussed in the LDS article, read MormonThink's section on polygamy.
http://www.mormonthink.com/joseph-smith-polygamy.htm