Social & Culturalpolygamymanifestomarriagefundamentalism

Polygamy Today

Does The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints still practice plural marriage, and what is its relation to fundamentalist groups?

Bible

The Bible answers

Bible · Matthew 19:4–6

KJV + NRSVUE

King James Version
And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

NRSVUE
He answered, “Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Our explanation

Two, one flesh. That is the Restoration’s current law of marriage.

Bible · Genesis 2:24

KJV + NRSVUE

King James Version
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

NRSVUE
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.

Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon answers

Jacob 2:27, 30
Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none. … 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.
Our explanation
The default is one. The exception required a command. The command was withdrawn.

Modern Revelation

Official Declaration 1
We are not teaching polygamy or plural marriage, nor permitting any person to enter into its practice. … I now announce that there are no plural marriages authorized, solemnized, or permitted in the Church.
Our explanation
We are not teaching polygamy or plural marriage, nor permitting any person to enter into its practice.

Faithful answers

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Plural marriage was commanded for a time, ended by the Manifesto of 1890, and closed with the Second Manifesto of 1904. The Church’s essay does not hide the difficult overlap years. It also states the present law without remainder: marriage between one man and one woman is the standard, unless the Lord commands otherwise, which He does not now. Fundamentalist polygamy is a different religion wearing nineteenth-century clothes.

Marriage between one man and one woman is God’s standard for marriage, unless He declares otherwise, which He did through His prophet, Joseph Smith. The Manifesto marked the beginning of the return to monogamy, which is the standard of the Church today.

Jacob 2 makes monogamy the rule and plural marriage the exception by command.
New plural marriage today is apostasy from the restored Church.
Tourists and films confuse FLDS compounds with Latter-day Saint wards; that confusion is useful to critics and false.

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FAIR Latter-day Saints

Modern polygamy and the Church

FAIR Latter-day Saints

If the Church were secretly polygamous, the evidence would not be a rumor mill. It would be sealings, membership records, and a people who do not hide families in a connected world. There is no such evidence. There is a clear membership law and a history essay that already conceded more than polemicists wanted to read.

The restored Church’s present practice is monogamy. Calling every breakaway sect ‘Mormon polygamy’ is a refusal to use names correctly.

The Second Manifesto attached church penalties to new plural marriages.
Temple sealings of a widower to a second wife after a first wife’s death are not earthly polygamy.

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