Quote:
Originally Posted by Borderline Divine
That only 3-4% of the saints ever practiced polygamy?
|
See: "That 'Same Old Question of Polygamy and Polygamous Living:' Some Recent Findings Regarding Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century Mormon Polygamy", Utah Historical Quarterly 73 (3): 212-224.
A relevant quote from the article pegging the best scholarly historical estimates in the 15-30% range:
Quote:
One of the things that is happening throughout the historical profession generally is the application over the last twenty or so years of methodologies used by social scientists in other fields. And none of these approaches have provided more interesting results than simple counting or the application of quantitative inquiry into the Mormon polygamous past. Larry Logue and Ben Bennion, following the lead provided by people such as Dean May, James E. Smith and Phillip R. Kunz, by reconstituting families and bringing the tools of demography to bear, have shown that in the Utah period the number who lived in plural households was considerably larger than previously believed. During the 1880s, Mormon representatives in testimony before Congress stated that no more than 1 or 2 percent of the church’s membership was polygamous. Church authorities in their sermons, missionaries abroad, and guides on Temple Square almost to the present time have repeated these figures. We now know, owing to work by Logue, Bennion and others, that the actual number, depending on the years and location, likely averaged between 15 and 30 percent. To be sure, in some areas the percentage of practitioners was smaller. But, conversely, in other communities, it was considerably larger.
[emphasis mine]
|