Mormonism : Polygamy - Plural Legacy Reverberates In Utah Today

Like many Mormons, Elizabeth Harmer-Dionne grew up listening to a beloved grandmother's tales of "sister wives," "grandma aunts" and "secret tunnels linking different homes."

There was the story of her great-great-grandfather, Abraham H. Cannon, who fell in love with his first cousin, Wilhelmina. When the family objected, he married someone else but later eloped with Wilhelmina as a second wife. He married three more women, and the wives were the best of friends, so the story goes. But when Cannon took a sixth and younger wife, the grandmother said, "It was trickier."

Then there was Loren Hannibal Harmer, who married his last wife after 1890, when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, under pressure from the federal government, agreed to discontinue the practice. Decades later, Harmer denied his last marriage, claiming instead to be an adulterer. Harmer went to jail for his perjury aimed at protecting the church.

Harmer-Dionne, a Boston attorney, is among thousands of Mormons whose modern-day views of polygamists -- from Manti's Tom Green to Salt Lake County's Kingston family -- are informed by the practices and experiences of such ancestors.

Even members without a polygamous family tree must contend with the legacy of a faith that once endorsed a now-shunned lifestyle -- one that is still referenced in a key Mormon scripture and is considered a possible practice in the hereafter.

Some find themselves sympathizing with the polygamous wives, who could be stand-ins for their own grandmothers, eking out a life in trying and secret circumstances.

Others are able to draw distinctions between the polygamy of the past and that of today, seeing the former as a noble, God-sanctioned venture, the latter as not only illegal, but debased, unhealthy and burdensome on society.
(...)

Those pioneers were practicing a principle that Mormon founder Joseph Smith said he received as a divine revelation in the 1830s, following "plural marriage" as described in the Old Testament.

After initial resistance, a select group, primarily church leaders, embraced the practice until then-LDS Church President Wilford Woodruff issued a manifesto ending polygamy. It took several decades before the practice was close to elimination, however.
(...)

In the 20th century, the LDS Church began excommunicating members found practicing polygamy.

Many of the estimated 30,000 engaged in the practice today call themselves Mormon fundamentalists; though outside the church, they see themselves as living the faith in its purest form.

While the LDS Church has disavowed polygamy, the reference to plural marriage is still included in the faith's scripture, the Doctrine and Covenants. And by policy, men can be "sealed" for eternity in LDS temple rites to more than one wife, though women are permitted only a single sealing.

Such tenets of the faith, combined with its history, can be perplexing, if not deeply troubling, for modern Mormon women.

In dozens of interviews with The Salt Lake Tribune, members expressed views of historic and modern polygamy ranging from condemnation to sympathy to hesitant respect. Those without polygamist ties are often the most critical, doubting the practice's divine origin. One Logan resident called it "creepy . . . something I have to put on the back burner and forget about."

The 19th-century polygamists were "well-intentioned people," says Laurie DiPadova, a University of Utah sociologist and LDS convert. "But I still see polygamy as a system that is inherently abusive to women."

But it is not so clear-cut for those with polygamist ancestors, their views colored by the kinds of stories handed down in the family.

Tales of cooperation, self-sacrifice and mutual affection contrast with those of loneliness, pain and jealousy.
(...)

Drawing Lines: Distinctions between past and present polygamy are easily made by Mormons with polygamist ancestors, as well as scholars who study the lifestyle.

Many see polygamists of the past as heroic and principled, while viewing today's polygamists as welfare cheats and sexual predators.
(...)

Part of the difference between then and now is the lack of institutional oversight.

When sanctioned by the LDS Church, there was scrutiny of polygamists, says Paul Larsen, who wrote The Raid, a 1996 play about George Q. Cannon's prosecution for unlawful cohabitation. "You have an official body saying, 'You're acting unrighteously, get it together or you'll be reprimanded.' "

Outlawing polygamy, Larsen said, "sent it underground and opened the door for abuses."
Martha Sontagg Bradley, author of Kidnapped From That Land: The Government Raids on the Short Creek Polygamists

, respects some contemporary polygamist families but finds the practice among independent groups, such as Green's family, "especially alarming, because there is no community watching or safety valve."

But even established polygamist communities like that of Colorado City, at the border of Utah and Arizona, engage in troublesome practices, such as arranged marriages for teen-age girls.

Escaping a bad marriage was relatively easy for 19th-century Mormon women -- a talk with church leader Brigham Young could set them free.

There are fewer options for a woman in some polygamist groups today.

For many Mormon women, though, the biggest problem with today's polygamy is its lack of divine sanction.

"The Lord said to do it -- I have no clue why -- and now he's said not to do it," says Jessie Embry, a BYU researcher who interviewed 250 children of Mormon polygamists. "For me, it's totally a faith thing."

Eternal Polygamy: Whatever their views of polygamy today, many Mormons have to contend not only with the past but with a future that may include polygamy.

They find many ways to reconcile past practice with modern Mormonism's emphasis on the sanctity of marriage and the nuclear family. Some justify polygamy as a practical necessity for the early church.
[...more...] [Need the full story? Read this]