Polygamy—or, more precisely, polygyny, the marriage of two or more women to one man—has been a controversial subject in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS or Mormon). The church’s founder, Joseph Smith, Jr., privately advocated such plural marriages during the early 1840s and perhaps earlier, calling them part of “the most holy and important doctrine ever revealed to man on earth” and insisting that without them no one could attain the “fullness of exaltation” in the hereafter.
The small group of friends and church leaders Smith entrusted with his secret teachings continued the practice after his violent martyrdom in 1844. Under the leadership of Brigham Young, they formed the 1847 nucleus of the colonization of the Rocky Mountain Great Basin, then Mexican territory, where they hoped to practice their religion without interference from the United States. As barren and distant as the region seemed, it was not far enough away to avoid four decades of public outcry after the Mormon church officially announced in 1852 its advocacy of polygamy. This lengthy protest, and the accompanying government pressures, influenced church president Wilford Woodruff to issue a public announcement in 1890 which advised members against contracting new plural marriages. Church-sanctioned polygamy continued on a covert basis until 1904, however, when President Joseph F. Smith, under congressional pressure, authorized the excommunication of all who continued to perpetrate the practice.
Today polygamy has fallen into disrepute among the majority of mainstream Mormons. Indeed, no group seems more anti-polygamous than Utah Mormons. Church leaders avoid the topic and until recently even worked with law enforcement officials to have polygamists arrested. Church instruction manuals often treat plural marriage, when broached at all, as an embarrassing relic of the past; scholars at church institutions have sometimes been discouraged from publishing articles on the subject; and practicing polygamists are quickly excommunicated from church fellowship.
Despite the social and economic difficulties for those who continue to practice polygamy, surveys indicate there are approximately 30,000 or more Fundamentalists, as they prefer to be called, in the western United States, particularly in Utah, Arizona, and Montana. Customized draperies manufactured in a polygamist industry enhance the windows of many of Salt Lake City’s finest homes. One of Utah’s most successful coal mines is a Fundamentalist co-op. And perhaps one of the best Spanish omelets in the Salt Lake Valley is served at a polygamist-owned restaurant.
Though most Fundamentalists shun the public spotlight, preferring instead a life of anonymity, they often become the inadvertent, even unwilling, object of media attention. John Singer, a Fundamentalist who refused to send his children to Utah public schools, was shot to death in 1979 by law enforcement officials. Nine years later four members of his family were sentenced to prison for their role in the early 1988 bombing of an LDS church building and the subsequent killing of a law enforcement official during a lengthy standoff.
Members of a small sect in Ogden, Utah, known as “The Company,” also received wide press coverage for reportedly advocating divinely mandated lesbian practices as well as polygamy. Southern Utah polygamist Leland Freeborn announced on 2 October 1983 that in forty days the United States would suffer nuclear attack from the Soviet Union. Quizzed by the 12 October 1983 Central Utah Journal as to why God would send such a critical warning through him, Freeborn replied, “I don’t know, but if the Lord could speak through Balaam’s ass [see Num. 22:22-30], I suppose he could speak through the mouth of a poor farmer from Parowan.” Other self-proclaimed Fundamentalistic prophets emerged the following year when two Utah County brothers were charged and found guilty of the ritualistic 24 July 1984 slaying of their sister-in-law and her infant daughter, apparently because the woman had opposed, among other things, their teachings on polygamy.
The interest in modern polygamy transcends the boundaries of the Intermountain West. The San Francisco Examiner on 7 April 1985 noted a power struggle in Colorado City (formerly Short Creek), Arizona, brought about by the deteriorating health of the community’s ninety-six-year-old Fundamental patriarch, LeRoy Johnson. The Examiner, citing testimony of dissidents, reported activities in the polygamous community where women wear ankle-length dresses, shun makeup, wear their hair in buns, and “do little else but breed.” Charges that “obedient disciples are rewarded with teenage brides” and that sect leaders “squabble over desirable young girls” were dismissed by Johnson’s loyal followers as “exaggerated and motivated by revenge.”
Johnson’s disciples then numbered more than three thousand. But many polygamists remain independent of formal groups. Two of Utah’s most married men, independent Fundamentalists Alex Joseph and Royston Potter, were 1983 guests on the nationally televised Phil Donahue Show. Joseph, mayor of Big Water, a small community in the desert region of Southern Utah, is a one-time Marine, police officer, school teacher, freighter, used car salesman, bookkeeper, fire fighter, and ginseng root enterpriser. Current wives include a lawyer, a school teacher, a nurse, a professional calligrapher, and a skilled plumber and electrician. One of his wives is even a former beauty contest winner. Joseph joined the Mormon church in 1969 because, as he put it, “an angel told me to.” Excommunicated in 1973 for his outspoken views on polygamy, the charismatic Joseph began collecting wives and formed his own polygamous church, the Church of Jesus Christ in Solemn Assembly.
Less flamboyant and more typical of Mormon Fundamentalists is ex-policeman Royston Potter. Named Murray, Utah’s, Employee of the Month in April 1982, Potter was fired the following December. A whistle-blowing citizen raised “questions about [Potter’s] ability to comply with his oath of office,” since he was in violation of Utah Code 76-7-101(1)—the anti-polygamy statute. Like most polygamists with Mormon roots, Potter viewed the Utah law as unconstitutional, an interference with his First Amendment rights. In early October 1985, however, the United States Supreme Court declined to review Potter’s appeal, leaving intact, at least for the present, the ruling of lower courts that polygamy is not a constitutional right.
Despite Potter’s public profile and release from the police force for violation of the law, criminal charges were never brought against him. Since the 1960s prosecution of polygamists has come to a standstill in Utah and surrounding states. Citizens are more tolerant of variant lifestyles today, and polygamists are viewed more as religious fanatics than as criminals. Experience has convinced law enforcement officials that strict enforcement of anti-polygamy laws is both nonproductive and unacceptably expensive. Utah’s Salt Lake County Attorney said in 1983 that although polygamous cases are not considered insignificant, his office was “busy with cases involving property loss or personal harm.”
Many Utahns—especially those whose polygamous ancestors suffered harsh treatment and humiliation at the hands of the federal government in the late nineteenth century—sympathize to some degree with today’s polygamists. Though earthly laws prohibit the temporal practice of polygamy, plural marriage is believed by many Saints to be the law of the highest degree of heaven, further complicating the ambivalence modern Mormons feel towards polygamy.
Despite the historical significance of plural marriage in Mormonism, and the fact that many Mormons are descendants of nineteenth-century polygamists, most church members today are often no better informed on their polygamous past than non-Mormons. Rich collections of archival materials and specialized scholarly works are available on the subject, but there has been no comprehensive study of polygamy from its earliest stirrings in the 1830s to its current practice among Mormon Fundamentalists. This revised and expanded edition of my 1986 general history of Mormon polygamy is intended to be a reliable introduction to a complex subject for both Mormons and non-Mormons alike.
Although descended from Mormon polygamists, I have written Mormon Polygamy: A History neither to promote nor to assail plural marriage. During my research and writing I tried to weigh carefully the bias of each documentary source. To prevent digression from the basic chronological sequence, however, I have tried to confine the academic discussion of controversial sources within the notes that follow each chapter. Furthermore, in efforts to preserve the original flavor and accuracy of direct quotations, I have retained original punctuation, spelling, grammar, and emphasis.
While I accept full responsibility for my interpretation, I am grateful to the following friends and colleagues who shared materials and offered criticism for the first edition, and pointed out corrections and additional suggested revisions for the second: Thomas G. Alexander, J. Max Anderson, Ian G. Barber, Lowell “Ben” Bennion, Gary J. Bergera, Mary L. Bradford, Lyndon W. Cook, Everett Cooley, Jessie L. Embry, Lawrence G. Foster, Scott G. Kenney, H. Michael Marquardt, Brent Lee Metcalfe, Linda King Newell, Charles S. Peterson, Steven Pratt, Ronald L. Priddis, George D. Smith, Susan Staker, Mary C. Van Wagoner, and Steven C. Walker. I also deeply appreciate the assistance of the staffs of the Historical Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah; the Utah State Historical Society; Archives and Manuscripts, Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah; and Special Collections, Western Americana, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City.