Polygamy Culture: brush up on your vocabulary!

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_Meadowchik
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Polygamy Culture: brush up on your vocabulary!

Post by _Meadowchik »

I have been privileged to see the conception and development of this term behined the scenes and its use spread among various Mormonism-engaged feminist thinkers.

Also, I have to say that there are beautiful things happening in many Mormon feminist spaces, spaces that are big-tent enough to embrace discourse between ex-mos, post-mos, NOM, TBMs, and anyone else engaged in Mormonism and feminism. Individuals are sharing research and experiences and collaborating to clean the spiritual house of the Mormon church, to make it a better place for those within and for those connected to it.

I'll start with the most recent, but these are all very good:

https://www.the-exponent.com/the-toxic- ... y-culture/

https://outsidethebookofmormonbelt.com/ ... ple-rites/

https://sistersquorum.com/2018/05/30/ho ... r-part-ii/

https://sistersquorum.com/2018/04/26/po ... -marriage/

https://outsidethebookofmormonbelt.com/ ... ure-pt-ii/

https://outsidethebookofmormonbelt.com/ ... y-culture/
_Meadowchik
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Re: Polygamy Culture: brush up on your vocabulary!

Post by _Meadowchik »

From the first link, the most recent offering on the newly-coined "polygamy culture:"

The parallels between societal rape culture and Mormonism’s polygamy culture are alarming.

“Rape Culture” is a term used to show the ways society blames victims of sexual assault and normalizes male sexual violence.

When people and societies normalize sexual violence, they accept and create rape culture. Rape culture includes jokes, TV, music, advertising, legal jargon, laws, political speeches, words, and imagery that make sexual violence and sexual coercion seem so normal that people believe rape is inevitable. Rather than viewing the culture of rape as a problem to change, people in a rape culture think about the persistence of rape as “just the way things are.” In a rape culture, men and women assume sexual violence to be a fact of life.

Here’s an example of rape culture infiltrating our language:“Wow…..she was drinking at the party dressed like that? Yeah, no wonder she got raped. She was pretty much asking for it. Walking pornography.”

Mormonism experiences a similar phenomenon with Polygamy Culture.

“Polygamy Culture” is a term recently coined by Mormon Feminists. It invokes the way Mormon culture normalizes the idea that women are subordinate possessions of men. When women are plurally collected to add to the man’s kingdom or glory, and subjected to his sexual attention or deprivation, Mormonism normalizes the doctrine and perpetuates Polygamy Culture by saying, “that’s just the way God wants it.” Polygamy culture includes jokes, Sunday school comments, even remarks made in General Conference, and is laced throughout our dialogue concerning exaltation and eternal families. In a Polygamy culture, men and women assume plural marriage in the highest degree of heaven to be irrefutable scripture. It’s an inevitable fact of Mormon life and afterlife.

Rape culture and Polygamy culture inherently undermine the individual worth of women. These dissonances tear at our sensibilities for good reason! They are irreconcilable with the nature of a loving God.

Polygyny is patriarchy taken to the extreme. Plain ol’ patriarchy oppresses women. Benevolent patriarchy pedestalizes women as it oppresses them. Toxic patriarchy turned polygyny oppresses and possesses women.

The sources of this culture/doctrine are found in Doctrine and Covenants section 132 and in the language of the temple ordinances. (The day-to-day practice of polygamy ended (mostly) in 1890 with this official declaration.)

D&C 132:64 uses this possessive language, “and if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore he is justified.”

By contrast, the language of Jacob 2: 24-35 teaches just the opposite: “For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none.”

In the temple today, women are anointed to become Priestesses unto their husbands, covenant to hearken to his counsel and give themselves to him in marriage. The men’s ordinances and blessings have none of this possessive language reciprocated.

Since all are alike unto God, the asymmetry of this possessive language is endlessly harmful to women. If God is no respecter of persons, it doesn’t seem possible that He would value the eternal weight of women at a mere fraction of the value of a man. In this regard, Mormon doctrine is at odds with itself.


https://www.the-exponent.com/the-toxic- ... y-culture/

The author goes on to identify objective fallacies of the polygamy culture in the church. It's worth the read.
_Meadowchik
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Re: Polygamy Culture: brush up on your vocabulary!

Post by _Meadowchik »

As I have been privy to the progression of the term over the last few months, there is another fundamental element of polygamy culture that shapes the church today: It is that Mormons accept the same level of leadership that was necessary to impose polygamy on men and women in the early church. But while the actual practice of polygamy is mostly gone from the mainstream church, the same level of authority and expectations of obedience are very much alive, taught, and in practice today in the church.
_cinepro
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Re: Polygamy Culture: brush up on your vocabulary!

Post by _cinepro »

Meadowchik wrote:https://www.the-exponent.com/the-toxic- ... y-culture/

The author goes on to identify objective fallacies of the polygamy culture in the church. It's worth the read.


Either the author is way wrong about polygamy, or the Church (and its members and culture) is.

I wonder which side the Church leaders will take?
_Dr. Shades
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Re: Polygamy Culture: brush up on your vocabulary!

Post by _Dr. Shades »

Meadowchik wrote:Individuals are sharing research and experiences and collaborating to clean the spiritual house of the Mormon church, to make it a better place for those within and for those connected to it.

Are the general authorities welcoming and encouraging this cleaning of the spiritual house of the Mormon church? If so, how?
"Finally, for your rather strange idea that miracles are somehow linked to the amount of gay sexual gratification that is taking place would require that primitive Christianity was launched by gay sex, would it not?"

--Louis Midgley
_Meadowchik
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Re: Polygamy Culture: brush up on your vocabulary!

Post by _Meadowchik »

cinepro wrote:
Meadowchik wrote:https://www.the-exponent.com/the-toxic- ... y-culture/

The author goes on to identify objective fallacies of the polygamy culture in the church. It's worth the read.


Either the author is way wrong about polygamy, or the Church (and its members and culture) is.

I wonder which side the Church leaders will take?


This generation will only cede as much ground as is needed to maintain their positions, is my prediction. The next wave? Hard to say.
_Meadowchik
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Re: Polygamy Culture: brush up on your vocabulary!

Post by _Meadowchik »

Dr. Shades wrote:
Meadowchik wrote:Individuals are sharing research and experiences and collaborating to clean the spiritual house of the Mormon church, to make it a better place for those within and for those connected to it.

Are the general authorities welcoming and encouraging this cleaning of the spiritual house of the Mormon church? If so, how?


What do you think? I think not. But, we're cleaning it anyway. What is wonderful to me is that someone like me can participate and that devout Mormons can, too. Anyone who wants to end the oppression can.

Of course, I know that the church structure is inherently mysoginistic and power-imbalanced. I don't know if the institution itself is redeemable, but the people inside are.
_Dr. Shades
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Re: Polygamy Culture: brush up on your vocabulary!

Post by _Dr. Shades »

Meadowchik wrote:
Dr. Shades wrote:Are the general authorities welcoming and encouraging this cleaning of the spiritual house of the Mormon church? If so, how?

What do you think? I think not. But, we're cleaning it anyway. What is wonderful to me is that someone like me can participate and that devout Mormons can, too. Anyone who wants to end the oppression can.

But can they do so without being excommunicated? If so, how?

Of course, I know that the church structure is inherently mysoginistic and power-imbalanced. I don't know if the institution itself is redeemable, but the people inside are.

As long as they keep lending it legitimacy by their presence, support, time, and tithes, can they truly be considered "redeemed?"
"Finally, for your rather strange idea that miracles are somehow linked to the amount of gay sexual gratification that is taking place would require that primitive Christianity was launched by gay sex, would it not?"

--Louis Midgley
_Meadowchik
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Re: Polygamy Culture: brush up on your vocabulary!

Post by _Meadowchik »

Dr. Shades wrote:But can they do so without being excommunicated? If so, how?


They say "no" more often to bad behaviours and yes to better behaviors. Some are willing to be excommunicated. If I were, it would not change my participation. Others choose differently.

As long as they keep lending it legitimacy by their presence, support, time, and tithes, can they truly be considered "redeemed?"


Parents in our ward are losing a child to irreversible brain damage right now. Yesterday was a sad day. As usual, I didn't sing, pray, or take the Sacrament. The songs felt shallow, but I understood they might provide comfort to some.

I made myself a person who did not hide the grief and several came to me and we wept together. I cultivated friendships that reach beyond tribal matters.

So, what we do is make bad things less bad and good things better. Whatever the impact on the institution, we will make individual lives better while loosening the unhealthiness of the institution on them.
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