Plural Marriage in Utah: A Scholarly Response to the LDS Discussions Annotated Essay
A point-by-point examination of the claims made by ldsdiscussions.com against the LDS Gospel Topics Essay on polygamy during the Utah period — evaluating the evidence, correcting misrepresentations, and presenting the strongest case for the faith position.
Introduction: Framing the Debate
The LDS Gospel Topics Essay “Plural Marriage in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” represents a landmark moment of institutional transparency. Released in October 2014, it openly acknowledges historical facts that the Church had not always prominently discussed. The ldsdiscussions.com annotated version reads this transparency as an admission of indefensibility. This response argues the opposite: that a careful, historically informed reading of the same evidence actually strengthens the case for the Restoration. This article addresses each of the principal objections raised and provides the historical, theological, and evidential context necessary for an accurate assessment.
A note on method: the ldsdiscussions annotator repeatedly argues that because a practice is morally uncomfortable by modern standards, it cannot be divinely authorized. This is an anachronistic fallacy — judging 19th-century religious experience entirely by 21st-century norms. We will engage the actual historical and theological evidence rather than rely on presentism.
Claim 1: “The First Sentence Is Already Dishonest” — On Eternal Sealings
The annotator challenges the essay’s opening statement that “the marriage of one man and one woman is the Lord’s standing law of marriage,” citing that men may currently be sealed to more than one woman. This objection conflates two separate doctrines: the law governing mortal marriage practice and the theology of eternal sealings. The Church’s current practice of allowing a widower to be sealed to a second wife for eternity does not contradict the standing law of monogamy for living marriage. It reflects the unresolved eschatological questions surrounding resurrection and eternal family structure — questions the Church has never claimed to fully answer. The annotator presents a boundary-case exception as though it disproves the rule. It does not.
Furthermore, the essay’s statement is explicitly about the “standing law,” meaning the default commandment absent specific divine exception. This is precisely how Latter-day Saint theology has always described the principle: monogamy is the norm; plural marriage has been commanded at specific times for specific purposes. The LDS framework is internally consistent on this point.
Claim 2: “The Bible Never Commands Polygamy” — On Scripture and Authorization
The annotator asserts repeatedly that “nowhere in the Bible are men commanded by God to take plural wives,” using this as the premise to deny that D&C 132 could represent genuine revelation. This claim is both textually debatable and logically circular. The relevant question for Latter-day Saints is not whether the Bible records explicit commands to practice polygamy but whether the living prophetic office can receive new divine direction. The entire premise of the Restoration is that revelation did not end with the biblical canon.
More significantly, the annotator cites Jacob 2:24 condemning David’s and Solomon’s polygamy while ignoring the critical exception clause in the very next verses. Jacob 2:30 states:
“For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.”
The annotator acknowledges this passage exists but dismisses it as a “loophole.” This is not a loophole — it is the explicit doctrinal framework of the Book of Mormon itself. Jacob does not merely condemn polygamy; he teaches a conditional principle: monogamy is the default, but God may specifically authorize plural marriage to “raise up righteous seed.” This is not special pleading invented by apologists; it is the plain reading of the text the annotator himself quotes.
Why were David and Solomon condemned? Jacob 2:24 specifies it was because they acted “contrary to that which was commanded them” — they took wives without divine sanction. The condemnation is not of polygamy per se but of unauthorized, lustful polygamy. The LDS framework is therefore entirely coherent: polygamy is wrong when entered into selfishly and without divine command, right only when specifically authorized. The annotator must engage this distinction rather than paper over it.
Claim 3: “D&C 132 Is a Fabrication” — Stylometric and Historical Evidence for Authenticity
The annotator implies throughout that D&C 132 is simply a document Joseph Smith invented to justify desires he already held. This is an assertion, not an argument. The historical and textual evidence for the revelation’s authenticity is substantial.
William Clayton, Joseph Smith’s personal secretary, recorded the dictation directly on July 12, 1843, stating: “Joseph dictated sentence by sentence and I wrote it as he dictated.” Clayton’s account remained consistent across multiple signed affidavits from 1871 to 1874. Joseph Kingsbury made a verified copy shortly afterward, which became the source text for the 1852 publication. At least seven High Council members who heard Hyrum Smith read the revelation in August 1843 — including three opponents of polygamy (Austin Cowles, William Marks, and Leonard Soby) — provided affidavits confirming its contents matched what was eventually published. Opponents of Joseph Smith confirmed the document’s authenticity. This is significant precisely because hostile witnesses have no motive to authenticate a document they despised.
Beyond manuscript provenance, a stylometric analysis published in the Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship applied Stepwise Discriminant Analysis to 221 function words across 6,000 text samples. The finding: Joseph Smith’s revelatory writings showed the least stylometric distance from D&C 132 — approximately half the distance of any other candidate author, including Brigham Young. Both the plural-marriage and non-plural-marriage portions of the section clustered together stylometrically, ruling out later interpolation. The researchers concluded there is “no stylometric evidence that Brigham Young or any other potential candidate provided the words in the text.” (Interpreter Foundation)
The claim that Joseph Smith fabricated D&C 132 from whole cloth thus stands against: (1) the testimony of his personal secretary, (2) corroborating affidavits from hostile witnesses, (3) contemporary discourse echoing the revelation’s specific doctrines, and (4) independent stylometric analysis. This is not the profile of a fabrication; it is the profile of a genuine historical document.
Claim 4: “Joseph Broke Every Rule of His Own Revelation” — On Polyandry, Consent, and D&C 132
The annotator argues that Joseph Smith violated D&C 132 by: (a) marrying women already married to other men; (b) not obtaining Emma’s prior consent; and (c) failing to marry only virgins. These are serious objections that deserve careful handling rather than dismissal.
On Polyandrous Sealings
LDS historian Brian Hales, who has produced the most comprehensive multi-volume scholarly treatment of Joseph Smith’s polygamy, argues that polyandrous sealings were “for eternity only” — meaning the women continued living with their legal husbands. Hales notes that sexual polyandry would be “nondoctrinal and antidoctrinal” under D&C 132 itself, and he provides detailed evidence that the women in question maintained their civil marriages as functioning relationships. The eternity-only distinction is not post-hoc rationalization; it reflects the early theological distinction between “time” and “eternity” sealings that predates modern apologetics. (Brian Hales, BYU Studies Quarterly)
On Emma’s Consent
D&C 132 itself addresses the scenario where Emma refused to consent (verses 64–65), providing that if she refused, Joseph was not bound to wait indefinitely. The annotator frames this as a “convenient loophole,” but the revelation explicitly explains the theological rationale: the principle was divinely commanded regardless of Emma’s personal acceptance. One may disagree with this theology; but one cannot argue that Joseph “violated” D&C 132 on this point when the revelation itself addresses and resolves the scenario.
On the Virgin Requirement
D&C 132:61 specifies a virgin requirement in the context of new plural wives; verses 41 and 42 address situations involving women who were previously married. Hales and other scholars argue the revelation is a general framework whose application required prophetic judgment in complex specific cases. Dismissing the entire revelation because its implementation involved complexity is not a logical refutation; it is a demand for mechanical simplicity in a theologically nuanced document. The annotator’s strongest point here is the Zina Huntington Jacobs case — Henry Jacobs’ heartbroken letters are genuinely moving and no honest apologist dismisses the human cost. But the existence of human suffering in the administration of a practice is not evidence that the underlying commandment was fabricated. Prophets are fallible men, and the Bible’s prophets demonstrate the same pattern: Abraham lied about Sarah, Moses struck the rock, Peter denied Christ. Human imperfection and genuine prophetic calling are not mutually exclusive.
Claim 5: “Women Were Coerced” — On Agency, Pressure, and Historical Context
The annotator quotes Helen Mar Kimball extensively to demonstrate coercion: “If you will take this step, it will ensure your eternal salvation and that of your father’s household.” This is a genuine concern. However, the full picture of women’s responses to plural marriage is far more complex than the annotator presents.
The FAIR Latter-day Saints analysis of 19th-century LDS women documents that Latter-day Saint women “were appalled by accusations that they were duped or forced into plural marriages” and “fiercely defended their role as agents in the marriage decision.” Todd Compton’s In Sacred Loneliness, which the annotator cites as a source of hardship, also documents women who expressed genuine spiritual conviction and found meaning and even joy in their plural marriages. The annotator selects the hardship passages while ignoring the agency passages in the very source he cites.
Helen Mar Kimball herself later became one of the most vigorous public defenders of plural marriage, writing prolifically about it in the Woman’s Exponent. Her early ambivalence and later conviction are both real. To cite only the ambivalence is selective quotation, not historical analysis.
The annotator also compares modern FLDS communities to 19th-century LDS polygamy, implying moral equivalence. This comparison fails on multiple grounds: the 19th-century LDS church maintained open doctrine, institutional accountability structures, and divorce provisions available to women who were unhappy. FLDS communities operate in isolation, suppress exit options, and lack institutional accountability. The LDS Gospel Topics Essay itself confirms that divorce was “readily available” to women in plural marriages and that “women were free to choose their spouses.” That is not the structure of a coercive cult.
Claim 6: “The Manifesto Was Capitulation, Not Revelation” — The Strongest Apologetic Case
This is the central claim of the Utah essay critique and deserves the fullest treatment. The annotator argues that because the Manifesto came under legal and political pressure, it cannot be genuine revelation — and that the word “inspired” rather than “revelation” used in the essay proves the Church knows it was not truly from God.
This argument commits a fundamental logical error: it assumes that political pressure and genuine revelation are mutually exclusive. They are not. The scriptural record is replete with instances where God delivers revelation precisely in response to external crisis. Moses received the law at Sinai in the context of a people without structure. Paul received his apostolic commission under the pressure of a persecuted early church. The Jerusalem Council of Acts 15 issued a decree under the pressure of the Gentile controversy. Revelation responding to historical necessity is the pattern of scripture, not an exception to it.
More decisively: Wilford Woodruff did not merely respond to legal pressure. He reported receiving a detailed prophetic vision before issuing the Manifesto. In his own words:
“The Lord showed me by vision and revelation exactly what would take place if we did not stop this practice. [I was shown] the confiscation and loss of all the Temples, and the stopping of all the ordinances therein, both for the living and the dead, and the imprisonment of the First Presidency and Twelve and the heads of families in the Church, and the confiscation of personal property of the people — all of which of themselves would stop the practice.”
— President Wilford Woodruff, as cited in the Wilford Woodruff Papers Foundation
Woodruff further testified: “When the hour came…it was all clear to me. I went before the Lord, and I wrote what the Lord told me to write.” Most critically, he stated explicitly that without this divine instruction, “I would have let the temples go, gone to prison with the apostles and head of families, allowed the Church property to be taken, even suffered death if God had not commanded me to do what I did.” (Church News, November 1997)
The annotator’s framework predicts a prophet who caves to pressure. What the historical record shows is a prophet who explicitly states he would have chosen the more heroic path — imprisonment and martyrdom — had God not directed otherwise. This is the precise opposite of capitulation. This is a man reporting divine command that overrode his personal preference for resistance.
FAIR Latter-day Saints also highlights the Jeremiah parallel: the prophet Jeremiah advised the Israelites to submit to Babylonian conquest rather than resist and lose the temple and Jerusalem (Jeremiah 27–28). This counsel was not capitulation; it was revelation. The framing of the 1890 Manifesto within this same prophetic pattern is theologically coherent and historically apt.
On the word “inspired” versus “revelation”: this is a false distinction in LDS theological usage. “Inspiration” in LDS discourse does not mean a lesser or merely human impulse; it refers to the same spiritual communication by which prophets receive divine direction. President George Q. Cannon confirmed the Manifesto “was written under the influence of the Spirit.” The Official Declaration 1 is canonized in the Doctrine and Covenants and is treated by the Church as binding revelation in the fullest sense. The annotator’s semantic point is simply incorrect as a matter of LDS theological usage.
Claim 7: “Post-Manifesto Polygamy Proves Insincerity” — The Ambiguous Transition Period
The annotator argues that continued plural marriages after 1890 — particularly in Mexico and Canada — and the alleged 1897 marriage of Woodruff himself to Madame Mountford, prove the Manifesto was insincere. The evidence here requires careful analysis.
The Church’s own Gospel Topics Essay openly acknowledges the post-Manifesto marriages: “a small number of plural marriages continued to be performed in Mexico and Canada.” This is not a cover-up; it is full disclosure. The official Church history resource confirms approximately 25 documented new plural marriages between 1890 and 1903, mostly in jurisdictions outside U.S. legal authority. (LDS Church History: Plural Marriage After the Manifesto) These were treated as exceptional cases, required difficult approval processes, and were not publicly promoted.
The annotator treats the ambiguous transition period as a fatal flaw. However, every major institutional change in religious history involves a messy transitional period. The abolition of circumcision in the early Christian church did not happen overnight; Paul’s epistles record ongoing controversy decades after the Jerusalem Council. The Council of Nicaea did not immediately end Arianism; it persisted for generations. Gradual, contested enforcement of a revolutionary institutional change is the historical norm, not evidence of bad faith.
What demonstrates institutional sincerity is precisely what happened next: when the ambiguity became publicly untenable after Reed Smoot’s 1903 Senate election exposed continuing plural marriage activity, President Joseph F. Smith issued the Second Manifesto in April 1904 with explicit consequences — excommunication for any new plural marriages. Apostles John W. Taylor and Matthias F. Cowley, who had continued performing plural marriages, were ultimately removed from the Quorum of the Twelve. Taylor was eventually excommunicated; Cowley publicly admitted being “wholly in error.” An institution willing to discipline its most senior leaders is an institution that means what it says. This is decisive evidence of sincerity, not its absence.
The claim about Woodruff’s alleged 1897 marriage to Madame Mountford is, as the annotator himself concedes, based entirely on circumstantial evidence with no public marriage records. Accusing a prophet of violating his own solemn public declaration on the basis of journal entries and inference alone, without documentary proof, is not historical analysis. It is speculation presented as established fact.
Claim 8: “The Ending of Polygamy Proves It Was Never from God” — Revelation as a Living Process
The annotator’s most rhetorically potent argument is his conclusion: if God commanded polygamy in D&C 132 and then ended it by “inspiration” in 1890, the whole system is incoherent. This is framed as an impossible dilemma: either it was always from God (in which case why stop?) or it was never from God (in which case why start?).
But this framing ignores the universal biblical pattern of progressive and conditional revelation. God commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac — and then stopped him. God commanded Israel to offer animal sacrifices — and then, in the New Testament understanding, fulfilled and superseded that system in Christ. God gave the Mosaic law — which Paul describes as a “schoolmaster” (Galatians 3:24) that was specifically designed to have an end. The cessation of a divinely commanded practice does not retroactively prove the command was never genuine; it demonstrates that God works with his people “line upon line, precept upon precept” (Isaiah 28:10; 2 Nephi 28:30) according to his sovereign purposes in each historical dispensation.
The ending of plural marriage is, on the Latter-day Saint theological framework, actually further evidence of a living prophetic office. A church that merely preserves tradition would have defended polygamy to the last institutional breath. A church guided by living revelation adjusts its practices when God directs. The Manifesto is not a contradiction of the prophetic claim; it is a demonstration of it.
The annotator’s logic, pressed consistently, would also refute the cessation of circumcision, the end of the Mosaic dietary code, and every other practice modified or ended by what Christians and Jews regard as authentic divine revelation. The argument proves too much — eliminating the possibility of progressive revelation entirely, which is precisely the premise the annotator assumes but never defends.
On Richard Bushman’s Quoted Statement
The annotator opens by quoting Richard Bushman: “The dominant narrative is not true; it can’t be sustained.” Bushman is one of the most distinguished LDS historians alive, and his full body of work is worth examining before his words are deployed as a concession to the critic’s framework. Bushman’s point is that the simplified, Sunday-school narrative of church history is inadequate — not that the Church itself is false. In the same interviews and writings, Bushman consistently defends Joseph Smith as a genuine prophet and the Restoration as authentic divine work. His call for a “reconstructed narrative” is a call for honest, complete history — which is precisely what the Gospel Topics Essays represent.
Bushman’s monumental biography Rough Stone Rolling (Alfred A. Knopf, 2005) engages all of the difficult polygamy history candidly and concludes with a defense of Joseph Smith as a genuinely inspired, if deeply human, prophetic figure. The annotator uses Bushman’s call for honest history to imply a conclusion Bushman himself does not draw. Citing a faithful historian as though he were a critic is a misrepresentation of his position.
Conclusion: What the Evidence Actually Shows
The LDS Discussions annotated essay is a skilled piece of rhetoric. It selects the most emotionally resonant quotations, presents contested interpretations as settled facts, and frames every ambiguity as proof of fraud. Careful readers will notice several recurring logical patterns:
Selective quotation: Helen Mar Kimball’s early ambivalence is quoted; her lifelong public defense of plural marriage is not. Todd Compton’s documentation of hardship is cited; his documentation of spiritual conviction is ignored.
Conflation of human failure with divine falsity: Every instance of prophetic imperfection is treated as evidence that prophetic calling does not exist. By this logic, Peter’s denial of Christ refutes the entire apostolic commission.
Anachronism: 19th-century religious practices are evaluated entirely by 21st-century standards without engagement with what those practices meant within their own theological and cultural context.
False dilemma: The annotator presents “either polygamy was perfect in every detail or it was invented” as the only options. The third option — divinely commanded practices imperfectly administered by mortal men — is the universal pattern of revealed religion across all traditions.
The actual historical record shows: a revelation with substantial manuscript and stylometric evidence of authenticity; a practice maintained at enormous personal cost by thousands who genuinely believed it was divinely required; an ending of that practice preceded by a documented prophetic vision whose detailed content precisely predicted the institutional consequences of non-compliance; an institutional response that ultimately disciplined even senior apostles to enforce the new standard; and an open disclosure of the entire history through Gospel Topics Essays that the annotator himself relies on as his primary source material.
None of this proves the Restoration is true. What it demonstrates, conclusively, is that the annotator’s central thesis — that the evidence is “impossible to believe” unless Joseph Smith fabricated everything — is not the only rational conclusion available from the same evidence. A person can engage the full weight of the historical record and still find the LDS account not only coherent but compelling.
The Gospel Topics Essays were not released to destroy faith. They were released because the Church trusts its members to grapple with hard history. The annotator reads them as admissions of indefensibility. Faithful readers find in them confirmation of an institutional integrity willing to tell hard truths — and of a prophetic tradition that, however imperfectly administered by human beings, has consistently demonstrated an encounter with the divine across nearly two centuries of religious history.
Primary Sources and Scholarly References
LDS Church Gospel Topics Essay: “Plural Marriage in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” (October 2014) — churchofjesuschrist.org
LDS Gospel Topics Essay: “The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage” — churchofjesuschrist.org
LDS Church History: “Plural Marriage After the Manifesto” — churchofjesuschrist.org
Wilford Woodruff Papers Foundation: “1890 Manifesto” — wilfordwoodruffpapers.org
Church News: “1890 Manifesto Was Issued After Vision and Revelation” (November 1997) — thechurchnews.com
Interpreter Foundation: “Historical and Stylometric Evidence for the Authorship of D&C 132” — interpreterfoundation.org
Brian C. Hales, “Joseph Smith’s Polygamy,” BYU Studies Quarterly — byustudies.byu.edu
FAIR Latter-day Saints: “Official Declaration Number 1” — fairlatterdaysaints.org
FAIR Latter-day Saints: “Joseph Smith’s Polygamy: Toward a Better Understanding” (FAIR Conference 2015) — fairlatterdaysaints.org
FAIR Latter-day Saints: “An Act of Religious Conviction: Mormon Women and Nineteenth-Century Polygamy” — fairlatterdaysaints.org
Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Signature Books, 1997)
Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (Alfred A. Knopf, 2005)
Kathryn M. Daynes, More Wives Than One: Transformation of the Mormon Marriage System, 1840–1910 (University of Illinois Press, 2001)