The Latter-day Liberator

Tag: Eliza Roxcy Snow

What Mormon Women Had To Say About Polygamy- Part 3

Posted on by William H. Douglas

This is the final part in this series where I have been comparing the actual words from women who lived in plural marriages with the claims that anti-Mormons make about what is was like for Latter-day Saint women. Unsurprisingly they do not match up. Latter-day Saint women found polygamy to be a liberating experience and say government efforts to eliminate polygamy as tyrannical and oppressive. They called the government out on the hypocrisy of claiming polygamy was oppressive whilst using state power to actually engage in oppressing women who wanted to engage in polygamy.

In the addresses reprinted herein they also discuss how polygamy helps to limit and eliminate serious social ills such as adultery, prostitution, elective abortion, and sexual immorality.

We also get an interpretation of the Twelfth Article of Faith that contradicts how most members today understand it but which the speaker learned directly from the Prophet Joseph Smith.

Finally these women saw that as the government increasingly legislated morality it wouldn’t only cause a massive loss of liberty but it would lead to social chaos, predicting the situation we find ourselves in now. They even endorse what today we would recognize as nullification.

These women were incredible and they deserve your time. You will be enlightened.

What Mormon Women Had To Say About Polygamy- Part 2

Posted on by William H. Douglas

I pick up here right where I left off in Part 1 – in the middle of the Great Indignation Meeting. Threatened by new anti-Mormon legislation aimed at destroying polygamy and annihilating the church, the women of the church have come together in a mass meeting. In it they defend polygamy as one of the greatest revelations God had given, demand that the United States government honor and recognize their rights to believe and live how they choose, declare that polygamy and the doctrines of the church have helped them to have greater rights than any other place in the United States, proclaim their status as mutual helpmeets and workers with men, and denounce efforts to attack the church and end plural marriage as being inspired by Satan himself. When you listen to them it becomes clear that they were not oppressed or abused, rather these were powerful, intelligent, and empowered women who were acting to protect one of the most important factors in their independence, the Latter-day Saint practice of plural marriage. Their experiences, their voices, their truths counter anti-Mormon lies and show us why we shouldn’t be ashamed of our past practice of plural marriage. Instead of listening to the ignorant and liars, read the words of the women themselves who lived it. You might be surprised.

Eliza R. Snow Explains The Purpose and Power of The Relief Society

Posted on by William H. Douglas

The Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is one of the largest female organizations on the planet which is composed solely of women. It was established by revelation and given power and authority by His prophets to be one of the most powerful engines for doing good that the Earth has ever encountered. But I find that many members, men and women, don’t think of Relief Society as being anything other than that thing the women do on some Sundays. In this article we look at the teachings of Eliza R. Snow, founding member and record keeper of the Nauvoo Female Relief Society, the one who re-founded it in Utah, and second President of the Relief Society as she explains the organization of the Relief Society, its purpose, and the power it has to accomplish God’s work upon the Earth.