Question 3 – More Blessed With More Wives

Brian Hale’s question 3 is “Mormon Fundamentalists believe that the more wives they marry in mortality, the greater their eternal reward.  Is this a true doctrine?”

One might as well say “Mormons believe that having larger families brings them greater blessings.  Is this a true doctrine?”  If we say no, then we are saying God divides His blessings amongst the children of a family (in a family of 5 they would have a 5th of a blessing each), if we say yes, we are saying that God multiples his blessings among the children in a family (in a family of 5 there are 5 children blessed).

It must be remembered though that a man may have a ten wives and prove unworthy of them all for treating them badly, whilst another man with two wives may find a multitude of women wanting to join his family because he lived a life of integrity.  Having said this if I were a wife I would hope my husband would consider me an additional blessing to his family in this life.

The idea a faithful man with more wives could be the recipient of greater blessings comes from Joseph Smith (as we will see from the article below), and is not just a modern Mormon Fundamentalist teaching.

Lucy Walker, recalled that Joseph Smith had taught this doctrine to her:

“He [Joseph] said men must beware how they treat their wives. They were given them for a holy purpose that the myriads of spirits waiting for tabernacles might have pure and healthy bodies. He also said many would awake in the morning of the resurrection sadly disappointed; for they, by transgression, would have neither wives nor children, for they surely would be taken from them, and given to those who should prove themselves worthy. Again he said, a woman would have her choice; this was a privilege that could not be denied her.”⁷

Benjamin F. Johnson was a faithful Church patriarch, who recounted in a letter to the First Presidency’s secretary how the Prophet asked him to approach his sister Almera with the idea of her being Joseph’s plural wife:⁸

“But how,’ I asked, ‘Can I teach my sister what I myself do not understand, or show her what I do not myself see?’ ‘But you will see and understand it,’ he said, ‘And when you open your mouth to talk to your sister, light will come to you and your mouth will be full and your tongue loose, and I will today preach a sermon to you that none but you will understand.’ Both of these promises were more than fulfilled. The text of his sermon was our use of the ‘one, five and ten talents,’ and as God had now commanded plural marriage, and as exaltation and dominion of the saints depended upon the number of their righteous posterity, from him who was then but with one talent, it would be taken and given him that had ten, which item of doctrine seems now to be somewhat differently constructed.”⁹

Although we do not have a complete record of what Joseph Smith said in his sermon, we do have Willard Richards summary of the Joseph’s remarks, in which Joseph asked the congregation:

“What is the meaning of the Parable of the 10 talents? What is the meaning of the scripture [that] he that is faithful over a few things shall be made ruler over many? And he that is faithful over many shall be made ruler over many more?”¹⁰

It seems that as well as hinting to Benjamin F. Johnson about this doctrine, he explicitly taught it to Erastus Snow, who later recollected:

“Joseph Smith said that the parable that Jesus spoke of that the man who had one talent and hid it in the earth was the man who had but one wife and would not take another, would have her taken from him and given to the one who had the more.”¹¹

The idea of a woman symbolically representing a talent can be seen in the Old Testament vision of Zechariah:

“And behold, there was lifted up a talent of lead: and this is a woman that sitteth in the midst of ephah.”¹²

One wonders if any of the Apostles of Jesus who heard him relate the parable of the talents was aware of this connection, or if this was first recognized by Joseph Smith. Years after the Prophet’s death this doctrine became common place enough to be included in a hymn written during the reformation movement of the mid-1850s:

“Now, this advice I freely give,
If exalted you would be,
Remember that your husband must
Be blessed with more than thee.
Then, O, let us say,
God bless the wife that strives
And aids her husband all she can
T’ obtain a dozen wives.”¹³

Multiple wives were seen as a blessing to women as well as men. As one modern Fundamentalist Mormon woman put it “an only wife is a lonely wife.” Brigham Young taught that both men and women were expected to live plural marriage, or they would be unworthy of being with their monogamous spouses taken from them in eternity:

If a man wont take this responsibility he will find himself without a wife in eternity, as would any woman who held her husband back from righteously taking another wife, or chose to remain single in this life rather than marry a good man willing to live this principle, even if he already has a wife.

The time will come when those good women whose husbands refuse to live this way will have the choice to marry a man who will, as is taught in this early Mormon hymn -

“He who one talent has abused,
Hear it! ye sons of men,
Shall lose it, and it shall be given
To him who improves ten.”¹⁵

The Savior also hinted at the idea of men who had proved faithful – even to the point of losing a wife – receiving many more in this life or the life to come, when he promised:

“There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God’s sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting.¹⁶

This does not mean, however, that woman are mere property, but rather that a woman who desires to serve God will have the choice of a righteous man, even though he is already married, and will not be forced to stay with a husband unworthy of her throughout eternity.

As Eliza R. Snow pointed out; to a good woman it does not matter how many wives her husband has: “What to Eve, though in her mortal life, [if] she’d been the first, the tenth, or fiftieth wife?”¹⁷ she asked.

In most Christian congregations today and even in the LDS Church, religiously active women outnumber devoted men by quite a proportion¹⁸, leaving some destined to be single throughout this life with no security of marriage in the next, unless they are sealed to a good man who is already married.

Anticipating this, Isaiah looked forward to the time when “seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.”¹⁹ Through Celestial Plural Marriage in our day both the parable of talents and the prophecies of God are fulfilled.

“if they are not more faithful unto me, it shall be taken away, even that which they have.”

Doctrine & Covenants 60:23.

“every man may improve upon his talent, that every man may gain other talents, yea, even an hundred fold”

Doctrine & Covenants 82:18.

Footnotes

7Lucy Walker, Autobiography of Lyman O. Littlefield. Lucy married Joseph on May 1^st, 1843.

8Joseph married Almera in April 1843.

9Benjamin F. Johnson to George F. Gibbs, date? 1903

10Willard Richards, Joseph Smith’s Diary, 2 April 1843. Interestingly it is from part of this sermon that we derive section 130 of the Doctrine and Covenants.

11Erastus Snow, Meeting of the First Presidency and Quorum of Twelve, Wilford Woodruff Journal, October 14th, 1882

12Zechariah 5:7, see 5-11. Ephah usually refers to a unit of measurement (Exodus 16:36).

131856 Reformation Song. Used as a Hymn in an edition of Songs of Zion.

14Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses Vol. 16, p.166.

19Isaiah 4:1. -

“Now, where a man in this Church says, ‘I don’t want but one wife, I will live my religion with one,’ he will perhaps be saved in the celestial kingdom; but when he gets there he will not find himself in possession of any wife at all. He has had a talent that he has hid up. He will come forward and say, ‘Here is that which thou gavest me, I have not wasted it, and here is the one talent,’ and he will not enjoy it, but it will be taken and given to those who have improved the talents they received, and he will find himself without any wife, and he will remain single for ever and ever. But if the woman is determined not to enter into a plural marriage, that woman when she comes forth will have the privilege of living in single blessedness through all eternity.”¹⁴