Plural Marriage

Plural Marriage is not treated on this site as a social experiment or a merely nineteenth-century controversy. In the Restoration doctrine preserved by Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, scripture, and the Articles of Faith of the Church of the Firstborn, it belongs to Celestial Marriage, the Abrahamic Covenant, and the family government of the Church of the Firstborn.

Article 9 of the Articles of Faith of the Church of the Firstborn states that Celestial Marriage was taught and practiced by the Prophet Joseph Smith, is essential to exaltation, is an inherent part of the Abrahamic Covenant, and is a fundamental law of the Church of the Firstborn. Plural marriage therefore belongs to the larger doctrine of exaltation, not to detachable custom or careless historical practice.1

The Bible Does Not Establish Monogamy as the Only Law

In The Practice of Plural Marriage in the Bible, Fred begins with Joseph Smith’s question in D&C 132: why did the Lord justify Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and Solomon “as touching the principle and doctrine of their having many wives and concubines”?

The answer is not that the Bible is morally silent. It condemns adultery, lust, whoredom, and unlawful desire. But, after surveying those commands, he makes the central point:

“… with all that is said about Adultery, not one word is said that would lead one to believe, that a man could only have one wife. In other words, in no place in the Bible does God establish the law of Monogamy — not in the Old Testament and not in the New Testament.”2

He then points to biblical laws that regulate plural marriage rather than forbid it: Exodus 21:7–11, Deuteronomy 21:10–17, and Deuteronomy 25:5–10. The distinction is important. Some laws show plurality as permitted in a given context; the levirate law places responsibility on a surviving brother to raise up seed to his brother’s name.3

Plural Marriage and Raising Up Seed

The Book of Mormon is often read as though Jacob 2 were a universal condemnation of plural marriage. The Restoration reads it differently. Jacob condemns whoredoms, unauthorized imitation of David and Solomon, and abuse of women. But the same passage also preserves the Lord’s own exception:

“For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.” (Jacob 2:30)

That observation is key. Plural marriage is not righteous because men desire it. It is righteous only under divine command, covenant law, and Priesthood authority. The dedicated Book of Mormon study The Latter-day Practice of Plural Marriage Foretold in the Book of Mormon treats Jacob 2, 2 Nephi 14, and the early Restoration revelations under that controlling principle.4

David, Solomon, and the Actual Sin

The scriptural record also rejects the common reading that David and Solomon were condemned simply because they had plural wives. The treatment of 2 Samuel 12 and D&C 132 distinguishes between wives given by the Lord through authorized channels and wives taken in sin.

The point is clearest in the Bathsheba account. David’s condemnation was tied to coveting, adultery, and the death of Uriah — not to plurality as such:

“… it was for David’s sin in committing Adultery as stated above that he was condemned by Yahweh, and not simply because he took more than one wife!”5

That is why D&C 132 can say that David’s wives and concubines were given to him by authorized servants, while still condemning him “in the case of Uriah and his wife.” The doctrine turns on authority, covenant, chastity, and obedience.

The Restoration Through Joseph Smith

Joseph Smith did not introduce plural marriage as a private preference. It belongs to the restoration of the New and Everlasting Covenant of Marriage and the fulness of the Patriarchal/Matriarchal Order.

Because some have attacked D&C 132 as a later alteration, a separate study treats the question: Section 132: Is It Authentic in All Regards?. In that study, Fred collects William Clayton’s diary, Clayton’s 1874 affidavit, Joseph C. Kingsbury’s 1886 statement, Brigham Young’s 1852 statement, and related witnesses. Clayton testified that on July 12, 1843, Joseph Smith dictated the revelation and that Clayton wrote it “sentence by sentence”; after it was read back, Joseph pronounced it correct.6

That witness matters because Section 132 links celestial marriage to sealing authority, the Holy Spirit of Promise, and the principle that there is never more than one man on earth at a time on whom the keys of that Priesthood are conferred. As such, plural marriage cannot be separated from legal administration in the Priesthood.

Obscured Texts and Translation Questions

The plural-marriage corpus also argues that several biblical passages have been obscured by later translation or copying traditions. The key examples include Psalm 45, 2 Samuel 12:7–8, Mark 10:28–30, Matthew 19:27–29, and 1 Timothy 3.

For example, the Mark 10 argument is that Jesus’s hundredfold promise originally included “wives” in the return list, corresponding to “wife” in the sacrifice list, and that D&C 132:53–55 restores the same pattern.7 Psalm 45 is read as royal marriage language, 2 Samuel 12 as evidence that wives could be given lawfully by the Lord, and 1 Timothy as a text whose later monogamist reading should not be made the measure of Israel’s covenant law. Readers who want the detailed textual argument should consult the full publication.

The Manifesto Question Was Also Political

Plural marriage cannot be understood only as a biblical question. It also became a constitutional and political crisis. The Political Platform of the Manifesto preserves the statehood-strategy argument and sets it in tension with President John Taylor’s refusal to surrender principle.

Charles W. Penrose and Franklin S. Richards framed the statehood question this way in 1887:

“This is a political issue. It concerns all classes of citizens. Utah will go into the Union with a constitutional provision against polygamy.”8

President Taylor answered the proposed surrender in a very different spirit:

“You promise us Liberty, as a price for giving up what we believe to be true and is sacred to us! NO, NEVER!”9

The historical issue is not merely that civil pressure existed. Later public settlements must be read against the older doctrinal claim, the statehood strategy, and the testimony of men who distinguished political accommodation from surrendering eternal law.

Covenant, Commandment, and Lawful Administration

Plural marriage belongs to the Gospel of the Father: the doctrine of exaltation, eternal family government, sealing authority, and the Abrahamic Covenant. It is also inseparable from the Holy Order, because ordinances and covenants require legal administrators.

The doctrine is therefore neither libertine nor merely historical. It requires chastity, commandment, covenant, sacrifice, and lawful Priesthood administration. Without those, plural marriage becomes exactly what Jacob condemned. With them, it remains part of the same covenant Family Order lived by the patriarchs and restored through Joseph Smith.

Further Study

Notes

  1. Fred C. Collier, The Church of the Firstborn: Its Articles of Faith and a Short History from the Time of Adam to the Present, Doctrine of the Priesthood, Vol. 18 No. 1 (April 2001), 8. ↩
  2. Fred C. Collier, The Practice of Plural Marriage in the Bible and the Obscuring of the Biblical Text in Passages Relating to Polygamy, Doctrine of the Priesthood, Vol. 29 No. 4 (April 2012), 4. ↩
  3. Collier, The Practice of Plural Marriage in the Bible, Doctrine of the Priesthood, Vol. 29 No. 4, 4–5. ↩
  4. Fred C. Collier, The Latter-day Practice of Plural Marriage Foretold in the Book of Mormon, Doctrine of the Priesthood, Vol. 30 No. 4 (April 2013), 3–10, 13–16. ↩
  5. Collier, The Practice of Plural Marriage in the Bible, Doctrine of the Priesthood, Vol. 29 No. 4, 12. ↩
  6. Fred C. Collier, Section 132: Is It Authentic in All Regards?, Doctrine of the Priesthood, Vol. 32 No. 2 (February 2015), 2–8. ↩
  7. Collier, The Practice of Plural Marriage in the Bible, Doctrine of the Priesthood, Vol. 29 No. 4, 77–79. ↩
  8. Fred C. Collier, ed., The Political Platform of the Manifesto, Doctrine of the Priesthood, Vol. 4 No. 2 (February 1987), 10. ↩
  9. Collier, ed., The Political Platform of the Manifesto, Doctrine of the Priesthood, Vol. 4 No. 2, 14. ↩

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