New Five Part Series on Polygamy

[MG 2.0]

... By the sound of it, there are some closed minds here. ...

MG: Please watch this series of videos that may persuade you that eating dog-food for breakfast can be delicious and fun.

Chap: No thanks, I've seen enough of that stuff to know I'd hate it.

MG: Oh thou closed mindèd one!

I suppose you consider this to be an accurate and complete comparison. Some of the women that practiced polygamy would actually disagree with you.

Regards,
MG

[malkie]

I heard him [Joseph Smith] teach and explain the principle of celestial marriage. After which he said to me, “If you will take this step, it will ensure your eternal salvation and exaltation and that of your father’s household and all of your kindred.” This promise was so great that I willingly gave myself to purchase so glorious a reward.

Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, “Autobiography, 30 March 1881,” MS 744, CHL. Typescript and copy of holograph reproduced in Jeni Broberg Holzapfel and Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, eds., A Woman’s View: Helen Mar Whitney’s Reminiscences of Early Church History (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1997), 482–87.

As far as I'm aware, nobody has refuted Helen's words as quoted here.

I've asked this before, and (unless I've forgotten ) had no reply:

Is it a recognized form of prophetic promise that an action by one individual will "ensure [the person's] eternal salvation and exaltation and that of [their] father’s household and all of [their] kindred? This seems to go against the principle that each person is responsible for their own actions and consequent rewards and punishments.

Is there any reason to believe that Helen's self-sacrifice was capable of bringing about such a remarkable result?

[Marcus]

MG: Please watch this series of videos that may persuade you that eating dog-food for breakfast can be delicious and fun.

Chap: No thanks, I've seen enough of that stuff to know I'd hate it.

MG: Oh thou closed mindèd one!

I suppose you consider this to be an accurate and complete comparison. Some of the women that practiced polygamy would actually disagree with you....

Asking a person who practices polygamy is not a good way to evaluate the concept of polygamy. Also, knowing the character of the mental gymnast, he will only value the opinion of people who agree with his opinion, rendering anything he has to offer as no better than biased meaninglessness.

Polygamy should be evaluated as a concept, and in my opinion, as a concept it fails miserably. I read through the paper of Kathleen Flake, whose work comprises part 3, I think, of the series. It was an embarrassment, academically. I'm happy to review it more extensively, if anyone's interested, but from an academic standpoint, it's not worth anyone's time.

[I Have Questions]

Why would you expect a wife to report on her sex life to a third party?

Questions, you have a valid point.not reporting sex contact hardly means there was none, after all every knows such contact is normal part of a real marriage and Helen does note some suprise at it being a real marriage

People argue that a young plural wife may wait for a bit more maturity before sexusl relations. Whether that is the case with Helen is pure speculation and I am certainly not going to try and argue the matter one way or the other. For me Marcus underlined the crucial point.

Here's what we can say for a fact. Plural marriage was justified by Joseph as necessary for "raising up seed", which means producing offspring. In 19th Century America the only way available to do that was to have sex with a woman. So when 37 year old Joseph Smith coerced the Kimball family into agreeing to let him marry their 14 year old daughter, it was with the intention of having sex with her.

[sock puppet]

...
Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, “Autobiography, 30 March 1881,” MS 744, CHL. Typescript and copy of holograph reproduced in Jeni Broberg Holzapfel and Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, eds., A Woman’s View: Helen Mar Whitney’s Reminiscences of Early Church History (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1997), 482–87.
...

As far as I'm aware, nobody has refuted Helen's words as quoted here.

I've asked this before, and (unless I've forgotten ) had no reply:
Is it a recognized form of prophetic promise that an action by one individual will "ensure [the person's] eternal salvation and exaltation and that of [their] father’s household and all of [their] kindred? This seems to go against the principle that each person is responsible for their own actions and consequent rewards and punishments.

Is there any reason to believe that Helen's self-sacrifice was capable of bringing about such a remarkable result?

That's a teaching of Joseph Smith that the church of Brigham and the descendants of Hyrum have since eschewed. Joseph had also taught that a wayward child could be saved by the parents' faithfulness. That was an added value to the parents to having children born in the covenant or later sealed to them. But the problem for the later Church of the Tithing Scrape was that disincentivized children of faithful parents. So the implications of Joseph's teaching could not survive long term and was in fact later repudiated.

[huckelberry]

I suppose you consider this to be an accurate and complete comparison. Some of the women that practiced polygamy would actually disagree with you....

Asking a person who practices polygamy is not a good way to evaluate the concept of polygamy. Also, knowing the character of the mental gymnast, he will only value the opinion of people who agree with his opinion, rendering anything he has to offer as no better than biased meaninglessness.

Polygamy should be evaluated as a concept, and in my opinion, as a concept it fails miserably. I read through the paper of Kathleen Flake, whose work comprises part 3, I think, of the series. It was an embarrassment, academically. I'm happy to review it more extensively, if anyone's interested, but from an academic standpoint, it's not worth anyone's time.

Marcus, it does not appear that MG is going to bother to say anything beyond some 19th century women defended it (I think it known some did some did not). I would certainly read your observations on the paper with interest.

......correcting the typo on century number that MG had some fun with.

[MG 2.0]

Asking a person who practices polygamy is not a good way to evaluate the concept of polygamy. Also, knowing the character of the mental gymnast, he will only value the opinion of people who agree with his opinion, rendering anything he has to offer as no better than biased meaninglessness.

Polygamy should be evaluated as a concept, and in my opinion, as a concept it fails miserably. I read through the paper of Kathleen Flake, whose work comprises part 3, I think, of the series. It was an embarrassment, academically. I'm happy to review it more extensively, if anyone's interested, but from an academic standpoint, it's not worth anyone's time.

Marcus, it does not appear that MG is going to bother to say anything beyond some 29th century women defended it (I think it known some did some did not). I would certainly read your observations on the paper with interest.

I can’t see that far into the future.

Regards,
MG

[Marcus]

Asking a person who practices polygamy is not a good way to evaluate the concept of polygamy. Also, knowing the character of the mental gymnast, he will only value the opinion of people who agree with his opinion, rendering anything he has to offer as no better than biased meaninglessness.

Polygamy should be evaluated as a concept, and in my opinion, as a concept it fails miserably. I read through the paper of Kathleen Flake, whose work comprises part 3, I think, of the series. It was an embarrassment, academically. I'm happy to review it more extensively, if anyone's interested, but from an academic standpoint, it's not worth anyone's time.

Marcus, it does not appear that MG is going to bother to say anything beyond some 19th century women defended it (I think it known some did some did not). I would certainly read your observations on the paper with interest.

......correcting the typo on century number that MG had some fun with.

Of course mg won't say anything. He uses AI to post here, even though Shades told him he can't, so he doesn't actually know what he's talking about. Thanks for your interest, I'll pull together my notes from Flake and post them!

[Rivendale]

Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, “Autobiography, 30 March 1881,” MS 744, CHL. Typescript and copy of holograph reproduced in Jeni Broberg Holzapfel and Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, eds., A Woman’s View: Helen Mar Whitney’s Reminiscences of Early Church History (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1997), 482–87.

As far as I'm aware, nobody has refuted Helen's words as quoted here.

I've asked this before, and (unless I've forgotten ) had no reply:

Is it a recognized form of prophetic promise that an action by one individual will "ensure [the person's] eternal salvation and exaltation and that of [their] father’s household and all of [their] kindred? This seems to go against the principle that each person is responsible for their own actions and consequent rewards and punishments.

Is there any reason to believe that Helen's self-sacrifice was capable of bringing about such a remarkable result?

We supposedly can't be punished by someone else's transgressions but someone else's divinity has the ability to take transgressions away from people? Something doesn't track here.

[Rivendale]

I suppose you consider this to be an accurate and complete comparison. Some of the women that practiced polygamy would actually disagree with you....

Asking a person who practices polygamy is not a good way to evaluate the concept of polygamy. Also, knowing the character of the mental gymnast, he will only value the opinion of people who agree with his opinion, rendering anything he has to offer as no better than biased meaninglessness.

Polygamy should be evaluated as a concept, and in my opinion, as a concept it fails miserably. I read through the paper of Kathleen Flake, whose work comprises part 3, I think, of the series. It was an embarrassment, academically. I'm happy to review it more extensively, if anyone's interested, but from an academic standpoint, it's not worth anyone's time.

I never heard of Kathleen Flake until now. I read one of her lectures and apparently the ones that thrived were practicing psychological individuation? Embracing priestly ideals? And they self reported this?

Mormons privileged indepen-
dence over emotional attunement.

Sounds like she wants to justify success in polygamy by pandering to independent , emotion lacking introverts?