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Brains science meets polygamy! Learning how monogamous marriage effects hormones (as opposed to polygamist marriage) is amazing! And it explains so much about our early LDS leaders. Brains science is yet another strong testimony of the truth of God.
Links
Testosterone vs Oxytocin
Marriage Lowers Testosterone
Marriage Lowers Testosterone
Testosterone Variation Among Kenyan Swahili Men
Testosterone and Social Status
Testosterone and Oxytocin
Heber C. Kimball quote 1: Journal of Discourses Volume 4, Page 209
Heber C. Kimball quote 2: Journal of Discourses Volume 5, Page 28-29
Heber C. Kimball quote 3: The Twenty Seventh Wife, Irving Wallace, p. 101
Heber C. Kimball quote 4: Apostle Heber C. Kimball, The Lion of the Lord, New York, 1969, pp.129-30
Heber C. Kimball quote 1: Journal of Discourses Volume 6, Page 256
Brigham Young quote 1: Journal of Discourses Volume 17, Pages 159-160
Brigham Young quote 1: Journal of Discourses Volume 5, Pages 210
Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to 132 Problems revisiting Mormon polygamy, where we explore the scriptural and theological case for plural marriage. For those who are new here, I always recommend listening to each of these podcasts, since each of them address different questions that likely you will have, and you’ll know what we have covered so far. This is episode. 26, where we will explore the brain science of marriage. This is all new information for me and has really been mind blowing. My name is Michelle Stone, and I’m excited to share this new information with you. Thank you for joining us as we take a deep dive into the murky waters of Mormon polygamy. I am so excited to get into the information in this episode today. And I have to say it has been like beyond astonishing for me what I have learned and discovered as I’ve been studying out these topics. I had planned to do an episode on, um, kind of the different perspectives and training of monogamist versus polygamist men. Um, I’ve thought about that a lot over the years, and then specifically doing these three episodes. on David, which I hope especially that people will listen to the 3rd 1 of those. It hasn’t gotten as many views and I feel like it’s really important information, so I feel bad that I put that information in the 3rd episode on David cause it kind of got hidden. So I hope you’ll take the time to listen to that one, but I, I just plan to talk about my experience and sort of I guess my theories that I have seen and come to in my own ponderings. But as I got into doing it, I learned that there is actually a large amount of scientific evidence, actual studies that have been done. That, um, of course they weren’t done comparing polygamist to monogamist men’s brain chemistry, but they provide the evidence to support and back up and like. Explain everything that I’ve been seeing and experiencing and um theorizing about. So it’s been just It’s been incredible what I have like fallen into. And um I do have to say I feel like with this whole with this whole podcast, because I have felt inspired to do it and I, um, I, I just with this one in particular, have to give credit where it’s due cause I often will have little thoughts or ideas come to mind. But in this episode in particular, I would just like have a thought come to mind and then search it out, study it out and find out that there’s a bunch of scientific literature. That I had no idea existed. And so it’s really, it’s really been amazing. And I hope that the information is as exciting and mind blowing to you as it has been for me. I also have to confess, I, um, I hope that this all goes well. I have been dealing with some health problems that I can’t quite get to the bottom of. And I’m having a rough day today. So if I stumble over words or, you know, please, I always say, please listen to what I mean and not what I say. I especially ask for your, um, patience today. If anything comes, is, is unclear, please ask questions in the comments to clarify or feel free to contact me privately. And also, um, if it’s OK to say, I would, anyone who, um, anyone who doesn’t, you know, isn’t in the camp of hoping that I’ll die. I would invite your prayers so I can figure out what is going on with my health, so I can
[00:03:43] continue to do all the things that I need to do to raise my family and also continue to, um, create the content I want to do. It’s been a little bit disconcerting and difficult to have these additional things to have to navigate and deal with. So, anyway, so we’re gonna do our best today and hopefully this episode comes together in a coherent manner, because I think the information is worthy of that. So I, I want to be able to show up to do a, do at least an adequate job. So, OK. So, years ago when I started thinking about David and studying him in earnest, I really started to develop kind of an idea of I guess for lack of a better word, I can call it um a monogamous discipline. Like I really think that I started to think that monogamous men intentionally discipline themselves in ways that were completely foreign to David and that led to very different outcomes. I talked a little bit about that in in um the episode on David, but I in the third episode on David, I think in particular, but I wanted to discuss that a little bit more. More here. And then that’s what we’re going to go into. So, um, now, now my husband has, you know, over the years warned me that like women should not speak about things that they do not understand, like, um, just different temptations and challenges that men face that are more particular to men. So I have done my best to do some homework. I’ve talked to my husband and my married sons and other men. That I have relationships where I could ask them these kind of personal questions. So I’m going to do my best to share what I think um is a true phenomenon, and then any of you men in particular can correct me or say if I have shared anything incorrectly. So my best way to explain this, the sense I get is that monogamous men who value their marriages and thus are truly monogamous and not um cheaters or adulterers, that they do intentionally train themselves in very specific monogamist habits that don’t happen in men who are non-monogamists. So for example, while um well it is likely that men will always notice an attractive woman. The reaction when that occurs is very different. Monogamous men’s reaction is very different than single men or polygamous men in any case. And I mean of any type, men who don’t believe in marriage or who don’t believe in monogamous marriage. So, um, the natural, for example, like the natural instincts a man might have of like the things that start going into his head, wondering. Am I in her league? Um, should, would, would she give me the time of day, you know, I’m, I, I, I’m looking around sizing up my potential, um, competition and then Going on to decide, should I approach her and if so, how should I approach her, etc. all of that that happens in the brain of a single man or a non-monogamous man. It might start happening in a monogamous man, especially one who hasn’t been married very long, and those are still
[00:06:43] somewhat habitual. He will intentionally Recognize that and tamp those down and change the brain chemistry that he is experiencing, right? Some men might with a sense of sort of comfortable satisfaction realize, oh, I don’t have to do that. Wow, you know, and that might just be a huge um flood of other brain chemicals other than the ones that would get him ready for that kind of competitive. Striving, um, other men might have a reaction of, oh, I can’t do that. Darn, OK. You know, which, which is OK. He’s still living the monogamist, um, he’s still doing the monogamist brain training, right? That monogamist mindset. And so over time, I think, um, it’s just, it’s just the different brain chemical chemistry that occurs when A man is either getting ready for the competition or the hunt, right? When he’s on the prowl, versus when he’s like, Oh, I’m not in the hunt. I’m not on the prowl. I’m not going there. It, it unleashes a completely different set of, of chemicals and hormones that make up brain chemistry. And I think that that’s what’s been amazing that I want to share. So over time, I think This becomes as men practice this, and I guess I can call it a discipline, right? As they retrain their brains in this monogamous way, I think it becomes more and more habitual and natural to them, so that a man who’s been married 40 years probably has a very different experience in the presence of an attractive woman than a man who’s only been married a few months, right? I think that They become a different kind of man over those years of monogamy. That’s, that’s kind of the theory that I had, and now as I have studied the brain science. I’m, I’m like, whoa, it’s true, it’s not just a theory, it’s true, at least in my, in my perspective, I will share the science with the understanding that I am not a PhD in neuroscience, right? Or in endocrinology, and so which is, which is most of this is about the hormones that I’m gonna be talking about today. So, but I want To explain what I have learned. I hope that the men listening to this will think that I’m at least in the ballpark of their experience, right? Please, and again, go ahead and share or correct, correct me, share your experience. I would, I would love to know how I’m doing. And so how, how I’m doing at describing this. But I do want to say that before we get into the brain science, I can’t help but compare the intentional discipline that monogamous men strive toward
[00:09:19] to say, David, right? And his massive sense of entitlement. That’s where I really started to think of this. David, every woman he saw was an option, right? He could pretty much have whoever he wanted whenever he wanted them, which is exactly what Nathan was telling him. In the misunderstood scripture where people say God gave you your wives, ah, as if God is condoning polygamy. No, that’s not what it’s saying, it’s saying. You can have anything you want, and still, it could never be enough because you couldn’t have another man’s life, right? And so, um, so I think if there’s just a completely different mindset that a man develops in monogamy. A monogamous man would not intention intentionally and lustfully watch a woman bathing. And if he did, he He certainly wouldn’t be proud of it. He wouldn’t call his buddies over or his servants and say, Hey, go get that woman and bring her to me for a one night stand, right? That is not a monogamous man’s mindset or training or what is considered acceptable. Um, and so I think that we should first recognize that the intentional restraint and disciplining of their Thoughts that that men, their their thoughts and desires and actions that men strive for in monogamy. And I know that, you know, we have so many difficulties in our society, and I, I rarely think that shame is, is very useful. I think that’s one of the adversaries tools. In fact, I, I’ve had some experiences to really teach me that actually the temptation and the sin. Or actually just a means to an end for the adversary cause where he really wants us is just bathed in shame and self-loathing and worthlessness, right? So I do not want to push any of those, any of those um mindsets. I do not think shame is where we should live. I do think it’s useful to recognize, however, that A monogamous man’s mindset is an important thing and worth striving for, right? I think that the more that we can overcome the temptations that that are in opposition to monogamy, the better off we are as individuals and as a society. So, um. OK, so let’s see where I wanted to get. After coming to these realizations, yeah, like, like I’ve already said, you can understand how amazing it has been to see that there are actual brain chemistry things that happen, hormone baths for the brain that do change the way that the brain goes. Um, I do want to say I am frustrated. That I couldn’t find any studies on women’s brains in um the, the chemistry that is there for particularly polygamist women versus monogamous women. And that is enough to make me like desperately want to get my PhD and do these studies myself as my dissertation so that we can have the information we need cause it really matters and it’s really important. So.
[00:12:15] Anyway, we’ll get there, we’ll get we’ll get there. I’m determined that those studies will be done and that we will pay as much attention to women as we do to men in science and in every other aspect and area. But since we have the information mostly about men, men, that’s what we’re going to focus on. And so, um, another thing that, that this has helped me understand is that there’s, I’ve noticed a very troubling Different attitude from how monogamous men versus polygamous men, I’m sorry, see I told you it wasn’t feeling great, how they treat. Women. And that has also, um, been very, it’s been very interesting to me. So that’s something else we’re gonna go into to compare the, the mindset and the actual brain chemistry of these, of these different kinds of men. So, OK. First, as we get into this, we need to talk a little bit about hormones and specifically testosterone, but also we’ll go into oxy oxytocin. I was gonna say oxy anyway, not the, not the opioid. But the actual um hormone, right? Oxytocin, and then we’re gonna talk a little bit about cortisol, but we’ll have to save most of that for another episode. So, um, OK, I know that this is not politically correct, but The fact is, hormones and biology are not politically correct and so I apologize if anybody is offended. If anyone will be triggered by these things, here’s the trigger warning so that you can decide whether or not you want to proceed if we’re going to talk about sex specific hormones and what they do. Um, it’s not my intention to upset anyone, but I do think it’s important to Acknowledge that we should not ignore truth just because it triggers us or is not or does not go along with our preferred theories. I think that we should instead make sure that our theories go along with truth and biology and fact, right? Not the opposite. So, OK, so we’re gonna talk about testosterone. It is the man’s hormone, right? It makes men men. Men have 20 times more testosterone than women. Just as women have far more estrogen than men have and testosterone and the androgens are what cause male puberty, lower voice, um, greater growth, greater bone density and muscle muscle mass, the development of fast twitch muscle fibers, um, facial hair, body odor on and on and on, right? It is the it is the man hormone. And um so a lot of people think, I think that the assumption that we were raised on is that testosterone is also responsible for male aggression, and there is some truth to that, but especially in humans that is far more complicated. Testosterone is not actually about aggression. Testosterone has way more to do with status and dominance than it does with aggression,
[00:15:12] and only in the societies or among animals where aggression is the means to gain status and dominance, does it result in aggression. So in humans, where we actually don’t live in a society where mainly where aggression is the main. Um, aggression really actually isn’t really rewarded in our society. Men who are exceptionally aggressive are usually in prison, right? But it does make men hyper focused on the dominance hierarchy or, um, as Jordan Peterson calls it, the, um, competence hierarchy, right? Makes men highly, highly focused on where they rank in the, the hierarchy, which I want to also just, um, Um, so, so one thing I want to be careful of is I think that there is so much man hating in our society that it can be easy to hear these things I’m saying as if I am being critical of them or demeaning men. Not at all. As I said in another episode, I am the mother of 7 sons. I think men are incredible and incredibly important, and we need to honor and respect and, um, just there we need to honor and respect men. There is no room for men demeaning in our society. So that please don’t hear any of this in that way. I just am talking about the actual fact, right? And I do not think that masculinity is toxic masculinity. I do not think, I think that toxic masculinity tends to be a rather toxic term, so I, so many things we have to clarify because the world is so fraught these days. But anyway, I think that it is good to recognize that testosterone turns life into a giant game of King of Bunker Hill, right? It makes men just like. Fixated, highly attuned to their place in the hierarchy, and it motivates them to want to climb as high as they can to achieve more status, power, respect, and then beat their chest and ward off any would be usurpers, right? So, so that’s kind of what testosterone’s role and function does. And in a lot of ways it makes sense because The location in the dominance hierarchy, your status for men determines to a larger extent whether or not they will be able to reproduce, right? It matters to men. Um, how successful they are and, and how successful they feel in terms of being able to find a spouse, to find a uh a mate, find a wife, right? So, so we can’t be critical of this. It needs to make sense. I mean, we need to understand it with, with openness and compassion and see the value of the way that God created men and women. And so, um, so let’s see. What I wanted to say. OK, so there, anyway, that’s the role of testosterone, right?
[00:18:04] Also, another thing is that testosterone is also thought of as, um, increasing sex drive. And while, so I want to clarify a couple of things, cause I think that men, well, we as a society, and maybe men tend to think testosterone good, lower testosterone bad, right? That is not true at all. What we want is optimal levels of testosterone. We want the in the proper balance so that it can serve its purpose without causing problems, right? So we’re looking for the optimal levels of testosterone, and that’s what we’re going to talk about. It’s not at all. Higher testosterone is better. That is not at all the case. Yes, there are, there can be problems when testosterone is too low, but those are medical problems which are for any men concerned about that. The best way to address that is through diet, healthy diet and exercise, right? So if you are at all concerned about testosterone levels, focus on overall health. That is what will bring hormones for both men and women into balance better than anything else. So, OK, so many things to have to navigate in this episode. So, um, what we want, uh, again, are optimized, optimal testosterone levels, enough to get the job done, but no more. So, OK. So, testosterone in regard to, um, sex drive, testosterone does tend to make men, well, OK, how can I, how can I put this in the best way? It makes men, um, want to pursue women indiscriminately, right? And as a statement of their status, because men who are very high status can have access to a wide range. Of women, right? But it does not make them devoted to those women. Does that make sense? So the, the testosterone-driven sex drive isn’t actually what we’re going for in healthy societies. OK, let me clarify now and break this down. Here is the crazy thing that I started to learn through studies, and I will attach. Um, and then show out some of the articles and some of the studies, it’s a way, yeah, like I’ve done way more study again, I’m not writing a research paper. I will attach some things and those who would like to study this out further, please feel free. It’s a fascinating rabbit hole to dive down. Here’s the thing. Married men have lower testosterone than single men. Marriage lowers testosterone in very healthy and very important ways. And the more we think about the more I’ve thought about this,
[00:20:40] the more sense it makes. So it’s, it’s amazing. It’s amazing to me. It is a very good thing that married men have lower testosterone. Here are a couple of quotes. Having having to Higher testosterone is not good for relationships. Lower testosterone and married men makes them less likely to have affairs. It makes them be physiologically, oh, let’s see. It makes the higher testosterone makes them physiologically remote from their wives and more likely to get divorced. Men with higher testosterone are more likely to be, did I say with higher testosterone, I hope so, are actually more likely to be physically abusive. So in this study of over 4000 men, the top 2% of testosterone levels among the men were, um, so the top 2% of men in the study in terms of testosterone levels, they were more than twice as likely to be abusive to their, to their spouses than the bottom 2% in the study, or, or their, their mate. So however, however it works. So, um, in general, here’s another quote. In general, men with higher levels of testosterone are lower in empathy, they’re less attendant fathers, and also, if you experimentally give people a testosterone versus a placebo, they’re often impaired at recognizing emotional displays in people’s faces. So, Testosterone makes men hyperfocused on achieving their place in the dominance hierarchy so that they can find a spouse. But once they find a spouse, that brain chemistry very importantly shifts can I say importantly, it shifts in important ways, and that is important because now men should ideally be motivated to do other things, right? Once they have Achieve their place in the dominance hierarchy and have been able to find a spouse. Now, what should be their focus is keeping that relationship solid and strong. And that’s why testosterone lowers once they’re married. However, there’s more to it. So, um, not only does testosterone lower, but oxytocin rises. So I think I might be getting ahead of myself, but, um, But I’m, I’m, I’m gonna come back to this, so we’ll have to jump around a little bit just cause I am so fuzzy brain today. Oxytocin for mother, most mothers know this, right? It’s the bonding hormone. Oxytocin is massively released for women during birth, and that is that it is a big explanation of those overwhelming feelings of love, like euphoric love that a mother feels for her newborn baby. Sorry. Deep breaths. OK, um, and it also amazingly is released every time a mother breastfeeds her baby. She is just oxytocin is the breastfeeding hormone as well. And so it is the bonding hormone, right? So men who are monogamously married, their testosterone lowers and their oxytocin rises. So they’re not no longer indiscriminately
[00:23:53] on the prowl and on the hunt for women in general. They are now bonded to their, their wife. The woman becomes more precious in their eyes. I’m sorry, I hate saying their woman. I don’t want to. I’m just saying the word woman, but it makes them dedicated to their particular wife, their spouse. That’s what oxytocin does. When a man becomes a father, especially if he, when he holds his newborn baby, and um I think In my experience, when he’s able to be present at birth, this is even more pronounced. His oxytocin rises again and his testosterone lowers again, and that enables men to, um, you know, these strong, powerful men to very carefully and delicately hold a newborn baby, and all of those feelings a new father feels when he holds his new baby, those feelings of overwhelming. Protectiveness and responsibility and love and you, you know, just that. I hope you fathers can relate to what I’m talking about just that flood of feelings that a new father feels, that’s oxytocin, right? That is oxytocin. Giving a man responsibility and love and bonding to this tiny little new infant, and also to his wife, who just went through the process of, of giving birth to create giving life and birth to this new infant, right? So oxytocin is what bonds a family together. So testosterone lowers and oxytocin rises as men become uh in monogamous men as they have families. So here’s the thing. Guess what? It doesn’t happen for men in polygamist cultures and societies and polygamous men, which also makes sense because in polygamous societies, men. Even after they’re married, still are on the prowl, still are on the hunt, and still are needing to be overly concerned with their place in the dominance hierarchy with their status. So while monogamous men are able to remove themselves from the hunt and let their let those other chemicals take place in their brain remembering, oh. I have a wife at home or I have a wife and baby at home, and I don’t need to engage here, right? They, they, they, they, um, go back away from the testosterone rush. Polygamous men have the exact opposite experience. And so, remember that, um, marriage lowers testosterone and raises oxytocin, which is the bonding hormone. And so that Makes men actually more faithful to their wife, right? Less attracted to other women, while testosterone makes men indiscriminately attracted to women, right? Because it’s not really the love of the woman, it’s the status hierarchy. It’s getting the women that raises his spot in the status hierarchy. OK. Hello polygamy, right? The more women a man has,
[00:27:02] the more wives he has, the higher he is in the eyes of the society and in the eyes of God, uh, in this mindset. And so it’s just fascinating and really when you think about it, I’ll, we’re gonna go on, on more and more, but what kind of man is better for society, right? And I just think, what kind of man really is created in the image of God? What kind of man do we think God is? Is he just concerned with his status and his dominance, right? Or is God loyal and faithful, right? Like, we can look and see that actually, according to brain chemistry, monogamy and polygamy create very different kinds of men. I’m just, I’m overwhelmed by this because the science actually backs up what I had, what I had already come to believe. So, um, so right, so a polygamist man, his wife might be having a baby, but he’s still on the prowl and hunting and needing to raise to be concerned with his status and his acquisition of new wives, right? Well, a monogamous man, he with his Optimally higher oxytocin and lower testosterone. He is faithful and concerned about the well-being of his one wife and and and their children. So, um, let’s see, it’s it’s incredible, it’s incredible brain chemistry. I wanted to draw some parallels that were profound to me and thinking about it in this way, I really um Captain Morons, the title title of liberty came to mind and actually when I was just talking to my son about that, he brought up the same thing. So I was like, OK, yes, it’s not just me thinking about these things. It really becomes the title of liberty takes on a whole new dimension of meaning and it really becomes like A monogamous man’s mantra, like his emblem, right? And, um, and it came to pass that he read his coat and took a piece thereof and wrote upon it in memory of our God, our religion and freedom and our peace, and our wives and our children. And he fastened it on the end of a pole. It hits so strongly because a monogamous man’s mission statement, it’s his emblem of loyalty, committed, selflessness, um. A monogamist family man will will just instinctively lay down his lay down his life to protect his family and his community, right? That’s what oxytocin does. Um, that’s whereas as a man higher in testosterone has less dedicated loyalty to his wife and instead is wanting to dominate and acquire more wives. We’re gonna compare the ethic of The monogamist Book of Mormon to
[00:29:50] the polygamist Old Testament, right? The, the war ethic. I think it’s a stunning comparison. And maybe you will think I’m overstating this. That’s fine. I, these are new ideas that I am proposing that I think are worthy of exploration and investigation because It’s, it’s just shocking the comparison here, understanding the brain chemistry happening in the in the minds of these men in in these different cultures. So one huge difference between the Book of Mormon and the Old Testament is that the Book of Mormon has a very clear ethic of moral warfare, right? I’ll um read just a few of the verses where this is found, but it’s, it’s found. Pretty consistently throughout the Book of Mormon, so Alma 48:14 says they were taught never to give an offense, yeah, and never to raise the sword, except it were against an enemy, except it were to preserve their lives. Alma 4346 to 47, for the Lord had said unto them and also unto their fathers that inasmuch as ye are not guilty of the first offense, neither the second. You shall not suffer yourself to be slain by the hands of your enemies. And again, the Lord has said that ye shall defend your families even unto bloodshed. Therefore, for this cause were the Nephites contending with the Lamanites to defend themselves and their families and their lands, their countries and their rights and their religion. It’s found in in several other places as well, so. I find this so interesting that the, the ethic of moral warfare was so strong that the writers of the Book of Mormon felt it was necessary to justify and defend even these defensive wars. They were, they were like, look, this is why we’re fighting. It is purely defensive. We are a moral people, right? The Book of Mormon. Um, the, the Nephites and the writers of the Book of Mormon who were monogamists felt it was very important to not engage in warfare unless absolutely necessary to protect their loved ones. That is an oxytocin-driven society, right? Does that make So comparing that to the Old Testament, so in the Book of Mormon, monogamous men, higher in oxytocin, lower in testosterone, right? The Old Testament, polygamous societies, higher in testosterone, not higher in oxytocin. And if we compare the way the wars were fought and justified, um, this, this is what we just read about the Book of Mormon, and then we compare that. Where the men only fought to protect and preserve their families and freedom to the extremely aggressive and even genocidal war ethic of the Old Testament, right? In the Old Testament. Wars were fought to out out of conquest to conquer lands. Entire communities were butchered except for the young girls who were preserved alive, who were preserved alive from the complete slaughter and taken, in other words, kidnapped and raped because they were taken to be polygamist wives for the soldiers well. We’ll get into this a little bit more in later episodes, um, especially when we discuss some of the writings of some of the foremost polygamy scholars and the way that they look at these stories.
[00:33:02] Um, anyway, That is a dramatic difference where we can compare potentially testosterone versus oxytocin driven societies, which is the difference between polygamist versus monogamist societies. I, I just think It’s amazing the the difference between their cultures and and the warriors, the soldiers, and thus the warfare is profound. So I wanna make I wanna make one draw one more distinction, one through example, right? Like the description of Moroni, Captain Moroni is a perfect example. It is worthwhile to compare the monogamist Moronai to the polygamist David, right? Both of them get high praise in their respective books, so. Um, here’s what it says in Alma 48 about, um, Moroni, starting in verse 11, and Moona was a strong and a mighty man. He was a man of perfect understanding, yeah, a man that did not delight in bloodshed, a man whose soul to joy and the liberty and the freedom of his country and his brethren. And his brethren from bondage and slavery, yeah, a man whose heart did swell with thanksgiving to his God for the many privileges and blessings which he bestowed upon his people, a man who did labor exceedingly for the welfare and society of his people. Yeah, and he was a man. Who was firm in the faith of Christ, and he had sworn sworn with an oath to defend his people, his rights, and his country and his religion, even to the loss of his blood. Now the neat fights were taught to defend themselves against their enemies, even to the shedding of blood if it were necessary, which I just read. Yeah, and they were also taught never to give an offense, yeah, and to never raise the sword, except it were um against an enemy, except it were to preserve their lives, and this was their faith that by so doing God would prosper them in the land, or in other words, if they were faithful in keeping the commandments of God that they that he would prosper them in their land, ya warned them to flee or to prepare. For war according to their danger, and also that God would make it known unto them whether they should go to defend themselves against their enemies. And by so doing, the Lord would deliver them, and this was the faith of Moona, and his heart did glory in it, not in the shedding of blood, but in doing good, in preserving his people, yeah, in keeping the commandments of God. Yeah, and resisting iniquity, yeah, verily, verily I say unto you, if all men had been and were and ever would be like unto Maroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever. Yeah, the devil would never have power over the hearts of the children of men. And it goes on and on from there. I already read quite a bit. I just found myself stunned and amazed that our very own Book of Mormon says these things about the monogamist Moroni, who was an oxytocin-driven man. Right? And instead our early leaders ignored that and use the example of David. It it says that if every man were like Moroni, the kingdom of of the devil would be shaken and never have any power,
[00:36:12] and yet they ignored. That Marron was a monogamist, right? And they, and, and these people said we know that if we keep the commandments of God, we will be preserved in the land. And instead, our early leaders turned the commandments of God into polygamy and said that’s what we needed to keep. It’s just amazing and stunning to me when I consider the difference between Maroni and David, which kind of man. Would we want at the top of our status hierarchies, right? Which kind of man would we want to be led by in our societies? Like, really think about that and consider. Do we want if I hope if you haven’t already listened to the episodes on David, before you answer that question, maybe listen to those episodes, particularly the third one. I think it’s really, really important to consider. After the much study I have done, I would take Mro I over David every single time. I think all of us would. So, um, I think it’s really important, really amazing to consider. So, um, there was something else I was gonna say about oxytocin and I need to remember what it was, but, um, I guess I’ll have to come back to it cause I’m not remembering. So I don’t want to take, um, too much time on this, but I think it is important. To at least consider how these hormonal impacts might have been demonstrated from our early, early polygamist leaders in our, in our church. Um, Uh I think we can find it most clearly in their statements, reading through the Journal of Discourses. Understanding this has really opened my mind to go, oh my gosh, that’s what was going on. That’s how I can understand this. These men’s brains were actually different, being formed different because they were bathed in different hormones and and that affected so much about them. So. Um, you know, the oxytocin that makes men, oh, that’s what I was gonna say about oxytocin. Sorry, let me back up a little bit. As you research for those who do, as I have researched oxytocin, there are some warnings people give about it because it leads to xenophobia and in-group, um, you know, in, in group like the things that we consider to be bad nowadays, but actually I I think that those are crazy things to think about in so many ways cause they are the bonding hormones and we have to bond with our community, right? So that’s what I was going to say about Captain Rona. You can hear. How faithful and devoted he is to his family, to his wife and his children, and also to his community, right? And we can see that as a bad thing, but I think that when we choose to do that, we are really missing some important things in biology and in brain chemistry. And I think we ought to find other ways to approach it rather than to just say it’s bad.
[00:39:06] Because loyalty to our group. Which starts with our family is not something we want to get rid of lightly, right? Like I know that in Maoist China, one of the things they said was this is a little bit of a sidetrack, but I hope you get the, the brain connection I’m making, you know, they, they forced the mothers to go out and labor in the fields while they forced all of the infants into the state welfare system and they said that they were liberating women from the bondage of their children, right? Like, That’s not what we want in society. We want those bonds to be strong. We want women bathed in oxytocin so they love their children, and we want men bathed in oxytocin so they love their wives and their children, right? That is what forms good functioning strong societies. We also want to, to go beyond that to teach a more universal amount of love and understanding and compassion and openness to different ideas and different societies. And different experiences, right? So I don’t think that we should ever view oxytocin as the enemy. Maybe we should, um, see insular communities and insular thinking as not a positive, but it’s not oxytocin that’s the problem. So that’s what I wanted to, that’s why I wanted to explain a little further how Captain Rona is just like that’s an, that’s the everything it says about him is like a monogamist man on display whose brain has been bathed in oxytocin. And who is well bonded to his wife, to his children, and to his community. That is exactly what we want, and that comes only through monogamy because polygamy does not result in the same chemical changes, the same hormones released in a man’s brain. I, I’m just blown away by that. It’s so important. So now, now going back to statements of early church leaders, I’m reading different ones that I read in the last episode. I just want to talk about, so remember, Oxytocin motivates a man to value his wife. It increases his empathy. It even increases his ability to read facial expressions, his focus on faces, right? All of those things are increased in monogamous men, not in polygamist men, right? And so, so, um, polygamist men, because of the still elevated testosterone are more More interested in the acquisition of, um, more wives because of what that means about their spot in the status, their status in the hierarchy. So here we go. This is, here are a few quotes. I’m just gonna read a few quotes. There were so many, but I just didn’t want to get that into them. So I just chose a couple. Here are some particularly from Hebrewy Kimball. He says, Suppose that I have a wife or a dozen of them. Um, and, and she should say, you cannot be exalted without me. So it’s the wife trying to assert some power in this relationship,
[00:42:05] right? You need me for your exaltation, so you should listen to what I say. Well, here’s his answer to that. And suppose they should all say that. What of that? They will never affect my salvation, one particle. So he’s like, Nope, I don’t need them at all. They have no power in this relationship. Whose salvation will they affect their own. They have got to live their religion, which he means polygamy, serve their God, which he means obey me because in that, in that even in the temple before it was changed in the 90s. Women’s way to salvation was through obedience to to their husband, like, without even any caveats, right? Men served as God to the women, so obedience to God for women meant obedience to their husband. Anyway, let’s continue. They’ve got to live their religion, serve their God and do right as well as myself. Suppose that I lose the whole of them before I go into the spirit world, but that I have been a good faithful man all the days of my life and lived my religion. I do have to wonder how a good faithful man who lives his religion as Jesus taught it, would have no women that wanted to be married to him, right? That, um. Uh, anyway, and I, if I lived my religion and had a favor with God and was kind to them, do you think I would be destitute there? No. The Lord says there are more there than there are here. In the spirit world, there is an increase of males and females. There are millions of them. And if I am faithful all the time and continue right along with Brother Brigham, we will go to Brother Joseph and say, Here we are, Brother Joseph. Here we are, here we are here ourselves, and are we not? Um, with none of the property we possessed in our probationary state, not even the rings on our fingers. He will say to us, come along, my boys. We will give you a good suit of clothes. Where are your wives? They are back yonder. They would not follow us. Never mind, says Joseph. Here are thousands, have all you want. So that’s from the Journal of Discourses for 209. Um, so, right, does it sound like they are being trained to value and empathize with their one wife and value her, or does it sound they’re more just indiscriminately focused on the acquisition of women as a symbol of status, right, rather than as an actual pair bonding, which requires oxytocin. So, um, here are a few more quotes. This is still Hebrewy Kimball. What sustain a woman, a wife in preference to sustaining the prophet Joseph, brother Brigham, and his brethren. Your religion is vain when you take that course. Well, my wife may say, if you sustain Brigham in preference to me, I will leave you. I should reply, leave and be damned. And that very quickly. That is part of my religion. Leave quick leave quickly,
[00:44:49] you poor snoop. Right? This is how, um, these men treated and talked about and valued their wives. And when you have to consider, so you can say, well, the women were wanting to disobey the prophet. Um, I’m just gonna read a quote here from Brigham Young, that kind of gives us more information about what it means to disobey the prophet. Um, let’s see, where is it? Sorry, I lost my place. OK. The man whom God calls to dictate affairs to dictate affairs in the building of his Zion has the right to dictate about everything connected connected with the building up of Zion. Yes, even to the ribbons the women wear, and any person who denies it is ignorant. So it’s not about disobeying the prophet, it’s about not being controlled in every single aspect of your life in every single way, even including As my great great grandmother, whose 17 year old daughter was given away to 40-year-old strangers to go off to who knows where to have who knows what become of her. And if that woman woman objected, she would be guilty of this, right? It was a way of making women utterly and completely powerless because they were not valued and they were not seen as people. They were seen through this testosterone heavy lens as acquisitions to be gained to increase a man’s dominance. So, um, I have just a couple more quotes. Um, so I’m gonna read these, there are two quotes for that are attributed to Hebrews see Kimel that some see as not fully reliable because they’re not included in the Journal of Discourses, but it’s important to recognize that. The the Journal of Discourses is in no way comprehensive, right? You can look through the dates and see that there were some things included in it, but many, many, many things weren’t, and these are actually from reputable and reliable sources, and these quotes are substantiated in other in other places as well. So I happen to think that they are um credible, but I wanna clarify that they are not in the Journal of Discourses, so. Um, Hebrewy Kimball is quoted as saying, I think no more of taking another wife than I do of buying a cow. That is in. On page 101 of the twenty-seventh Wife by Irving Wallace, but there are additional reports in other places that Hebrewy Kimball, um, frequently referred to his wife as his heifers. So it’s not out of character for him. Another one, he said, Brethren, I want, well, let’s see, I’ll read the Journal of Discourse is one first so you can see, well, I don’t know which one. I’ll read this one first, that is from Hebrews the Kimball, the lion of the Lord. Um, pages 129 through 130. It says, brethren, I want you to understand that it is not to be as it has been heretofore. The brethren missionaries have been in the habit of picking out the prettiest women for themselves before they get here and bringing on the ugly ones for us. Hereafter, you’ve got to bring them all here before taking any
[00:47:49] of them and let us have a fair shake. That was Hebrew C. Kimball. And so while some may argue that that’s not in the Journal of Discourses, this, this is what is in the Journal of Discourses to the departing missionaries. You are sent out as shepherds to gather the sheep together, and remember that they are not your sheep. They belong to him that sends you. Then do not make a choice of any of those sheep. Do not make selections before they are brought home and put into the fold. You understand that. Amen. So that is in Journal of Discourse’s 6 page 256. I, I again will attach the links here are just a couple from Brigham Young. You sisters say that there are, there are so many from Brigham Young, I just chose to because I didn’t want to read through many of them. You sisters may say that plural marriage is very hard for you to bear. It is no such thing. If it is the duty of a husband to take a wife, take her, but it is not the privilege of a woman to dictate the husband and tell who or how many he shall take or what he shall do with them when he gets them. But it is the duty of a of the woman to submit cheerfully, says she, my husband, his He does not know how to conduct himself. He lacks wisdom. He does not know how to treat two wives and be just. So this is women complaining to Brigham Young about the injustice, the unjust treatment of their husbands. He says that may all be true, but it is not her prerogative to correct the evil. She must bear that. And the woman that bears wrong, as any number of women do in this order, she who bears wrong patiently will be crowned with a man far above her husband. And the man that is not worthy, who does not prove himself worthy before God, his wife or wives will be taken from him and given to another, so the women need not worry. Doesn’t matter what happens to you in this life, cause you could be my wife, my, my wife in the next life, right? Like it’s all about status. The higher a man is, the women will be given to him. So women don’t worry if you’re experiencing horrible injustice and abuse in this life, you’ll have a higher priesthood authority in the next life. You’ll be taken away and given away. Um, So here’s another statement. Just I, I, I picked the statements that were kind of talking about women as status, the acquisition of women rather than the actual love of a woman, right? So, um, I, I mentioned this one before. This is from Journal of Discourses, volume 5, page 210. Um, do you think that I, this is Brigham Young. Do you think that I am an old man? I could prove to this congregation that I am young, for I could find more girls who would choose me for a husband than can any of the young men. So, Again and again it becomes so clear that reading the Journal of Discourses, it really is like a master class in male dominance hierarchies and status acquisition. That is like, it just, it’s just like dripping with that. That is the approach. It it just understanding the testosterone dominated brain. Of men that leads to the desire for acquisition and status in dominance hierarchies made this all of a sudden take on a whole new dimension for me. So, um, in our own polygamist past, there was way too much testosterone and far, far little too far, far too little oxytocin.
[00:51:06] In the brains of our leaders. I hope these quotes weren’t too difficult and triggering. I just felt, felt like it was important to actually demonstrate what we’re talking about. I, I, I think the thing that has been the most just incredible and amazing to me is, is learning that our actual brain chemistry is another powerful evidence for the truth of monogamy and the falsehood of polygamy. We can add it to things like the birth rate. Right? That’s a pretty clear indication in the in the like actual creation, the actual status of creation to prove the truth of monogamy and not polygamy. And then also, oh, child development, as we talked about in one of our episodes, the human developmental process and how essential interaction with fathers is in that process is another huge testimony of monogamy and the false. of polygamy. And now brain chemistry, we can add that to the list and talk about how that also all things testify of Christ, all things in creation testify of truth. All things testify of the truthfulness of monogamy. Now there are, there are so many other scientific things I learned as I fell down this, this rabbit hole. And so that I’m going to have to save some of them for another episode. So we will have future episodes on. Science and the science, now I’ll call it of monogamy, that proves that human beings are meant to be monogamist, and they only differ from that when things go quite wrong. So we’re gonna leave it there today. Um, I hope that I spoke clearly. I hope that this episode was enlightening and exciting to you as it was to me, and I will see you next time. Thank you for being here for 132 problems.
