Question: What is Lorenzo Snow claimed to have said about plural marriages being adultery prior to 1843?

FAIR Answers—back to home page

Question: What is Lorenzo Snow claimed to have said about plural marriages being adultery prior to 1843?

One critic of the Church attributes the following quote to Lorenzo Snow during the Temple Lot Case:

A man that violated this law in the Doctrine and Covenants, 1835 edition, until the acceptance of that revelation by the church, violated the law of the church if he practiced plural marriage. Yes sir, he would have been cut off from the church, I think I should have been if I had. Before the giving of that revelation in 1843 if a man married more wives than one who were living at the same time, he would have been cut off from the church. It would have been adultery under the laws of the church and under the laws of the state, too. – Temple Lot Case, p.320-322 [Bold and italics by the author.]

The critic concludes:

According to Lorenzo Snow, Joseph had zero business marrying his plural wives before 1843 and he should have been cut off from the Church as it was adultery under the laws of the Church and under the laws of the State. Joseph’s marriage to Fanny Alger in 1833 was illegal under both the laws of the land and under any theory of divine authority; it was adultery.”

Notes