D&C 132 - Intro

I heard something very poignant about polygamy once, it said “When a man has many mistresses he is considered a stud. The minute he wants to marry and take care of them he is considered a felon.”

Continuing on with the concept of polygamy and eternal marriage, I just want to point out a few things.

I’m a very logical person, so it A=B and B=C then A=C, if Joseph Smith instituted polygamy because he was a perverted sex fiend (A) and he had several children with Emma (B) and the majority of the women that he married polygamously had several children with other spouses that they later remarried after JS’s death (C) then JS would have TONS of descendants with these other women because they were all very fertile people apparently. However, he doesn’t have several children from his polygamous marriages, as far as I know he *might* have 1 or 2, at most, but I just saw an article posted the other day saying that DNA evidence has disproven his paternity of one of his alleged children. So if he doesn’t have all these children with other women and clearly there are no medical reasons why, then it must be concluded that there is a lack of offspring because there was a lack of opportunities to create offspring. JS was a very busy man and still had time to procreate with his beloved Emma, if his intentions were out of sleaziness then the opposite would have been true, at least that’s the experience I’ve had with all the sleazy men that I’ve known. My conclusion from this rationale is that the practice of polygamy was not born out of a place of lust.

We learn in the study of this section that “although the revelation was recorded in 1843, evidence indicates that some of the principles involved in this revelation were known by the Prophet as early as 1831.” Again if polygamy was created because JS was nasty, then at the first “suggestion” of it in 1831 he would have run with it, but that’s not what happened. It took 12 years for him to make it known, and THEN “the revelation was not made public until Elder Orson Pratt, under the direction of President Brigham Young, announced it at a Church conference on 29 August 1852. The revelation was placed in the Doctrine and Covenants in 1876.” It took 21 years for the concept to be made known to the church membership in general, and it wasn’t even JS that did it, it was Brigham Young. This takes it out of the possibility of it being created by a sex crazed man intent on sleeping with everyone else’s wives.

One of the purposes of polygamy was to create a righteous generation to carry the message of the gospel to the world, it would take more than one person practicing it to create the kind of population shift needed. The purpose wasn’t for JS to personally raise up righteous seed for the Lord, it was for all faithful saints to do so, just as long as it was absolutely necessary because again, the Lord feels our sorrow and pain and would only subject his people to that as long as was needed, because otherwise he would be doing something with the sole purpose of causing pain and He doesn’t do that.

Let’s consider the position that had polygamy not been commanded of God, all those who practiced it wouldn’t have been able to communicate with Him, and this isn’t just about JS, Brigham Young wouldn’t have been able to be a servant of the Lord, because he would have been practicing adultery and the Lord won’t call or communicate with a prophet guilty of such a grievous sin. Any activity that indicates Christ-like attributes or a righteous life dispute the notion that polygamy wasn’t commanded by the Lord for his righteous purposes. I don’t love it either, but I truly believe with all my heart that the practice of polygamy without the early Church was commanded by God. I’ve learned this through study and pondering and through the Holy Ghost.

The IM gives background saying, “It is clear that the Prophet Joseph Smith received section 132 before it was recorded but delayed making it known. The Prophet knew the Lord’s will on plural marriage within the new and everlasting covenant probably as early as 1831. In March 1843 he spoke to William Clayton of eternal marriage. In July of that year, he was discussing the doctrine with his brother Hyrum in William Clayton’s presence when Hyrum said, ‘If you will write the revelation on celestial marriage, I will take it and read it to Emma, and I believe I can convince her of its truth, and you will hereafter have peace.’ The Prophet consented and told William Clayton to get some paper to write; but to his brother’s ‘urgent request’ that the Prophet use the Urim and Thummim to recall the exact revelation, Joseph replied that he did not need it, ‘for he knew the revelation from beginning to end.’ When he had finished dictating, William Clayton read it back slowly, and Joseph said that it was exact. Bishop Newel K. Whitney heard the revelation read and asked permission of the Prophet Joseph Smith to have it copied. With the Prophet’s approval, Bishop Whitey sent Joseph Cm. Kingsbiry the next day to copy it. Brothers Kingsbury and Clayton compared the copy line by line to the original and found it correct. The revelation was not made public until Elder Orson Pratt, under the direction of President Brigham Young, announced it at a Church conference on 29 August 1852. The revelation was placed in the Doctrine and Covenants in 1876. Smith and Sjodahl pointed out that the revelation has two major sections: ‘The first, comprising vv. 3-33, deals mainly with the principle of celestial marriage, or marriage for time and all eternity; the second, comprising the remaining verses, deals with plural marriage. The doctrine of celestial marriage remains in force; the practice of plural marriage was abandoned by the acceptance by the Church, in conference assembled October 6^th, 1890, of the Manifesto of President Woodruff.’”