39: The Law of Sarah | 132 Problems: Revisiting Mormon Polygamy

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Likely the most obscure, mysterious, and least known “laws” of the restored gospel, the Law of Sarah (D&C 132:65) features prominently in polygamist doctrine. We are taking a deep dive to try to understand what this law might mean, how it has been interpreted, and how it has been applied.

Warren Jeffs Law of Sarah Link (Transcript in pinned comment)

Links

The Seer Volume 1, Number 3, page 41

Reed Smoot Case, Volume 1, page 201

Anti-Polygamy Standard, April 1, 1882, Page 3

98: How Does Anne Justify Concubines & Law of Sarah?

Emily P. Young diary and reminiscences

Divorce among Mormon Polygamists

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to 132 Problems revisiting Mormon polygamy, where we explore the scriptural and theological case for plural marriage. I’m glad you’re here. If you haven’t already done so, please listen to these episodes in order starting from the beginning and continuing on from there. My name is Michelle Stone, and this is episode 39, where we’ll do our best to try to explore and investigate and understand one of the most mysterious parts of Section 132, namely the law of Sarah. Thank you for joining us as we take a deep dive into the murky waters of Mormon polygamy. The law of Sarah. I think I’m safe to say that the vast majority of the members of the church have never even heard of it. It is a very obscure and mysterious law that is only mentioned in one verse of scripture, and I cannot find that it is anywhere else. I have looked. I can’t find it in any church manuals or lessons. I can’t, haven’t, I haven’t found it spoken of in any general conference. And so we have a law that apparently None of us even know exists, right? Isn’t that interesting? So that’s what we’re going to talk about today. I think it would be good for us to take a closer look. So first of all, I’m going to read the one verse of scripture where this is found. It’s section 132, verse 65, and It is embedded in a rather troubling section of verses. This whole little part it comes from, where we find it, I find extremely problematic. So just going to read this one verse right now, and then later on when we try to parse out what it means, we’ll get in and read it in context and look more deeply. So here’s the one verse, verse 65. Therefore, it shall be lawful in me if she received not this law, for him to receive all things whatsoever I, the Lord his God, will unto him, because she did not believe and administer unto him according to my word. And she then becomes the transgressor, and he is exempt from the law of Sarah, who administered unto Abraham according to the law when I commanded Abraham to take Hagar to wife. OK, so we’re just going to ignore all of the very problematic things in that for now as we try to just focus in on the law of Sarah and see what we can learn about that or what it might mean. To try to understand it better, at least, so first of all. This is a new named law and a law named after a person, right? That’s a really big deal. I have I tried and tried to think of any law named after a person other than the law of Moses. I mean, of course we have the law of God and the law of the Lord and Um, the law of Christ, but the law of Moses is the only example I could think of of a law given in somebody’s name or a series of laws. And so I thought I’d better look and see if this occurs in any other place. And so, um, I went and I looked through all of the scriptures, and I will tell you all the laws that I found. First, I think we should start with the Old Testament because if we have a law, the law of Sarah, I think we should know what it is, so we can Understand and try to live it, right? That sounds important. So there’s a very long list of named laws in the Old Testament and um so I just looked up, I searched for law, law of. I searched various words and people’s names, and this is the list I came up with. Of course,

[00:03:38] feel free to add anything I may have missed, but there is the ones we’re familiar with the law of God, the law of the Lord of hosts, the law of Moses, and the law of tithing. Then also there’s the law of the burnt offering, the law of the meat offering, the law of the sin offering. A lot of them have to do with offerings, the law of the trespass offering, the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings, um, the, the law of the beasts and of the fowls and of every living creature, um. Creatures in the earth and in the sea, the law of the plague of leprosy, and that continues for a couple of chapters there it has different words, the law of the leper. It comes in various forms. And then the law of him that hath an issue. And there are also requirements of cleansing requirements for women, as we’ve spoken about in other episodes after giving birth or after having a period, and this is But that one doesn’t have a name, just the one about the man does. And then there’s the law of the jealousies, which I think is worth we’re going to look at just a little bit more closely in a second. And then the last one I could find is the law of the Nazarite, which that sounds kind of like Nazarene, but it means a very different thing. It’s referring to something other than being from Nazareth, so it’s a different, different thing. So that was a pretty long list, but there’s no law of Sarah and I find that interesting because 132 and all of polygamy claims the Old Testament as its justification, right? We are restoring everything that was in the Old Testament, but I have this long list of actual laws, and none of them were were rest. right? We have a whole bunch of stuff that wasn’t restored, and yet we’re claiming that we are restoring the law of Sarah, but it’s not to be found anywhere in the Old Testament. So that’s kind of confusing and problematic. Wouldn’t you think it would appear somewhere in the Old Testament if it was an Old Testament law that needed to be restored? And then also something that I find interesting is that um reading as we did the Law of Sarah, it’s just really confusing and not at all explained or defined, at least not well at all, and all of these laws that are given in the Old Testament. They all have very clear explanations and instructions included with them. We are made to know exactly what they are and what we’re supposed to do about them if we were still living those laws. And so um. Um, I think that I’m going to use just this one as an example, the law of jealousies, because we’re talking about restoring Old Testament law, right? We claimed that polygamy was an Old Testament law, so it needed to be restored, and yet we didn’t restore any of these other Old Testament laws, and I want to use the law of jealousies. As an example of why maybe it’s a good thing that we aren’t restoring all Old Testament laws. Um, so the law of the jealousies, it’s found in Numbers chapter 5, verses 12 through 31, and I’m just going to read a little bit of it. You can read the whole thing. I’m trying to cut it down just a little. There are some redundancies. So This is, well, I’ll just start reading it and then explain if we need to, and, and the spirit of jealousy, OK,

[00:06:45] so this is about either women who are unfaithful to their husbands or just a man who feels jealous and wonders if maybe his wife is unfaithful to him. So, and if the spirit of jealousy come upon him and he’d be jealous of his wife and she’d be defiled, or the spirit of jealousy come upon him and he’d be jealous jealous of his wife and she’d be not defiled, so it’s in either case it does, it’s not her innocent or guilt that matters. It’s just his jealousy that matters, and the priest shall have in his hand the bitter water that causes the curse. And the priest, first he gets some dirt from the floor, mixes some water and puts it on her, and then he has this poison, basically bitter water that causes the curse. And the priest shall charge her by an oath and say unto the woman, if no man hath lain with thee, and if, if thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness with another instead of thy husband, be thou free from this bitter water that causeth the curse. But if thou hast gone aside to another instead of thy husband, and if thou be defiled and some have lain with thee beside thy husband, then the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of cursing, and the priest shall say unto the woman. The Lord make thee rot and an oath among thy and an oath among thy people when the Lord doth make thee to rot and thy belly to thy thy to rot and thy belly to swell. And so it’s saying you have to drink this poison, and if you’re innocent, it will not affect you if you’re guilty, it will affect you. And this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels and shall make thy belly to swell, and thy thought thy to rot, and the woman shall say amen, amen, skipping down a little, and he shall cause the woman to drink the bitter water that causeth the curse, and the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her and become bitter. And when so she’s going to get sick, right, cause she’s drinking poison. And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass that if she be defiled and hath hath done trespass against her husband, that the water shall causeth the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her and become bitter, and her belly shall swell and her thigh shall rot, and the woman shall be a curse among the people. And if the woman be not defiled but be clean, then shall she be free and shall conceive seed. This is the law of the jealousies when the wife. With a side to another instead of her husband and is defiled, or when the spirit of jealousy cometh upon him and he be jealous over his wife and shall set the woman before the Lord and the priest shall execute this law up upon her, this law, then shall the man be guiltless from iniquity, and this woman shall bear her iniquity. So I skipped some of that because there were more instructions. It just gets a little bit long. So isn’t this interesting? So a man who happens to be particularly jealous could put his wife through this. We don’t know how many times. And it’s hard for me to see a difference from between this and The witch trials of the mid of, you know, medieval Europe, like if she’s a witch, she’ll drown. If she’s not a witch, oh wait, no, if she’s a witch, she’ll float. If she’s not a witch, she won’t float, in which case she’ll drown. And right, like if the poison makes you sick, that’s how we know that you have committed adultery. And the other thing I find interesting here is you’ll note the massive, massive imbalance in that a man, if he’s even

[00:10:09] Just jealous can put his wife through this. But a woman nowhere has any expectation of fidelity from her husband. I haven’t, again, correct me, please, if I’m wrong. I’m hoping that throughout this discussion, there will be a, a lot of good commentary and discussion in the comments because I can’t possibly get everything right. So I really appreciate it when people fill in things I may have missed. But I can’t find any laws of adultery about men, specifically, at least I haven’t found them yet. The only way a man really commits adultery is by Sleeping with another man’s wife, right? So, so he has this huge expectation of ownership and fidelity from his wife. She is not allowed to be unfaithful to him, but she doesn’t have the same expectation of fidelity from him in this Old Testament law. She can’t say, hey, I think my husband is fooling around. Is there something I can do about that? It doesn’t exist, right? It’s only, she only has, well, I guess she doesn’t even have a claim in. Any case, only another man can have a claim if he is interfering with her with his wife. And so I, uh, like, let’s just think about this in terms of Old Testament law, and I know that was for their time and what they were doing. That’s fine. We don’t need to necessarily judge it. Well, I don’t know, we judge the medieval witch trials, right? So maybe we could look at it the same way, but the bigger question is, should We think these are things that should be restored. Is this how we want our society to be? So that’s just an example you can see though, the point I was making was how well these laws are explained. Like I said, there were a lot more details given that I left out. So when a law is given, whether, whether we like the law or not, it is very clearly laid out how it should be applied, what it means, and and all of those parts of it. So again, That’s, that’s one example. So, um, OK, now, OK, so that’s the Old Testament, and I hope that that all came across pretty clear cause to me that should be enough to say this is weird, but um then we can look at the New Testament, right? Cause we can see again if there are specifically named laws that we need to know about that we’re ignoring or what the precedent is for this. And so um the Old Tes I mean the New Testament speaks of the law of Moses and the law, the law of the Lord again. And it also refers in other ways to Old Testament laws. It calls them the law of the fathers, the law of the Jews, and the law of the prophets, and also the law of commandments or the law of carnal commandments, and it speaks about those to say that they have been fulfilled and they are no longer in um application the same way, right? Which I think is a good thing.

[00:12:58] So that means the law of jealousy that could be thrown out, right? And So that’s how it speaks of those laws, but then it does introduce new law. It, um, Christ Christ’s statement that he fulfills the law when he says that, and we get then a new series of laws which are referred to as the law of the spirit, the law of righteousness, the law of liberty, and the law of Christ. And um, so instead of having individual Individual laws of what we have to do for every single little rule. It has this big overarching law that’s the new law of Christ, and it’s built on faith, humility, repentance, and the entire book is dedicated to extolling that law, to helping us understand what it means and how it works and how it applies, right? And so, Sorry, my voice is doing something weird. So, um, and, and it’s basically like Jesus summed up the entire book of law to say, right, it is about love. It is about loving your God and loving one another, loving your fellow man, and that’s what he says, Love one another as I have loved you. So Jesus. brings kind of the summation of all of those separate points of law and brings them into one law, and that’s what we have in the law of Christ and that’s what the entire New Testament is dedicated to. So that’s, I couldn’t find any other specific laws in the New Testament. There certainly isn’t a law of Sarah type of Energy or principle in the New Testament. So, um, then we have the Book of Mormon, right? Let’s look at the Book of Mormon and um again, it has the, the law of Moses. It actually speaks about it a lot because the Book of Mormon. One of its main purposes, I think, is to make very clear that the law of Moses is fulfilled in Christ, right? So, um, it, it 11 good example of this is 3 5:15, and, um, in verses 4, and I’ll skip skip through from 4 to 9, it says, behold, I say unto you that the law is. Fulfilled that was given unto Moses. Behold, I am he that gave the law, and I am he who covenanted with my people Israel. Therefore, the law is fulfilled in me is fulfilled, for I have come to fulfill the law. Therefore, it hath an end, skipping to 9. Behold, I am the law and the light. Look unto me and endure to the end. And ye shall live, for unto him that endureth to the end will I give eternal life, eternal life. So the Book of Mormon really clarifies and builds upon the foundations set by the New Testament. To give us more information about how the Savior fulfilled the law and brings forth the higher law. It also teaches us much of the principles of the gospel brought by Jesus Christ, but it doesn’t introduce or teach any new law. There’s no law of Nephi or anything like that. So, so again,

[00:15:55] it’s different from either of those books. So we’ll move on to the doctrine and. which um again, it repeats the law of God and the law of Moses, and it gives us many commandments and instructions. It sometimes refers to them as law, law, like a lie given to you, go to this place or do this thing, but they’re very much specific instructions given to those people at those times, right? Not um some sort of eternal gospel law. And so um it gives many Amendments, but not many, not many named laws. And so it does mention different categories of laws like the laws of the land and the laws of God. It differentiates between those and the laws to govern my church. It teaches so so it talks about those things, but they’re not it’s more discoursing on law, right, than giving us new laws to to implement and follow. So it So teaches principles of law, and I see, I like this. It’s kind of been interesting to look at the doctrine and covenants this way is how of how it discusses and handles law. It really teaches us a lot along those lines. So one thing I like about the principles of law, one example is natural consequences. I love these verses. There is a law irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world upon which all blessings are predicated. And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated. So you can see how it talks about law in, in a way of instructing us how law works, right, teaching us about law. And so um it also goes forward to tell us. And that portions of the News of the Old Testament law are fulfilled. For example, um, Section 74 teaches us the law of circumcision is fulfilled. Section 84, the law of Carnal Commandments is fulfilled. I hope I have those sections right. My notes are a little bit. Confused right here, so please correct me. I really appreciate it when you guys let me know anything that I got wrong in the notes cause I know that, you know, I’m just talking and doing my best, but I know I’m going to make mistakes. I really appreciate when things are corrected that I may have gotten wrong cause I can’t go back and fix it after the fact, unfortunately. So, um, then we go on and sections 104 and 105, which are really um talking more and more about the united order. I believe in that at Originally it was called the United Firm and then they changed it to United Order, but um that it’s it’s introducing new law there and it’s called the Law of my gospel or the law of the celestial kingdom, which were then which can then be summed up in the new term, the law of consecration, right? And um the that this really is the only new law given in the doctrine of Covenants anywhere, the Book of Mormon or the doctrine of Covenants. It gives us a new law that we are to implement and live, and really it teaches about it in many sections of the Doctrine Covenants. 42, Section 42 is just one example which Joseph Smith referred to as the law of the church, and that’s where a lot of instruction is given about how they are to live in this spirit of consecration where there is no rich and no poor among them, right? And I think that the general principle of it is summed up well in 10417, which says for the is full, and there is enough and to spare. Yeah, I prepare all things and have given unto the children of men to be agents unto themselves. Therefore,

[00:19:16] if any man shall take of the abundance which I have made and impart not of his portion according to the law of my gospel unto the poor and the needy, he shall with the wicked lift up his eyes in hell, being in torment. So that’s a summation of what this new law is that we are being given in the doctrine and covenants, right? And that is really the one. That we are meant to apply and again like other laws given in the Old Testament, it is, or you know, the New Testament with the law, the higher law of Jesus Christ, it is very spelled out. We are told specifics of how it applies, how it works, what it does, what it means, so, so it fits that pattern of law given. And then, um, OK, so that was just looking at, I guess, the doctrine covenants in the absence of Section 132. And then, oh, I should just throw it. I also didn’t find any new law given in the Pearl of Great Price. There was, there was nothing there that I found. So now we’re going to look at section 132 because it is unique in so many ways among the other. Sections of the doctrine and covenants and all other scripture. First of all, it uses the law in this one section. It uses the law 33 times. So, and I, I subtracted out anything that was written in footnotes or in in headers and chapter headers because I was just looking at the actual scripture, right, not the commentary about it. And so, um, that’s, so if anyone’s confused on my numbers, that’s why. So, It uses the word law 31 times, which is way, way more often than any other scripture. Even, even the most legalistic parts of Leviticus don’t come close to how much this talks about law. And even in the doctrine and Covenants, which is more of a sort of law-based book, it uses the word law quite a bit. Um, but most sections that even that say it use it maybe 1 to 3 times, like that’s most common. There are only 3 other sections that use it more than 10 times, and they all are for very specific reasons like section 42, which I said is where Joseph reveals the law of the church. So it taught it compares the law of the land, the law of, you know, it uses law in those ways and um and then section it uses it 13 times. Section 88. Which is the olive leaf, it differentiates again between the the specifics of each law of of each kingdom of glory. So the law of the celestial kingdom, the law of that, you know, it uses law more in that context. And I think I want to say it uses it 19 times, which is quite a bit. But, um, both of those sections also are much longer than 132. I don’t know if they’re twice as long, but they might be close to it. So even though it uses it 10 or 19 times, they’re much. More spread out or 13 and 19 times, you know, it’s a lot less dense, densely used. And then there’s section 132134,

[00:22:09] which was not a revelation but was a declaration most likely written by Oliver Cowdery and approved by Joseph Smith for the first two publications of the Doctrine and Covenants. Interestingly, that’s the same as the law of marriage that was included, approved by Joseph Smith and included in those. two printings of the doctrine and covenants only that one was taken out when 132 was put in, but this one was left in. So, and we could still consider this one canonized, but we decided without a vote of the church, without following the practice of common consent or any of the other instructions given, we just, I guess, decided to pull that one out because it didn’t fit what we were living at that time. So that’s an interesting little side note, but that section, um. Let’s see what what I was going to say. It uses it 16 times, and it’s basically the the one that it says that the preamble to it says that our belief with regard to earthly governments and laws in general may not be interpreted or nor misunderstood. So it’s an intentional statement of how the saints view the law of the land, right, or how they interact with law. So that’s why it says it more often. So those are the next, the 3. others that have the word law used somewhat regularly, but then Section 132 uses it 33 times. And just like happens in Section 104 and 105, it introduces a new law, right? There we had the law of consecration, which again was spelled out all throughout the doctrine covenants, how it should be applied, how it should be done. But then this has the law of my holy priesthood or the law of the priesthood, which is mentioned 4 times and seems to be the name for polygamy. That’s how at least I interpret it as I read through Section 132. It’s the only place that’s mentioned. You can’t find. Throughout the rest of the book it just stands alone. It’s really self-contained. Only in this one section can we find any of these terms. They’re not in the other books of Scripture, and none of these principles are anywhere else as well, which is very different than even the other law that Um, the doctrine of covenant brings to us because we can read all of the other cases of Zion, right, where they were following those principles and there were no poor among them. This one is unique. So it introduces a new never before heard of law, which, but at least it has instructions and, um, you know, application and justifications accompanying it. However, um, you know, ungodly, they all maybe we’ll read through some of them in a minute. But um then it introduces one other law, right, the law of Sarah, which is mentioned only one time, and it is not unlike any of these other laws, it’s not supported by any other scripture. I mean, of course, we can say, well, Sarah existed, but it has Nothing to do with their story.

[00:25:03] Like this law of Sarah has nothing to do with the actual Sarah of the Bible. We’ll get into that a little bit. But um we are, it’s not expounded or explained at all, and it gives us no information, which is actually really too bad because here we have The only the second law named after a person, the law of Moses, the law of Sarah, right? And it’s a woman, the law of Sarah. Sarah is a woman. Like if there is a law named for a woman, I would think that would be something incredibly important that all women. would want to and need to know about, right? Like, why do we have this law of Sarah that we’ve completely ignored if it’s real, if it’s something to do with our salvation, particularly, I would think it would be something to do with women’s salvation, so, right? So. Like it’s really strange to me. This should be huge, and especially as people who like women like me who, I don’t know, I guess I can’t call myself a feminist because feminists won’t have me, but who really value women and want to understand about Womanhood, this should matter to us, and yet there’s nothing. So let’s try and dig in and I, I, you know, I spent a lot of time looking for anything to try to explain how this was perceived or viewed or what they thought it was cause I kind of wish that there were, uh, you know, something real that we’re like directed toward and through women, but I just not sure this one is it. So, OK, so as I already mentioned, I, there is nothing on LDS.org about the law of Sarah, manuals, conference talks. I couldn’t find anything. So I searched this one surprised me. I searched the Journal of Discourses. I used every search term I could think of. Um, there are lots of places where it talks about Sarah, you know, and Sarah giving Hagar to Abraham, but it never talks about the law of Sarah. It never spells out what it is or how it’s to be applied or why it’s called that. So I couldn’t that that I thought I’d find something in the Journal of Discourses when they were living this and preaching about it, but couldn’t find anything about the law of Sarah there. I, um. Looked through all of Brian Hale’s website and all of his resources. He’s, he and his, um, is it Dan Vogel that’s his research assistant, I believe they’re supposed to be the like foremost polygamy researchers and yet couldn’t find anything that he wrote. Although this was funny, there’s a book on Amazon that is called The Law of Sarah that is really bad. They were just using the term the law of Sarah as a term for polygamy and it’s just a, you know, kind of lame sauce polygamy apologetics book. And, um, the only thing I could find for Brian Has is he left a review of that book,

[00:27:50] which really cracked me up and basically said he was like, yeah, this isn’t good, this isn’t helpful. And so I was like, oh, and, and that was just from last year. So I think Brian Hailes must be doing the same search that I’m doing, looking for anything on. The Law of Sarah, cause it’s so hard to find anything. So that was funny. Then, um, from my understanding, Ogden Kraut is the foremost polygamist scholar. So I searched all of his books, everything he’s written. I, I’m really thankful that they’re online and searchable, but I could not find anything about the Law of Sarah. Again, the only time it’s mentioned on his website is when he’s quoting actually quoting the actual scripture, the actual For 1:32, you know, just mentioning it, mentioning it in the scripture, but he doesn’t say anything to explain it in any way, how it was interpreted. So, um, we, I, there are some, a few things that have been written or said by people today in modern times. So we’ll, I’ll touch on those in a minute, but I’m just looking for anything that has been written, you know, up until now. And then, um, I, let’s see if I left anything off my list. I think that, oh, I looked through the Joseph Smith papers. I couldn’t find anything in the Joseph Smith papers again other than the transcript of 132 from William Clayton’s journal that writes Law of Sarah. I couldn’t find anything else about it. And then I even looked completely through the women’s exponent. That was the relief Society newsletter that was very pro polygamy and couldn’t find anything there, which again, this is the women living polygamy writing about polygamy. They have the law of Sarah. That sounds like it should be for or about women, and yet they say nothing at all anywhere about it. Weird, right? Just weird. So, OK, fortunately I was able to find a few sources, so, um, I don’t know that they’re the best, but, but they at least speak to the law of Sarah. So, and I think that they, you know, they give us some different ways of how it was interpreted. So I wonder if I should give you these resources first or explain it first, but I’ll go ahead and give it. So I’ll, I’ll give you a quick overview. So there are some different ways that law. Sarah seems to read on its on the surface. It’s either sort of a hollow consent, like you have to teach your wife this principle, and then it’s her obligation to believe it and accept it. And if she doesn’t, then you no longer are under the obligation to have her believe it and accept it. So it’s sort of a really shallow hollow consent. And then there’s another way that it can be interpreted. So we’ll get into that and just A second.

[00:30:18] Let me, let me read these two quotes. They, they seem to be speaking about sort of this hollow consent aspect of it that it’s like, OK, we recognize that consent is important, so we’re going to pretend that there’s consent when there’s really no consent. That’s how it sounds on one on one reading. So this is the earliest one I’ve seen, it’s Orson Pratt. So to just give you a little bit of an overview of Orson Pratt quickly. He was called as an apostle by Joseph Smith, um. But he was out of favor with Brigham Young, and so he actually went, Brigham Young at one point rearranged the order of seniority among the apostles and moved some lower that he, yeah, you know, and so that he could kind of, you know, choose how they were arranged and so anyway, so Orson Pratt was one that was moved lower because he they they kind of changed how the ordering went and um he was. There’s a big messy hairy story about his wife Sarah, and he was sent on a mission and things happened. It’s a big can of worms we’re not going to get into cause it’s messy. So whatever happened with Sarah Pratt and polygamy was messy from the beginning. And then, um, but he seemed to really embrace it because at the end, so Sarah, his first wife, was pretty impatient with him by the end when he took his 10th wife when he was 57 and she was 16. So, uh, at that point, Sarah had had enough and started just like speaking out against this. So like that was more than enough for her. So that’s a little bit of Orson who Orson Pratt was. His wives always lived, they were always very, very poor because he was always sent on. to get him out of the hair of the first presidency, right? They didn’t want him around, so they sent him on missions. At least that’s the research that I’ve, that I’ve read. So here’s his quote. So while he was on his mission, I think this was in England, one of the ways he supported himself was to write a lot of pamphlets about Mormonism and So he wrote several pamphlets that were collected into a book that he published called The Seer, and this was in 1853 that he wrote. When a man who has a wife teaches her the law of God as revealed to the ancient patriarchs and as manifested by new revelation, and she refuses to give her consent for him to marry another according to that law, then it becomes necessary for her to state before the president, so that would be Brigham Young, the reasons why she withholds her consent. If her reasons are found sufficient and justifiable by Brigham Young. And the husband is found in the fault or in transgression, then he is not permitted to take any step in regard to obtaining another. But if the wife can show no good reason why she refuses to comply with the law which was given unto Sarah of old, then it is lawful for her husband, if permitted by revelation through the prophet, to be married to others without her consent, and he will be justified and she will be condemned because she did not give unto him as Sarah gave Hagar unto Abraham. So that’s how he interpreted and explained the law of Sarah, right? Just purely this hollow consent like what it really is is. If your husband tells you that he believes God wants him to take another wife, your duty, your divinely given duty is to believe him, to give your, to believe him, and we’ll get into it a little bit more and and to and to participate, and if you don’t, you will be destroyed is is the wording of the actual scripture, and there’s no other. Course, right? Like,

[00:33:41] your job is to believe him. So let’s see how that would work in reverse, right? Think about that. Like it’s just, it’s just quite bizarre. So that was his interpretation of it. Then it also came up in the Reed Smoot hearings that many people will know about in 1903. Senator Reed Smoot, they wouldn’t seat him. They were because of polygamy, so, so they had hearings on it. And so, um, Joseph F. Smith was one of the one of one of the, I guess, witnesses, you know, he testified before this Senate, and this is the exchange that they had. So I think his name is Senator Pettis, so I’m going to say Pettis and hopefully that’s not right, wrong. Um, he said, have there been any past plural marriages without the consent of the first wife, President Joseph F. Smith? I do not know of any unless it may have been Joseph Smith himself. Senator Pettus, is the language that you have read construed to mean that she is bound to consent, Mister Smith? The condition is that if she does not consent, the Lord will destroy her, but I do not know how he. Do it. Senator Bailey, another senator, is it not true that in the, in the next, in the very next verse, if she refuses to consent, her husband is exempt from the law which requires her consent, Mister Smith, yes, he is exempt from the law which requires her consent. Senator Bailey, she is commanded to consent, but if she does not, then he is exempt from the requirement. Mr. Smith, then he is at liberty to proceed without her consent under the law. Senator Beveridge, in other words, her consent amounts to nothing. Mister Smith, it amounts to nothing but her consent. Senator Beveridge, so that, so that so far as there is anything in there concerning her consent, it may as well not be there. And then they get interrupted to go on to another line of questioning so you can see. how really silly this is, right? Like she’s required to give her consent, and if she doesn’t give her consent, then you don’t need her consent anymore. It’s not required anymore. So some do claim that there’s more to the law of Sarah Sarah than merely hollow consent. And if it’s just this hollow consent, why is it called the law of Sarah, right? So we’re going to get into it and read it a little bit more, but some polygamists believe that the Of Sarah means that the first wife must place the hand of the new wife into the hand of her husband as part of the wedding ceremony in a gesture of giving him, giving her to him. So and that’s interpreted to be what Sarah did with Hagar, I guess they think that that represents or maybe they think that Sarah did that, although there’s no, you know, no note that Sarah did that, so. And Wilde on her interview um on Gospel tangents explained this, and it’s just so funny because she acknowledges that in the Old Testament times they didn’t have any kind of wedding ceremony,

[00:36:27] and yet The wedding ceremony requires us to follow the example of Sarah putting the right, like it’s just, it’s just very, very strange. So, um, I think it’s and and I couldn’t find information whether it’s the first wife does this with every wife or if it’s like the next, the next wife does it for the next wife, how it goes on, I don’t know, and, and I don’t know if all wives have to give their consent or only the first wife because actually what the polygamists were doing born. No resemblance to what Sarah and Abraham and Hagar did at all, right? There’s no similarity there. So, um, so I can’t figure out how this is supposed to work, and I don’t know why they think it’s following an example, you know, everything that Anne said was very, very strange and contradictory. So, OK, so then there’s one for um source I found in the anti-polygamy standard, if you remember. That was the one we did about the blue tea. Jenny. Frey started this periodical, and this is from April 1st, 1882 page 3, and it lends credibility to the likelihood that Brigham Young might have interpreted this law the same way that Anne Wilde is talking about it. So this is what it says. When her husband determined she’s telling the stories again of polygamous women, it says when her husband determined to take another wife, she accompanied him to the endowment house as the cruel law of celestial marriage commands, or did at that time. But when Brigham Young asked the prescribed question, Do you give this woman to your husband even as Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham? she answered, Yes and no. What do you mean by such an answer? the prophet demanded. I mean, yes, if he cannot go into the presence of God without this sacrifice on my part. But if I consult my own heart, no, no, 1000 times no. So, um, that, that’s. The story that she told does show that she said that the law of the law of celestial marriage commanded at that time that the first wife accompany the new wife to the endowment house and participate or at least give her consent. But then she does say or did at that time, which really strongly indicates that by the time this was written in 1882, that was no longer being Um, being done. So I don’t know if it was, um, if they started interpreting interpreting it differently or if they just stopped applying it at all, you know, it makes it pretty clear that sometime before 1882, they were no longer doing this. So I don’t know if they, like, if you have a law given to you and there’s this law of Sarah and you just ignore it, or you interpret it different ways over. Time, that’s, that’s also really interesting, right? So I’ve also, I’ve heard it claimed that Emma did this in Joseph’s wife to the Partridge Sisters. But um, when I looked it up, it, it’s really confusing. So, so again, a confusing story, according to Emily Partridge’s, um, her writings.

[00:39:19] She and her sister had already been married to Joseph Smith in secret, but then Emma, she claims that Emma decided that Joseph could take a few wives if he could choose them, to choose who the wives were. He, she chose these two sisters, and so they did sort of a mock wedding so that Emma could think that she was giving consent, right? So um anyway, but this is what um this is what Emily’s account of the ceiling says. Emma was present. She gave her free and full consent. That’s all she says. So nothing about a hand being placed. But later, when she was pressed in the Temple Lo case, it seems that either she couldn’t keep her story straight or she didn’t. Hadn’t been told what she was supposed to say, or, you know, she couldn’t remember a central part of her own wedding day that would have been a pretty big deal that she was writing books about. So maybe that’s the case, but she was asked, did Emma take your hand and place it in Joseph Smith’s hand, and Emily replied, I think she did, so take that for what you will. That’s right, like I don’t know if that says more about how they were interpreting the law of Sarah or more about. Her memory of this event. So anyway, OK, so that was pretty much all I could find. I, I can’t find anything else about how the early Mormon polygamists polygamists viewed and applied the law of Sarah. So the only the things I, the sources I found seems that it’s first of all sort of a hollow mockery of consent, and then second, a small gesture. Of placing the new wife’s hand in the husband’s hand, which was not practiced by Sarah herself, but which is practiced in at least some polygamous weddings for some amount of time. So it doesn’t seem to be a very substantial law, right? So maybe there’s good reason we don’t talk about it. So why is it called the law of Sarah and given a name and included is is really strange. So. Since that’s all we have to go on in terms of discourse about it, we better just go straight to the scriptures ourselves to try to figure out what we can piece out from this very confusing, strange, difficult bit of scripture. So, um, here we go. We’re going to start with verse 61, and if you want to read along, I recommend it cause, you know, we’re gonna try and keep this straight. OK. And again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood, so that’s again referring to polygamy, right? If any man espouse a vir virgin and desire to espouse another, so first of all, keep up like you are supposed to, this is only supposed to be regarding virgins. So all of the cases of Joseph Smith taking married men’s wives and like none of that can be tied to 132. So either the people reporting these stories can’t keep their stories straight or None of this should apply anyway because we’re being given all of these instructions, but nobody followed any of them. So, OK,

[00:42:12] let’s just keep going on. Um, and, and it also, it’s he desires to espouse another. It’s the man wants to take another virgin, right? That’s where the command comes from. So we’re always told how repugnant this was, but it’s, it even states that it’s based on the man’s desire. I’d like, I’d like to have another wife. Oh, would you now? OK. So anyway, so, and the, so that we’ll go on, and the first give her consent. And if he espoused the second, and they are virgins and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified. So right, remember what I was saying, they vowed to no other man and they’re virgins. So how do you justify taking other women’s wives and saying it’s due to 132? It all falls apart horribly. He cannot commit adultery, for they are given unto him, for he cannot commit adultery that that with that that belongeth unto him and no one else. So again. That Old Testament idea of adultery, that it’s only adultery if you’re impinging on some other man by interfering with his property, right? It’s nothing about your obligation to be faithful to your wife. She has no expectation of the of fidelity from her husband, which is what the Book of Mormon blatantly contradicts this idea, like this whole way of looking at it is so flawed, so. Oh, OK, we’re going to keep going. Sorry, I didn’t mean to go into it this much. I just, oh, we’re reading through these things, Kate. And if he have 10 virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him. Therefore, is he justified so many virgins, like he, like as many as he wants, and You know he’s justified and so then, but if one or either of the 10 virgins after she is espoused shall be with another man, she has committed adultery and shall be destroyed, for they are given unto him to multiply and replenish. the earth according to my commandment. Again, can we point out that Joseph never had a child with anybody but Emma? So again, not fulfilling this law very well, if, you know, if this is what we’re claiming that he was doing and this is the justification for it or the, the revelation he brought forward to for it. Um, according to my commandment, to fulfill the promise which was given by my father before the foundation of the world and for their exaltation in the worlds, in the, in the worlds that they may bear the souls of men, for herein is the work of my father continued that he may be glorified. So it makes it sound like a woman’s, um, role is to bear children, but she could bear children just as well with. With a husband where they’re just united, right? It’s like she’s obligated to bear his children as part of his kingdom. I don’t know. I can’t make,

[00:44:52] I can’t make heads or tails of it honestly. OK, 64. And again, verily, verily I say unto you, if any man have a wife who holds the keys of this power and he teaches unto her the law of my priesthood as Pertaining to these things, then shall she believe and administer unto him. Two key words we’re going to go into later. Believe and administer. Then shall she believe and administer unto him, or she shall be destroyed, sayeth the Lord your God, for I will destroy her, for I will magnify my name upon all those who receive and abide in my law. So remember what we were saying about if the man comes to her and says, Hey honey. Um, I’d like another wife. Her job or God would like me to have another wife, or I feel like I would like to have another wife. And I think it’s God that’s making me want to do that, right? Her obligation, her divine obligation is to believe and administer, or she will be destroyed. And we try to dumb down that word and say, oh, that just means that she You won’t be exalted or that just, OK, the word destroyed was specifically chosen. So we can, we can dumb it down all we want, but if we believe this is revelation, we have to believe that’s the word that God chose. So it was supposed to sound threatening because that sounds threatening, right? There’s no other way to look at it. And like anyone who wants to say, oh, not, it’s not really that. Well then you’re saying that God didn’t. Say what he really meant and that he just chose the wrong words. So like God is saying she will be destroyed if she doesn’t believe and administer when her husband tells her that he would like another wife, right? And so some people interpret that to be the law of Sarah, that the law of Sarah is what Sarah is required to do, to believe and administer. So again, can we remember that it was Sarah that went to Abraham and of desperation for a child, right? It was not a divine law. It certainly was not a command. It certainly wasn’t that Abraham wanted another wife, so he taught this principle to Sarah, and she believed and administered. Like none of that applies to the actual Old Testament Sarah that this is claiming and Abraham, who this is claiming to. Use as the justification for whatever this is. OK, so we’re going to keep going. There’s so many. I just want to keep talking about all of the problems, but we’re just gonna keep going for now. So, um, therefore, and here’s the, here’s the verse with it. Therefore, it shall be lawful in me if she received not this law for him to receive. All things whatsoever I the Lord God will give unto him because she did not believe and administer unto him according to my word. And then, and she then becomes the transgressor, and he is exempt from the law of Sarah, who administered unto Abraham according to the law when I commanded Abraham to take Hagar to wife, so. Couple of things I want to point out here. It says that

[00:47:49] he is exempt from the law of Sarah, so you can only be exempt from a law if it applied to you. So that sounds like the law of Sarah is something that applies to men. Right, that men have to fulfill the law of Sarah. That’s weird. But if we’re applying it to these things before, that it’s her obligation to believe and administer, then it applies to women. So why would he have to be exempt from it? So it’s really, it’s really confusing. Is the law for men or for women, or is it this kind of convoluted that he’s required to teach her? And well, that’s the only thing it says he’s required to do is to desire another virgin and then teach his wife, right? And, and I know it says in there in one place that if he holds the keys, and remember there’s only one on earth at at a time, but I would say that that was not followed at all either and um You know, if a man, all of these, all of the people that keep having revelations to be polygamists, that doesn’t seem to hold them back, either that or they find another way to interpret it or they hold the keys, right? That’s part of what they believe that God is. Telling them and what she is obligated to believe. So I think the thing that’s the most frustrating to me about this is that it leaves the wife with absolutely no divinely inspired recourse. They can’t counsel together. She can’t, like, it’s very much this polygamist viewpoint that keep sweet, keep sweet and you’ll be exalted. Just keep sweet. Don’t, don’t, don’t have an opinion. Don’t say anything. Don’t expect anything, don’t expect any fidelity. That’s your only, the only thing you can do is just smile and accept whatever is given to you. Whatever happens to your children, whatever, whether or not you have somewhere to live, whether or not you like no matter what, just keep smiling, keep sweet, cause that’s your job as a woman. Sorry, right? Does anybody believe this? Like, let’s just really think about if we should believe that this is from God. OK, so a couple of things I want to say about this going forward is that um Um, so, OK, so if this was a law given to man in any way, I just want to point out how this was universally ignored. We’ve already talked a little bit about the stories of Joseph Smith. So if those stories are true, Joseph Smith completely ignored anything about the revelation that he claimed God gave him. About how to um live polygamy, right? Like, like the laws were spelled out, but he didn’t follow any of them. So we have to decide is that who Joseph Smith is and is that what Joseph Smith did? And if so, why did he even bother with this revelation which wasn’t tied to any Anything that he was actually doing according to all of these stories, like telling Hebrewy Kimball that he had to marry Sarah Noon, but he couldn’t tell the late or Violet. I was corrected, so I’ve,

[00:50:41] I’ve been corrected both ways now. I don’t know if it’s Violet or Vet. But um like why would Joseph Smith do that if this is what the revelation actually said that, right? So, so again, everyone can make up their own mind about what that is, but if this is what was happening in any case, they were not following section 132 at all. And um OK, let’s see. Oh, and also if um if it’s true about Fannie Alger, right? Joseph certainly hadn’t received this revelation and explained it to Emma by that point, so he hadn’t done what he was supposed to do, have, um, I mean, I know that every, like a lot of people say, well, he was exempt from the law cause Emma wouldn’t accept it. Well, it’s pretty hard to make that case with Fanny Alger when You know, like, like that proceeded was earlier than any of this supposedly, so it gets all really messy and confusing other than we can know they were not following the principles espoused here and spelled out. So it seems like it should have been something that was applied to the men cause it says that he is exempt from it, so it was something he had an obligation to do, but that was completely ignored and It was again just used as another tool to bludgeon the women, right? Like your obligation is to believe me, support me, if we want to remember the Reformation hymn, help husband get a wife, like help him get more wives and then go and participate in giving the next wife to the husband. Now, I want to point out another reason that this is just completely ludicrous. Let’s go back to the actual story of Sarah and Hagar and Abraham, right? Hagar was literally Sarah’s property. Hagar was Sarah’s handmaid. In other words, Sarah’s slave. Sarah had in that custom in that culture, actual ownership of her, so she had the ability to give her to Abraham, right? Even though Abraham still continued to acknowledge Hagar as a slave, that’s what it could mean that Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham. You can’t give something that you Don’t own. So even in the traditional weddings that we talked about in an episode where the father gives the bride away, I think it’s not ownership in that context, it’s responsibility and stewardship, right? It’s saying this is my, I, I have had the obligation to take care of my daughter, and now I am giving this obligation to you and entrusting my daughter to you. I think that’s what it was supposed to symbolize, not ownership. But we know that with Sarah, she did own Hagar. And so How, how can a woman give a woman to her husband? She’s not hers. You don’t own the second wife, right? Like, like it’s all, it does not stand to reason at all. We can interpret that Sarah was giving permission, right? And like,

[00:53:36] like giving um her consent that Abraham and could impregnate Hagar, but then later on she kicked her out, right? I mean, Like, it’s just so, so silly and illogical to try to make these claims. So if a woman is saying, I give you to my husband. You would have to own, you would have to own me in order to give me to your husband. So that’s another way that it breaks down. Just two more examples I want to talk about really briefly about how this law was not lived at all by the men that were saying this was their, their, you know, like 132 was the revelation in teaching all of this, but, um, you’ll recall. how in that original 1852 meeting where that special conference where 132 was first read and polygamy was first acknowledged, and in that same conference, so many men were called out on missions and they were told to forget that they even had wives and children at home. And so this actually happened throughout all of these polygamous decades that men would go out on missions and Come home with a new wife and maybe a baby and so how could how could that wife at home or those wives at home possibly even be given the opportunity for this mockery of consent, right? If, if they didn’t even know what was happening. So that’s another way that they really didn’t live it here and then this is a really interesting letter that was written by Orson Hyde, so not Orson Pratt above Orson Hyde, and he was sent on assignment to Nevada, and it looked like he, I, I guess it looked like it might take longer than he expected and he would be there over the winter. And so this is what he wrote to Brigham Young. If I do stay, I want a wife with me. Either Marinda or Mary Anne or someone else. Say, Sister Pascal, I will leave you to determine. If you think it not wisdom for anyone to come to me from the lake, may I get one here if I can find one to suit? So he won, he was, he was there and he wanted the comfort of a wife while he was there. That was a bummer to not have a woman with him. Oh, it didn’t matter which one, he just wanted someone to come and, you know, be the woman in his life. And so that’s what he wrote. And then, but since, since, as he continued, the chances to get a wife here are not very many, even if a man wanted to get one in this country. Women are scarce and good. Good ones are scarcer still. And so, you know, back to this idea that there were just so many women that needed to be taken care of. He, you know, he was, he was on assignment and he didn’t want to be there without a woman. So can you either send me one or if not, can I find one? Or, you know, I don’t think I can find one. So you better send one. So his wife Mary Anne was sent and then when he was done with his assignment, she was left there. He talks about how he didn’t know he was uncertain about what his future would be, and that would be, you know, she, and so, so

[00:56:20] they were just, it’s, it’s hard to not see it as just sort of a convenience, right? It was like, what did the woman, what did the woman maybe want? Did she want to go be sent to Nevada for a little while and then live there the rest of her life, and I, I mean, Ah, OK, so anyway, that’s those are just a couple of other examples of how you can see how nothing that they were doing was at all representative of the story of Sarah and Abraham in any way. And um it’s I, I, I can read, I can read one more time just if you’ll recall, here, here’s the scripture. Serai is said unto Abraham, and it’s also confusing that different names at this time. Behold now the Lord hath restrained me from bearing. I pray thee, I pray thee, Because I am childless, I want you to go in unto my maid, go in unto my maid. It may be that she, it may be that I may obtain children by her. I may be able to have children through my maid, because they will be my children. And Abraham harkened to the voice of Serai. And this wasn’t, uh, Abraham wasn’t commanded by God, and Abraham wasn’t being obedient to God when he did it. He was hearkening to his beloved wife, and he wanted her to be able to have children because it broke his heart too and so. Anyway, and Sarai, this, this next verse seems to be the inspiration, and Serai Abram’s wife took Hagar, her maid, the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt 10 years in the land of Canaan and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. So again she took her servant, who was her property, and gave her to her husband. Instead of being her handmaid, she would be, um, her sur the surrogate mother, right, to bear children for her, so. That’s, that’s like, I just think it’s so silly to try to claim that in some way we are following the example of Sarah in doing this. So now there are two central words in these scriptures that are usually applied to the law of Sarah that we haven’t discussed yet and In many ways, they are the most crucial and most troubling part of this. This principle, this law, this revelation, if, if you will, and um they are the words believe and administer. They’re the things that the woman is required to do. Part of why they’re so we’ve talked a little bit about believe, but we’re we’re going to go on to it a little bit more. Part of the reason they’re so problematic is because no definition of of them is included in the law. They’re not spelled out. It doesn’t tell us what they mean, and so, um. I’ve tried to find how people have interpreted these responsibilities. So one man recently wrote a paper. I, I watched him on an interview with YouTube. I can’t remember his name. I’ll try and find it. I’ll link to his YouTube interview below, and he gave a YouTube interview on his interpretation, um,

[00:59:11] and he was kind and sent the paper to me that he wrote, and um I’ll, so, so, but it was, he didn’t have any more sources or information than I did and it was just his interpretation and, um, you know, you know, of how, how this applies. So you can listen to what he said, but I looking at these words and trying to parse out believe and administer. Believe has a more straightforward definition that we’ve already talked about, right? You are required to believe your husband when he wants, you know, believe that God inspired your husband when he says he wants, um, he desires another wife. So, you know, that’s interesting and um and if and if you don’t believe him, you’ll be destroyed, you’ll face the wrath of God and destruction, right? The more complicated and potentially problematic word by far is administer. It is not nearly so easily defined. It’s possible definitions are broad. It can mean, I’m just summing up, it can mean to preside, to dispense, to give, to apply, and often in the scriptures, it seems to be used in a way similar to minister, like to serve, to comfort, to take care of, to provide relief. So the interpretations can abound. And what I find. Just fascinating is that in this law, it’s the husband that is wanting to take another wife, the husband believing it, you know, like, like the, the husband is in charge of everything. He’s the one doing it, and yet it’s the wife’s obligation to take care of him, to comfort him, to aid him, like even though she’s the one suffering and having her heart broken, there’s no Obligation and there’s no reciprocal obligation. He doesn’t need to believe her if she says, Hey, I feel very strongly that this is not of God and that we should be faithful and that we should believe what the scriptures actually say and live them. He has no obligation to believe her in things answers that she has or things she strongly believes, and he has no. Obligation to comfort or serve or minister or any of those things to her according to this law, right? It all goes one way. He’s the one doing it, he’s the one in charge. He’s the one wanting it. He’s the one pursuing it. She’s the one being devastated, and yet she has to worry about his feelings and take care of him, or she has to worry about his desires and And participate and help, help make that all accomplished. So it’s just really like really we need to think about these things in the in the terms of our reality, like how many of us women would really be OK with that and how many men would Be OK with that or expect expect that or want that. You’d have to really be twisted by these beliefs to get into a mindset where this was all OK with you, and you saw this as godly in any way. I,

[01:01:55] I’m trying to spell it out so people who still cling to this can. At some point, like think about it and wake up and go, oh, maybe this isn’t very godly after all. When we can hope, right? So, um, anyway, the, the place where this goes really bad and gets really dark is when this ill-defined idea of administer gets intermingled with the ideas that we have of prophetic. I know we don’t say prophetic infallibility, but that’s kind of what we believe, right? The prophet can never lead the people astray, which gets interpreted to mean he can’t do anything wrong in his prophetic calling. And so we have this idea where the prophet speaks for God and whatever the prophet does is what God. wants him to do, and we combine it. So we, we kind of have this unbounded power, this unbridled power that’s not subject to a separation of powers. And then we have these terms that are not defined well and are subject to interpretation. And so I, um, I, I just, I’m going to be a little careful here and I’m going to give you a warning in a minute because This, this sometimes has gone to very, very dark places when we have these beliefs and we keep them, we keep a hold of them. Like I just think the beliefs are the problem and they will keep breeding bad things because, you know, it’s bad roots that breed breeds bad fruits, right? And so I want to really clarify here that I am not in any way believing. Claiming that these dark interpretations have been present in the LDS Church. And so I’m, I’m so unspeakably grateful that we don’t practice or teach these things anymore, you know, like no one knows what the law of Sarah is because we’re not teaching it. I just want to go ahead and spell it out so we individually can decide whether or not we want to continue to believe in this principle. I’m It’s way above my pay grade to say what the church should do. That’s not, that’s not my purpose at all. I just, as individuals, I think that we can discern truth and error for ourselves, right, regardless of what the institution does, that’s not our job. So, um, I’m glad that we are not subject to this anymore because there are some really dark things and I know, I also know. So in a few minutes, I am going to talk about how Warren Jeffs interpreted and applied this law of Sarah and the word administer specifically. And so I will give you a warning if you have children listening with you, don’t listen to it with them. I really like I’ve really struggled about how much to include or to not include, and I’ve decided I’m just going to Include a small amount of the recording with the transcript, and then, but I will link where you can listen to much more of the recordings of him teaching the the law of Sarah to his wives and how he interpreted it. So we’ll get there in a minute. I want to clarify, I I know that he is not. He does not represent all polygamists, right? There are different groups that do it differently, better and worse. Um,

[01:05:06] but the thing is, we wouldn’t know he was doing this if he hadn’t been arrested and his compound raided, and if there weren’t recording equipment so that we could figure out what it was that he’s doing. So while everyone now wants to distance themselves from Warren Jeff’s. At the time that he was doing this, he was the recognized prophet of God of the largest fundamentalist sect, right? And it was he was handed down, his father was in the same position that he was and We have all of these other groups and we don’t know what might be happening. So I, we can’t claim on the one hand that this is what everybody is doing, but we also can’t act like he’s a pariah and he’s the only one because we don’t know. We don’t know where he got these ideas from. We don’t know if his father interpreted it the same way or if this was new with him, and the, the thing that I guess I’m wanting to point out is when we have these ideas and these These principles in our scriptures, we are leaving ourselves open to these, these really dark things that go really dark places. So I am so thankful that this awful, horrible, disgusting man has been imprisoned, and I am thankful that his secrets have been revealed because it should be a warning to all of us of where this can go. So, um. OK, so now I’m going to go ahead and do a first ending where I can thank you for listening and if you don’t want to hear any of this, go ahead and turn it off. I’m not gonna do anything that’s really explicit, obviously, but um, but if you have kids listening, turn it off and come back later and thank you for joining us. So give you a second to turn it off. OK. Now we’re going to go ahead and talk just a little bit about how Warren Jeffs interpreted and applied this principle and this wording. Um let’s see, he, he taught it that it was the most sacred doctrine. Only his most chosen wives got to learn about it. Well, maybe they all did, but maybe all of them didn’t pass the teachings and trainings that they had to go through to learn to fulfill the law of Sarah. So for Warren, Sarah administering to Abraham. By giving her Hagar meant that she was sexually involved with them, that it was the three of them together and learning to satisfy his needs. That’s what administering meant. And so, um, Warren’s wives, I’m sorry, this just This is, we, we can’t, we can’t do as we do and so conveniently write this off and say, oh well, they weren’t supposed to be doing it. God told them not to, like we have to in some ways own this. These are our scriptures being applied that we still have. This is our doctrine. That was taught by our um church presidents that we haven’t extricated ourselves from yet, so we can’t,

[01:08:15] you know, these people believe that they are carrying on this principle that needed to be continued, which is what our early leaders taught, so So we can’t, I don’t think we that we can just look at them as completely different from, you know, like we have to acknowledge at least that they that Warren’s interpretation of this is as valid as anybody else’s, and he’s one that’s actually interpreting it and actually talking about it, right, when we’re not and so. So I think that we just have to kind of be a little slower to just write it off and say, well, they’re crazy and they’re gross and they don’t matter. I think we need to look at how tied it is to section 132 that we still have in our scriptures, right? So, so in our own hearts, like I said, all we can do is say, do I believe this or do I not? Do I believe these principles? So, um, OK, let me, let me get where I were. So where I where I was, these incredibly sheltered little girls. They were married to him and then they needed to go through these trainings because they needed to be trained to arouse and satisfy one another and more importantly him. They needed to learn to be as comfortable together naked as clothed. Um, for him, administer basically, um, administering meant participating in his private orgies. That’s how he applied this. He claimed that he like that just like Jesus, God required him to atone for the sins of his people and doing during these atonements, he said, God took him right near to death is how he quotes it. He he goes right near to death and only his wives could save and revive him by performing. To his satisfaction in order to they just had to know what he wanted and what he wanted them to do with one another and with him. So I, I, I hate this. I hate everything about this so much. I hate talking about it. I hate the thought of good people listening to this. I hate bringing this into your space. I hate it coming into my space, but I hate that my only other choice is to ignore it. And let it go unspoken so we can’t understand truly the diabolical nature of where these bad ideas and bad teachings can go. So please forgive me for going here at all, because I promise you it’s as upsetting and stomach turning to me as it is to you, and I hate that I’m spreading it. I’ve really prayed back and forth and pondered, what should I do? So this was my middle ground. I’m just going to play this one first recording. Um, after I close, and it’s really hard to understand, so I went to the effort of transcribing all of it, so I will include my transcription to the entire group of recordings on this video in the show notes, and, um, you know, I, I recommend listening to it because we have to know what this really means and I mean so many times this doctrine has gone bad, bad places. How many more times does it have to happen? Like people actually die with this craziness and I know

[01:11:25] it can happen in any religion and you know, but we could at least ourselves go, you know what, I’m not going there because I don’t believe this is of God. Let’s at the least do that, right? So, um, the, the part of the reason that this is so hard is because there’s nothing that could have taught these girls how wrong this was. If they were reading their scriptures and reading section 132, right? There were, there are no barriers, there are no protections built up to teach them, no, trust your spirit, trust. How you’re feeling that this is really, really, really bad. They were just completely defenseless, and there was there’s there’s nothing in there because it’s so free to interpretation and it gives the man all of the power and you have to do what he tells you to do with a smile and a believing heart and a willingness to follow his instructions, and that’s your only way. To not be destroyed, right? I mean that is what we set up. That is what these ideas create and allow to happen. So I just, can we please, please, please stop claiming that this is or ever was of God. Please, can we do that? Just, I guess this is my, I’ve been having people come after me a little bit more and more, and I know that this is a dark episode and I’m uh, but But man, we need to learn to trust the book, to trust our intuition, trust the spirit, trust the things written in the Book of Mormon, to believe, to know who God is and believe what he tells us so that we can Continue to get more and more and more instead of being stuck in these awful traditions of our fathers. So, um, I’m going to leave it here and thank you for joining me and stay tuned for this first little recording of Warren Jeffs, and then the link to more is below. This is 132 Problems and I’m Michelle Stone. Now I reveal to you. For the Lord is required of me and this family. But the fullness of the law of Sarah is for quorums of wins. To To assist me To be a comfort. Yes, even physically. For more than one woman is with me at a time. When Sarah administered unto Abraham. The fullness of the law. She was with Abraham and Hagar. Sexually I got And that is the forms of the lobster.