Mandatory Polygamy Post

Silly me...I forgot that running a Church-based blog I'm required by law to post something on polygamy...

(Note: this post inspired in part by a discussion currently going on at Bcc:)

Many people assume that if the law were ever changed to legalize plural marriages, the LDS Church would change positions immediately and start practicing polygamy again. I'm not so sure that would be the case. Imagine the situation where polygamy becomes legal but the Church says no, church members still cannot marry more than one person on penalty of excommunication (the current position, essentially...) Wouldn't that make a clear and bold statement not only to non-members about the Church's feelings about its past, but also a signal to members that they're supposed to be following the will of the Lord (which is and always has been 'no polygamy, unless directly specified otherwise'--see Jacob 2), not follow whatever the secular law allows. Imagine especially the situation where the laws allowing polygamy come about as a direct result of the laws allowing gay marriage (a plausible situation, and one that many people maintain would happen). The Church has publicly opposed recognizing gay marriage, and even if it is legalized, certainly won't recognize gay unions as being acceptable, despite the change in legal status. But how then could it turn around and automatically embrace legalized polygamy if it was obtained in exactly the same way--i.e. as an extension of the same law or court decision? The Church would be seen as opportunistic hypocrites who were taking advantage of a law they actively opposed for years. I can't see any way the Church will willingly take that kind of PR hit, and that's even assuming the general church membership wants or would accept polygamy back (which is very debatable...see below)

I guess the answer to the question lies in why you think polygamy existed in the early Church in the first place?

It wasn't God's commandment at all; just something Joseph Smith and/or others thought up on their own: In that case, there's no reason to think the Church leaders of today would embrace polygamy even if legalized, right?

It was a test of the early Church members: But, if polygamy is legalized, instituting it again in the Church wouldn't be much of a test, would it? Actually. the Church saying no even if the law said yes as above would provide a much better test of faith for church members (assuming Church members need more testing in this day and age...)

It was God's method of allowing early Church sisters the opportunity to obtain the blessings of motherhood and celestial marriage, since there weren't enough faithful men to go around: This is still true today as regardless of what area of the world you look at, you'll find more faithful sisters than elders. Church leaders have stressed for years, though, that single sisters who never get a chance for marriage in this life will still have the opportunity for children and celestial marriage in the next. (The same would be true of single sisters 150 years ago, of course, but times are different now. A single sister today has many opportunities for a career and an independant life, even adopting kids of her own without needing a husband. A pioneer-era sister had no such opportunity, and life without a husband was much more brutal. I'm not convinced secular issues such as support structure for single or widowed pioneer women didn't play a large part in the purpose behind early Church polygamy...)

In any case, I'm not convinced polygamy will be coming back into the Church any time soon, regardless of what happens in the law...

One more note: can we put to rest the notion that men have an inherent wish for multiple wives? Is there any evidence that early Church brethren entered into polygamous marriages because they kept finding girls who were better looking than the ones they already had? Is there any evidence that early Church leaders married for looks at all? (Mark Twain famously wrote after visiting Utah that Mormon women were so ugly that polygamy was an act of charity. That may be exaggerating (as Twain was wont to do), but after seeing some pictures of 19th century polygamous families (and some modern day fundamentalist ones) in Utah myself, well... I wouldn't necessarily use the word 'ugly', but let's just say I saw no evidence to suggest that beauty was a motive at all in their plural marriages.) People seem to think having multiple wives means the husband gets four additional young, thin supermodels to share his bed with, but that's hardly the case. And even if it was, there's a big difference between having extra mistresses to sleep with and then forget about (an attractive option for the 'natural man', perhaps), and having actual 'wives' whom, of course, you have to live with and support financially for the rest of their lives (not to mention the children too). Isn't it possible that this isn't quite as attractive a proposition for most men as people make it sound? Isn't it possible that the majority of the church brethren who had multiple wives didn't agree to do so because of their hormones, but rather out of responsibility and obedience? (People tend to laugh derisively at accounts that early Church men were 'reluctant' to take more than one wife--again, making the assumption that plural wives = supermodels whom you could fool around with and then leave...) I don't think the reintroduction of polygamy would be welcome by the majority of the men or the women of the Church...