Claudia Bushman asks, is the self sacrifice motif for women in the Church so strong that no interest and care should be taken about their own lives? She observes that “too many women in the church live passive lives. We cannot afford to do that. We have talents to multiply.”

She also addresses the role of feminism in the Church. Only a few years ago, she told a Salt Lake Tribune writer that feminism was dead and that the word itself had become so frightening that the movement was now moribund and extinguished. She nevertheless, acknowledges that there are still “many old self-described LDS feminists around.” In fact, she considers herself to be a feminist and said “I doubt that many people would disagree with my definition of feminism, that the talents of women should be developed for the benefit of their communities, their church, their families and themselves.” By this definition, the Relief Society organization itself is a feminist organization. “Mormon women find emotional support and personal and spiritual growth there. The Relief Society, even in its curtailed form, provides a network for us to know, teach, and befriend each other. In Relief Society we are encouraged to exercise that most important feminist strategy, reaching beyond our patriarchal structure to a personal relationship with deity through which we can discover our own personal revelation and destinies.”

She adds: “Without autonomy, women would seem to have little power in this religion. But what is power in religion? Leadership seems important, but many religions, certainly ours, have stressed the humble vineyard worker as the powerful position. The greatest of all is the servant of all.”

She concludes by asking, what can women hope for from the Church? She states: “Women should realize that the Church is a great enabler, not a hindrance. The Church provides a wonderfully welcoming arena for working out our own ideas and building our talents as we seek for and follow our own revelation.”

The full text of Sister’ Bushman’s address can be found here.

Claudia L. Bushman holds degrees in literature and American Studies from Wellesley College, Brigham Young University, and Boston University and now teaches history and American studies at Columbia University in the City of New York. Dr. Bushman is the author and editor of ten books including Mormon Sisters: Women in Early Utah, Building the Kingdom (with Richard Bushman), and Contemporary Mormonism: Latter-day Saints in Modern America, as well as a variety of other American history books. She was the founding editor of Exponent II. Dr. Bushman is married to Richard Lyman Bushman and is the mother of six. Having held all the usual Church positions, she now finds most of her Church work off the books in such areas as chairman of the Harlem Bridge Builders committee, producer of the Manhattan Temple Jubilee at Radio City Music Hall, and chairman of the committee to install a statue of Joseph Smith near Wall Street in New York in honor of his 200th birthday.

At the risk of assuming too much, I think that in including that one line Elder Cook was aiming at two related criticisms: First, that the Church’s gender-based organization harms women, and second, that it blunders by not fully acknowledging women’s distress over that issue.

First, one might criticize the study’s methods, but the American Grace data are still formidable evidence, conducted by highly respected scholars who have no conceivable bias in favor of Mormon female contentment. Therefore, the argument that LDS women are ipso facto harmed by the gender-based organization has to clear the high hurdle of establishing a mass case of something like Stockholm Syndrome. (I say ipso facto because of course there are plenty of anecdotes showing specific instances of abuse or harm. But those can be explained, and hopefully corrected, on a case-by-case basis; systemic harm is the real debate to have.) I am, predictably, not impressed with any suggestion that my contentment with the Church’s status quo can be chalked up to my false consciousness or whatnot. And accusations that Utah (hence, LDS) women are addled with depression and Prozac don’t hold up to scrutiny.

Second, critics in a traditional church necessarily band together for discussion as best they can, now made marvelously easier by the Internet. When a website receives thousands of hits from hundreds of cities and dozens of anecdotes telling of similar problems, it’s easy to conclude that a large movement is in the offing. And large movements feel deserving of respect, acknowledgment, and validation. With due respect to the sincerity of those concerned, it is invalid to conclude that theirs is a movement the Church cannot credibly fail to fully engage.

For one thing, despite the perception of those in it, the movement is proportionally small. Size isn’t dispositive of truth, but because no one really expects an announcement that revelation now directs that priesthood be conferred on women, all that’s up for grabs is the upper hand in the debate over the supposed harm to women. In the latter, numbers matter very much, and can easily be distorted by a vocal minority claiming the moral authority of personal victimhood. For the Church to extend recognition to the few as a gesture meant to validate their feelings of distress could correspondingly invalidate the contentment of the many—and the many’s feelings are no less respectable.

Moreover, as discussed above, the evidence of harm is thin, but the Church expressing acknowledgment and sympathy for the critics’ position would, rightly or wrongly, be widely interpreted as concession of ipso facto harm, or even a malicious basis for the current organization.

Our culture lauds full and open discussion of distress, but general conference isn’t a cozy chat, and validation of personal feelings is not the highest good. Elder Cook’s one-liner served an admirable purpose that critics doubtless dislike but can hopefully respect.

On a popular level, the folk apologetic has been accompanied by misleading statistics that downplay the rates at which plural marriage was practiced. A corrected ballpark figure has 15-20% of married Mormon men engaged in the practice during the Deseret era. Speculation runs rampant that a shortage of males was created by persecution caused deaths. However, such casualties were more likely to because of forced winter marches and hence not skewed towards one of the genders.

Despite these shortcomings and dismissal by many who consider themselves properly informed, it turns out that the original assertion is correct. There was a shortage of Mormon men! I will not only establish that below, but I will also advance two solid hypotheses on why the shortage existed.

In an earlier essay, I took a shot at explaining the lack of a “lost boys” phenomenon in 19^th century Utah. Looking at the 1880 Census data, I found that Utah women were being married much more efficiently than their US peers, while Utah men eventually married at about the same rate as their US peers. Utah demographics were found to support high rates of plural marriage for men because 1) Utah women were married efficiently, 2) Utah had a relatively high rate of natural increase creating a wide population pyramid, and 3) under these Utah conditions, increasing the age gap between spouses created an artificial surplus of women.

That analysis likewise presents a rationale for suspending plural marriage. In today’s world we observe increased life expectancies, delayed entry into marriage to pursue educational opportunities, greater economic independence for women, large age gaps between couples becoming less acceptable, and less importance placed on having large families. Of course, whether in 19^th century or now, it is necessary for a polygamous community to isolate itself from the dominant values of its ambient society.  However, inasmuch as Mormon fundamentalists practice arranged marriages and outcast young single men to sustain plural marriage, they appear be addressing a shortage of female marriage partners on levels that their Deseret era predecessors did not.

In my zeal to refute old anti-Mormon accusations that Deseret era missionaries specifically targeted female converts to bring them captive to polygamous harems in Utah, I resisted the notion that missionary work facilitated polygamy. I reasoned that converts would be equally male and female and that older couples would not contribute to natural increase as much as, say, a second generation Mormon. Subsequent investigation of statistics such as those tabulated below shows that a significant surplus of women emigrated to Utah as the fruits of missionary, but their presence is masked the presence of non-Mormons (a small ~20% of the population with a large marriage-aged male disparity [4]) and the rising second generation of Mormons (birth rates make a large % of the population and slightly favor males).

Anti-Mormon Propaganda

Table 1. Sex Ratios and Marriage Statistics [5]

In the first column of the table, overall sex ratios SR are reported. For example, there were roughly 104 males for every 100 females in the US in 1880. The sex ratio at birth has historically ranged from 102-106 [6]. However, other factors besides native births contribute to the overall sex ratio. For regions in the US, migration played a significant role. Horace Greeley’s admonish “Go west, young man” appropriately captures the demographic of a migrating individual. There was more than 2:1 male to female ratio in the frontier mountain states (NM had been settled a while longer and was thus more family friendly).

The second column uses Kathryn Daynes’s range for prime marrying age sex ratio (PMASR) of 15-29. She found that PMASR was generally more favorable towards women in 1860, 1870, and 1880 census years (93, 100, 105) than the overall sex ratio (101, 99, 107) [7]. As a slight refinement, I calculated a staggered prime marrying age sex ratio (SPMASR) as well: (86, 86, 90). SPMASR compares the number of males aged 20-34 to females aged 15-29 [8]. This helps capture the five year difference in male and female ages at first marriage (estimated in the 4^th and 5^th column by the singulate mean age at marriage (SMAM )). Finally I calculated the SR (96, 97, 101) and PMASR (87, 94, 100) for foreign borns [9] in Utah for comparison with my classification of almost 90,000 names in the Mormon Immigration Index CD.

The adoption of plural marriage prevented a disaster.  As seen above, a moderate surplus of Mormon women and an overwhelming surplus of non-Mormon men would have made large numbers of inter-religious marriages virtually inevitable. For some Mormon females, plural marriage was a much better option than remaining single for life (like many of their west European peers did) or marrying outside her faith.  Interfaith marriages, like other assimilating influences, were important to avoid while young Mormon religious community tried to establish its own identity.

Two Hypotheses

The surplus of Mormon women was the fruits of missionary work, especially in western Europe. The pre-dominance of women in the Mormon Immigration Index can be explained by a combination of two hypotheses.

1.      The demographics of converts will match the demographics of their ambient society.

2.      Women join new, charismatic religious movements in disproportionate numbers.

While the 1^st hypothesis is a default assumption, the 2^nd hypothesis was presented by none other than Rodney Stark [10]. He wrote:

The ancient sources and modern historians agree that primary conversion to Christianity was far more prevalent among females than among males. Moreover, this appears to be typical of new religious movements in recent times. By examining manuscript census returns for the latter half of the nineteenth century, Bainbridge (1982) found that approximately two-thirds of the Shakers were female. Data on religious movements included in the 1926 census of religious bodies show that 75 percent of Christian Scientists were women, as were more than 60 percent of Theosophists, Swedenborgians, and Spiritualists (Stark and Bainbridge 1985). The same is true of the immense wave of Protestant conversions taking place in Latin America.

As judged by Mormon Immigration Index results, western Europe convert sex ratios take on an intermediate value between their ambient countries (represented by Sweden and England in the table above) and the lofty numbers Stark collected for other religious movements. Mormon missionaries were instructed to let God select the elect and warned about specifically targeting attractive on at least one occasion. One might speculate that plural marriage diminished some enthusiasm among European women to convert to Mormonism.   If greater numbers of women had converted without plural marriage, it would have been very difficult to accommodate them in harsh, frontier Utah.

In conclusion, a Mormon male shortage in Utah in consistent with the 1) the assumption that non-Mormon demographics in Utah follow that found in other frontier western states and 2) foreign converts contributed a significant amount to Mormon demographics and were moderately stacked towards women. The Deseret Saints believed that plural marriage was commanded by God, while not fully comprehending the reasons why. Even if it is stretch to argue that divine foresight anticipated and prepared for frontier conditions in the Kirtland era, providing for the spiritual and physical welfare of the surplus female converts at least seems like a positive side effect.

Notes

[1] John Widtsoe wrote in Evidences and Reconciliations: “Plural marriage has been a subject of wide and frequent comment. Members of the Church unfamiliar with its history, and many non-members, have set up fallacious reasons for the origin of this system of marriage among the Latter-day Saints.

“The most common of these conjectures is that the Church, through plural marriage, sought to provide husbands for its large surplus of female members. The implied assumption in this theory, that there have been more female than male members in the Church, is not supported by existing evidence. On the contrary, there seem always to have been more males than females in the Church. Families — father, mother, and children — have most commonly joined the Church. Of course, many single women have become converts, but also many single men.

“The United States census records from 1850 to 1940, and all available Church records, uniformly show a preponderance of males in Utah, and in the Church. Indeed, the excess in Utah has usually been larger than for the whole United States, as would be expected in a pioneer state. The births within the Church obey the usual population law — a slight excess of males. Orson Pratt, writing in 1853 from direct knowledge of Utah conditions, when the excess of females was supposedly the highest, declares against the opinion that females outnumbered the males in Utah. (The Seer, p. 110) The theory that plural marriage was a consequence of a surplus of female Church members fails from lack of evidence.”

[2] I am looking in your direction, i4m.com

[3] I highly recommend Hales’s website http://www.josephsmithspolygamy.com/ to my readers.

[4] Dean May estimated 21% of Utah’s 1880 census population was non-Mormon Dean L. May, “A Demographic Portrait of the Mormons, 1830-1980,” in After 150 Years: The Latter-day Saints in Sesquicentennial Perspective, edited by Thomas G.”Alexander and Jessie L. Embry, Charles Redd Monographs in Western History No.”13 (Midvale, Utah: Signature Books for Charles Redd Center for Western Studies) p. 51, 67 cited in Kathryn Daynes, “Single Men in Polygamous Society: Male Marriage Patterns in Manti, Utah” in Journal of Mormon History 24 (Spring 1998), p. 89-111

[5] The tabulated values for US, Utah, and Mountain States sex ratios come from Volume 1. Statistics of the Population of the United States available at http://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/decennial/1880.html . For the same areas SMAM and never married % come from IPUMS. For Sweden sex ratios come from data provided by http://www.scb.se/Pages/ProductTables____25809.aspx, while ancestry.com was used to extract the same for England. SMAMs for the two countries provided by Michael R. Haines, “Long Term Marriage Patterns in the United States from Colonial Times to the Present,” National Bureau of Economic Research (Cambridge, MA), NBER Working Paper Series, (Historical Paper No. 80. 1996):15-39.  Guinanne, Timothy W., 1997, The Vanishing Irish: Household Migration and the rural Economy in Ireland,1850-1914. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ. p. 96. Sex ratios for Mormon immigrants used the Mormon Immigration Index CD and relied on sites like nordicnames.com to classify gender.

[6] by Lee L. Bean, Geraldine P. Mineau, Douglas L. Anderton , Fertility Change on the American Frontier: Adaptation and Innovation p. 79 This fact suggests caution against the folk wisdom that women will out-number men in the Celestial Kingdom thus justifying a rationale for widespread polygamy in the afterlife. For a more devastating critique, see Valerie Hudson Cassler, “Polygamy” SquareTwo 3:1 (2010)

[7] Daynes also finds evidence for a surplus of Mormon women in the predominantly Mormon community of Manti PMASR (84, 81, 89) and in endowment records (77, 73, 83)

[8] The idea to use a staggered range for men and women occurred to me after reading Joshua Angrist, “How Do Sex Ratios Affect Marriage andLabor Markets? Evidence from America’s Second Generation” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2002, v107(3,Aug) . Angrist uses a more appropriate range for the early 20^th Century with a smaller SMAM gap (men: 20-35, female: 18-33). I used ancestry.com’s census search capabilities to break down Utah’s population by sex and age.

[9] I again used ancestry.com and estimated the number of foreign-born by subtract US-born from the total. However this classifies unrecorded birthplaces as foreign which makes my estimates on the conservative side. In 1860, Utah territory included counties that were later annexed to Nevada (Carson, St. Mary’s, and Humboldt) and Wyoming (Green River) that I eliminated. However, I did not eliminate counties that straddled later state boundaries. This means that Utah’s actual sex ratios are slightly lower than the figures I provide, but probably not more than 1%.

[10] Rodney Stark, “Reconstructing the rise of Christianity: The role of women” Sociology of Religion.  Fall 1995.  Vol. 56,  Iss. 3,  p. 229

William Schryver’s presentation on the Kirtland Egyptian Papers received some press before the conference, and did not disappoint. You can view it here. (A browser plug-in may be required.)

There have been articles about many of the presentations published in Mormon Times, Deseret News, and LDS Church News:

• FAIR conference: Same-sex marriage and the role of religion
• FAIR conference: Secret Mormon codes and Egyptian papers
• FAIR conference: LDS doctrine clear on divinity of one God
• FAIR conference: ‘Gender equality is the brick of Zion,’ speaker says
• FAIR conference: What if the U.S. president were a Mormon?
• FAIR conference: Joseph Smith’s discovery of ancient patterns
• FAIR Conference: Roper’s take on Book of Mormon geography
• Mormons need to work to increase favor
• FAIR conference: Defend the Book of Mormon by studying names, origins
• Nibley editor says scholar was bolstered by research
• ‘Be Ready’ to Defend Faith

Transcripts will be posted at http://www.fairlds.org when they are ready. MP3s and DVDs will be made available for purchase at the FAIR bookstore.

Blacks and the Priesthood

Mormonism and racial issues/Blacks and the priesthood

The Place of Mormon Women: Perceptions, Prozac, Polygamy, Priesthood, Patriarchy, and Peace

Christians don’t need a mediating priesthood

Priesthood/Non-transferable

Is there a “Priesthood of All Believers”?

Priesthood/Restoration

Hebrews 7 and the Aaronic priesthood

Date of the restoration of the Melchizedek priesthood

Priesthood/What does the Bible teach?

Smith received a medical degree (after also studying physiology and English) at the University of Alberta. He completed his medical residency in Montréal, Québec before becoming an “old-style country doctor” in rural Alberta. His interests include internal medicine and psychiatry.

Previously, Smith has spoken to the Miller-Eccles study group on the topic of plural marriage. He’s also published several articles in the FARMS Review and edited countless FAIRwiki pages. His 2009 FAIR Conference presentation, “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Plural Marriage* (*but were afraid to ask),” can be read here.

Questions about this episode and ideas for future episodes can be emailed to podcast@fairlds.org.

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I was an awkward twelve year old seventh grader. I was taller than all of the other girls… and all of the boys, and I was still growing into my skin, still forming for myself the kind of person that I was trying to become. I was not popular. Not well liked. I had few, if any developed talents, and even fewer friends. And I was angry. I was upset with the Lord for my discomfort, for my insecurities, and for not fulfilling my selfish desires to be the prettiest, for not “letting” me fit in with everyone else.

There was another girl in my grade who likewise just didn’t seem to fit in. Her name was Linda, and she was known to all as the “weird kid”. She was the epitome of silence, in the most literal sense. She never spoke a word. Not to teachers, not to administrators, and certainly not to peers. And so people made fun of her. They called her names, said cruel things about the way she looked. They insulted her to her face, and called her a freak because they knew she would never say anything in return. She never even changed her facial expression, never frowned, and never cried. She simply endured. I was teased, but I what I experienced never came close to being the object of pre-teen torture that poor quiet Linda was.

And then one day, I had an encounter with Linda’s mother, a petite Peruvian woman who was full of words enough for herself and five of Linda. I ran into her by chance, had a short, awkward conversation with this strange new woman, and at the end of our brief exchange, she extended an invitation to come over to their house. It was the loving, desperate invitation of a parent fearing for the well being of her distant and isolated child. Without thinking, an affirmative reply escaped my lips, and Linda’s mother scribbled down their phone number for me with the heartfelt enthusiasm of one whose life had just been snatched from the clutches of despair. She hurried off with a teary look of appreciation and I stumbled on to my next class, dazed by the experience.

That evening I sat alone in my room with a telephone in one hand and the hurriedly written number in the other. My thoughts were afraid, frustrated and confused. I wasn’t popular, but if anyone in that cruelly judgmental school heard that I’d spent time with Linda, my popularity certainly wouldn’t increase. So I sat there in indecision, weighing my own self-centered desires against the well being of a girl that was more special than I had the perception to recognize. After some time, I just called. My brain stalled for a minute and I dialed the numbers to set up the date. Linda’s mom answered the phone. As I mentioned who I was and why I was calling I could hear in her thick Peruvian accent, the overflowing disbelief, turned to appreciation. We set up the day and time and as I hung up the phone, a swelling of utter and complete joyful warmth flowed through my body, bringing me more happiness and confidence than any word from a popular peer ever could. The selfish thoughts just flew away from my mind.

I visited Linda not knowing what to expect, not knowing what to do or say, just knowing that with her was where I was meant to be. So I went to her house and watched movies ate and played. And Linda’s voice remained ever silent, her face expressionless. A few days later, I visited again, playing and laughing, and Linda smiled at me. The loner, the shy girl, the child who seemed to be void of personality smiled at me. I could have jumped for joy at that smile. In fact… in retrospect I believe I did. Days later I visited again. And then a few days later I came over again. With time, small smiles turned to big grins, and big grins turned to laughs. And I was able to see for the first time, how beautiful this quiet girl was. I could see the purity and childlike innocence that defined her personality, through high pitched, girly giggles.

I will never forget the day that I heard her voice. We were sitting in Linda’s bedroom, playing with Barbies as I told her stories about my family. I was picking up a brunette doll, lifting it from her dresser showing her that it was my favorite, and she pulled a box from her closet. As she opened it, my young eyes widened and I admired the beautiful princess bride within. She smiled at the look on my face saying, “This one is my favorite.” I didn’t act shocked. I didn’t stare at her when she finally uttered a word, but I sealed the moment into my memory. As I knelt at my bedside that night to pray, I cried in complete joyous elation. Tears poured down my face and words could not escape my lips, nor begin to describe the light that filled my bedroom that night.

Some time later, the girls on the bus heard that I’d befriended Linda. They laughed at me, called me disdainful names. They told me I was fat, said that no boy would ever like me, and that Linda was the only friend I’d ever be able to get. In patient understanding and confidence, I smiled to myself. If Linda, that bright pure spirit was the only friend I’d ever have, I knew that I would live a happy life. For the first time, words meant to hurt me meant nothing. Girls, whose words once would’ve meant everything to me, now meant absolutely nothing.

Do not cast pearls before swine. The words of those popular, pretty girls did not matter to me because the Lord had valued me enough to place a pearl in my life by sending me Linda. I realize now that had I ever befriended those popular girls, I eventually would’ve been broken down and I would’ve given in to the temptations that filled the lives of nearly every other child at that school. I was saved from a world of hurt that that environment could have created, all because of one girl, one friend that gave me confidence. I treasure Linda and the friendship she brought me to this day because having her in my life brought me closer to my Heavenly Father than I ever would’ve been otherwise. I was still awkward, but I was fulfilled, and I knew that I could count on my Heavenly Father above everyone else.

When we speak plainly of divorce, abuse, gender identity, contraception, abortion, parental neglect, we are thought by some to be way out of touch or to be uncaring. Some ask if we know how many we hurt when we speak plainly. Do we know of marriages in trouble, of the many who remain single, of single-parent families, of couples unable to have children, of parents with wayward children, or of those confused about gender? Do we know? Do we care?Those who ask have no idea how much we care; you know little of the sleepless nights, of the endless hours of work, of prayer, of study, of travel—all for the happiness and redemption of mankind.Because we do know and because we do care, we must teach the rules of happiness without dilution, apology, or avoidance. That is our calling.I once learned a valuable lesson from a mission Relief Society president. In a conference, she announced some tightening up of procedures. A sister stood up and defiantly said, “Those rules can’t apply to us! You don’t understand us! We are an exception.”

That wonderful Relief Society president replied, “Dear sister, we’d like not to take care of the exception first. We will establish the rule first, and then we’ll see to the exception.”

— Boyd K. Packer, General Conference, April 1994

I sit in a house wanting for housework but housework has a churchy quality about it. It is always there and there is never a time when I can say it’s perfect. A recent event occurred with Sister Beck’s talk entitled “Mothers Who Know”. A firestorm of protest erupted from women who were left out of her picture that seemed to put too much emphasis on housework. I think a few of Sister Beck’s sentences could have been better thought out but as a woman who knows how difficult it is squeeze the thoughts in my head past the tongue in my mouth, I know that with time and experience Sister Beck will parse her few allotted words more precisely. So the issue for me is not about the first brief talk of a new Relief Society President, it is in how we as members react to statements from leaders that leave us wanting.

We have to always deal with LDS culture that demands conformity by disallowing contention. It can be seen as restrictive, oppressive and dysfunctional. Or it can be seen as creating an environment that is welcoming and safe for everyone regardless of predisposition or circumstance. Mormon Manners function as any set of standardized manners function in any society. Everyone knows what fork to pick up, when to lift it and what to say while doing it so no one stands in awkward isolation outside of the group. I know that I will be safe and welcome in our Mormon world within a world if I extend the same manners to others regardless of our idiosyncrasies or ill conceived words.

The topic has re-emerged because of a presentation regarding this petition given at Sunstone West on Saturday. I identified myself as a critic of the petition in the Q&A and two of the presenters were kind enough to approach me after the session. They were delightful women and I hope to get to know them better. I was not comfortable during the presentation, particularly when their own critics were ridiculed by reading emails (and those emails were certainly silly) in a mocking voice. When I spoke to the women in person, however, something quite different happened. But it happened because we all immediately and unconsciously slipped back into Mormon Manners and met in the familiar place where we say and do the things that make one another feel comfortable and welcome. That is when the magic happens and we can see one another as individuals with important things to say. That is when we open our eyes and ears.

I have only had one petition and that was to request a sealing cancellation. I resented that I had to do this for many years –until I received a response. Only then did I see that we may be in a church of rules but we were all treated as exceptions. Can we come together as women with this realization and turn our efforts to making sure that each exception is attended to by us rather than expecting it to come in every random twenty minute talk? I think we can and I think we will be better for it.