Comments about ‘Modern polygamy started in 1929’

I am so glad that an article has addressed the issue of the origins of these radical groups. This helps to clearly differentiate between Mormon's and these cults that have no close relation to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I wish that more newspapers would follow suit.

What kind of stupidity is this? "Modern" polygamy started with Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Duh.

You've truncated history by almost 100 years just so you can advance the agenda of the Utah LDS church to distance yourselves from your own embarrassing history.

Shame on you for such revisionist nonsense!

Only the Truth can make you free.

Enjoy your prison bars!

A good historical presentation but it does not change the fact that polygamy is a central doctrin and believe in the mormon church. The mormon church needs to change from denying polygamy to justifying polygamy as God's commandment to JS and then working on a plan to make it work without harm or damage. It is practiced in many parts of the world with out problem.

These polygamous groups are blights on decent society and little better than the Jim Jones cult that took so many lives. They destroy lives in their own way and should be prosecuted.

Thank you for an accurate article on Fundamentalist origins. It is also worth pointing out that another reason for the FLDS breaking away and forming their own group was due to their introducing the practices of arranged and underaged marriages, which other Fundamentalists disagreed with (and which most still do) - see Marianne Watson, "The Origins of FLDS Placement Marriage", Dialogue, Spring 2007

The story was a hundred years off on the date. In the early 1800's a "religious" group in New York State had the same idea. They separated themselves from society, and gave the young girls to older men to "marry". They had their own industry for income. (Ever heard of Oneida silverware?) While researching family history in New York state for the early 1800's I ran across newspaper and other articles detailing the group's exploits and history. The same old story...the men in charge take for themselves and friends the ripe young girls to satisfy their "religious" fantasy. Same old story line today. Isolate and control.

Why not make polygamie legal? In a time where gays and lesbians are allowed to marry and adopt childern, and where kids are born out of wedlock, and where married couples have girl friends and boy friends, and children get to see it all! Why not allow finally polygamie, so it is not so secretive anymore and can therefore be easier controlled! Men like Warren Jeffs would not be able to rise and people would be allowed and free to practice their religion without having the added struggle for control within.

In a closed society like the FLDS church, where men are commanded to have multiple wives, it cannot be sustained, which is probably why the FLDS church is in danger of being destroyed now.

Why? There aren't enough women to go around! If one man takes 10 wives, there are nine fewer women (or girls) for other men to take. The natural consequences, I think, of this is what has happened in the FLDS church: First, they have begun taking younger and younger brides, to the point that it is considered rape and child abuse. Second, competing adolescent males are kicked out of the society, hense the "Lost Boys." Third, men with multiple wives are kicked out of the church, and their wives and children are "sealed" to more "faithful" FLDS men.

whats the difference in the mormons now days. they only marry one person. thats fine. but what i think is wrong is they make there young marry to early. the young men and woman should have there own rights of who they want to marry instead of who they have been choosen to marry. i believe in freedom . not of being told i have to get married when i get back from a 2 year mission meet a girl and marry her a year later and start having baby's as soon i get married and three or four before thirty. thats fine but on my own time. i had three kids before i was thirty. but all three years apart. now thats what mormons should alow there children to do. not force them to marry and have kids. thank you marie

Marie,

The LDS church does not "make" anyone marry early, nor does it "make" anyone serve a mission. I haven't done either, and was never so much as questioned in that decision, though I joined young enough that I could have.

Parents may expect it but that's not "The Church". And parents tend to have less influence on their adult children than you might think.

i'm mormon and i'm not ready to get married when i get back from my mission.

Question.... What makes the difference between "modern polygamy" and that practiced in the LDS church from the late 1830's to the early 1890's?

I know there are major differences between Jeff's RLDS group and the LDS practice of the 1800's but what about the less radical groups of polygamists? What do they believe about the Book of Mormon? What are their other beliefs?

Remember, having one wife - legally and lawfully wedded - is within the law. If they choose to co-habitate with other women and share the children born into the family - this is not against the law. Even if they call the other women "spiritual wives".

(I am not saying child marriages are acceptable. They are not and abuse of the children should not be tolerated.)