Comments on: Relief Society: the beginning

By: Sam MB

Sam MB — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 02:44:38 +0000

Ann, it depends on whether you invoke “continuously functioning,” and I think most people would feel that you should when comparing RS to other organizations. You are correct about the hiatus.

By: Ann

Ann — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 02:39:26 +0000

Lamonte, according to the Utah History Encyclopedia, the RS pretty much stopped functioning officially after 1844. The resurgence in Utah in the 1850′s was mostly informal, although supported by the leadership, and Brigham didn’t officially reorganize it with Eliza R. Snow as the president, until 1866.

So I would say, no, we can’t really challenge them on it. But hey, what do I know.

By: lamonte

lamonte — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 02:16:50 +0000

The other day on the way to work I heard the following statement about the YWCA, and confirmed the statement from their website, “The YWCA is the oldest and largest multicultural women’s organization in the world.” Now, with 25 million members worldwide I guess the statement is half true but since they were founded in London in 1855 I wonder if we should be challenging their statement about longevity. Just wondering. What do you think?

By: kris

kris — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 02:16:03 +0000

It would seem that another thing that would keep you out of the Society was gossiping particularly about polygamy. Clarissa Marvel was denied membership and her behaviour was investigated because of her telling “scandalous falsehoods on the character of Prest. Joseph Smith without the least provocation.” It would seem that Joseph’s charge to correct morals and strengthen virtues as well as “purging iniquity” was one of the most difficult problems of the early RS.

By: Sam MB

Sam MB — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 01:44:17 +0000

Mark, you’re basically correct as I recall (I don’t have sources at hand and am writing from basic memory), though the “blacklisting” to the extent it occurred would have been related to the tempest over polygamy (Emma hoped it would give her power to resist polygamy, Joseph hoped it would help to quiet dangerous rumors and mollify Emma).

As I recall, it functioned much as an evangelical reform union except that it was clearly denominational. These were special unions and you had to apply for membership, but they were not as exclusive as the Masons, and much less exclusive than the social clubs which existed pre-Revolution. I can’t imagine a committed Mormon woman was excluded except over polygamy or an impugned moral character (which was the same thing then).

By: J. Stapley

J. Stapley — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 01:28:48 +0000

You’re right Sam, and womens organizations of the time did often have constitutions as well.

Sally, the independence of the Relief Society and conflict that resulted because of that was likely at least one of the reasons the Brigham Young didn’t re-establish the General Relief Society presidency (John Taylor did as President).

Mark IV, alas, I would have to look up the details myself right now and I shall bask in my laziness with you.

By: Mark IV

Mark IV — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 01:12:28 +0000

J./Sam/Anyone:

I could look it up and confirm it myself, if I knew where to look, but I’m guessing someone around here knows the answer to my question.

I remember reading or hearing that the original Nauvoo RS was something like a private club. They did not offer membership to all adult LDS women as we do today. You had to be invited to join, and nobody got an invitation who wasn’t already OK’d by the membership. They could and did blackball women of whom they did not approve. True, false, or incomplete?

By: Sam MB

Sam MB — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 00:43:48 +0000

Sorry, that was too brief. Basically, you’re projecting a model of church governance back onto a church where it didn’t exist in that way. Bishops in Nauvoo were responsible for the temporal affairs of the church in given sections of town. The High Council and Stake President provided city-wide governance, while Joseph Smith also governed, and the Traveling High Council (Twelve Apostles) were involved in various complex ways but not how we would think of them today.

So RS was certainly independent of the Bishop, but that didn’t mean the same thing it would today. They were apparently meant to be a separate body integrated into the main church through the First Lady who was integrated into the larger church via her marriage to Joseph Smith. They were like an evangelical reform association but with that special twist. But they were clearly supervised by the central authorities, both in JSJ’s oversight and in Brigham Young’s decision to shut it down before the exodus.

By: Sam MB

Sam MB — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 00:37:58 +0000

5. Sally, not really, though there has been a lot of debate about this.

By: Sam MB

Sam MB — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 00:37:16 +0000

For a curious balancing act, check out the T&S announcement of the founding of the relief society, followed immediately by a long editorial (attributed to JSJ) on “Try the Spirits,” designed to a) restrict the possibility of a female led religious community, and b) limit the exercise of charismatic spirituality, an expression that had often favored women and the powerless (at least that’s the current historical dogma). I’m still not entirely sure what was going on, but however messy things ultimately got, I do believe part of this was a desire to include women formally in the afterlife community of the blessed.

Boy, if you’re searching out Masonry as the source for Constitution in the early American Republic, you are a metaphysical addict (though the authors of the Constitution were Masons, they were not higher degree Masons, which is really a different animal from early Republican Masonry).