mormons, joeseph smith?

Question

how does it make sense that joseph smith was the prophet to mormons but was invovled with paligamy yet any mormon will tell you they don't support paligamy?

Answer 1

Hello! As I was a 7th generation Mormon (oh I'm exmormon now btw) I have many answers to this question. It depends who you ask about WHY they started the practice and why they stopped it. Like the answer before...yes it's a classic backpeddling. Of course the most popular answer is why they once supported it and then stopped was to gain statehood....mostly. BTW the whole "there wasn't enough men to go around" is a BS myth and isn't true whatsoever.

Answer 2

Because at one time, polygamy was sanctioned by the church and was also a commandment. Most people think that means every single male member had thrity 14 year old wives. Not true. Joseph himself didn't even really have multiple wives, other than I believe some he was sealed to, but not the "30" that everyone thinks. Brigham Young was really one of the only men in the church to have several wives. There were very very few who practiced the law AND it was only for a VERY short time.
Then, the Lord gave the command to stop the practice. So, it was stopped, and anyone could guess why, but only the Lord knows why it started and why it stopped. Part of the reason I think they stopped other than being commanded to is because we believe in obeying the laws of the land and it became against the law for polygamy....
anyways, there will always be the stero-type of the hundreds of wives and the scary underwear and the "we can be gods" claim and whatever else the adversary chooses to throw our way. We know what we believe and don't. Anyone else who claims different is just ignorant and has no basis on anything they say.

Answer 3

Please get your historical facts straight, AND learn to spell! Joseph Smith was NOT involved with polygamy. That happened with Brigham Young, the successor to Joseph Smith who led the "Saints" through the wilderness and into Utah. This move to polygamy was done, basically, as a necessary move after the long trek as there were way more women (with children) than men after they Mormons settled in Utah. There was no such thing as welfare for these husbandless women and fatherless children, so Brigham Young did the only thing he could...he gave these women and children husbands and fathers from the more successful of his surviving male followers. It was best to couch this in terms of a "revelation" so that the idea would sit better with people. Later on, in order for Utah to become a state, that 'revelation' had to be revoked, so now the main LDS church does not hold with the idea of polygamy, but a couple of its offshots do.

Answer 4

Mormons believe you have to be married to go to Heaven. When their religion was first getting started, there was so much persecution and lynchings of men, there wasn't enough men to marry all the women, so polygamy was started. When Utah became a state and gained the protection of the federal government, the agreement was to stop the practice of polygamy in order to obey the law of the land.

Answer 5

I am going to include part of another answer I gave to a similar question a while ago. By the way, polygamy never worked well with my ancestors in general, probably because it was a temporary arrangement and in my opinion, cannot be sustained indefinitely, but only in times of war.
There is such a thing as the law of compensation, which is not a literal law that we live by but it is a spiritual law. It might help if you refer to the book of Job to get an idea of what I mean, in the Old Testament. In Job 38 God talks about how things were organized in the time before the world was created. He is trying to get Job to trust in Him, and in the plan He has for Job and all of His other children, although Job cannot remember what happened in the time before his earthly life. You know Job lost his entire family (except his wife) to terrible events, but all of that was restored to him because of his righteousness. It was a pattern for what will actually happen following the Resurrection. What we have lost or what we never had will be restored to us, due to the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Now let's go back to when polygamy (really, polygyny) was instituted in the 19th Century. Joseph Smith received repeated commandments to live the law of plural marriage, but at first he didn't want to do so. However, finally, he started to comply. Later on he received a revelation about a future war, the Civil War, on December 25, 1832. It is my opinion, and this is an emphasis on the word "opinion" - that the real reason polygamy was reinstated for a TEMPORARY period of time was to cover the period of time preceding and following the CIVIL WAR in the United States. Think of how many men died in the Civil War, and there were many who did not get married. I believe there were more faithful LDS women than men in this time, and by 1860 almost all Mormons had migrated west to Utah, by the time the Civil War started. In other words, they were on the other side of the country far away from the Civil War. Since God in His foreknowledge knew the Civil War was going to happen and told Joseph Smith so 28 years before it happened, He would also know how to compensate for the loss of possible future Church leaders in that war. It would have been mean to tell the other women, "The reason you're not married is because your future husband is going to die in a civil war." It would also have been mean to tell them to try to find someone with completely different standards from their own in the West. It is my OPINION that if there had been no Civil War, there would have been no need of polygamy to raise up a strong generation of future leaders during this time. The reason I have this opinion is because at least 1 or 2 plural wives in Utah obtained a divorce and married soldiers who came through Utah later, who had not been with the original groups of Mormon pioneers. It is my OPINION that there is someone for everyone, and eventually it will all be worked out, with ONE wife per husband, as is the Lord's standard. With regards to modern polygamy, anyone who preaches or practices it is not a member of the true Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I knew a great lady who had a relative who started a break-away polygamous sect in the early 1970s, and her family dropped all contact with those people altogether, which was a wise decision because that particular sect's leaders ended up involved in all sorts of murder plots. It is my opinion that NONE of the current polygamous sects have divine sanction whatsoever, in spite of the other wars going on around the world. Anyone who continues to preach or practice polygamy is subject to Church discipline and will be ex-communicated. I know you have possibly run into OLD comments on the subject, but again, the law of compensation comes into effect, and it is still my belief that there is someone for everyone, and if a person does not obtain the blessings of marriage in this life, but is still righteous and faithful, those blessings will be granted to them in the Milennium, or when the Savior reigns after the Second Coming and Resurrection. I would like to point out that polygamy was officially ended in 1890 by a revelation received by then-prophet Wilford Woodruff, and in my opinion it had very little to do with statehood, but rather that 30 years had passed since the Civil War began, and the imbalance of more women than men had already evened out by then.

Answer 6

It's just the old religious backpeddle maneuver. Classic!

Answer 7

Please contact the nearest Mormon missionaries and they will be glad to answer all your questions.