Some more thoughts on polygamy
Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 4:28 pm
I just finished reading Todd Compton's book In Sacred Loneliness for the second time. The first time I was a believer, and I found the book troubling for many reasons, but this time I read it as an unbeliever. Some thoughts:
1. Someone on MAD asked me how many of Joseph's plural wives Emma knew about and consented to. If you count the Partridge sisters (whom Emma chose after Joseph had married them, so he performed a second, fake marriage), you have 4 out of Compton's 33 well-documented wives. But I don't count the Partridges, as Joseph married them secretly first. So, that's 2 out of 33. Not exactly a hallmark of openness and honesty.
2. I am troubled that Joseph used older women, such as Patty Sessions and Elizabeth Durfee, to approach younger women and girls to introduce them to the practice and assuage their fears. I hope I can be forgiven for finding this disturbingly similar to the procurers who scour bus stations to find new recruits to prostitution rings.
3. The practice of bargaining for women, which came up this morning in regards to Clarissa Hancock and Fanny Alger, is disturbing but illustrative of a practice that treats women as the property of righteous men.
4. Instead of creating a polygamous family, Joseph's polygamy is serial in nature. He would marry a wife, have sex with her in secret, call on her a few times, and then essentially move on to the next one, particularly if Emma discovered the relationship.
5. Most of the wives were given 24 hours to make their decision. Often they were told that this decision would affect the exaltation of their entire families. I can't help but see this as incredibly manipulative and coercive.
6. Joseph sometimes used family members to persuade women and girls to marry him. With Sarah Ann Whitney and Helen Kimball, he told the father that the entire family's exaltation depended on the daughters' acceptance. Both girls recount being torn in the extreme, but they trusted their fathers. Other times, Joseph separated the women from loved ones, as if Joseph were afraid that the loved ones would not agree. Marinda Hyde's husband and Lucy Walker's father were sent away on missions, and after they left, Joseph approached with the same "commandment" and same 24-hour ultimatum.
Maybe I'm mentally defective, but I don't see anything godly in any of this. I will say that these women come off as rather heroic in following what they believed. But if there is a God out there, some people have some explaining to do.
1. Someone on MAD asked me how many of Joseph's plural wives Emma knew about and consented to. If you count the Partridge sisters (whom Emma chose after Joseph had married them, so he performed a second, fake marriage), you have 4 out of Compton's 33 well-documented wives. But I don't count the Partridges, as Joseph married them secretly first. So, that's 2 out of 33. Not exactly a hallmark of openness and honesty.
2. I am troubled that Joseph used older women, such as Patty Sessions and Elizabeth Durfee, to approach younger women and girls to introduce them to the practice and assuage their fears. I hope I can be forgiven for finding this disturbingly similar to the procurers who scour bus stations to find new recruits to prostitution rings.
3. The practice of bargaining for women, which came up this morning in regards to Clarissa Hancock and Fanny Alger, is disturbing but illustrative of a practice that treats women as the property of righteous men.
4. Instead of creating a polygamous family, Joseph's polygamy is serial in nature. He would marry a wife, have sex with her in secret, call on her a few times, and then essentially move on to the next one, particularly if Emma discovered the relationship.
5. Most of the wives were given 24 hours to make their decision. Often they were told that this decision would affect the exaltation of their entire families. I can't help but see this as incredibly manipulative and coercive.
6. Joseph sometimes used family members to persuade women and girls to marry him. With Sarah Ann Whitney and Helen Kimball, he told the father that the entire family's exaltation depended on the daughters' acceptance. Both girls recount being torn in the extreme, but they trusted their fathers. Other times, Joseph separated the women from loved ones, as if Joseph were afraid that the loved ones would not agree. Marinda Hyde's husband and Lucy Walker's father were sent away on missions, and after they left, Joseph approached with the same "commandment" and same 24-hour ultimatum.
Maybe I'm mentally defective, but I don't see anything godly in any of this. I will say that these women come off as rather heroic in following what they believed. But if there is a God out there, some people have some explaining to do.