Post Manifesto Fallout

[_zeezrom]

I've been reading about my ancestors who lived in Mexico to avoid being prosecuted for living with multiple wives and stumbled upon an interesting question:

What was the fallout from the Manifesto?

The L.D.S. Church outlawed polygamy after Wilford Woodruff issued the 1890 Manifesto. This became a difficult time for those men and women who were already livng a polygamous lifestye. Some had already moved to Canada and Mexico to escape the Edmunds-Tucker law, but even those weren't safe when the Manifesto was passed and anyone entering polygamy around now would be excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Is this true?

I'm very surprised that the church would excommunicate members that were living in polygamy prior to the Manifesto and continue living it afterward outside the United States. Why wouldn't there be a grandfather clause for the folks who followed the commandment to begin with? It seems to me that the church broke up families unnecessarily. Why didn't the church just say, "Don't practice polygamy if you live in the U.S."?

Here is an interesting excerpt from a website that contains the history of some of my ancestors:

Orson Pratt Brown... had five wives, Martha Diana Romney Brown, Jane Bodily Galbraith Brown, Elizabeth Graham Macdonald Webb Brown, Eliza Skousen, and Angela Gabaldon. Orson had a total of thirty-five children from all five wives. He was not excommunicated from the Church for polygamy. Three of Orson's wives divorced him in what seemed to be mutual abandonment after the Mormon Exodus from the Colonies in Mexico uprooted the families from their homes mid-1912. Martha Romney moved to Utah. Jane Galbraith moved to California where her mother and other family lived. Eliza Skousen moved to Utah for a time then returned to live in Mesa, Arizona. Elizabeth Macdonald had died in 1904 in Morelos. Orson continued to support his three wives and children by purchasing homes, stores, farms, and businesses for them to maintain for their support. He had lost almost all his assets during the Exodus and while fulfilling his Church assignments to help resettle the homeless Mormon colonists and moderate negotiations to receive reimbursement for the colonists lands and property. A destitute and lonely Orson worked to eke out a living in El Paso and Mexico between 1914 and 1919...

http://www.orsonprattbrown.com/Polygamy ... combe.html

[_zeezrom]

I suppose those that try to enter the practice (even if outside the U.S.) after the Manifesto would be in trouble with the church.

But what about the people who were already practicing polygamy since before the Manifesto and lived outside the U.S.?

[_Bob Loblaw]

Wasn't it Quinn who showed that plural marriages were approved and performed after 1890? Why would people in Mexico have had any fallout from doing what was being done secretly in Salt Lake?

[_beastie]

This likely took place after the Second Manifesto of 1904. In between 1890 and 1904, church members, including some GAs, were still practicing polygamy. The 1890 manifesto was only designed to appease the feds, with the hope that they would then be granted statehood and could practice polygamy in peace. When it became clear that the feds were not going to be easily fooled, then the church actually enforced it.

[_malkie]

Wasn't polygamy illegal also in Mexico at the time?

[_Cicero]

Wasn't it Quinn who showed that plural marriages were approved and performed after 1890? Why would people in Mexico have had any fallout from doing what was being done secretly in Salt Lake?

Yes, the article is LDS Church Authority and New Plural Marriages, 1890 - 1904, Dialogue, Spring 1985. The church didn't really ban polygamy until 1904.

[_zeezrom]

Wasn't polygamy illegal also in Mexico at the time?

It appears the authorities in Mexico were not completely up to speed on the issue. It seems they were just happy to have hardworking citizens working the earth.

[_lulu]

I'd be suprised if anyone in Mexico pre-1904 faced any official church action for contracting a new plural marraige or for advocating plural marraige. My goodness, they were still contracting new plural marriages up in SLC after 1890.

The issue your question highlights for me is whether post-1904 Manifesto, in Mexico, if it was a problem with the SLC hierarchy if one

1. Contracted a new plural marriage or
2. Actively advocated polygamy.

I think it also depended whether one was merely remaining with polygamous spouses or whether one was contracting or actively advocating in favor if new polygamous marriages.

There's the famous documented example of Pres. Kimball's father-in-law, Pres. Eyring's grand-father, who lived with both wives into the 1950s and had a temple reccommend.

Overall I think it was uneven.

[_ludwigm]

...
It seems to me that the church broke up families unnecessarily. Why didn't the church just say, "Don't practice polygamy if you live in the U.S."?
...

It has something parallel today:
"If you live in US, you should wait one year after civil marriage - unlike Europeans, who may go to the temple next day or next week or whenever."

[_desert_vulture]

New polygamous marriages were performed after 1900 by Apostle Teasdale, in Colonia Juarez. When I asked my then TBM MIL how this was possible, if the 1890 Manifesto was the true word of God, she answered that Teasdale was acting without authority as a "rogue" apostle. However, Teasdale was never excommunicated nor disfellowshipped, and died in good favor with LDSInc, so I concluded that he acted with full authority and authorization from Salt Lake.