Item Detail
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33116
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0
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4
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English
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Joseph Smith, Plural Marriage, and Kinship
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Routledge Handbook of Mormonism and Gender
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London
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Routledge
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75-85
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"Similar to other sexual experiments that took place during the antebellum era—like the Shakers and the Oneida—Mormonism’s earliest polygamous teachings were a reaction against a mainstream domestic culture that they found simultaneously too fragile as well as too narrow. It was also part of a broader patriarchal backlash against a democratic culture that had become feminized and egalitarian. Smith’s unions, then, were understood as a way to create familial and kinship linkages that transcended death as well as reintroduce male-controlled order in an anarchic world. They also reflected a deep commitment to communal salvation, a belief that redemption could only be achieved through the connection to other faithful believers and their families. And finally, despite the parochial nature of the earliest plural sealings, the legacies of Smith’s polygamous teachings have persisted to the present time." [Author]