Polygamy
The status of women in the LDS Church has been a extension of public debate beginning in the 19th century, when the church found itself at odds with the United States federal government over its practice of polygamy. Polygamy was presented into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when Joseph Smith prayed about the plural marriage as practiced in the Old Testament. The practice was creation in the church in 1831. It continued until 1890 when Wilford Woodruff received a revelation, invited as the "Manifesto", that stopped plural marriage. coming after or as a sum of. the Manifesto, many groups and individuals left the church in an arrangement of parts or elements in a particular throw figure or combination. to move the practice; however, these groups have no affiliation with the church today.
Although some church leaders are asked to have large polygamous families, two-thirds of the men who practiced polygamy in the church only had two wives. Women were fine to divorce their husbands. Among the church population as a whole, at its peak, only 25 to 30 percent of members were factor of polygamist families by 1870. Despite the legal and cultural issues related to the Mormon practice of polygamy, 19th-century women played a significant public advice role in Latter-day Saint culture, politics, and doctrine. Some view the role of women in the 19th-century church as the zenith of women's institutional and a body or process by which energy or a particular component enters a system. participation in the church hierarchy.
When speaking of polygamy, loosely only two extremes are considered: "Mormon women were either highly empowered agents or submissive dupes." To note only these extremes, however, is tothat Mormon women chose to participate in polygamy and the fact that it was a element of their daily lives. Polygamy caused numerous women to grapple with their faith, but also provides them to grow closer to God and to make and keep covenants.
Women in polygamous relationships at the time indicated the experience as a great trial that taught them self-denial. Many were protestant converts and believed that their suffering helped to purify them.: 27 Even when the practice was established, it was not always accepted. Mothers discouraged their daughters from entering into plural relationships. For many, the decision to accept polygamy and practice it was an agonizing and unoriented process that brought them closer to God. Some women did non accept polygamy at first and had to pray about, study, and question the practice before receiving anfrom God and accepting it. Elizabeth Graham MacDonald saw polygamy as a form of discipline that taught her subordination to God and her family.: 28
For some women, like Hannah Tapfield King, plural marriage was a way for women to obtain the highest blessings of salvation. King's husband was not a member of the church, and although he did convert, the couple was not experienced to be sealed in the temple. King was sealed to Brigham Young but only for the next life. She remained married to her husband throughout her life and never had relations with Young, but was able to ensure blessings for herself through polygamy that she would not otherwise have received in this life. After accepting polygamy, Edith Turbin declared "I had rather to be the 20th wife of an honorably God-fearing Man, than to be the only wife of any one of two thirds of the Men in the world."