Polygamy / Polyandry

Polygamy / Polyandry

Joseph Smith

…my feelings are so strong for you since what has passed lately between us…it seems, as if I could not live long in this way; and if you three would come and see me…it would afford me great relief…I know it is the will of God that you should comfort me now in this time of affliction…the only thing to be careful of; is to find out when Emma comes then you cannot be safe, but when she is not here, there is the most perfect safty…burn this letter as soon as you read it; keep all locked up in your breasts…You will pardon me for my earnestness on this subject when you consider how lonesome I must be…I think Emma wont come tonight if she dont fail to come tonight…

Joseph Smith to Sarah Ann Whitney, Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, (Salt Lake City: Signature Books) pp 349, 350, Letter to seventeen year old Sarah Ann Whitney shortly after their marriage.

For behold, I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory.

Joseph Smith, Doctrine and Covenants 132:4

“If you will take this step, it will ensure your eternal salvation & exaltation and that of your father’s household & all of your kindred“. This promise was so great that I willingly gave myself to purchase so glorious a reward.

Joseph Smith as recorded in the memoir of Helen Mar Kimball, age 14,, Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, (Salt Lake City: Signature Books) p 499

What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven wives, when I can only find one. I am the same man, and as innocent as I was fourteen years ago; and I can prove them all perjurers. I labored with these apostates myself until I was out of all manner of patience…

Joseph Smith, History of the Church Vol. 6, p. 411

Oliver Cowdrey

I did not fail to affirm that what I had said was strictly true. A dirty, nasty, filthy scrape [“affair” overwritten] of his and Fanny Alger’s was talked over in which I strictly declared that I had never deviated from the truth on the matter.

Oliver Cowdery, Letter to Warren A. Cowdery, January 21, 1838. 

William Clayton

Wednesday 16 … This A.M. J. [Joseph] told me that since E. [Emma] came back fro St Louis she had resisted the P. [ Priesthood?] in toto & he had to tell her he would relinquish all for her sake. She said she would [sic] given him E. & E. P [Emily and Eliza Partridge] but he knew if he took them she would pitch on him & obtain a divorce & leave him. He however told me that he should not relinquish any thing O. God deliver thy servant from iniquity and bondage.

William Clayton, Diary, August 16, 1843

Brigham Young

The Scripture says that He, the Lord, came walking in the Temple, with His train; I do not know who they were, unless His wives and children; but at any rate they filled the Temple, and how many there were who could not get into the Temple I cannot say.

Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol 13, page 309

Wilford Woodruff

The question is this: Which is the wisest course for the Latter-day Saints to pursue–to continue to attempt to practice plural marriage, with the laws of the nation against it and the opposition of sixty millions of people, and at the cost of the confiscation and loss of all the temples, and the stopping of all the ordinances therein, both for the living and the dead, and the imprisonment of the First Presidency and Twelve and the heads of families in the Church, and the confiscation of personal property of the people (all of which of themselves would stop the practice); or, after doing and suffering what we have through our adherence to this principle to cease the practice and submit to the law, and through doing so leave the prophets, apostles and fathers at home, so that they can instruct the people and attend to the duties of the Church, and also leave the temples in the hands of the Saints, so that they can attend to the ordinances of the gospel, both for the living and the dead? The Lord showed me by vision and revelation exactly what would take place if we did not stop this practice.

Discourses of Wilford Woodruff, p. 215

Truth is what we are after, and we are not afraid of the doctrines of any man; we are willing to stand by the revelations of God.

The Discourses of Wilford Woodruff, p. 63

Evening Meeting. Prayer By E Stephenson. Joseph F Smith spoke One hour & 25 M. He spoke upon the Marriage in Cana at Galilee. He thought Jesus was the Bridgegroom and Mary & Martha the brides. He also refered to Luke 10 ch. 38 to 42 verse, Also John 11 ch. 2 & 5 vers John 12 Ch 3d vers, John 20 8 to 18\. Joseph Smith spoke upon these passages to show that Mary & Martha manifested much Closer relationship than Merely A Believer which looks Consistet. He did not think that Jesus who decended throug Poligamous families from Abraham down & who fulfilled all the Law even baptism by immersion would have lived and died without being married.

Wilford Woodruff, Journal 8:187, July 22, 1883 (misspellings in original)

Heber C. Kimball

In the spirit world there is an increase of males and females, there are millions of them, and if I am faithful all the time, and continue right along with brother Brigham, we will go to brother Joseph and say, ‘Here we are brother Joseph; we are here ourselves are we not, with none of the property we possessed in our probationary state, not even the rings on our fingers?’  He will say to us, ‘Come along, my boys, we will give you a good suit of clothes.  Where are your wives?’  ‘They are back yonder; they would not follow us.’  ‘Never mind,’ says Joseph, ‘here are thousands, have all you want.’  Perhaps some do not believe that, but I am just simple enough to believe it.

Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses, Vol 4, page 209

I would not be afraid to promise a man who is sixty years of age, if he will take the counsel of brother Brigham and his brethren, that he will renew his age. I have noticed that a man who has but one wife, and is inclined to that doctrine, soon begins to wither and dry up, while a man who goes into plurality looks fresh, young, and sprightly. Why is this? Because God loves that man, and because he honors His work and word. Some of you may not believe this; but I not only believe it—I also know it. For a man of God to be confined to one woman is small business; for it is as much as we can do now to keep up under the burdens we have to carry; and I do not know what we should do if we had only one wife apiece.

Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses, Vol 5, page 22

Orson Hyde

It will be borne in mind that once on a time, there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and on a careful reading of that transaction, it will be discovered that no less a person than Jesus Christ was married on that occasion. If he was never married, his intimacy with Mary and Martha, and the other Mary also whom Jesus loved, must have been highly unbecoming and improper to say the best of it. I will venture to say that if Jesus Christ were now to pass through the most pious countries in Christendom with a train of women, such as used to follow him, fondling about him, combing his hair, anointing him with precious ointment, washing his feet with tears, and wiping them with the hair of their heads and unmarried, or even married, he would be mobbed, tarred, and feathered, and rode, not on an ass, but on a rail.

Orson Hyde, Journal of Discourses, Vol 4, pp 259, 260

Jedediah M. Grant

Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas.” He, according to Celsus, had a numerous train of wives. The grand reason of the burst of public sentiment in anathemas upon Christ and his disciples, causing his crucifixion, was evidently based upon polygamy, according to the testimony of the philosophers who rose in that age. A belief in the doctrine of a plurality of wives caused the persecution of Jesus and his followers. We might almost think they were “Mormons.”

Jedediah M. Grant, Second Councilor to the Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol 1, page 346