8 - Territorial Government and Polygamy Announced

Ben Finch

One main theme I noticed throughout these readings was for the need for justification of polygamy that they felt they had to push forth. I found some of Orson Pratt's claims about the popularity of polygamy (mainly the idea that 4/5ths of the world practice it) to be a bit... questionable, but it was still very interesting to see how he tried to defend the practice in The Seer. With the secondary source The Bone in the Throat, I found the comparison towards the end of how the justifications for slavery and polygamy were very similar in some regards was fascinating. Overall, you can tell the leaders of the church knew that publicly acknowledging the practice would lead to some negative reactions among lay members and the broader public. It's also pretty interesting how big of a role one man (Orson Pratt) played in defending the practice, rather than having it be more of a group effort.