“Entanglement”: The Legacy of Polygamy in Mormon Theology

Today’s post comes from Samuel Brown and Kate Holbrook, good friends of JI and exceptional scholars. This excerpt, from a forthcoming book edited by Phil Barlow and Terryl Givens, offers some provocative thoughts on the legacy of polygamy in Mormon theology. Also, be sure to check out Samuel’s essay in Dialogue, linked below. After reading the essay, I’m sure you’ll want to purchase the book to read the rest of the essay.

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Answers to First 3 Questions About Polygamy from JI’s Readers

Here is the first, in a series, of answers to historical questions about polygamy, as a result of the LDS Church’s new Gospel Topics essays on plural marriage.

Let us know if you have more questions here.

Without further ado, here are the first three questions.

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MSWR: 10.12-10.26

Most notably, the LDS Church released three essays on the practice of polygamy during the Nauvoo, Utah, and post-Manifesto eras. if you have questions about polygamy that were not answered in any of the essays, SUBMIT THEM HERE.

Despite the click-baity title, The New Republic had a great article on Mormon genealogy, particularly as it relates to LDS theology. Here’s a snippet:

• “The church’s most ambitious project is its online tree. Anyone who logs in to Family Search may record and research his or her family history there, but what distinguishes this tree from all the other online services is that the church is trying to connect all the branches, using its massive records and the activities of users to build a big tree of all of humanity. “

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JI on Polygamy

On Wednesday, we here at JI declared we were happy to (try to) answer any questions about polygamy people may have, in response to the Church publishing two more essays on the topic. In preparation for that post (or several posts) next week, I’ve hunted through the archives to find older posts on the subject. (Warning, there are a lot.) I’ve tried to group them thematically here below.

LDS responses to anti-polygamy legislation

Responses: Patrick Mason on David Pulsipher on Mormon Civil Disobedience

Joseph H. Dean and Joseph F. Smith on Mexico/Polygamy

The Manifesto and post-Manifesto polygamy

A Review of Lu Ann Faylor Snyder and Phillip A. Snyder, eds., Post Manifesto Polygamy: The 1899-1904 Correspondence of Helen, Owen, and Avery Woodruff (and another review here)

Wasted Seed and Spent Men: Corinne Allen Tuckerman and the Politics of Polygamy after 1890

Reading Like a Conspiracy Theorist, Part 1: A Post-Manifesto Polygamist?s Diary, Part 2: The Case for Polygamy, Part 3: Quinn and Hardy

Quantifying Polygamy

From the Archives: Joseph Smith III Congratulates Wilford Woodruff on the Manifesto

Remembering polygamy

From Embrace to Embarrassment: Remembering Joseph Smith?s Polygamy

Peculiar Questions Briefly Answered: Charles W. Penrose on Polygamy, Etc.

?Plurality of Wives was an Incident, Never an Essential?: James E. Talmage on Polygamy

Mormon Folklore, Part Two (Polygamy)

Susa Young Gates, Juanita Brooks, and Plural Marriage: Situating the Legacy of Polygamy in the 1920s and 1930s

Celestial Polygamy is Inevitable

Grub Street History: Peggy Fletcher Stack and The Polygamies of Joseph Smith and Warren Jeffs

The Perspectives on Parley Pratt?s Autobiography: BiV on ?Conjugal Relations of Parley P. Pratt as Portrayed in his Autobiography?

Women and the Manifesto: Painting with Broad Strokes

Specific Polygamous Relationships

Helen Mar Kimball blessing and the dating of her marriage to Joseph Smith

Hannah Tapfield King?s Introduction to Polygamy and Hannah Tapfield King, Gendered History, and Class

Movie Review: Emma Smith: A Really Great Catch and Emma Smith Movie, Again

 Polygamy and gender

?The cheerless, crushed and unwomanly mothers of polygamy?

?Either a misogynist or proto-feminist?: Women and Polygamy in John Turner?s ?Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet?

Passionate Stability: Polygamy, Dating, and the Creation of Modern Mormon Gender

Thoughts on Polyandry

Polygamy and race

Black Methodists, White Mormons: Race and Antipolygamy

?Prelude to American Imperialism?: Mormon Polygamy, Natural Law, and Whiteness

?A situation worse than polygamy?: Mormon Missionaries, ?Mulattos?, and Defending the Faith in North Carolina, 1900

Miscellaneous

When Did Mormons Become Straight: The Intersections of Mormon History and Queer Theory

Spatial Dynamics and Polygamous Burial Practices

Notes from the Utah State Historical Society?s 56th Annual Conference, Part 2: Polygamy

From the Archives: ?Polygamy?is Conducive to Health, Ingelligence, and Longevity?, An 1885 Letter of George Reynolds on Ebay

The Mormon Mokanna

In the mid- and late-nineteenth century, critics of Mormonism sometimes compared Mormon leaders to the eighth-century Persian religious leader Hashim ibn Hakim, better known as Mokanna, Al-Muqanna (Arabic: ?The Veiled?), ?The Veiled Prophet,? or ?The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan.? In some instances commentators made more involved comparisons between the methods, character, and attributes of al-Muqanna?s followers and non-leader Mormons.

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Taking All Questions About Polygamy

We at JI were very happy to see the LDS Church’s release of three essays on plural marriage yesterday. The histories of Nauvoo Era, Utah Era, and Post-Manifesto polygamy have not been told by institutional sources in such a clear, open way. Facebook conversations and Twitter dialogues  popped up quickly; many are still ongoing. The Bloggernacle has begun to respond already.

With that said, we at JI couldn’t help but notice that many individuals still had burning questions on plural marriage. Although many of the questions people had were actually answered by the essays, there are still more nuanced questions that were not answered by the essays. There are also questions of a more personal nature that, for obvious reasons, could not be answered by an essay aimed at a western, if not global, audience. Often, the questions asked on social media were not answered by folks with an academic knowledge of plural marriage. While many people know a lot about polygamy and polyandry, many of the responses to people’s questions were not based in history.

Juvenile Instructor wants to try and answer people’s questions about plural marriage with reference to sources, where available. As an academic Mormon History blog, we have a duty to not only analyze the essays themselves, but to engage with those interested in Mormon History and do our best to answer questions about plural marriage. All questions, from academics or non-academics, are welcome.

There are a few ground rules to participating:

• We are not here to evaluate truth claims or whether or not plural marriage is “true” in any sense. That is not the point of this blog.
• Be kind. We know that plural marriage can raise a lot of powerful feelings, but there are human beings reading and answering the questions.
• We do not know the answers to every question.  We cannot make any promises in regards to finding exact sources or firm answers.

PLEASE SHARE.

Please submit your questions here. You can also ask questions in the comments. We will answer the questions in future posts.

Review: Terryl Givens, Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought

Terryl L. Givens. Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmology, God, Humanity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. xv, 405 ppg. Notes, index. Cloth: $34.95. ISBN 978-1-9979492-8.

Few books encompass as audacious a scope as Wrestling the Angel. In this work, the first of projected two volumes, prolific Mormon scholar Terryl Givens presents a rigorous and exhaustive overview of Mormonism?s theological foundations. This is not necessarily a historical work that systematically traces theological developments and places them in cultural context as it is an attempt to faithfully reproduce the intellectual tradition founded by Joseph Smith, refined by Parley and Orson Pratt, and tinkered with by a handful of twentieth century thinkers like B.H. Roberts, James Talmage, John Widtsoe, and, sometimes, more contemporary LDS leaders. The finished product is an overwhelming account that makes a compelling case for Mormonism?s inclusion within the Christian theological canon.

The book is separated into five sections. The first, ?Frameworks,? outlines Mormonism?s relationship with theology and posits a new prism through which to understand Joseph Smith?s conception of ?restoration?; the second is a very brief overview of Mormonism?s theological narrative, which is meant to ground the remainder of the discussion. The final three chapters are the ?meat? of the project by taking, in turn, the three broad topics under consideration: ?Cosmology,? ?The Divine,? and ?The Human.? Each chapter within these sections engages particular topics?embodiment, salvation, theosis, etc.?and places them within Christian theological context.

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Mormon Studies Audiobooks

I have a post up over at The Junto this morning reflecting on my audiobook listening habits. I note there, among other things, that “audiobooks … have become a means of helping me keep up with scholarship outside of early America (including periods and subjects I will likely need to teach at some future point), introducing myself to historical subjects in which I am peripherally interested (including the history of sport, the history of food), and of listening to popular and academic histories that fit under the broad umbrella of ‘early American history’ that I might not find time to read in the immediate future.” While writing that post, my thoughts turned to the relative dearth of quality audiobooks on subjects that fall under the large umbrella of Mormon Studies.

My reasons for wanting to listen to Mormon Studies audiobooks largely mirror the reasons cited in the first paragraph — it would be a convenient way to keep up with a field I remain committed to and interested in but one in which my current research does not fall. Given the general success of books in the subfield published by major university and trade presses over the last few years, I am a little surprised that more have not been recorded as audiobooks. Looking back through the library of audiobooks I’ve purchased, downloaded, and listened to over the last three or four years (a library of 50+ volumes), I realized that it included only one Mormon title — our very own Matt Bowman’s excellent survey of Mormon history. A quick search for “Mormon,” “LDS,” and “Latter-day Saints” in Audible.com’s library turns up an odd mix of ex-Mormon narratives, nineteenth-century faith promoting titles, a couple of volumes either for or against Mitt Romney, and only a small handful of Mormon Studies titles (including, most promisingly, Terryl Givens’s The Book of Mormon: A Very Short Introduction and Spencer Fluhman’s A Peculiar People). The only biography of Joseph Smith available is Alex Beam’s American Crucifixion [edit: I somehow missed Robert Remini’s short and accessible biography of JS.]. The offerings at University Press Audiobooks are even slimmer.

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One Memorable(?) Event from LDS General Conference History

Earlier this year, Tona wrote an excellent post about the fragility of digital archives following up on Max Mueller?s AHA paper that explored both the possibilities and pitfalls of the “I?m A Mormon” campaign as a primary source.  Tona noted that, ?What is available to historians relies largely upon on goodwill, technology upgrades, and the market.?

Within this context, it is fascinating to observe, in real-time, the debate over whether or not the General Women?s Meeting is a session of General Conference.  This controversy includes the editing of a video of a conference session as well as conflicting (and possibly changing) interpretations about the status of the Women?s Meeting from LDS Public Affairs, the Deseret News website as well as lds.org.  While the debate about the status of the Women?s Meeting has been largely framed as a feminist issue, it also raises questions for researchers in tracing changes to historical documents and other sources as well as how ideas get lodged in the imaginations of religious believers. As Tona states,

Things come, go, vanish, launch, in a constant state of (often unannounced) change that nonetheless presents itself as final, unchanging and authoritative? it is a historian?s worst nightmare. If you cannot see the ?manuscript edits? so to speak, how do you know what changed, when, how and why? And if the old just vanishes from the online environment without a trace, what happens to the possibilities for historical research? Most of what we are all busily creating in this decade has simply been written in the equivalent of vanishing ink.

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Lecture Announcement: Joanna Brooks at the University of Michigan

This came through my inbox last week, and I thought I would post it here in case anyone was interested.

The American Studies Consortium welcomes

Joanna Brooks

Professor of English and Comparative Literature, San Diego State University

author of The Book of Mormon Girl

“When Storytelling is Movement Building:

Putting American Studies to Work in the World of Mormonism.”

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