Plural marriage: Encyclopedia II - Plural marriage - Critical views

Plural marriage - Critical views

According to sympathizers, Smith, Young and other prominent Church leaders were reluctant to embrace the practice of plural marriage especially given their strict Victorian morals. Some critics contend that Smith at first committed adultery with Fanny Alger, a young maid in the Smith household, and later relied on the Biblical rationale of plural marriage to legitimize his immorality.

Some critics, expecting the LDS Church's formal departure from plural marriage to equate with a doctrinal renunciation, see the church's current policy as disingenuous for several reasons: Plural marriage is still a seminal doctrine to Mormons, even if it is not practiced and is officially discouraged from being taught. Moreover, in the case of death, and sometimes in cases of civil divorce or excommunication, men may be sealed in LDS temples to more than one woman simultaneously, while living women cannot be "sealed" to more than one man—devout Latter-day Saints consider such sealings to be eternal, outlasting mortal life and civil marriages. Except under unusual circumstances, men cannot be "sealed" to a second wife while the first is still living. Typically a "cancellation of sealing" (unofficially, but commonly called a "temple divorce") must be granted from the First Presidency of the Church. It is unclear what the presumed status of widowers who are re-sealed is after death, if it is not an effective plural marriage.

Some critics of the LDS church believe that it is inappropriate for the church to ask that the term Mormon not be applied to believers in the Book of Mormon who practice plural marriage.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Critical views", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki