...despite what apologists might say? The only difference I can see is that the 19th century mormons were in their own world, not having to work around the rest of the normal people.

This is what God told JS and BY to do, all you TBM's--you can't say they didn't understand the commandments!

I think that flds is much closer to original church than morg is

The demograpics were completely different. There was a steady influx of women from the outside, which helped prevent the lost boy syndrome of the more closed polygamist communities today.

Also, polygamy was not the same throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. It peaked during the Mormon reformation and after that steadily declined. Concurrent with this dynamic, the average marriage aged for women dropped sharply during the 1850s (from 18-19 to 16-17) and bottomed out around 1860.

By 1870, the average marriage age was back to the 1850 level and after that it rose in parallel with the developments in the rest of the US (although polygamous marriages moved in this direction more erratically).

When I studied Mormon polygamy for my response to the church's essay on the topic, I found that two mistakes commonly made in this context are (1) assuming that polygamy was a static thing throughout the 19th century and (2) projecting modern fundamentalist polygamous practices onto 19th century Utah.

Then again, Mormon polygamy was never a subject to invite nuance.

As you noted, the average age for marriage women drops in societies that practice polygamy. This happens for much the same reason the church dropped the age for missionaries - it increases the supply. For males, polygamy invariably results in the "lost body syndrome" and creates a surplus of young men who do not have the status or wealth to compete for brides. These men have to be jettisoned either through abandonment, sent on missions, or sent on jihad.

As the average age for women drops, the age for men increases. This results in fathers who have shorter lives and less input in raising their children, which also can be disruptive to social continuity.

Polygamy is corrosive to society. Humans have developed in response to our biological fact that we are born in a nearly 50/50 gender mix. Any society that runs against maintaining that balance places itself at risk.

Polygamy was an excuse for J. Smith to indulge his appetites.

MarkJ Wrote:
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> As you noted, the average age for marriage women
> drops in societies that practice polygamy. This
> happens for much the same reason the church
> dropped the age for missionaries - it increases
> the supply.

This is not the whole picture for 19th century Utah. Polygamy and monogamy coexisted and most people preferred monogamy. During the millennial fever of the 1850s, many people rushed to add a bunch of wives to their families so they would have a head start in the millennium.

In an attempt to preempt a polygamous proposal from some old geezer, many young women married early with an equally young man. Both the age of monogamous wives and polygamous wives dropped during the 1850s.

In short, the two driving forces were millennialist inspired polygamy and young people's preference for monogamy.

I suspect that you're right that more members preferred monogamy over polygamy. From my family history, polygamy had a bad record and was considered a failure. Each wife required her own home and household. That must have been financially draining, as well as generating a lot of emotional stress.

Your info makes me wonder if perhaps the Manifesto may have been an astute move by progressive leaders who recognized that polygamy wasn't working. They could make a very necessary change and get away with it by blaming it on the U.S. Government. If polygamy truly had been popular and rooted in the culture, I would have expected that they would have put up more of a fight.

My point though, is that in the long term, the practice of polygamy does lower the age at which females marry because of the increased competition for them. This is case in the FLDS and in the those areas of the Moslem world where polygamy is practiced. I don't have any studies to cite, only my own observations.

As Alex Shoumatoff notes in his book, "Mountain of Names," humans are very creative and over the course of history we have tried every conceivable way of organizing ourselves into families. Some ways have proven more advantageous than others. I think polygamy is a bad choice.

MarkJ Wrote:
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> Your info makes me wonder if perhaps the Manifesto
> may have been an astute move by progressive
> leaders who recognized that polygamy wasn't
> working.

Polygamy was the sideshow. The real fight was Mormon theocracy vs. US democracy. In the end, the US spoke the only language Mormons understand: behave or we'll confiscate your assets. That's the cue for Mormon revelation or, as they call it today, a policy change.

Keep in mind that the Manifesto wasn't about ending polygamy, it was about preventing confiscation. Only when they were caught with their pants down during the Smoot hearings did they end the practice and only because they couldn't get away with lying about it anymore - not to the US nor to the membership.

> My point though, is that in the long term, the
> practice of polygamy does lower the age at which
> females marry because of the increased competition
> for them. This is case in the FLDS and in the
> those areas of the Moslem world where polygamy is
> practiced. I don't have any studies to cite, only
> my own observations.

It is the case in closed communities like the FLDS, I am not aware that it's the case in Muslim countries. My guess would be that some of the under-age marriages going on in some Muslim countries has other causes, though, like you, I have no hard data to back that up.

> As Alex Shoumatoff notes in his book, "Mountain of
> Names," humans are very creative and over the
> course of history we have tried every conceivable
> way of organizing ourselves into families. Some
> ways have proven more advantageous than others. I
> think polygamy is a bad choice.

About 85% of the cultures studied by anthropologists have polygamy. It used to be the norm in Europe less than a thousand years ago. It needn't be like the FLDS; again, it's the closedness of that system that causes most of the problems, as is the high rate of polygamy there.

There are cultures that have been known to make it work - for men and women.

Considering that Joseph F. Smith had to issue the Second Manifesto against Polygamy in 1904, I have to wonder if anyone paid any attention to the first one...

That and the fact that statehood immediately followed the first manifesto tends to make me believe it was about statehood, not revelation from god...

rt, I thought that there WAS a problem for many single men in Utah, but I can understand (and be somewhat disgusted) if the church leaders specifically enticed more women to come west. I also recall the quote by whoever-it-was that complained that they needed more women because the prettiest ones were being swept up by church honchos. Imagine leaving Europe and enduring the trip to get to Utah (the promised land) and then having a grizzled old church leader tell you that god has chosen your beautiful 17 year-old daughter for his 5th or 6th wife, and probably taking a chunk of whatever worth you had brought with you.

Chicken N. Backpacks Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> rt, I thought that there WAS a problem for many
> single men in Utah, but I can understand (and be
> somewhat disgusted) if the church leaders
> specifically enticed more women to come west.

I'm not sure that they consciously did; women tend to be more drawn to charismatic movements than men so this demographic skew might be inadvertent. As for lost boys, in 19th century Utah it was more like lost men. As a man, you either married young with a young woman or you married in your forties with an elderly woman, often approaching her fifties, not seldom a widow or a poor immigrant.

The problem, therefore, was not so much being unmarried, but being unmarried during one's reproductive life. Mormon polygamy deprived many men of a normal family life.

> I also recall the quote by whoever-it-was that
> complained that they needed more women because the
> prettiest ones were being swept up by church
> honchos.

In my view, the two or three infamous quotes that do the rounds on the internet are not sufficient to construe a deliberate policy. Which is not to say the quotes don't speak to a despicable attitude toward marriage in general and women in particular.

> Imagine leaving Europe and enduring the
> trip to get to Utah (the promised land) and then
> having a grizzled old church leader tell you that
> god has chosen your beautiful 17 year-old daughter
> for his 5th or 6th wife, and probably taking a
> chunk of whatever worth you had brought with you.

Poor women are disproportionally represented among the ranks of polygamous wives. I'm not yet sure what to make of that. The church gives it a positive spin in their essay, maintaining that this gave them access to more wealth. However, the source they use for this statement actually says that this effect is only measurable within polygamous families, not on a societal level. Also, the effect is rather small in the context of people struggling to settle the Utah desert.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/01/2014 03:31AM by rt.

Polygamy is about power and prestige, much like the TBM's we read about on RfM that have a driveway full of boats and Quads and can't quite pay for it all, but by golly, it looks good; I don't think the early church leaders really cared a whit about the common farmer or laborer, like the essay implies, they were simply tribal leaders saying "God gave us a lot of women which proves we're the Top Dogs--you can only aspire to what we are in your dreams, but you'll work your ass off to try."

A bit like the Amway pyramid...

Power and prestige were definitely an element in 19th century Utah, less so in Joe's time. I agree that the initial reason for polygamy was probably to justify Joe's sleeping around. During the Nauvoo era, it was also a loyalty test and a way to build a leadership dynasty.

In Utah, the first polygamous wave was inspired by the Mormons' expectation that the millennium was imminent, a theological reason which makes Mormon polygamy quite unique. When that failed, and the dynastic and loyalty reasons lost urgence due to the relative safety of Utah's geographic and social isolation, it became a lot about power and prestige.

During the 1870s and 1880s, with Utah's isolation in decline, it became about defiance of the USA and retaining the church leadership's political power. All in all a pretty varied picture.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/01/2014 03:40AM by rt.

The "leadership dynasty" thing really didn't work out for JS...

There are enough dead young wives in my family history to know that it probably wasn't too far off. Maybe the FLDS have it a bit better.