quote:What forces triggered the government crackdown?
MPH is right about what triggered the government crackdown. The Republican party said the twin evils of America were slavery and polygamy.
quote:And were there any arguments (by people of the time) against the government ban and excommunication?
In Utah? The entire territory howled in protest. However, no one outside the area did and the government seizure of private property and jailing of fathers happened to where most of the leadership of the church on all levels were either in jail or on the run.
This was able to happen because marriages are regulated by each state, but Utah wasn't a state yet - for precisely that reason. It had petitioned to be a state, but congress would not give up control over the marriage laws and so Utah would never be a state and church property - including the temples - would continue to be seized as long as there was polygamy.
Incidentally, this passage in history does a lot to explain the Mormon paranoia and feeling of being beleaguered.
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quote:And were there any arguments (by people of the time) against the government ban and excommunication?
I'm not sure what you're asking, but there were a lot of LDS members who didn't take it well when the LDS church changed its policy and banned polygamy. Many thought that the church leaders had lost their way and split off from the church. A lot of these polygamist split-off groups are still around in one form or another, even after 100 years.
The government enforcement of the abolition of polygamy was pretty draconian. Men with two families had to choose one and were forbidden from having any contact with their previous wife or children from the other families.
My great-great-grandmother was a little girl when her father was forced to abandon her family. Her "aunt" Mary was the first wife, and had never had any children of her own. She loved her husband's children from his other wife, and begged them to come visit her. The problem was that if the feds ever found those children at their parents house, it would be considered proof that he was still a polygamist, and he could suffer direly. When the feds came around, my grandmother would go out and hide in the cornfield.
My great-grandmother (or was it her mother? I forget.) was a young girl at the time, and her
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posted
Sometimes the differences are blurred between social and religious objection to certain things. In other words a particular social ill can at the same time be concidered a sin.
At any rate, one of the religious objections to polygamy is not an objection against polygamy as such, but rather an objection to the kinds of practices that it has devolved into, like say, among the Mormon apostate groups.
I’m talking about men using it to gratify their lusts - particularly their pedophilic lusts in many cases. I’m talking about stuff like abuse of power which takes the form of treating women as property much like cattle are property. Or where men bully their families and are no better than tyrants. And taken to it’s extreme we see guys like Warren Jeffs and his cronies who use it to lord over their whole community. And then there is an almost total contempt for government that seems to be the norm among those people. Oh, and did I mention rampant welfare fraud?
There are definite religious objections to those types of things. To be sure, this kind of stuff happens among monogamous people too. And when it does it is just as wrong.
I cannot vouch for other world religions but I do know what the Christian religion teaches about the kind of person a husband ought to be. Now, sometimes we see low-life guys who are ready to point to scriptures that say wives are supposed to obey their husband or be in subjection to their husbands. These guys are ever ready to use such scriptures to justify their own abusive behavior. They conveniently ignore all the scriptures that would teach them what their duty really is.
All such scriptures, when read in harmony with the rest to the scriptures, clearly show that a husband ought to cultivate such character traits as love unfeigned, service, gentleness, and kindness. They show that he is to be totally loyal to his wife and children, that they have a right to his service and to the fruits of his labor. He is supposed to leave his own parents and cleave unto his wife and none other (which means, I’m pretty sure, that his wife has to be more important to him than even his own mother and that his wife comes first). They teach that a husband and wife are supposed to be partners and helpmates to each other.
I can see nowhere in Christian teachings that justifies bullying or any other form of abuse. Nor do I see any justification for chattel servitude in any form.
So anyway, those are the Christian ideals. And it takes a lifetime of effort and dedication to perfect them. It is not easy in a monogamous marriage and I think it would be even harder in a polygamous marriage. I think it would take an exceptionally righteous man to do it right. I think it would take a lot of humility, prayer, and reliance on the Holy Spirit to do the right things.
I think that is why the Lord has strictly reserved the practice of polygamy for just those times and places He deems it to be necessary. At all other times, monogamy is what He requires. Even when he has used polygamy among His people there have been those who abused it. So it’s not easy.
So when some of the Mormons insisted on continuing the practice even after Wilford Woodruff canceled it, they lost any right to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and were left to their own wisdom to try to make a difficult system work. So of course the natural tendencies of the “natural man” took over and abuses became rampant. We can see what it has devolved into by taking a gander at the Colorado City situation.
There is at least one other way in which there can be a religious objection to polygamy. That is the concept that, if the Lord has commanded me not to do something and I go ahead and do it anyway, then I am committing sin. It’s not that the practice is inherently sinful, it’s that my timing is wrong. It is called willful disobedience. Of course there are cases where it might be called ignorant disobedience which is not quite as bad.
(It is the same concept that makes sex outside of marriage such a serious sin. Yet sex is a wonderful and sacred thing between a husband and wife. In the eyes of God, it is a matter of timing. Not to put too fine a point on it, God wants a husband and wife to have lots of sex with each other. But He wants it kept within the bounds of marriage. So many people seem to not understand this. Some say that sex is inherently sinful therefore celibacy is a better and nobler life style. And then there are others with the attitude that if it is such a great thing in marriage, than sex ought to be OK all the time with anyone who will hold still long enough. Why should a marriage license make such a big difference.)
So anyway, that is the Christian perspective on it, or more particularly, the Mormon perspective. I don’t know what, if any, abuses abound in other countries and cultures that use polygamy. There may even be some where women are not mistreated and the system works OK. I just don’t know.
One thing I do know is that I hold in utter contempt any man or culture which abuses women or children. Or holds women as second class citizens. There is absolutely no excuse for it.
quote:Originally posted by Noemon: Plaid, the Oneida community was a fascinating thing, wasn't it? Noyes did an amazing job in engineering that society. I really wish that the descendents of its members hadn't burned all of their ancestor's journals; I'd like to have read first hand accounts of what day to day life in that community was like.
Yeah, though apparently the Oneidans were such prolific documenters of their community (many learning shorthand in order to take meeting notes, etc.) that enough journals, letters, newspapers, etc. do survive to give a pretty good account. (Still, it would be great to have more journals to read...)
Random thought today = I wonder if Oneidans were Jedis? You know, the whole bit about Jedis being forbidden to love leads to Anakin bringing about their downfall... Posts: 2911 | Registered: Aug 2001
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