Speaking of Polygamy…

Many critics of plural marriage like to point at section 101 (the Article on Marriage) in the original (1835) edition of the Doctrine and Covenants. Unfortunately, this section was removed in 1876, but I don’t see any reason why it should have been.

First, this section is concerned with “the Church”, as opposed to “the Priesthood” (which is what the current section 132 is concerned with). Altho these two distinct bodies have been conflated in the minds of most latter-day saints, it was not always so. Nowadays, it is commonly accepted that the Church is the source of Priesthood. In other words, Priesthood is dependent upon the Church; therefore, no Priesthood may exist independently, or outside of, the Church.

All one must do to unravel this falsehood is look at history. Both Priesthoods were restored BEFORE the Church was re-established; thus showing that they are NOT dependent upon, nor issued from “the Church”. The Aaronic was restored in mid-May of 1829 and the Melchizedek in early June of 1829 (I realize there is some uncertainty here). Therefore, it is the Church that was established by the Priesthood, and not the other way around (the Church was not established until early April 1830)!

Monogamy has always been the rule for the Church generally, and all those early saints who said as much were not lying when they affirmed this – they just understood more of the gospel than their critics and accusers do now.

Another feature of this document that I find so telling is the accusation (“reproach”) of fornication and polygamy. The wording is as follows (from verse 4):

“Inasmuch as this church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication, and polygamy: we declare that we believe…”

The amazing thing here is the SINGULAR use of the word “crime”. When the critics read this sentence, they gloss over this and read it as tho it were plural, “crimes”. I chuckle at the irony of mistakenly interpreting “crime” as being plural, because you mistakenly believe being plural is a crime! It is my opinion that this wording is precise and carefully chosen, like the parables of Jesus (see Matthew 13:10-17), to allow people who do not have understanding eyes and ears to read into it what they will.

In reality, the singular “crime” is only applied to fornication – which is clearly a crime, as thoroly attested in the scriptures. There is an additional accusation of polygamy, but it is not a crime. To help make this clearer, here is another sentence with an analogous grammatical structure:

“Inasmuch as this church of Christ has been accused with the crime of theft, and of liking green Jello too much, and of habitually starting meetings late: we declare that we believe…”

Lastly, I want to point out another passage from this section that the critics of plural marriage totally ignore:

“We believe that it is not right to prohibit members of this church from marrying out of the church, if it be their determination so to do, but such persons will be considered weak in the faith of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

⁵Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth.

⁶Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee.

⁷Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.

Proverbs 4:5-7 King James Version

I have a laundry system in place that really works…for me.

Before bed, I gather everything I can and put it in the laundry room. If I have 3 or more loads waiting I run a load of towels for a first wash.

I get up early and run the second wash on the towels or start a load of laundry. I’m usually done by about 11am.

This works for me because it keeps the machines available for semi-crisis and crisis situations like people vomiting with 13 extra loads of laundry, floods needing lots of towels (see toddler handbook), or a machine breaking down and someone needing to use one or both of mine. It keeps those 0-3 loads able to be put away in a timely manner and I resent dirty clothes, so it helps me have a clear head and not feel like it’s all looming over me.

I also have small hacks in place like 8ish laundry baskets which stack, do double duty as transportation up and down the stairs and they fit perfectly in IKEA Kallax furniture, so they are also storage totes.

There, that’s enough backstory.

I went to visit my daughter last month in another state. I went to visit my daughter last month in another state with the intent to help out while my son-in-law recovered from surgery.

While there, I intended to help get her laundry caught up, so I applied my laundry system to her situation which left me with a huge pile of clean unsorted clothing. I created a daunting overwhelming task.

So, I did what moms sometimes do and found myself extolling the virtues of my laundry system. Even going so far as to suggest some products that really work for me like the four-dollar flexible laundry baskets from Walmart – I love them.

Then I shut up and I listened to my daughter.

She’s smart, she’s capable, and she has reasons for the things that she does. She has her own system in place. She is a once a week laundry girl. Her husband works from home and she leaves the house daily which results in too many times laundry left in machines for too long. Her system is to have each person have their own basket and each person has their own loads. This keeps things organized and entire loads go back to one room. This keeps her from having a huge pile of unsorted clean laundry. My failure in overlaying my system on hers.

It was huge for me to have a case in point that you give help based on what is wanted within the method and within the vision that is currently in use. This takes listening and understanding why things are the way they are. It demands respect and honor of someone else’s differences. It doesn’t need to impact how you run your own life. If you take judgment from it, that’s on you.

So of course I applied all of this to my plural marriage.

The mistake sisterwives often make with each other is in applying what they would do in any given situation to what the other is currently doing.

For example, when adding a wife in and welcoming her into their existing home, some first wives do a whole I’m going to decorate my new sisterwife’s space deal, when the better option is to prepare a blank slate and then give the incoming wife the time, and resources to create what she wants for her space.

The same issue can come up with a new addition attempting to make changes to established patterns. Seek first to understand. Then when full understanding is created and respect is given, you can decide if what you would like to change is doable or even still applicable.

I went home after 6 days, my daughter’s laundry caught up, deeper relationships between little sons and little grandsons formed, and with a whole new appreciation for my beautiful and capable daughter.

Integration is hard stuff. We have to be willing to not demand that someone else justify why they do what they do. We have to not take judgment when someone does something differently than we do and also not to give judgment because it is different. We have to give space to allow others their agency. Particularly, when we are in a position of helper, we need to allow their system to run unimpeded.

Assuming good intent and competence is key.