The Toxic Language of Polygamy Culture
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The parallels between societal rape culture and Mormonism’s polygamy culture are alarming.
“Rape Culture” is a term used to show the ways society blames victims of sexual assault and normalizes male sexual violence.
When people and societies normalize sexual violence, they accept and create rape culture. Rape culture includes jokes, TV, music, advertising, legal jargon, laws, political speeches, words, and imagery that make sexual violence and sexual coercion seem so normal that people believe rape is inevitable. Rather than viewing the culture of rape as a problem to change, people in a rape culture think about the persistence of rape as “just the way things are.” In a rape culture, men and women assume sexual violence to be a fact of life.
Here’s an example of rape culture infiltrating our language:“Wow…..she was drinking at the party dressed like that? Yeah, no wonder she got raped. She was pretty much asking for it. Walking pornography.”
Mormonism experiences a similar phenomenon with Polygamy Culture.
“Polygamy Culture” is a term recently coined by Mormon Feminists. It invokes the way Mormon culture normalizes the idea that women are subordinate possessions of men. When women are plurally collected to add to the man’s kingdom or glory, and subjected to his sexual attention or deprivation, Mormonism normalizes the doctrine and perpetuates Polygamy Culture by saying, “that’s just the way God wants it.” Polygamy culture includes jokes, Sunday school comments, even remarks made in General Conference, and is laced throughout our dialogue concerning exaltation and eternal families. In a Polygamy culture, men and women assume plural marriage in the highest degree of heaven to be irrefutable scripture. It’s an inevitable fact of Mormon life and afterlife.
Rape culture and Polygamy culture inherently undermine the individual worth of women. These dissonances tear at our sensibilities for good reason! They are irreconcilable with the nature of a loving God.
Polygyny is patriarchy taken to the extreme. Plain ol’ patriarchy oppresses women. Benevolent patriarchy pedestalizes women as it oppresses them. Toxic patriarchy turned polygyny oppresses and possesses women.
The sources of this culture/doctrine are found in Doctrine and Covenants section 132 and in the language of the temple ordinances. (The day-to-day practice of polygamy ended (mostly) in 1890 with this official declaration.)
D&C 132:64 uses this possessive language, “and if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore he is justified.”
By contrast, the language of Jacob 2: 24-35 teaches just the opposite: “For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none.”
In the temple today, women are anointed to become Priestesses unto their husbands, covenant to hearken to his counsel and give themselves to him in marriage. The men’s ordinances and blessings have none of this possessive language reciprocated.
Since all are alike unto God, the asymmetry of this possessive language is endlessly harmful to women. If God is no respecter of persons, it doesn’t seem possible that He would value the eternal weight of women at a mere fraction of the value of a man. In this regard, Mormon doctrine is at odds with itself.
Gordon B. Hinckley made the following statement on Larry King Live on September 8, 1998 with regard to the practice of polygamy: “I condemn it [polygamy], yes, as a practice, because I think it is not doctrinal. It is not legal. And this church takes the position that we will abide by the law. We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, magistrates in honoring, obeying and sustaining the law.”
Despite a sitting prophet describing the practice of polygamy as “not doctrinal,” current LDS sealing practices allow a man to be sealed to more than one woman during his lifetime, while legally married to one woman at a time. Divorced or widowed men retain the sealing to their first wives, even when adding a second or third. By contrast, LDS women are sealed to one man at a time during their lifetimes. Divorced women are not automatically un-sealed from an ex-husband and must go through a “sealing cancellation” process from the prior spouse before being newly sealed to a future spouse, or simply to be relieved of the burden of being sealed to a disagreeable ex. Widowed women can be sealed to a second or third spouse posthumously. Widowed women may request a sealing cancellation from a deceased spouse if they wish to be sealed to another living man in their lifetime, or if they wish to be untethered from a disagreeable spouse after he passes. All of these written requests are subject to First Presidency approval.
*A note about polyamory: many people within the church (men and women) marry more than one person during their lifetimes. Some women agonize over choosing which husband they’ll be with in the next life, because they loved both so deeply. Men are given more leeway to imagine a heaven with all of their beloved wives. The more recent temple sealing policy to seal a deceased woman to all of the men she was married to in life is a step in the right direction. Whether that means she will choose which husband to stay partnered to, or whether that indicates a broader interpretation of how consensual celestial relationships will play out, we have no idea.
We must reject section 132 as an outdated relic of its time, no longer relevant or doctrinal now (if it ever was) and embrace the teachings found in Jacob, which decry polygamy as virtuous. With the language of the temple, we must erase the diverse ways women are subjugated to their husbands in every ordinance. And we must stop using the language of polygamy culture in our daily conversations.
Here are categorized examples of fallacies that perpetuate the toxic language of polygamy culture:
Possession Fallacy– the fallacy that women are not agents or stewards to themselves, but are possessed as property by their husbands or future husbands.
“my first wife died in childbirth, then I was sealed to my second wife. She helped me raise our family. As long as I’m faithful, I’ve been promised that I’ll have both of them in the next life.” – Stalwart Mormon Grandpa
“I’ve been a single woman my whole life. I can’t count how many times someone from church has told me not to worry about my afterlife, that I’m sure to be ‘given’ to a faithful man as a plural wife so that I can experience all the blessings of marriage and family life.” – Single Sister
“Why do women give themselves to the husband but not the other way around? Because it allows for him to be sealed to more than one woman without giving himself to any one woman exclusively.” – one temple sealer’s interpretation of sealing language
“I keep living as righteously as I can, even though my husband is inactive, but I’m worried he won’t make it to the celestial kingdom and that I’ll either be given to another man or that I’ll be a ministering servant for the rest of eternity.” – someone’s mom
#sogladhechoseme
Women as Reward Fallacy–the fallacy that uses women and their attractiveness as a reward given to a man for his good or righteous behavior, or that women, (as objects and the gatekeepers to men’s sexuality), sex, and posterity are a wealthy, privileged, virtuous man’s entitlement.
“boys, the way to get an attractive wife is to serve a mission” – General YM presidency member to recent fireside of teenagers.
“the more times you pray, the hotter your wife will be!” – a missionary to his companion
“the more doors you knock, the more wives you’ll have. If you knock in the rain, they’ll be more attractive.” – another missionary to his companion
“David’s concubines weren’t sex slaves, they were just second-class wives.” – someone in a Gospel Doctrine Sunday school class
a young man going on a date with 2-3 sisters of the same family at the same time.
Historical distortion fallacy – citing false representations of historical data
“but polygamy was just used as a way to care for the widows!”
(the average age for plural wives at the time of their marriages was late teens to early twenties, the majority of whom had never been married. Even as the age of the man increased, the new wives he accommodated were almost always of this same age range.)
“but early church leaders only married single women who wouldn’t have had a chance to marry otherwise!”
(except for when they married women who were already married to someone else.)
Flawed Mathematics fallacy– citing false mathematical data
“in the next life, there will be many more righteous women than men. Would you deprive your sister of her blessings?
(It’s raining men.)(and by the same logic, if all the young, fertile women are taken up in polygamous marriages, doesn’t it leave a lot of young, fertile {generally poor and lower-status} men without his blessings, too?)
“but polygamy was for raising up a righteous generation of children! Look how many members came from these large polygamous families!”
(the average number of children born to plural wives was statistically lower than the number of children born to monogamous women.)
“it was a way for the more wealthy men in the community to provide more children with life advantages like schooling, enough food and adequate housing since they could afford it.
(except for the men who kept their plural wives and children in poverty and starvation.)
“if same-sex marriage becomes legal, the church will bring back polygamy.”
Dismissal – the fallacy that dismisses a person’s concerns about Polygamy as unimportant or irrelevant.
“you don’t have to worry about that. It’s not going to come back.”
“when you get to the other side, you’ll change your mind.”
“Nobody will have to be sealed to a person they don’t want to be with”
“not that many people did it. It wasn’t widespread.”
“God would never force anyone to be a polygamist” (tell that to Emma.)
Manipulation–weaponizing sealings, sometimes as a way to punish or control someone
“you’re still sealed to me, even though we’re divorced, which means you’ll still be bound to me in the next life, whether you want to be or not.” – Creepy ex-husband
“if you’re not nice to me, I’ll marry someone else after you die and you’ll have to be a plural wife in the next life.” – Creepy current husband
men who choose not to date young widows because the woman is already sealed to someone else.
children born to a woman and her second husband are sealed to her deceased first husband.
Heavenly Mother fallacy – fallacy that claims plural Heavenly Mothers
“that’s why we don’t know much about her, because there are so many and we don’t know which one we came from.”
“God must be a polygamist because he would never ask us to do something He himself couldn’t do.”
Upon meeting a kindred spirit, “we must have the same Heavenly Mother!”
Gender essentialism fallacy– fallacy that polygamy only works as polygyny, and not as polyandry
“well, a man can get lots of women pregnant at a time, but a woman can only be pregnant with one man’s child at a time.”
“well, a man usually has a stronger sex drive than a woman, so he could have sex with more than one partner at a time, whereas a woman couldn’t really satisfy multiple male partners. Polygyny is a solution for forbidden masturbation.”
“the poor men! Having to deal with so many wives!”
Those who express dismay at learning that Joseph Smith married “other men’s wives” but have no problem with him being “another woman’s husband.”
Humor
“will you be my sister wife? I need someone to help me take care of my kids and house.”
“want to go on a Brigham Young date? I’ll bring 2 girls!” – teenage boy
“I can only handle one wife!” – someone’s husband
“who knows, maybe someday!” – a single sister joking about being married to her friend’s husband as the ‘kitchen wife.’
“did they bring back polygamy?!” – a wife asks her husband upon returning from Priesthood meeting.
Law of Sarah Fallacy– the fallacy that invokes a person’s ability to accept or practice polygamy as the will of God as dictated to them by the prophet, as a litmus test for faithfulness.
“if the prophet came to me and asked my husband to take another wife, I would do it, no questions asked.”
“my husband and I already have the second wife picked out for when they bring polygamy back.”
“whatever God requires is correct.” (nevermind the ethical hoop jumping of how to justify God commanding murder and infidelity.)
Indifference
“it’s just never bothered me because we don’t live it and we won’t have to if we don’t want to.
“But I don’t feel oppressed! I don’t feel possessed!”
Favoritism – the fallacy that first wives are granted higher tiered status than any subsequent wives.
“we believe marriage to be between a man and a woman, except in the eternities, but you have nothing to worry about because you’ll always be his first and favorite wife.” – temple sealer to new convert wife at their family sealing
temple sealer tells a new bride that she’s “lucky” to be “the first among many.”
A woman is okay with her husband taking additional wives because she’ll always outrank them (wives 2+ receive exaltation through subjugation)
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On one hand, polygamy is an outdated “practice” that can be boxed up and put away as “not doctrinal” despite the cultural relics that remain. On the other hand, it’s built into the very foundations of the church structures, into the temple, into our core beliefs and teachings. It’s as fundamental as the Book of Mormon, the First Vision and the Restoration, but it’s a whisper doctrine, not included as a chapter in Preach my Gospel.
We have to burn it out, right down to the core of the church if we want to get rid of the poison, especially as we reflect with our greater understanding about the worth and autonomous value of women. The language of the temple must change, as should the words we use with each other. We must all stand up against the toxic language of polygamy culture.
