By “formally married,” you of course mean “legally married.” Do you believe that she (and Joseph) might very well have considered their union as legitimate as you do yours with your current companion?
And, assuming for a moment if you will that there is a God, do you believe that He might also have sanctioned that union? If not, then why? In other words, aside from your personal aversion to this particular form of human bonding, can you logically dispute that God himself may see things differently?
People can’t be accused of bigamy unless they’re legally married to two people at the same time. It doesn’t matter whether or not they viewed their relationship as legitimate, nor does it matter whether or not God views their relationship as legitimate. What matters, in regards to the charge of bigamy, is how many legal marriages they've entered into simultaneously. Whyme offered the fact that Fanny was never accused of bigamy as evidence of their relationship being spiritual wifery versus a simple affair. I was responding to that in particular. No one can be accused of bigamy unless they’re legally married to two people. This particular defense of whyme’s was silly, and so is your rebuttal.
If I got married to someone else in the future, it would be nonsensical for me to be accused of bigamy due to my current relationship. That has nothing to do with how I view my relationship – which, in my view, is far more legitimate and far more likely to be accepted by any possible godbeing than the legal marriage I endured. It simply has to do with the fact that I am not legally married to my soulmate, and hence, any charge of bigamy would be bizarre – as it is bizarre for whyme to use that as some sort of argument.
Without entering into a dispute over whether or not some (a very, very few “some”) women were served in that fashion—perhaps without cause—do you really mean to convey the notion that, as a standard practice, throughout the continuum of the era of Mormon plural marriages, that “it is true that women who rejected secretive polygamous advances were libeled and slandered, with the clear intent of ruining their social standing”? Because, if that’s what you mean to imply, you would be—and demonstrably so—wrong.
I meant exactly what I said. During the continuum of Mormon polygamy, most were not “secretive”. There was one specific period during which it was secretive, and it is during that period women were slandered for rejecting the proposals. I was clear in my comments, and you even quoted them in your response, and yet still attempted to distort them to mean something entirely different than what I said. So far you’re batting zero.
I think this entire paragraph is a prime example of your frequent tendency to both extrapolate beyond the evidence, or to be substantially unfamiliar with that evidence, or to misread that evidence so severely as to do violence to the primary sources. Not only that, but your interpretation of the sources (and it appears that Zina Diantha Huntington’s words are the primary target of your statement) manifests an extraordinary arrogance towards her extremely enlightening account, and I believe you are, without any warrant, extraordinarly dismissive of someone I consider to be quite a fine example, albeit a very complex one, of personally powerful womanhood.
Then do you accept the spiritual affirmations of all individuals in similar circumstances as evidence that God is sanctioning the particular behavior? It seems you do not, because you dismissed my reference to Wayne Bent’s females next:
Once again you clearly manifest the fact that, for you, it IS nothing but a question of sexuality.
I am personally convinced that the advent of Mormon plural marriage was NOT primarily a question of sexuality. It went far beyond that, encompassing concepts that were simultaneously spiritual and yet supremely material in nature.
I don’t expect you to understand. But I think I do, and therefore I am not nearly as inclined to be puritanically judgmental of these things as I perceive you are.
How odd. You seem to insinuate that Bent’s relationships were nothing but a question of sexuality, despite the spiritual witnesses of the people involved.
I’ve seen a fascinating documentary on Wayne Bent, and saw the people involved sharing their own “testimonies” that Bent’s behavior was God-sanctioned. His son, whose wife Bent slept with repeatedly under God’s direction, testified that he knew it was God’s will. So did his wife. The article I linked also shared the teenage girls’ assertion that laying naked with Bent was God’s will and brought them spiritual enlightenment.
Do you accept their witnesses? If not, how do you explain their witnesses? This is not a rhetorical question – I invite you or any other believer who thinks that the spiritual witnesses received by folks in LDS plural marriage to be serious evidence of God’s sanction to respond to this question. If you do not feel compelled to accept the spiritual witnesses of the people involved in the Bent situation, or other situations, why should I feel compelled to accept the spiritual witnesses of people involved with Joseph Smith?
I agree Joseph Smith practiced spiritual wifery for several reasons, but I think that it’s silly to insist that his sexual desires were not one of them – and, frankly, were not very important. Otherwise, as I said, he simply would have done what he apparently led Emma to believe he was going to do – simply create these unions for the next life and refrain from sexual contact in this life. And, as I already pointed out, if he were simply acting to avoid being killed by the angel God sent, he could have married a couple of spiritual wives and kept it solely spiritual. Instead, he married
thirty-three women and had sexual relations with a good number of them.
Marrying thirty-three women and then having sexual relations with many of them, is pretty good evidence that Joseph Smith was enthusiastic about obtaining more wives, and that sexual desire was a significant factor in that enthusiasm.
While polygyny is not a lifestyle I would ever choose, nor would it be one I would encourage for my children, I think consenting adults have a right to enter into whatever marital system they choose. I think the US government overstepped its bounds by persecuting the early LDS church for the practice and violated the LDS right to practice their own religion. What I find to be morally objectionable is the abuse of power and influence that Joseph Smith engaged in to practice his form of spiritual wifery, as well as his repeated deceptions with Emma. Joseph Smith abused his spiritual power and influence by pressuring young girls to accept his proposals within a very short amount of time, and by making promises to them that were not justified by Mormon theology.
I also think that men who tolerate or approve of polygyny while not being willing to tolerate or approve of polyandry are hypocrites.