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

[Tex]

Originally Posted by pelagius

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.

Isn't this supported by the way he phrased his comments?

... no more than perhaps 3 or 4 per cent of the membership ... ever entered into that principle. All the rest of the members of the church abstained from that principle ...

This would seem to suggest we're talking about polygamous men (and perhaps women), but not households. If I were I child of a polygamous family, I don't think it could be said that by definition I had "entered into that principle" nor could I be old enough to be fairly said that I had "abstained."

Also, of those 3-4% or 15-30%, how many had more than 2 wives?

That said, I agree that downplaying its influence is not really fair. Polygamy had a profound effect on the lives of the members, and on the future of the church.

[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.

MW, I take my denominator thing back a little bit. I don't think a favorable denominator can help that much. I misread the 15-30% number to be including children from the households; I don't think it is (even though the quote I cited isn't clear) or it doesn't make that big of a difference. The Encylopedia of Mormonism is more precise about what is included (although I think the article's numbers are a little out of date; I think they get their numbers from Van Wagoner which is starting to show its age; good book though):

The exact percentage of latter-day saints who participated in the practice is not known but studies suggest a maximum of 20 to 25% LDS adults were members of polygamous households. [pg 1095]

Maybe just confining to men will get you part of the way there but I don't think it will get you close to 3%. We can calibrate a little with Bennion's numbers from Manti for men/woman differences: Bennion notes the 20% of adult men and 40% adult woman in Manti and Brigham city were polygamous in 1870. He also says the numbers were higher in Salt Lake (I guess this places the mode number of wives in Manti and Brigham city at 2 unless there are a lot more woman than men in Manti and Brigham city in 1870) [See the Tribune article that quotes Bennion from July 30, 2005).

As near as I can tell 3% is just a significant underestimate.