Irony of Mormon Church Complaining of Bigoted Marriage Laws

Remember that time when Mormons called out marriage laws for being narrow-minded, bigoted laws. The Mormon church complained about laws that defined marriage as between one man and one woman. This was in the days of plural marriage, so in other words, these laws were against Polygamy and the plurality of wives. They called them bigoted, apostate, and sacrilegious. These marriage laws were credited to the Devil.

During the 1850s, most states did not codify a formal definition, but the assumption of monogamy was embedded in bigamy laws (being married to more than one person at the same time), court rulings, and Christian norms. Marriage was defined in civil and religious terms as the union of one man and one woman.

Orson Pratt defended polygamy with fiery language and sweeping denunciation of “apostate Christendom” and civil law. Mormon leaders felt besieged by a world that increasingly rejected their practices, but Pratt’s argument reveals more about the Mormon leadership’s obsession with control than any sincere concern for moral or spiritual progress.

Today, the church claims the same laws are from God and divinely inspired. Quite a change of heart. The church today is staunchly against changing the definition of marriage as they claim must be between a man and a woman (though they don’t clarify it’s only one woman, because church doctrine still supports celestial marriage where there is a plurality of wives).

Polygamy, Power, and the Purity Myth

In 1853, Mormon apostle Orson Pratt proclaimed that polygamy would solve society’s ills—from prostitution to adultery—and that only “bigoted State laws” prevented this divine order from restoring moral virtue to the world. His logic? That women would prefer being plural wives over mistresses, and that men, if permitted to legally marry multiple women, would stop their secret liaisons and embrace responsibility. In another quote, Pratt decried civil law’s restriction of polygamy as the Devil’s strategy to strike down the “holy institution” that had been practiced by the patriarchs and even tied Jesus himself to a lineage of plural marriage.

Pratt claims that Satan’s strategy to destroy the “divine institution” of polygamy involved uniting corrupt religious and civil powers to outlaw it. He argues that plural marriage was historically practiced by righteous patriarchs (like Abraham, Jacob, and David), and that even Jesus descended from a polygamous lineage, implying divine approval. He accuses “Apostate Christendom” of helping the Devil by criminalizing polygamy, calling such laws sacrilegious, narrow, and bigoted.

The devils, knowing the eternal ruin which would necessarily come upon mankind could they be persuaded to abolish marriage, used every art of seduction to accomplish their evil designs. When they could not succeed in one way they would try another; if they could not persuade all the church to forsake the practice of marriage, they would then try their skill upon the apostate priesthood, endeavoring to enforce them into a life of perpetual celibacy. The devils soon succeeded in getting laws enacted forbidding the Priests to marry. Nunneries were also built in which females were immured for life, and thus prevented from fulfilling the great and first command to multiply their species.

The next great object with the Devil was, to unite this apostate church and priesthood with the civil power; this he soon accomplished: he now found himself armed with double facilities. What he could not before fully accomplish with the ecclesiastical tribunals, he could now perform through the enactments of the civil powers. He had already succeeded in abolishing marriage among Priests and Nuns, and the next step was to forbid the plurality of wives—that divine institution which had, in all previous ages of the world, been so successful among holy Patriarchs, Prophets, and righteous men in greatly multiplying the people of God, and spreading them abroad like the sands of the seashore.

Could he persuade the ecclesiastical and civil powers to unitedly attack this holy institution, and utterly abolish it in church and State, it would greatly satiate his revengeful feelings; for he recollected well how much harm Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Gideon, Elkanah, David and numerous other old Polygamists had done to his kingdom. God had declared himself to be the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob and had promised to bless the children of their numerous wives and multiply them like the dust of the earth. And Christ too, the greatest enemy which the Devil had, was so well pleased with this divine institution that he chose to come into the world through the lineage of a long list of Jewish and Patriarchal Polygamists.

The Devil, therefore, thought to vent his spite at this holy order, and if possible entirely irradicate it from the earth. Through the influence of Apostate Christendom, several nations have actually been persuaded to assist the Devil in his malicious warfare against this divine system: they have actually passed laws prohibiting it in their midst. Thus that order of plurality by which the twelve tribes of Israel were founded, and from which the Messiah, according to the flesh, came; that order which multiplied the chosen seed as the stars of Heaven, and in which all nations should be blessed; that order by which the childless dead could have his name perpetuated to endless generations; that holy divine order has been overturned and abolished by human enactments and by human authority. Let Apostate Christendom blush at her sacriligious deeds! Let her be ashamed of her narrow contracted bigoted laws!

The Seer, January 1853, Volume 1 Number 5, Page 80, published by Orson Pratt, Apostle of the Church. Celestial Marriage
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Seer/ikM9AAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA80&printsec=frontcover

The laws enacted by the different States and Territories against the plurality of wives, we believe to be unconstitutional, growing out of the narrow-contracted bigoted customs of Apostate Christianity, nevertheless it is the duty of the saints so as they remain under such illiberal laws to strictly comply with them. But if they wish to enjoy the privileges granted by the word God, and by the glorious Constitution of our National Republic, let them depart from under the jurisdiction if these illiberal State laws, and go to Utah where religious liberty is tolerated, and where every people and sect have the right to worship please, and marry as many wives as they please, and be accountable to God and not to man…

Must we, under the broad folds of the American Constitution, be compelled to bow down to the narrow contracted notions of Apostate Christianity? Must we shut up our consciences in a nut shell, and be compelled to submit the bigoted notions, and whims, and customs of the dark ages of popery, transferred to us through the superstitions of our fathers? Must we be slaves to custom and render homage to the soul-destroying sickening influences of modern Christianity? No: American freedom was never instituted for such servile purposes.

The Seer, January 1853, Volume 1 Number 5, Page 111, published by Orson Pratt, Apostle of the Church. Celestial Marriage
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Seer/ikM9AAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA80&printsec=frontcover

Pratt portrays anti-polygamy laws as part of Satan’s plan to destroy a divine institution, celebrated by ancient prophets and even tied to Christ’s ancestry. He condemns Christian nations for aligning with this effort, framing polygamy as essential to God’s work.

Pratt further argues that legalizing polygamy would reduce prostitution and adultery! He claims that women would prefer to be lawful plural wives than unprotected mistresses, and that monogamy causes men to secretly cheat. He contends that polygamy would create a more moral society and demands that state laws change to reflect what he sees as a biblical and constitutional right.

What an immense amount of immorality, and consequent suffering would have been prevented, had the State governments not been influenced by the corrupt traditions of Apostate Christianaity in prohibiting plurality and denouncing it criminal! But this order of things would not only prevent females becoming public prostitutes, but would promote virtue among the males. Because of the vast numbers of unvirtuous females with which the nations cursed, many young men neglect marriage, and seek to gratify their sexual propensities by unlawful and sinful connections. If no public female prostitutes existed, or if they rarely could be found, the natural consequences would be, that young men, instead abandoning themselves to prostitution, would seek to unite themselves in honorable marriage with the partners of their choice. Plurality, therefore, not only would be a preventative against female prostitution, but would diminish causes or means of prostitution on part of the males. Young men abandon themselves to vice and immorality in proportion to the amount of temptation and evil influences with which they are surrounded. Diminish causes and the effects are diminished also: and if the cause be destroyed, the effect ceases.

Let our State laws permit plurality, and it will seldom be case that a female will yield to prostitution, prefering lawful marriage to life of degradation and suffering. The army of degraded females, receiving little or no accession to their numbers, would soon be diminished and eventually destroyed by their own folly and wickedness, and thus, the causes temptation having, in a great degree ceased, young men would walk in more healthy atmosphere, and not constantly allured as they are now, from the paths of virtue. Plurality would also diminish greatly the temptations which beset the paths of married men, as well as those who are young; they would no longer be under the temptation to keep a mistress secretly, and to break the marriage covenant, and thus sin against their wives and against God. How many thousands there are who practice this great abomination. And why do they do it? Because they are compelled by our bigoted State laws to confine themselves to one wife.

Had they the liberty which four-fifths of the other nations have, and which the Bible and our National Constitution guarantee, they could marry a plurality of wives, and be compelled to support them and their children, instead of having their secret mistresses and turning them away when they get tired of them. Which think you a woman would prefer? Would she rather live in adultery with a man, subject, at any moment to be turned away, pennyless and unprotected, or to be lawfully united with him in honorable wedlock? Would she not infinitely prefer the latter to the former?

If plurality existed, it would be very seldom that women would consent to be mistresses. Plurality, therefore, instead of injuring the morals of society, would have an effect directly the reverse; it would greatly purify society from the immoralities which now exist.

How long shall the State governments be cursed with such illiberal laws! When will the people awake to a consciousness of their duties and repeal those acts which have resulted in so much evil! When will they learn to be freemen according to the spirit of the Constitution and no longer fetter themselves with the chains of superstition handed down from the dark ages of Popery. Arise, Americans, arise! Break every yoke that tends to bondage! Assume the dignified position of American citizens! Maintain inviolate the choice liberties of your country—the liberties so dearly purchased by your illustrious ancestors! Let not the galling chains of priest craft bind the nation’s conscience! Let not the bigoted traditions and customs of Apostate religions influence your legislative departments! Let not the judgment and wisdom of your great statesmen be swayed from the important principles of liberty, so dear to every American heart! Let no laws be enacted denouncing as crime, that which reason, morality, and the word of God, approve, as a virtue! Let no laws prohibit you from the enjoyments, arising from domestic relations which are reasonable, moral, virtuous, pure, and good! If your fathers have been in bondage to Romish superstitions remember that you are free! Yes, free from religious intolerance! Free from all nations under Heaven! Free to enjoy all blessings, unmolested, which God has ordained for man unless you yourselves, prefer laws tending to bondage, rather than liberty!

The Seer, August 1853, Volume 1 Number 8, Page 124-125, published by Orson Pratt, Apostle of the Church. Celestial Marriage
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Seer/ikM9AAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA80&printsec=frontcover

Polygamy as a Tool for Control

Orson Pratt wasn’t speaking into a vacuum. His public defenses of polygamy came during the height of the LDS Church’s theocratic experiment in Utah Territory, where polygamy was not only encouraged but considered essential to exaltation. Women and girls were often married off to older men at the urging of church leaders, with consent muddied by religious pressure and fear of damnation. Historian Todd Compton, in In Sacred Loneliness, documents over 30 of Joseph Smith’s plural wives, many of whom were teenagers or already married to other men.

Despite Pratt’s utopian claims, polygamy in practice led to emotional neglect, jealousy, and inequality. Historian B. Carmon Hardy noted in Solemn Covenant that the system often created power imbalances and economic hardships for women, even while men consolidated spiritual and temporal power. Polygamy was not primarily about spiritual enlightenment—it was about patriarchal expansion and institutional dominance.

The “Moral Solution” Argument: Misogyny in Righteous Clothing

Pratt’s 1853 claim that polygamy would reduce prostitution and male infidelity is striking in its misogyny and logical flaws. It frames women as the cause of male misbehavior and suggests that if only men were allowed more wives, they’d stop being immoral. It also paints women’s sexual value as a moral resource to be preserved and protected through marriage, regardless of love, agency, or autonomy.

And let’s not miss the deeper claim here: Pratt argued that forcing men to “confine themselves to one wife” leads to adultery. This disturbing notion puts the blame for infidelity on the very institution of monogamy, ignoring personal accountability and erasing the humanity of the women involved.

Furthermore, Pratt’s praise of nations that “permit plurality” conveniently ignores the exploitative and patriarchal structures in which those plural systems often function. Claiming polygamy as a solution to exploitation, while supporting a system that commodifies women and uses religion to enforce submission, is nothing short of hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy on the Modern Stage: Same-Sex Marriage and Prop 8

Fast forward to the 21st century, and the LDS Church has taken the exact opposite position regarding marriage law. In 2008, the Church played a central role in supporting California’s Proposition 8, which sought to ban same-sex marriage. They encouraged members to donate time and money—millions of dollars in total—to deny consenting adults the right to marry.

In other words, the same institution that once screamed for religious liberty to practice marriage as they wished (polygamy) now campaigns to restrict the marriage rights of others. The hypocrisy is stark: when the state imposed monogamy, they decried “narrow, bigoted” laws; but once the state allowed more freedom in defining marriage, they fought to narrow it again—this time to their own liking.

It’s not about marriage. It’s about control.

A Modern Rejection of Pratt’s “Divine Order”

Many of us who have deconstructed Mormonism now recognize that the Church’s historical defense of polygamy was more about patriarchal power than divine principle. Today, the legacy of polygamy lives on—not just in fundamentalist offshoots, but in the Church’s ongoing discomfort with gender equality, sexual autonomy, and LGBTQ+ rights.

Orson Pratt’s grand rhetoric about “the Devil’s attack” on plural marriage reveals the deeper fear: that if people are free to love, marry, or think differently, the Church might lose control. And indeed, many of us who’ve walked away from Mormonism are living proof of that fear realized. We have rejected the idea that God’s love is tied to obedience, submission, and reproductive utility.

Instead, we embrace relationships built on consent, equality, and authenticity—not religious hierarchy.

Want to share your thoughts?

Comment below with your reactions to these quotes or ideas, and consider adding your own story and leaving behind polygamy, patriarchy, or control-based theology. Consider telling your full story of deconstructing Mormonism on wasmormon.org. Lift the veil, ask hard questions, and reclaim our voices.

• https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Seer/ikM9AAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover&bsq=bigot
• The LDS Church and The November Policy of Exclusion – POX 2015
• Reversing the November Policy
• November Policy of LGBT Exclusion, The Reversal, and Mormon Mental Gymnastics
• LDS Church On Same-Sex Marriages
• Mormons and Interracial Marriage
• Why Latter-day Saint Leaders Support the Respect for Marriage Act