Some more thoughts on polygamy

[_Yong Xi]

Clarissa, who according to her son was disappointed that Joseph had not wanted her as a plural wife.

This may have helped "Take a load off Fanny". Bob Dylan jokes not allowed. ~mods

So back to this question,

Also, I am both intrigued and alarmed at the notion of bagaining away wives and daughters in exchange for familial exaltation. I wonder if Charity or someone else has a take on this

.

Correct me if I'm wrong, and sorry for the minor diversion on this thread, but...wasn't that The Band's tune, rather than Dylan's?

You're right Gramps. Robbie Robertson of "The Band", wrote the song "The Weight" in 1968 which contains the lyrics. "The Band" toured with Dylan a number of years and spent time with him in Woodstock. Have you seen "The Last Waltz"?

Now, back to polygamy.

[_Ray A]

Ray,

Did you miss this part?

It is important to know the viewpoint of anyone who interprets the teachings and activities of the Prophet Joseph Smith, especially when addressing a challenging subject like plural marriage. Compton is forthright about his position: "I am a practicing Mormon who considers himself believing but who rejects absolutist elements of the fundamentalist world view, e.g., the view of Joseph Smith as omniscient or morally perfect or receiving revelation unmixed with human and cultural limitations. However, I do accept non-absolutist incursion of the supernatural into human experience" (p. 629).

This position is applied in a consistent campaign against plural marriage, with repeated editorializing on the subject. For example, after acknowledging the religious integrity of men and women in polygamy, the introduction adds: "Nevertheless, my central thesis is that Mormon polygamy was characterized by a tragic ambiguity. . . . It was the new and everlasting covenant, having eternal significance. . . . On the other hand . . . it was a social system that simply did not work in nineteenth-century America" (p. xiii). The preface argues this point with a few non-Joseph Smith examples. Is Compton claiming that his book proves the failure of polygamy—or that he wrote the book because he holds this premise? The author seems to wear twin hats of historian and social theorist. For instance, Agnes Coolbrith Smith became the widow of Don Carlos Smith in 1841 and was afterward sealed to him for eternity and married for time, first to her brother-in-law Joseph Smith and later to his cousin George Albert Smith. However, pressures of the exodus blocked this last relationship, and Agnes married William Pickett and moved to California. Later Pickett deserted her. In Sacred Loneliness opines it was illogical to return to Utah because "polygamy was almost an institutionalized form of marital neglect" (p. 170). In another case, the author says that Orson Whitney followed his grandfather and father "in accepting the onerous burden of polygamy" (p. 531). Actually, Orson married his second wife with the consent of the first and lived in the normative dual-wife pattern in Utah. In fact, Compton describes how well this two-household system worked through the fairness of Horace Whitney, Orson's father, and the considerate sisterhood of his wives (see p. 513).

The author explains and reexplains his title: "Often plural wives who experienced loneliness also reported feelings of depression, despair, anxiety, helplessness, abandonment, anger, psychosomatic symptoms, and low self-esteem" (p. xiv–xv). If plurality was sacred, "its practical result, for the woman, was solitude" (p. xv). The narrative sustains this dramatic, tragic mood. Compton paints his subjects with an assortment of brushes. At times he uses the brightest colors and lineaments of faith in interpreting these women, while in other instances he employs mostly muted hues and shadows to achieve a dark and foreboding biographical landscape. The attempt at psychohistory too often fails for lack of materials, as the author regularly admits. Obviously, taking more wives meant spending less time with any one of them. On the other hand, the above complex of "desertion reactions" is not an inevitable result of the system. Joseph Smith's situation is atypical, with complicating tensions of a new teaching and the necessity for secrecy, not to speak of his murder, which imposed grief and unforeseen adjustments on his wives. Moreover, the number of Joseph Smith's sealings, as well as those of Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball, is not representative of Mormon polygamy in the nineteenth century. These leaders set examples of willingness to obey the principle, but Stanley Ivins found that 66.3 percent of Utah polygamists had two wives, and another 21.2 percent had three wives.2 In Sacred Loneliness goes beyond its narrative and anecdotal scope in making subjective judgments on plural marriage.

No, I didn't. But this is what reviewers do. Their aim is to be critical, no matter how good a book is, and the reference to "twin hats" is quite justified, in my opinion. Remember, Compton is a believing Mormon, and he's faced with a dilemma in regard to polygamy. I'll find some more Compton quotes for you later. I still don't believe they think he's anti-Mormon.

[_harmony]

Again, one person may have misunderstood Joseph, but not dozens over many years.

I like you abman, but denial is not a good thing.

I would like to ask a potentially personal question if I might. Feel free to ignore it or whatever. How do the faithful LDS you know (parents, etc.) deal with it?

Let's see:

Dad: Joseph was a womanizer. So what?
Mom: It's all lies, anti-Mormon lies.
Sister and BIL: "We made a conscious decision not to study church history because we know that there's stuff in there we couldn't handle."
Wife: I don't want to talk about it. It doesn't matter anyway because the church is true.

I gave all male members of my family Rough Stone Rolling for Christmas last year. I was being subtle but maybe I was too subtle. I asked them what they thought:

Sweet Pickle: didn't read it; he allows nothing to shake him.
Oldest Pickle Son (Beet Pickles): read it, made no difference.
2nd Oldest Pickle Son (Mustard Pickles): didn't read it, too busy.
3rd Oldest Pickle Son (Bread and Butter Pickles): read it, couldn't care less.
4th Oldest Pickle Son (Watermelon Pickles): read it, ignoring the issues it brought up.
5th Oldest Pickle Son (Garlic Dill Pickles): read it, no time to deal with it.
Youngest Son (Sgt Pepper's Pickles): didn't read it. It's a book for Pete's sake.

*sigh*

[_Runtu]

No, I didn't. But this is what reviewers do. Their aim is to be critical, no matter how good a book is, and the reference to "twin hats" is quite justified, in my opinion. Remember, Compton is a believing Mormon, and he's faced with a dilemma in regard to polygamy. I'll find some more Compton quotes for you later. I still don't believe they think he's anti-Mormon.

Of course they're supposed to be critical. But to suggest, as they do, that Compton takes an anti-polygamy stand is misleading at best. Of course Compton points out the difficulties and problems of Mormon polygamy. That's his job as a historian. But they make it sound as if he is consistent in attacking the institution. That's not right.

[_asbestosman]

I gave all male members of my family Rough Stone Rolling for Christmas last year. I was being subtle but maybe I was too subtle.

That might actually be a fun thing for me to try too. It turns out that my mother in law was in Richard Bushman's stake in boston when he was the stake president (or something like that). She bought the book for her son, but I don't know if he's read it yet. I wish my wife would take an interest in that sort of thing and read that book because then we could have interesting discussions. As it is, I can hardly get her to read the scriptures to have discussions on that. Oh well.

One of Asbestosman's brothers bought and read the book. He's already very unorthodox LDS though.

I haven't read the book and I probably won't unless my wife reads it.

[_moksha]

I gave all male members of my family Rough Stone Rolling for Christmas last year. I was being subtle but maybe I was too subtle. I asked them what they thought:

Sweet Pickle: didn't read it; he allows nothing to shake him.
Oldest Pickle Son (Beet Pickles): read it, made no difference.
2nd Oldest Pickle Son (Mustard Pickles): didn't read it, too busy.
3rd Oldest Pickle Son (Bread and Butter Pickles): read it, couldn't care less.
4th Oldest Pickle Son (Watermelon Pickles): read it, ignoring the issues it brought up.
5th Oldest Pickle Son (Garlic Dill Pickles): read it, no time to deal with it.
Youngest Son (Sgt Pepper's Pickles): didn't read it. It's a book for Pete's sake.

*sigh*

Sounds like they are all rather kosher.

[_cinepro]

Don't forget Compton's lengthy response to the FARMS review:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/7207/rev.html

[_Runtu]

Don't forget Compton's lengthy response to the FARMS review:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/7207/rev.html

Thanks for that. Apparently, Compton read the review the same way I did.

[_Sethbag]

I read the FARMS review a couple years ago and what stood out in my mind was how it all came across as them trying to minimize the damage caused by the knowledge of Joseph Smith's actions by reducing the scope of the claims. So they whittled a few women off of Compton's list of women that he thinks he can document Joseph Smith having married, and whittled a few women off the list of already-married women. And then they argued with the notion that we can assume that Joseph was having sex with these women. They conceded that Joseph probably did have sex with Sister Lyons, or Sessions, or whatever the name was (forgot at the moment), but other than that, they cast doubt on the assumption of sex.

The whole thing came across as damage control. You see, it wouldn't be as bad if Joseph Smith only had sex with one other man's wife, than if he'd had sex with eight other mens' wives, or a full dozen. Also, the whole whittling down the numbers thing has the effect of making it look as if they (the reviewers) are in fact more credible than the author, since they're having to correct the author. This puts them in an implied position of superiority and authority. Thus, when the reviewers cast a negative light on the book, and insinuate that it is in any way "anti-mormon" the reader of the review is supposed to walk away convinced that the book isn't worth the paper it's printed on, regardless how many other compliments they paid the book otherwise.

[_moksha]

Don't forget Compton's lengthy response to the FARMS review:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/7207/rev.html

I imagine when one is given an assignment of discrediting a book, they have to work with what they are given. If it is a well researched book, of course the author will have a rebuttal that will put the review to route. That is not to say that the reviewers failed to magnify their calling, it is just that they chose to support sanitized history instead.

As Todd Compton wrote:

Is dishonesty justified if it serves to increase faith? The quick, obvious answer is no. But policies which support an oversimplified, sentimentalized view of faith -- and seek to use methods of official control to minimize true history, including censoring primary historical documents and attacking historians through ad hominem methods -- subscribe to this idea. When part of an organization becomes committed to an incorrect perspective, the smallest attempt to defend dishonesty adds layers of dishonesty to the original problem.

"Sanitized" history makes even the good, heroic aspects of Mormon history (of which there are many) ring false. Telling the "positive" events in Mormon history while censoring out the bad makes the positive events reek of propaganda (which is consistent with the open dishonesty, stupidity, and attempts to control with force used by totalitarian states). Only when overall balance is found do the "good" events ring true. Intelligent, moral people (and I see the great majority of Mormons as intelligent, moral, honest people) see through propaganda quickly. Aside from the issue of its being offensive because of its dishonesty, it is also aesthetically unconvincing -- super-sentimentalized portraits of church leaders without any faults, whom God moves around like puppets as they infallibly make right choice after right choice. The only conflict is between perfect church leaders and perfectly evil Gentile persecutors, or worse, perfectly evil internal traitors who become "apostates." The idea that a church leader might face a moral dilemma and make a wrong choice; the idea that church leaders can disagree on an important issue; the idea that a Gentile or church member might disagree with church leaders and still be a good person-- will not square with this super-sanitized view of Mormon history