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Cervantes · 09-02-2009, 03:12 PM

I've never really indluged into the Mormon faith as much as I have in the general Christian faith. (I am an atheist but I find the study of religion and it's impact on society to be extremely facinating). As I live in Sweden, a country that is among the most secular and unreligious ones without resorting to totalitarian abolishment of religion, we still do have a few mormons that walk about our streets every now and then (mainly american missionaries I might add, still haven't met a true swedish convert to the faith). Very little is known about the religion itself among the general public but there are many myths and urban legends.

One of these caught my interest a while back (as it has to do with societal changes, adaptations and emergence of fringe groups of the faith) but I have yet to recieve an answer whether the myth itself bears any historical accuracy or not.

The myth itself is simple, during the early years of LDS there were widespread religious prosecution and mob executions of those that ascribed to the Mormon faith. During this time, there were so few men (as they were presumably killed) that an exception was made in the marrital laws for mormons, men were allowed to take more than one wife. The myth continues that after the mormon prosecutions ended this exeption was removed but that that parts of the mormon followers were not happy about that (especially the men) and that they broke free from the mainstream LDS and gave rise to the more fundamental polygamous societies in USA.

All of this is what I've heard and pieced together from word of mouth, but I can't find any historical records about this to neither verify nor refute the myth online.

My question is simple, is the myth true? Partially true? Or just plain bogus?

09-02-2009, 03:12 PM	#34 (permalink)
Cervantes Psycho Location: Above you	I've never really indluged into the Mormon faith as much as I have in the general Christian faith. (I am an atheist but I find the study of religion and it's impact on society to be extremely facinating). As I live in Sweden, a country that is among the most secular and unreligious ones without resorting to totalitarian abolishment of religion, we still do have a few mormons that walk about our streets every now and then (mainly american missionaries I might add, still haven't met a true swedish convert to the faith). Very little is known about the religion itself among the general public but there are many myths and urban legends. One of these caught my interest a while back (as it has to do with societal changes, adaptations and emergence of fringe groups of the faith) but I have yet to recieve an answer whether the myth itself bears any historical accuracy or not. The myth itself is simple, during the early years of LDS there were widespread religious prosecution and mob executions of those that ascribed to the Mormon faith. During this time, there were so few men (as they were presumably killed) that an exception was made in the marrital laws for mormons, men were allowed to take more than one wife. The myth continues that after the mormon prosecutions ended this exeption was removed but that that parts of the mormon followers were not happy about that (especially the men) and that they broke free from the mainstream LDS and gave rise to the more fundamental polygamous societies in USA. All of this is what I've heard and pieced together from word of mouth, but I can't find any historical records about this to neither verify nor refute the myth online. My question is simple, is the myth true? Partially true? Or just plain bogus? __________________ - "Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned.." - "Religions take everything that your DNA naturally wants to do to survive and pro-create and makes it wrong." - "There is only one absolute truth and that is that there is only one absolute truth."