From Joseph F. Smith's Testimony to the Senate Committee

[Sleeping in EQ]

for the Reed Smoot Hearings, 1:97, 98:


"Our people are given the largest possible latitude for their convictions, and if a man rejects a message that I may give to him but is still moral and believes in the main principles of the gospel and desires to continue in his membership in the church, he is permitted to remain and he is not unchurched. It is only those who on rejecting a revelation rebel against the church and withdraw from the church at their own volition.

I should like to say to the honorable gentlemen that the members of the Mormon Church are among the freest and most independent people of all the Christian denominations. They are not all united on every principle. Every man is entitled to his own opinion and his own views and his own conceptions of right and wrong so long as they do not come in conflict with the standard principles of the church. If a man assumes to deny God and to become an infidel we withdraw fellowship from him. If a man commits adultery we withdraw fellowship from him. If men steal or lie or bear false witness against their neighbors or violate the cardinal principles of the Gospel, we withdraw our fellowship. The church withdraws its fellowship from that man and he ceases to be a member of the church. But so long as a man or a woman is honest and virtuous and believes in God and has a little faith in the church organization, so long we nurture and aid that person to continue faithfully as a member of the church, though he may not believe all that is revealed.

I should like to say this to you, in point, that a revelation on plural marriage is contained in that book. It has been ascertained by actual count that no more than perhaps 3 or 4 per cent of the membership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints ever entered into that principle. All the rest of the members of the church abstained from that principle and did not enter into it, and many thousands of them never received it or believed it; but they were not cut off from the church. They were not disfellowshipped and they are still members of the the church; that is what I wish to say...

I know that there are hundreds, of my own knowledge, who say they never did believe in it and never did receive it, and they are members of the church in good-fellowship. Only the other day I heard a man, prominent among us, a man of wealth, too, say that he had received all the principles of Mommonism except plural marriage, and that he never had received it and could not see it. I myself heard him say it within the last ten days."

[Frank Ryan]

thanks for posting this. that's an awesome find

[Borderline Divine]

That only 3-4% of the saints ever practiced polygamy?

[Indy Coug]

I bet it's close.

[pelagius]

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:

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]

[MikeWaters]

So it's 5 times more prevalent than we have been told?

I didn't believe the 3% number anyway.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

So it's 5 times more prevalent than we have been told?

I didn't believe the 3% number anyway.

I didn't know what to believe. That is interesting.

So the question is, did the Church intentionally misrepresent the numbers, not know or was it innocently mistaken?

I would not put it past them to misrepresent the numbers as the Manifesto was nothing more than a political legerdemain.

[pelagius]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

So it's 5 times more prevalent than we have been told?

I didn't believe the 3% number anyway.

Maybe one just needs to construct a favorable denominator? The 15-30% is the percentage of church members living in plural households. If you do something like married polygamous mormon men divided by adult mormon men, the fraction will be smaller I think.

The recent research also suggests a time trend which I think is interesting (although one should be careful about drawing too strong of inferences). Hardy makes the following comment:

While both Logue and Bennion emphasized that their findings were greater than traditional church estimates and that polygamy played a more significant role in Mormon society than previously believed, one might still question the importance of the practice since, on average, no more than between a sixth and a third of the church’s membership lived in plural households. In other words, couldn’t one say that inasmuch as a majority remained monogamous, polygamy must have been relatively unimportant? This would seem to be reinforced by Professor Kathryn Daynes who found that, in the community of Manti after 1860 the percentage of those living in polygamy steadily declined from 43.1 percent in that year to 7.1 percent in 1900.

[MikeWaters]

The problem I have with the 3% number, if it is not accurate, is that it tries to imply that polygamy did not play a large role in the Mormon community. And that is not true.

[pelagius]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

The problem I have with the 3% number, if it is not accurate, is that it tries to imply that polygamy did not play a large role in the Mormon community. And that is not true.

Right, its hard to underestimate its theological importance in 19th century Mormonism. It was "the principle." Also, I wonder if 15-30% effectively understates its importance as well. Suppose you were able to condition on a household being active (or endowed or full tithe payer). My guess is that the 15-30% number increases dramatically.