It can be found online here.

I believe that at least four men were ordained to priesthood during Smith’s life. Certainly Elijah Abel and Q. Walker Lewis were. There’s evidence forthcoming in a publication that “Black Pete” held at least Aaronic Priesthood, since he was allowed to baptize people into the LDS Church. And lastly, some evidence suggests that William McCary held priesthood by 1846 (not strictly in Smith’s time, but close).

I think it’s becoming clear that Smith approved of ordaining free black men to priesthood. The ban was certainly instigated by Brigham Young between 1847 and 1852, after dealing with William McCary’s apostasy in early 1847 and the inter-racial marriage of Walker Lewis’s son, Enoch, to a white Mormon woman in 1846 – which Young didn’t find out about until December 1847 – and it horrified Young to such a degree that he told the eight Apostles then at Winter Quarters that he would have the two newlyweds killed if they only lived far away from the Gentiles rather than in Boston.

Connell
Santa Cruz

Joseph Smith, of course, set the standard for pedogamy by having six (18%) of his 34 documented wives be aged 14-17, while he was in his 30s.

My own unpublished demographic study of pedogamy in the 1856 Martin Handcart Company indicates that 55 (31%) of the 137 girls who survived the handcart disaster entered into pedagamous relationships once they arrived in Utah. The data also confirms that 12% of those pedagmous girls had conceived a child prior to their marriages, indicating that premarital sex was rather common among the Saints (especially since not every sexual encounter results in pregnancy).

-”Are there ills of sexual monogamy that sacral polygamy was intended to overcome? (Did 19th century pro-polygamy apologia ever make such an argument?)”

YES. In 1879, George Q. Cannon vigorously defended his own polygamous orientation against the perils of monogamy. Cannon solemnly testified in April General Conference that monogamy shortens a nation’s existence. He claimed that, “[i]t is a fact worthy of note that the shortest lived nations of which we have record have been monogamic. Rome…was a monogamic nation and the numerous evils attending that system early laid the foundation for that ruin which eventually overtook her.” Cannon also said that, “crimes against nature [homosexuality] were justified by some of the best and most noted of Greek philosophers, and were practiced by Sophocles, Socrates, and others; and yet this is the philosophy that has come down to us” from monogamous cultures.

He continued that the “false tradition” of heterosexual monogamy is “one of the greatest evils at the present time”, passed on by Greeks and Romans, and ultimately leads to “crimes against nature”, as well as prostitution, courtesanship, and early deaths of said women from sexually-transmitted diseases. Thus, for Cannon, socio-political, religious, and cultural pressures to be monogamous were the cause of homosexuality, prostitution, and venereal disease. (See Journal of Discourses vol. 20, p. 200)

Ironically, this echoes the Anglican apologia of 16th century English theologian John Bale, who theorized in his two tracts “Apology Against a Rank Papist” and “The Parade of Popes” that (Catholic) celibacy caused homosexuality, prostitution, venereal diseases…AND POLYGAMY!

Day–those kinds of stories make me admire pioneer women. Those women had to be incredibly strong and independent to deal with so much hardship. I complain about only seeing my husband for a few weeks at a time (he’s in grad school a couple of states away), and I can’t imagine only seeing him once a year. It may be that benefits of polygamy were primarily for more urban (if there was such a thing in the intermountain west) wives, who would have had neighbors to help with situations like, oh, giving birth. The near total isolation you describe for Emma Lee and for Woodruff’s wife would surely have been nearly intolerable. Did either of them keep journals of the experience?

And John Humphrey Noyes’ Oneida Community practised “complex marriage”, where every male was married to every female, most women had sexual encounters (called “interviews”) three times a week, older women were encouraged to train teenage men in a form of tantric sex, and the community regarded both complex marriage and sex as part of a ritualistic path to spiritual perfection called “ascending fellowship”.

Every male and every female who weren’t related to each other, right?

I can see why they’d call that complex.

“I think the very nature of the way we view eternity would have had a hard time surviving without the embedding that occurred as a result of the practice of persecution for polygamy.”

As an institution, the church still believes in polygamy to this day, in much the same way it was taught back when it was practiced but without the “necessary” component – and with a focus on the afterlife rather than this life. Just as not everyone practiced it here when it was instituted, there is no “official doctrine” stating what percentage of celestial unions will be polygamous. Also, just as there were many “looks” of mortal polygamy (number of wives, number of children, work situations of wives and husband, etc.), there is no “official doctrine” stating what those unions will be like in the hereafter. We have not been told how spirit children are created, so we have little if any idea of what a celestial marriage (monogamous or polygamous) will actually entail – other than that we will live as partners with our spouses.

My question: Could any of us accept this construction (that eternal marriage for some will – or even might – include polygamous relationships) if polygamy hadn’t been practiced in our history? Many of us, like myself, who hope and pray with our current understandings that our eternal relationships are monogamous still manage to accept the possibility of it existing for some.

To re-frame the point, the concept that full eternal progression con be found only in a union of male and female (“neither is the woman without the man, nor the man without the woman in the Lord”), added to the concept that no individual will be denied that progression simply because they were unable to make that connection in this life, almost guarantees statistically the existence of polygamy – in some form or fashion – in the hereafter. (I know that constitutes speculation, but I think my point is valid, nonetheless.)

I believe what JNS said about how the actual practitioners talked about polygamy – as a restoration of a gateway to the highest level of the Celestial Kingdom. What I’m saying is that the eternal belief can survive without continuing the earthly practice, but I doubt it could do so if the earthly practice had never occurred – if it had not been burned into our ancestral souls by the furnace of affliction the early saints endured to practice it.

Since Jacob (Nephi’s bro) said that polygamy is only permissible (a) when God commands it, and (b) that God will command it to raise up seed, I don’t think that your (1) and (2) are easily divided.

1. The institution of polygamy was practical.

Be it to raise up more seed (which according to some studies posted seems not likely). Or to raise up more faithful members quickly.

or

2. The institution of polygamy was a theological one.

I don’t practice polygamy, I don’t have a testimony of it I know some do. I don’t. I will say this however. Theology doesn’t really change, at least not when we’re talking about celestial law. Still though, you cannot argue with this if someone beieves/doesn’t believe it as you can’t prove/disprove it.

or

3. Perhaps it was just folly or started for sex and power.

Again this one is as easy to prove as the theological argument. Sure you can provide all kinds of quotes on either side of the argument. But you can’t prove it.