Customer Reviews

Solemn Covenant: THE MORMON POLYGAMOUS PASSAGE

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Carmon Hardy has done an excellent job of describing the Mormon church's doctrinal change from a polygamous to a monogomist ethic. The first part of his book deals with the polygamous beginnings and early Mormon justification for the practice. Polygamy was considered the "family order of heaven" and was sanctioned by revelation given to the founding prophet Joseph Smith. Polygamy was practiced in secret until the Mormons came to Utah, were it was openly taught. Early church leaders even taught that polygamy was a requirement to reach the highest Heaven, where God dwells. Hardy spends the rest of his book describing the slow death of polygamy. Even though polygamy had always been against the law, the Federal government started passing tougher laws against the practice. The most strict law became the "Edmunds-Tucker act" in 1887, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1890. This law disincorporated the church and most of its properties. The church realized that it could not survive and so that same year the manifesto was issued, which publically stated the church would abandon plural marriage. However, it was not that simple. Hardy shows how many members of the church, including high church leaders, continued to practice polygamy well into the beginning of the next century. This created a discrepancy between what the church was saying (that they had given up polygamy) and what they were still doing (allowing some to continue in taking new wives). Hardy's final chapter deals with the issue of deception used by some in the church to try to keep the practice alive. "Solemn Covenant" is very well written and Hardy's keen sense of irony manifests itself throughout the book. Especially in the chapters that deal with the church being so strong in the doctrine of polygamy, to a church that is now strongly anti-polygamous. This is the best book about Mormon polygamy that I have read.

The author uses literary styles with superb grace, with supple documentation throughout. This book is certainly not for the recreational reader, who is bound to be overwhelmed with its intellectual and scholarly approach to a subject consumed with controversy. The author stops short at doing justice to the topic by failing to adequately attribute the origin of polygamy to providential revelation. He instead ascribes its origin to naturalistic reasons, almost as though Joseph Smith read a sociological history of the eastern United States and then decided to carry forth those ideas. Joseph himself admitted that the introduction of Polygamy would rock the church and that he really had great reluctance in becoming involved himself. He went forward due to divine command. Overall, Hardy did well and deserves the utmost credit. But true history views its path in a panoramic fashion.