Unpacking Polygamy

Join us this week for a five-episode series as we tackle this important conversation head-on.

Every four years, Latter-day Saints are challenged to wrestle with our history and theology around plural marriage. So this year, we decided to lean in and do a deep dive.

Each day this week we will release a podcast episode that wrestles with a different aspect of this challenging topic. We’ll also be sharing selected written pieces to supplement and expand on the recorded conversations. We hope this deep dive will stimulate fresh conversations and new ways to look at our history, practice and theology of plural marriage.

We hope you’ll join us on this journey.

In this first episode, Patrick Mason sits down with Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, author of A House Full of Females, to talk about the early history of Mormon polygamy.

Joseph Smith’s Polygamy: Laurel Thatcher Ulrich & Patrick Mason

And here’s a preview of what’s to come before next Sunday:

Part 2. Our Evolving Sealing Practices with Nate Oman, professor of law and author of Law and the Restoration

Part 3. Polygamy from Nauvoo to Utah with Brittany Chapman Nash, author of Let’s Talk About Polygamy

Part 4. The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy with Latter-day Saint author, poet and playwright Carol Lynn Pearson

Part 5. Wrestling with 132 with Bethany Brady Spaulding, Patrick Mason and Bill Turnbull

Be sure to follow or subscribe to the Faith Matters podcast wherever you listen to podcasts to be notified of each new episode!

Select Written Resources:

One Couple’s Wrestle with Polygamy, by Susan & Bill Turnbull

Presentism, Polygamy, and the Dangers of a Single Story, by Jessica Brown

The Emotional and Priestly Logic of Plural Marriage, by Kathleen Flake