Friday, November 24, 2023

Jesse Haven's 1853 Defense of Plural Marriage in South Africa

  

We believe women is naturally more virtuous, pure, and religiously disposed than man, therefore, more woman than men will receive and obey the gospel in the last days, and be gathered to Zion.

 

We believe there has been a law revealed, by which a man in Zion, and in Zion only, or at the place the Lord has commanded His people to gather, can have more than one wife; and this law is under the strictest regulations.

 

We believe this law is not given to gratify the lusts of men but given for the exaltation of both men and women,--giving to every woman the privilege of filling up the measure of her creation, and lawfully, and honorably and virtuously obeying the first and great command, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” (Jesse Haven, Some of the Principle Doctrines or Beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints [Cape Town, 1853], 3, 4, in Van Hale, Mormon Miscellaneous Note Cards, 3 vols. [Sandy, Utah: Mormon Miscellaneous, 1985], 1:45)