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Gramps,

The subject basically says it all. It doesn’t make sense to me that Heavenly Father would treat his daughters and sons differently from one another. Why is it that he would allow men to marry many women and not the other way around?  Or put them in a position of subservience to men?

Greg

 

Answer

 

Greg,

Let’s assume for the sake of your question that it is absolutely factual that men will have multiple wives in the Celestial kingdom. I presume this is the case, but I want to point out that there are many who do not believe this to be a foregone, doctrinal fact. And there are logical ways to explain plural marriage away as an eternal order. But, like I said…let’s take it as factual.

What is the purpose of plural marriage? That’s what it really comes down to. Right?

The only answer we have is found in the Book of Mormon. We read in Jacob 2:30:

“For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.”

That’s pretty much all that’s given. We can certainly assume that part of the reason plural marriage was given to the early Saints was also to try them. But it’s not reasonable to assume that in every instance when plural marriage was practiced, that it was a trial. The examples we have in the Bible, in most cases, are cultural norms, and are accepted as such. The instantiation of plural marriage in the early Church was, decidedly, not the cultural norm. That makes all the difference in the world as to whether it is viewed as a trial.

Moreover, if applied to the Celestial Kingdom (remembering that we have already established an assumption for the sake of discussion that plural marriage will be part of existence there), then it would be entirely unreasonable to assume trial as a de facto component of it.

Any way you cut it, subservience is mentioned nowhere. I think it fairly safe to say that the concept of subservience when all therein are exalted to “inherit thrones, kingdoms, principalities, and powers, dominions, all heights and depths” who “pass by the angels, and the gods, which are set there, to their exaltation and glory in all things, as hath been sealed upon their heads, which glory shall be a fulness and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever. Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then shall they be above all, because all things are subject unto them. Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them.” (D&C 132:19-20) doesn’t sound much like any level of subservience whatsoever.

So, once more, we’re back to the raising up of seed.

So answer me this: How would a wife having multiple husbands, either here in mortality or in the Celestial realm, result in the increased raising up of seed?

 

Ponder that, and I think you’ll have your answer.

 

Gramps

 

 

 

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