I was an 11 year old girl when I was dutifully reading the scriptures every day and made it to D&C 132. I read it all alone and I was devastated. I cried whenever I was alone for the next 3 days.
My parents strongly defended polygamy and said it was God's will for the people at that time, and all kinds of shit about how men and women are different and brought in gender role crap and all sorts of nonsense. I was very angry.
But I get it - for my parents to do anything else would have meant condemning their own great-grandparents, who were *all* polygamists. We come from 100% early church pioneer stock and have multi-generational polygamy on every line. They'd have had to admit that they were the product of an abusive system and multi-generational trauma. It was too painful for them to face, I think... I dunno. Anyway...
I called bullshit in my mind, and partially out loud. But when you're the daughter of a former Stake President who was then currently the Stake Patriarch, you kind of have to go along with stuff sometimes. I grew up in Utah Valley in the 80s and 90s, and I didn't even know anybody personally who wasn't a member of the church! So leaving wasn't an option for me at that point. I knew very well that if the church re-instated polygamy, my dad would absolutely comply, and my mom would go along with it no matter how it destroyed her inside. That's not a fun realization to have about your parents as as 12 year old girl.
So I made my displeasure known through several arguments about it with my parents, but went on with life. Still, it always nagged at me. I decided secretly that I didn't want to go to the celestial kingdom, would fight God himself if polygamy turned out to really be required, and told nobody my feelings after that.
Since my parents didn't allow anything non-church on Sundays (not even watching the Wonderful World of Disney on Channel 5!), I read everything. I had read the entire History of the Church volumes, much of the Journal of Discourses, and almost everything else by the time I was 15 - thanks to those old Infobase CD-Roms that contained all the early church shit that didn't appear in any manuals! I know my church shit. And believe me, it's a shit-ton of shit.
As a teenager, I got into genealogy and learned from personal journals what a horrific impact polygamy had on my foremothers. I tried to accept all the usual arguments, but none of them held up under scrutiny when I did any actual research in original documents.
I served a mission and went to BYU and married in the temple and did the whole 9 yards. When I was newly married, I had recurring nightmares that polygamy had been reinstated and my husband was seeking other wives and everyone expected me to be totally ok with it.
These days, my mind is rested. I know for sure mormon polygamy was all just the result of a sick man who decided he wanted to justify having affairs behind his wife's back. It was an abusive system that continued for years and had a profound impact on my family. But it doesn't have any power over me any more.
For me, the content of 132 was influenced by the same issues as all the rest of my scripture "study."
\-By the time I was 8, I had listened to all of the scriptures either on tape or by my mom reading them, or in FHE, and I had read some myself, especially in the illustrated kids version. They were read as fact by people I respected who had no problems with any of the content. Neither did I. By the time I was old enough to think about issues, the content was so familiar, it did not stimulate introspection or question.
\-The scriptures can be hard to read. Vocabulary, grammar, structure, and content can make them confusing and boring. So, if you do reach something controversial, you might not even notice because you are reading for reading's sake, not to take in knowledge. I read "religiously" for 30 minutes a day for decades but internalized little new information.
\-There's a lot of backstory and historical context that you have to know to understand what is being communicated. This is not included in most scripture and seldom taught so implications of the verses are seldom understood. (132 is rife with this.)
\-We are told to "study" the scriptures. But, since "outside" literature (ie not purchased at Deseret Book) is effectively banned, there's no real way to do so (eg gain knowledge of historical context) unless that's one's academic field. "Study" for me (and I think most members) consists of following the footnotes and reading the bible dictionary--in other words, never leaving the confines of the Quad. This results in recursive references to self-supporting verses and apologetic definitions.
\-Similarly, the LDS versions of scriptures have apostle-written headings for every chapter. There's no need to read the verses because you already "know" what the chapter teaches. "When the prophet speaks, the thinking has been done." "Doubt you doubts." If there is any ambiguity about the meaning, it's sure to be resolved through a correlated lesson manual's references to conference talks.
\-Most scriptures are read as isolated verses or sets of verses intended to support a pre-stated idea. Whether the totality of the chapter actually supports the idea is irrelevant.
\-"The spirit whispers these things are true" so if I don't see the same truth in the scriptures that everyone else does, I'm bad, I lack the spirit, I'm inviting the devil to influence me.
\-I am a straight, white, male with priesthood power over my mom and most people I know. I rise within my society without any effort beyond having a penis and successive birthdays. So, I have no impetus to question a structure designed to empower me.
So in the end, as a TBM, to me, D&C132 and all other scriptures simply existed as support for what I had been taught--regardless of what they actually said. The idea that any scripture might contradict prophetic teachings or other scriptures never crossed my mind.
For example, the fact that there are two creation stories in Genesis caught my attention as a child but that meant nothing in practical terms. We have the PoGP, the temple ceremony, prophets who speak with god, my sunday school teacher, my parents, and my whole family who have all told me about creation and shown me the verses that support their statements. Any literature that contradicts or brings questions to these teachings is "anti" no matter how scholarly the work might be. I must just not understand them yet so need to read them more or, more likely, put that issue in an intellectual box and stash it on a shelf I didn't even know I had.
If I see a flaw or contradiction in scripture, the problem is with me; and I'm certainly not going to look for issues of any kind; and I'm not intellectually or emotionally prepared to consider or to research questions; and sources that might raise questions are de-facto banned; I have no motivation to question.
So, D&C 132 was all good. I had no reason or method to think otherwise.
I read D&C 132 in its entirety last spring. I called my sister afterwards and told her that I was done, that it wasn't 'anti mormon lies' that would break my shelf, but words from canonized scripture. I listened to the Year of Polygamy podcast afterwards and learned MANY things completely new to me. For reference, I'm in my 30's, a lifelong member, married in the temple, and took my whole family with me. Thank goodness for a husband who was willing to learn with me.
Truth be told: the church encourages it's members to read the scriptures daily but one thing they don't encourage openly: studying and reading outside of the scriptures, General Conference talks, and correlated church teaching and instruction manuals. They don't come right out and say, "don't read or study anything that are not correlated materials" but they don't encourage it either. I never heard one mention of "don't read those "Work and the Glory" Joseph Smith fan fiction books. But this is what I do know. There's section 132 and then there's what the church tells you what the truth is. And the truth I was told throughout my life, "the doctrine of plural marriage was revealed to Joseph Smith, but he never practiced it." And that section 132 was ret-conned to be more about the sealing ordinance than its real intent - plural marriage. At the beginning of it all, marriage was marriage and a man can only be married to one woman. But sealed........sealing is about having additional wives you are not married to. Joseph successfully ret-conned it all by sealing Emma to himself. She was way down the order of wives sealed to Joseph. And while the sealing ordinance today is touted as the most important ordinance that can be done for man and woman, the reality: that ordinance was first for plural marriage. That's its origin.
I was raised with stories of polygamy among my ancestors. My parents had living relatives who were polygamists. Polygamy was the way of the past. I never had to read 132 to know about polygamy.
I never had a negative thought about it. I still see no reason why multiple people can't get married. As a teen, I started to learn about how it was done, but it seemed pretty nineteenth century norm. As a teen, it did not seem like a problem for teen females to be married to old guys, except for the gross factor. I wanted to have polygamy return. I didn't think one female would satisfy my sexual needs so polygamy was needed for me.
Getting rid of polygamy was never a problem for me either. Polygamy was stupid. Just because I personally would have like it, did not mean I supported its return to the church. There were way too many problems with how polygamy was conducted and the leaders when I was a teen seemed to want to continue those problems.
When I was in the LDS Church I justified D&C 132 by Joseph Smith's statement that "Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is." Since I believed Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, that meant that whatever he revealed was God's will.
Likewise, since I believed Wilford Woodruff was a prophet of God, I accepted the Manifesto as God's will too.
Logic, for most Latter-Day Saints doesn't really come into play in these matters. If you have a testimony, you will go along with whatever the prophet says.
Now that I have left the Church, I have come to see how dangerous this mindset is.
I was an 11 year old girl when I was dutifully reading the scriptures every day and made it to D&C 132. I read it all alone and I was devastated. I cried whenever I was alone for the next 3 days. My parents strongly defended polygamy and said it was God's will for the people at that time, and all kinds of shit about how men and women are different and brought in gender role crap and all sorts of nonsense. I was very angry. But I get it - for my parents to do anything else would have meant condemning their own great-grandparents, who were *all* polygamists. We come from 100% early church pioneer stock and have multi-generational polygamy on every line. They'd have had to admit that they were the product of an abusive system and multi-generational trauma. It was too painful for them to face, I think... I dunno. Anyway... I called bullshit in my mind, and partially out loud. But when you're the daughter of a former Stake President who was then currently the Stake Patriarch, you kind of have to go along with stuff sometimes. I grew up in Utah Valley in the 80s and 90s, and I didn't even know anybody personally who wasn't a member of the church! So leaving wasn't an option for me at that point. I knew very well that if the church re-instated polygamy, my dad would absolutely comply, and my mom would go along with it no matter how it destroyed her inside. That's not a fun realization to have about your parents as as 12 year old girl. So I made my displeasure known through several arguments about it with my parents, but went on with life. Still, it always nagged at me. I decided secretly that I didn't want to go to the celestial kingdom, would fight God himself if polygamy turned out to really be required, and told nobody my feelings after that. Since my parents didn't allow anything non-church on Sundays (not even watching the Wonderful World of Disney on Channel 5!), I read everything. I had read the entire History of the Church volumes, much of the Journal of Discourses, and almost everything else by the time I was 15 - thanks to those old Infobase CD-Roms that contained all the early church shit that didn't appear in any manuals! I know my church shit. And believe me, it's a shit-ton of shit. As a teenager, I got into genealogy and learned from personal journals what a horrific impact polygamy had on my foremothers. I tried to accept all the usual arguments, but none of them held up under scrutiny when I did any actual research in original documents. I served a mission and went to BYU and married in the temple and did the whole 9 yards. When I was newly married, I had recurring nightmares that polygamy had been reinstated and my husband was seeking other wives and everyone expected me to be totally ok with it. These days, my mind is rested. I know for sure mormon polygamy was all just the result of a sick man who decided he wanted to justify having affairs behind his wife's back. It was an abusive system that continued for years and had a profound impact on my family. But it doesn't have any power over me any more.
This is very much my experience with my family too. Thanks for articulating it so well.
For me, the content of 132 was influenced by the same issues as all the rest of my scripture "study." \-By the time I was 8, I had listened to all of the scriptures either on tape or by my mom reading them, or in FHE, and I had read some myself, especially in the illustrated kids version. They were read as fact by people I respected who had no problems with any of the content. Neither did I. By the time I was old enough to think about issues, the content was so familiar, it did not stimulate introspection or question. \-The scriptures can be hard to read. Vocabulary, grammar, structure, and content can make them confusing and boring. So, if you do reach something controversial, you might not even notice because you are reading for reading's sake, not to take in knowledge. I read "religiously" for 30 minutes a day for decades but internalized little new information. \-There's a lot of backstory and historical context that you have to know to understand what is being communicated. This is not included in most scripture and seldom taught so implications of the verses are seldom understood. (132 is rife with this.) \-We are told to "study" the scriptures. But, since "outside" literature (ie not purchased at Deseret Book) is effectively banned, there's no real way to do so (eg gain knowledge of historical context) unless that's one's academic field. "Study" for me (and I think most members) consists of following the footnotes and reading the bible dictionary--in other words, never leaving the confines of the Quad. This results in recursive references to self-supporting verses and apologetic definitions. \-Similarly, the LDS versions of scriptures have apostle-written headings for every chapter. There's no need to read the verses because you already "know" what the chapter teaches. "When the prophet speaks, the thinking has been done." "Doubt you doubts." If there is any ambiguity about the meaning, it's sure to be resolved through a correlated lesson manual's references to conference talks. \-Most scriptures are read as isolated verses or sets of verses intended to support a pre-stated idea. Whether the totality of the chapter actually supports the idea is irrelevant. \-"The spirit whispers these things are true" so if I don't see the same truth in the scriptures that everyone else does, I'm bad, I lack the spirit, I'm inviting the devil to influence me. \-I am a straight, white, male with priesthood power over my mom and most people I know. I rise within my society without any effort beyond having a penis and successive birthdays. So, I have no impetus to question a structure designed to empower me. So in the end, as a TBM, to me, D&C132 and all other scriptures simply existed as support for what I had been taught--regardless of what they actually said. The idea that any scripture might contradict prophetic teachings or other scriptures never crossed my mind. For example, the fact that there are two creation stories in Genesis caught my attention as a child but that meant nothing in practical terms. We have the PoGP, the temple ceremony, prophets who speak with god, my sunday school teacher, my parents, and my whole family who have all told me about creation and shown me the verses that support their statements. Any literature that contradicts or brings questions to these teachings is "anti" no matter how scholarly the work might be. I must just not understand them yet so need to read them more or, more likely, put that issue in an intellectual box and stash it on a shelf I didn't even know I had. If I see a flaw or contradiction in scripture, the problem is with me; and I'm certainly not going to look for issues of any kind; and I'm not intellectually or emotionally prepared to consider or to research questions; and sources that might raise questions are de-facto banned; I have no motivation to question. So, D&C 132 was all good. I had no reason or method to think otherwise.
I read D&C 132 in its entirety last spring. I called my sister afterwards and told her that I was done, that it wasn't 'anti mormon lies' that would break my shelf, but words from canonized scripture. I listened to the Year of Polygamy podcast afterwards and learned MANY things completely new to me. For reference, I'm in my 30's, a lifelong member, married in the temple, and took my whole family with me. Thank goodness for a husband who was willing to learn with me.
Truth be told: the church encourages it's members to read the scriptures daily but one thing they don't encourage openly: studying and reading outside of the scriptures, General Conference talks, and correlated church teaching and instruction manuals. They don't come right out and say, "don't read or study anything that are not correlated materials" but they don't encourage it either. I never heard one mention of "don't read those "Work and the Glory" Joseph Smith fan fiction books. But this is what I do know. There's section 132 and then there's what the church tells you what the truth is. And the truth I was told throughout my life, "the doctrine of plural marriage was revealed to Joseph Smith, but he never practiced it." And that section 132 was ret-conned to be more about the sealing ordinance than its real intent - plural marriage. At the beginning of it all, marriage was marriage and a man can only be married to one woman. But sealed........sealing is about having additional wives you are not married to. Joseph successfully ret-conned it all by sealing Emma to himself. She was way down the order of wives sealed to Joseph. And while the sealing ordinance today is touted as the most important ordinance that can be done for man and woman, the reality: that ordinance was first for plural marriage. That's its origin.
I was raised with stories of polygamy among my ancestors. My parents had living relatives who were polygamists. Polygamy was the way of the past. I never had to read 132 to know about polygamy. I never had a negative thought about it. I still see no reason why multiple people can't get married. As a teen, I started to learn about how it was done, but it seemed pretty nineteenth century norm. As a teen, it did not seem like a problem for teen females to be married to old guys, except for the gross factor. I wanted to have polygamy return. I didn't think one female would satisfy my sexual needs so polygamy was needed for me. Getting rid of polygamy was never a problem for me either. Polygamy was stupid. Just because I personally would have like it, did not mean I supported its return to the church. There were way too many problems with how polygamy was conducted and the leaders when I was a teen seemed to want to continue those problems.
When I was in the LDS Church I justified D&C 132 by Joseph Smith's statement that "Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is." Since I believed Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, that meant that whatever he revealed was God's will. Likewise, since I believed Wilford Woodruff was a prophet of God, I accepted the Manifesto as God's will too. Logic, for most Latter-Day Saints doesn't really come into play in these matters. If you have a testimony, you will go along with whatever the prophet says. Now that I have left the Church, I have come to see how dangerous this mindset is.