Grappling With the Polygamous Past

I am a faithful Latter-day Saint woman. I enjoy living in Salt Lake City, where every day I drive by monuments to the pioneers of my faith. I often contemplate how difficult their lives must have been. They endured persecution, poverty, and an arduous migration to Utah.

As a church, we often enumerate the struggles of the early saints and praise them for their faith. But amid all the tributes we pay, I have noted silence on one of the most heart-wrenching trials of the early Mormons: polygamy.

I believe that, privately, even the most faithful Mormons question why those who suffered everything were commanded to forsake even the happiness of a committed, monogamous marriage. But we don't often talk about it, because we don't know what to say. We struggle to reconcile our sense of morality and our belief in the church with our church's polygamous roots.

The first time I seriously contemplated my ties to polygamy, I was a missionary in Spain. There I met many people who were unfamiliar with the Mormons. Some would concentrate for a few moments before exclaiming, "Ah-hah! You're the polygamists!" Usually an expression of pleased certainty, mixed with disapproval, would settle upon their faces. "No," I would confidently reply, "we are not polygamists. In our church, the only marriage recognized by God is between one man and one woman. If a member of the church is caught practicing polygamy, he or she is excommunicated."

I felt proud to dispel that ugly rumor, and a little angry at being accused of such a thing. After all, the church discontinued the practice of polygamy more than a century ago, in 1890.

Sometimes, as I reflected upon my words, my adamant denunciations of polygamy troubled me. If I believed in our church, how could I rail against plural marriage? It was a cornerstone of faith to the early Mormon prophets and pioneers. Many of my own ancestors were plural wives and polygamous men. I felt guilty for disparaging their way of life. I wished to be more loyal to those who built the foundations of both my family and my religion.

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