Mainstream Mormons Believe in Polygamy, Too



Yes, it's true. Ask any faithful member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is run by an all male priesthood hierarchy, and the women will tell you that when, they die, they expect to share their husbands with several other wives. Polygamy is still a canonized doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as found in this passage of The Doctrine and Covenants, a book of modern scripture given to Joseph Smith through revelations from God. For behold, I reveal unto you a new and everlasting covenant [polygamy]; 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 [Lord's] glory (Doctrine and Covenants 132:4)

If a first wife dies, the husband can be "sealed" (married for time and all eternity) in the Mormon temple to his second wife as long as she was not sealed to anyone else before for time and all eternity. But if a sealed first wife becomes a widow and marries again, she can only be married for time even if her new husband was single before this or not. She will still belong to her first husband in the next life. There is no written documentation of this ceremony available to the LDS (Mormon) membership because all temple services are considered too sacred.

So why don't Mormons practice polygamy during life if they believe in polygamy after death? The practice was officially banned by church leaders in the 1890's in order for Utah to obtain statehood. Many prominent church members, including church apostles and prophets, still practiced polygamy in secret in Utah. Others fled to Mexico or Canada where they could practice polygamy in the open. But, eventually, the church leaders did take church action against members practicing plural marriage in an effort to better integrate into American society. This is when the offshoots like the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), who still openly practice polygamy, broke away claiming they lived the true version of the founding Mormon prophet Joseph Smith's restored church (considered by Mormons to be the “only true church on the face of the earth”).

A few years back, I was at a Mormon Women's reading group in the Washington DC area. I will never forget what happened when the subject of polygamy came up. One woman with a PhD began crying and said something like, "How I am going to share my husband. I just don't think I can do that for eternity!"

I was flabbergasted. I had long since decided that if heaven meant sharing my husband with several other wives, I wasn't interested. To me that was Hell. After reading Carolyn Jessop's book Escape, her true story of growing up in the FLDS polygamist group, (the same group which is now in the news for child abuse charges in Texas) I am sure my visions of several women sharing one husband were right. Unless each woman is truly in love with the husband, and is genuinely willing to share him, it just can't work. How is it possible for a husband to love and treat several women equally? How can he possibly be a soul mate to so many women? To become the favorite wife, each woman works against each other. According to Carolyn Jessop, polygamist women often end up competing for the only thing that gives them power over the other wives--sex and pregnancy. To become the favorite wife, each woman works against the others. Limited resources, options and time make this a natural result. It's simple math.

Since I left the Mormon Church, I often have noted how wonderful I find the camaraderie among my fellow female writer friends. In the Mormon Patriarchy there are so few high level positions for women in the Church that it's more like a race or competition than a sisterhood of love. Years ago I was the president of the women's group in the Mormon Church, an organization that is called the Relief Society. As an adult woman I was always very involved in this group. But I never felt the Christ-like love, referred to in the Society's motto “Charity Never Faileth.” Well, it failed for me, and from what I have observed it has failed for many others. And I can only imagine it will be worse if there is a heaven filled with polygamy.

Although working outside the home is now less frowned upon that it was when I was a young mother, most women who do work outside the home are still encouraged to have large families - if not from the pulpit, then through peer pressure - and are still considered to be the major care giver. The more children a woman has, the more often she is pregnant, and the less able she is to work outside the home. So her options are limited. She can try to make the best brownies for the church supper, sew the most stylish dress and wear it to church, some women even compete over the number of children they have, all to gain attention and feel better about themselves. I was often asked why I didn't have more children by other women at church. I felt I was looked down on because I chose to limit my children to three. It seemed like other women judged me as not doing my fair share to bring more children into the world into a “righteous” home.

Because the men run the church, they have many more leadership meetings to attend than most of their wives. They, also like many non-Mormon men, often work longer hours at their job. This was the case with my husband. For many years he was more like a jolly grandparent, who showed up to put the children to bed, read them stories, and when they were older help them with their homework . Even on weekends my husband would often take 50 mile bike hikes or go on overnight campouts with the Church Boy Scouts, or attend all day priesthood (all male) leadership conferences. Sundays were always hard. Because of his leadership positions my husband was gone from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and I was left to care, dress and feed our three pre-schoolers one, multiple-handicapped with many health concerns--and of course take care of them during the three hours of actual church worship that all Mormons are expected to attend.

Even if polygamy is not practiced by mainstream Mormons, another kind of sexual activity is pervasive. There is so much sexual physical, and psychological abuse in the Mormon Church that one woman member began keeping a log of women's stories. She asked to speak to church leaders in Salt Lake about all she had documented but was ignored. She published the information hoping that this might bring about systematic change--a church resource to which these women could report. Instead she was excommunicated for apostasy. The Catholic Priests do not have the monopoly on sexual abuse within a church.

I had a good friend who I knew was in an abusive relationship so I finally went to our bishop with my concerns. I told him how my friend had been beaten, knocked unconscious, had her two front teeth knocked out, been locked in her house, and was called "whore" and "bitch" by not only her husband, but his children from his first marriage. And to my surprise, instead of calling her husband in to his office and asking him to repent, the bishop, the top leader of our congregation, called him up to the pulpit the next Sunday in church service, put his arm around this abusive man and told the congregation what a fine man he was.

A study done by a professor at Brigham Young University, presented at a 1997 LDS Women's Conference at BYU which I attended, reported that one in every four women in the Mormon Church had been sexually abused, and most often the abuser was her own church attending, priesthood holding father.

I was at this conference with my good friend. She had been such a victim. Her father started abusing her sexually when she was four years old. As an adult she finally had the courage to talk about this abuse, which she had never done before. She confided her story to one of her sisters, who admitted to my friend that she too had been sexually abused by their father. When my friend went public with her story, most of her siblings shunned her including her sister who had also been the victim of abuse. Her father was dead and couldn't defend himself and she was defiling his good name they told her. He had held leadership positions in the church, attended the sacred ceremonies of the Mormon temple weekly and raped my friend on the side. Why did I believe my friend? She was a text book example of a sexually abused victim. She was uncomfortable around small children, incapable of cuddling them or doing much touching of any kind. She hated dolls, and having intimacy with her husband, who she loved was a chore she dreaded.

I think so few women report abuse in the Mormon Church because of the extremely unfavorable reactions they receive. Also as a part of the temple ceremony women stand together, bow their heads and say "yes," they will follow their husbands, as their husbands follow Christ. Being obedient to male authority is so ingrained in women, that many appear to have lost the ability to think independently. To disobey a bishop or the prophet is unthinkable. With this kind of pressure on women, is it any wonder that Utah continually ranks so high for the number of their population who take antidepressants?

Antidepressant drugs are prescribed in Utah more often than in any other state, at a rate nearly twice the national average according to the reporting from the Los Angeles Times, in 2002. And according to the article Study Calling Utah Most Depressed, Renews Debate on Root Causes March 7, 2008 in ABC News the author Russell Goldman concludes much of the depression is among Mormon women who are supposed to smile, have large families and take supper to ill neighbors which leads to an undercurrent of competition among women and many hide their true feelings behind a mask of perfection.

With their options so limited it is no wonder these women get depressed. I cry for these women who suffer. I wish I could say, leave, think for yourselves. But from what I have seen, most Mormon women hold on tight to their religion because if they let go then all their long suffering will have been for nothing. They are suffering in this life, because they believe that in the next life they will achieve celestial glory . . . and share their husband with as many wives as he wants to take. If this is true, if this is what will really happen in Mormon Heaven, then I think Mormon women are in for some more long suffering. Does that sound like Heaven to you?





Beckie Weinheimer is author of Converting Kate Viking Books, 2007. Winner of ALA 2008 Best Books and New York City Public Library Book of the Teenage. Weinheimer was a fifth generation Mormon. Her ancestors crossed the plains and helped build the temple in SLC with the Prophet Brigham Young. She and her husband, both active in LDS Leadership positions left the church after Mormons were commanded to contribute funds to pass a bill in CA that kept gay couples from having medical benefits--Prop 22. Weinheimer's novel is about a young girl name Kate who breaks away from fictional Church of the Holy Divine. This story was inspired by Weinheimer's own conversion away from her rigid upbringing.