Did Mormon Polygamy Die with Woodruff's Manifesto?

Paul Derengowski, ThM

One of the eccentricities of Mormonism that Joseph Smith started when he and the Mormons moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, after being expelled from Missouri, is the practice of polygamy.  Polygamy simply means multiple spouses or plural marriage.  Smith initially got the itch to take another wife, in addition to his first wife Emma, when he lived in Ohio, and just prior to moving to Missouri amid a banking scandal that he created while in Kirtland.  At that time 16 year-old Fanny Alger caught his eye, even though the marriage did not last, and for the most part was kept secret from the rest of his followers.

It would not be until 1852, when Brigham Young had commandeered the Mormon Church, and made polygamy an official ordinance of the Church.  In fact, one can still read the urgency behind the idea of polygamy in Doctrine & Covenants 132, where a person’s salvation literally hangs in the balance should one decide not to take on more than one marriage partner.  It reads in the fourth verse, “For behold, I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory.”  What Joseph Smith started in Ohio, Brigham Young finalized in Utah.  It would be this covenantal demand from on High that would cause the United States to intervene in the goings on in Utah, as well as the Mormon Church.

After a few failed attempts on the part of the U.S. Government to persuade the Mormons to give up their polygamous practices, it finally passed the Edmunds Act in 1882.  What the Act did was make polygamy a felonious offense and impressed upon the Mormons that should they continue with the practice they would forfeit everything they owned, including the right to vote and to hold public office.  Several Mormon men were subsequently arrested, including Lorenzo Snow, George Q. Cannon, and John Taylor, all of whom would eventually become Presidents in the Mormon hierarchy.  Finally, in 1890 then Mormon President Wilford Woodruff would sign his famous “Manifesto,” which Mormon members often like to flaunt before the public to discount that the Mormon Church no longer has anything to do with polygamy.  Such flaunting, though, is patently deceitful, for Woodruff’s Manifesto did not stop anything, let alone polygamy.

As already mentioned, more than a thousand polygamists were arrested after the Edmund’s Act was passed.  One who was not arrested, but should have been, was none other than Wilford Woodruff.  For prior to becoming Mormonism’s fourth president, he had taken five wives to be his own.  In 1897, seven years after he had signed-off on his Manifesto prohibiting plural marriage among the Mormons, Woodruff took Lydia Mountford as his sixth wife!  In fact, according to B. Carmon Hardy, from the time Woodruff issued the Manifesto against polygamy in 1890 until 1910, there were 262 plural marriages that took place involving 220 different men.¹  Did polygamy cease among the Mormons when their President spoke?  Hardly.

It is not hard to evidence that polygamy is alive and well in Utah.  News article after news article attest to this fact.²  What the Utah Mormon Church wishes to deny is that any of the polygamist activity is being engaged in by members of its congregation.  They wish to point out that it is the “Fundamentalist LDS” group which responsible for all the attention drawn to this controversial subject.  Yet, whether or not that is true is irrelevant on at least two grounds.

First of all, the whole polygamy doctrine started with Joseph Smith, and the FLDS are simply still following his covenantal mandate that even the Utah Church has never excised from its “sacred” scripture.  The FLDS, in other words, believe that Smith’s words have more precedent than any human being's words, including those of the U.S. Government.  They would look, therefore, upon the Utah Mormon Church as being in rebellion against Smith, as well as God.

Secondly, though, and more importantly, even the Utah Mormons, starting with Wilford Woodruff, did not agree that polygamy should cease.  Instead, Mormon males continued to take additional wives well after the time of the signing of the Manifesto and went so far as to move to Canada and Mexico to escapes U.S. prosecution.

No better evidence for the power of Mormonism’s commitment to plural marriage can be found that in authorizations given to continue it after 1890.  While plural contractions were common in Mexico, they also occurred in Canada, albeit to a greatly reduced degree.  Authorized ceremonies joining couples in polygamous relationships also took place in the United States.  Despite the presumption of periodic slowing, as during the administration of Church President Lorenzo Snow (1898-1901), the approved performance of polygamous unions continued.  The Manifesto of 1890, including President Woodruff’s interpretation that it applied to Mormons throughout the world, did not mark a cessation anywhere of such unions performed by authorized representatives of the church.³

Therefore, the next time you read an article, hear an interview on television or radio, or speak with a member of the Mormon Church, and the subject happens to be polygamy in the Mormon Church, and how it allegedly ceased with the signing of Wilford Woodruffs’ Manifesto, keep in mind that it is all a ruse.  Polygamy is still being practiced in Mormondom, it did not cease with the Manifesto, and it is an expectation that all Mormons are looking forward to, if they really desire to obey Heavenly Father and go on to be gods and goddesses in the Celestial abode.

References