Since moving here, I've become more informed, and I agree. Joe Smith must have had a tremendous charisma, and was a world-class con man! Someone should make a movie, but I guess it would be too un-PC.
As near as I can tell, after gathering a following, Smith first declared that HE could take more than one wife, according to God. Then, the church elders pushed and THEY were granted the privelige, secret from your hoi-polloi Mormons. But, such a secret couldn't be kept, so eventually ALL Mormons got the "right" to polygamy! It's little known that wife swapping was also practiced. On a RE note, It's amusing to find houses here with two and three kitchens - to keep the wives content!
When Utah became a state, abandoning polygamy was part of the bargain. The Mormons reluctantly surrendered this "right", but, it's still thought by many today to be just a temporary accomodation to current facts on the ground. Polygamous fundamentalist Mormons are left alone here generally. There's probably 35,000 practicing now.
The Mormon Church has a whole division of Brigham Young University set up just to continually cook up rationalizations for the obvious holes in the history of the Mormon faith. |
