Nauvoo Polygamy as Nietzschean-like Selective Breeding of Supercouples toward Creating a separate "Nicer" People (Peoplehood as The Kingdom of God)

 After reading Nietzsche's Naturalist Morality of Breeding: A Critique of Eugenics as Taming by Donovan Miyasaki, and Selective Breeding and the Birth of Philosophy by Costin Vlad Alamariu -- here is a promo audio quote from Alamariu's book discussing the difficulty in discussing the concept of selective breeding -- it occurred to me that from a Nietzschean perspective, Nauvoo polygamy of the 1840s could be seen as a spiritual mechanism for selecting for higher types in the form of the breeding of Supercouples who carry certain moral traits into future generations. As covered in the introduction of Alamariu's book Selective Breeding:

Nietzsche believed that [the Hebrew marriage Laws in the 10 Commandments, including honor your father and mother] was the constitutive goal of the Hebrews, the striving that defined them as a people" .... [the Hebrew God had] decided to establish his law within a tribe or nation.[vii]. And the cornerstone of this foundation is the set of laws that has to do with breeding, marriage, and management of sexual relations [e.g. Leviticus 18] (Loc 128-135). 

Could this be what Joseph Smith was doing as well, attempting to create a spiritual tribe, a People, through the regulated practice of plural marriage within God's guidelines as a "house of order" (D&C 132: 8)? This reminded me of Denver's 2010 article on Peoplehood, wherein in writes:

What returned through Joseph Smith was not a religion, nor an institution, nor me
rely a faith. It was instead the radical notion that an ancient covenant family was being regathered into a separate People.

I explore such Peoplehood as the "Kingdom of God" in my blog post Orson Hyde's Diagram of the Kingdom of God & A Chain of Belonging as Tribal Psychology & Familial Will to Power. From this perspective, the Mormon People are a tribe, a People, a quasi-ethnicity through the selective breeding of polygamy in Nauvoo and in Utah. This would make Mormonism more than a religion or a creed, but a kind of ethnic Tribe, a People. This may be why even exmormons often admit that they are still cultural Mormons and even sometimes return to activity in the LDS Church or join another Restoration branch after more fully recognizing and appreciating their ancestral Mormon heritage; and how it goes deeper and is more meaningful than mere beliefs or disbelief. In other words, it's a matter beyond belief and disbelief and instead it's about socio-cultural energy, as in LDS Scripture and the "traditions of the fathers" acts as the artistic software, as a field of potential energy, through which can be bred and sprouted an empowered and vitally alive Mormon People: who move away from life-denying asceticism and Augustinian despising of the body, and toward the affirmation of the material Earth, the Body, the Family, and the tangible Joys of Life.

Part of what created this Peoplehood was plural marriage, which separated the early Mormons from the Augustinian and Lutheran sects and their sectarian Creeds. As this slide presentation points out:

Geographical isolation had become necessary for the Saints’ safety. Yet, as Terryl Givens has demonstrated, there was little aside from their theology which separated the Saints from general American society. (Givens, Viper on the Hearth, 18–93) Polygamy served as the perfect dividing line between “Gentile” and “Zion” America. The Saints remained relatively isolated until the coming of the railroad to Utah; by this time their status as a distinct religious and social culture was assured, given that they had spent most of the past half century in conflict with the U.S. government over polygamy.


~ Gregory L. Smith, Polygamy, Prophets, and Prevarication. Download available here.


... [Plural Marriage caused the early Mormons to not] only...abandon the false doctrines of the sectarians, but they [had to] appear to renounce cherished principles of monogamy which were viewed as the well-spring of civilization.

This made it so that similar to the Jews as a separated People, a "chosen people," the early Latter Day Saints were similarly isolated from the sectarians and given time to grow and flourish as a tribe, as a culture; which was a process similar to what Nietzsche described as the growth of a culture, a People, is like growing like plants in a greenhouse. So that being isolated in Utah and practicing plural marriage forged a group identity, causing the breeding of a culture, a People. From this perspective, being Mormon (especially if you have LDS ancestors going back to the Restoration's founding) runs deeper than mere belief or disbelief in the doctrines; and is beyond belief in the current correlated opinions and the policies and doctrines (which all change over time) and instead is a matter of lineage, of quasi-ethnic identity and tribal belonging through connection to one's ancestors as their gifted heritage. Even during my ex-mormon phase, I remember handling an 1891 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, passed on in my family and reading the text gave me a sense of interconnection with my LDS ancestors who had read the same edition, touched the same pages, etc. This gave me a sense of enlarged identity through ancestral continuity, a feeling of enlargement and expansion, as I was connected to a Great People: something larger than myself that was in my blood as well as the page, something more lasting and durable than mere beliefs and ideas, but a feeling of deep rooted belonging to a People.

In the King Follet Discourse, Joseph spoke of ascending the spiritual ladder to godhood. The saint who practiced plural marriage from the 1840s to 1890, was this higher type. The lesser types, the less noble and righteous, who did not magnify their calling and ascend the ranks of the priesthood competence hierarchy, would not have been given access to plural marriage sealings during this time; and thus their seed, their traits, would have been bred to a lesser degree as monogamists; while the high priest who was a polygamist, multiplying his seed like Abraham, was able to breed his genes, his traits, more abundantly. Thus selecting out the lesser types and selecting for the higher spiritual types.

From this perspective, polygamy was in part a morality of breeding: a sociocultural selection and preservation of psychological types. The type being the new saints, saints meaning "holy ones" or set-apart or separated ones. Those who arise from the dust to be men (not celibates like the Shakers), kings and priestesses in royal elevation (not the lower ranked, the less noble, those dwindling in spiritual decline toward criminality).

The breeding of higher types was the breeding of noble Nephi-like natures and traits that separated the Mormon from the body-denying type, the celibate Shaker or life-renunciant Catholic priest; so that the life-affirming type, the masculine virile male and feminine nurturing woman was selected for in early Mormonism. The model for the higher type, the combination of Life Affirmation and spiritual holiness or kindliness, was based in the restored belief in the physical God of body parts and passions, as described in the Bible; so that rather than an emasculated deity, a father without a phallus nor a body, Joseph's restoration restored God's "manhood."

Similar to Nietzsche, Joseph's God was life affirming as a God who seeks to expand His Realm, His Kingdom, His Divine Genes, through the breeding of His Divine Image in his Image-bearers (the Saints); as the Latter Day Saint, through the renewing of their minds, through the Nauvoo doctrines and expiating ritual of plural marriage, would breed God's true bodily Image which mirrored the rank order of ascending Life; as God's Mind was reproduced, both through belief and in the selecting for the traits of the next generation of Mormons through polygamy.

Mirroring generative Life, God as a phallic God, first replicated his genome in Christ, His twin Image; then God sought to breed His Image as a Man of War and God of Love, as in Jehovah and Sophia "energy," into a new holy species, the Latter Day Saints: who have their blood transformed into the blood of Abraham, as they are called to "do the works of Abraham" (D&C 132:32), i.e., the breeding of a Zion People through one's priesthood as one's sperm (Abraham 2:11), producing a greater number of posterity, generation to generation, through the "strength in the loins" of the higher types; thus breeding a Zion People, the growth of morally good and mighty Supercouples. As the document The Abrahamic Covenant on studylib.net puts it:

From The Blessings of Abraham - Becoming a Zion People by E. Douglas Clark:


“All the sources attest that [Sarah] was a close relative—perhaps a half-sister (the daughter of his father through another wife) (Gen. 20:12), or perhaps a niece or a cousin. The close kinship with Abraham and the quality of her character suggest the possibility of mutual sympathy and support long before their marriage....“The name Sarai, which God would later alter to Sarah, means ‘princess’ or possibly ‘queen’ suggesting royal blood. Was this perhaps a reflection that her bloodline ran through the royal patriarchal line to which Abraham himself was heir? ...P. 59-61


“[H]er name was a fitting title for a woman who possessed singular loveliness of both body and soul. Her unequaled physical beauty would turn the heads of the most powerful kings, while she was also ‘gifted with every excellence’ and ‘great wisdom.’ It is said that her spiritual attainments matched and in some cases exceeded those of her remarkable husband, she being gifted with profound ‘intuitive Perception’ of spiritual realities. A number of sources assert yet another name for her—Iscah, meaning ‘prophetess’ or ‘seer.’ And with all her talents, she had a deep ‘love and compassion ... for the needy.’ She was indeed ‘a Princess in name and in nature.’... P. 59-61


“Jewish tradition insists that she is the one described in the famous Proverbs passage extolling the ‘virtuous woman’ (31:10). Her worth is far above rubies, and her husband safely trusts in her; she is an industrious homemaker, a tireless worker, and generous to the poor; she speaks wisdom and kindness, is cheerful and hopeful about the future, and is clothed with strength and splendor; she is, in short, the ideal wife, deserving of her husband’s highest praise. Sarah’s example was held up through the generations among her Jewish descendants, in whose homes the Proverbs passage was traditionally recited on the Sabbath eve. P. 59-61


“Sarah had her work, and Abraham had his, but it was all part of the same cause. From this point on in Abraham’s life, to speak of his mission and accomplishments is necessarily to include Sarah also.... Abraham and Sara were a part of something larger than either of them. They were a family, they were Zion, and they are to be remembered together, according to Isaiah: the righteous are to look not only to their father Abraham but also to their mother Sarah (Isa. 51:1-2).”P. 59-61


Abraham 2:6, 19: Promised Land—Abraham and his posterity would inherit the land of Canaan.


Abrahamic Covenant Summary - The Overarching Covenant:


“I WILL BE YOUR GOD;YOU WILL BE MY PEOPLE”

(Abr. 1:17-19; Gen. 17:7-8; Isaiah 41:8-10; D&C 132: 28-33, 47-50)




Covenant Element: Promised Land; Posterity (Abraham 2:9-11), Priesthood/Gospel—his posterity would be heirs to all the blessings of the Gospel (ordinances & covenants) available through the priesthood and would in turn take those blessings to all the families of the earth.



Mortal Promise: A land of inheritance to gather to and to worship God freely.

A) vast posterity b) A noble posterity who will bless all the families of the earth with the blessings of the Gospel. Descendants have a right to all gospel blessings, through the priesthood ordinances, which lead to Eternal Life - Inherit Eternal Life—the end result of gospel covenants


Eternal Promise Inherit: The Earth in its Celestial state. Innumerable Posterity; eternal procreation; “endless lives” (see D&C 19:10; D&C 132: 24). Descendants Have a right to all gospel blessings, through the priesthood ordinances, which lead to Eternal Life - Inherit Eternal Life—the end result of gospel covenants



Abrahamic Covenant:

Abraham 2:9-11; D&C 132:30: Posterity—innumerable descendants—like the sand on the seashore & the stars in the heavens.



“And so I go to the Salt Lake Temple and marry my wife for time and for all eternity, and so begins a new kingdom of God. And if we are faithful, that marriage exists here and it exists hereafter. And I have been given through that ordinance every promise that Abraham received. It is given on conditional basis. We must be true and faithful and keep the covenant that we make in the temple, but if we are faithful, we will receive the blessings." ~ Bruce R. McConkie Quorum of the Twelve ("The Promises Made To The Fathers," in Studies in Scripture: Vol. Three The Old Testament, p. 61)


"The crowning blessings of the gospel are received in temples.... It is in these holy houses that faithful couples enter into the ordinance of celestial marriage through which they become parties to the Abrahamic covenant, the covenant of eternal increase, the covenant that in them and in their seed all generations shall be blessed." ~ Bruce R. McConkie, Quorum of the Twelve (A New Witness for the Articles of Faith, p.539)


In a Nutshell:


Gather Israel


D&C 132: 19:


Kingdoms, Thrones, Principalities (Promised Land)


Powers, Dominions (Priesthood)


Continuation of Seed “forever and ever” (Posterity)


“Now I would ask who knows the seal of the living God? Behold the ignorance of the World!A measure of this sealing is to confirm upon their head, in common with Elijah, the doctrine of election or the covenant with Abraham—which, when a Father & mother of a family have entered into, their children who have not transgressed are secured by the seal wherewith the Parents have been sealed. And this is the Oath of God unto our Father Abraham and this doctrine shall stand forever.” ~ Joseph Smith President (The Words of Joseph Smith, p.241)

From the document quoted above, it is clear that the restored gospel and priesthood is the seeding of a Zion People through Supercouples who enlarge their power and dominion through their status and posterity.

Selective Breeding & The Happiness Letter

Returning to the book Selective Breeding and the Birth of Philosophy by Costin Vlad Alamariu, the following section in the book made me reconsider and rethink the early Nauvoo and Utah period (1840s - 1890): when polygamy can be interpreted as in part a form of selective breeding. For just as Abraham practiced plural marriage and bred a People: Israel; LDS members bred the Mormon People. Selective breeding is not just the practice of a genetic line but the selection of moral traits. As Alamariu points out, it was Catholic and Protestant Christian practices of breeding that literally changed the socio-cultural psyche of western man. In Selective Breeding, location 196 - 230 we read:

Nevertheless it is very clear in so many ways that it is through its laws of marriage and breeding that Christianity affected European society and political life most of all. First, precisely through the ideal of chastity, and the grudging concessions made therefore to monogamy alone, it is possible that Christianity stabilized family life and thereby promoted in many cases a salutary and steady but not Malthusian increase in population.


… one need not speculate about how the Church exerted its power throughout medieval Europe, which was precisely through its control over marriage. It is through its power to carry out marriages and therefore through its effect on inheritance, among other things, that the priesthood was able to exert such temporal power.


The Church disapproved of arranged marriages and in most of Europe it forbad cousin marriage. … Accordingly there developed a de facto practice of outgroup marriage in certain parts of Europe, which did away with clan identity and which encouraged broaderbased political identities, universal morality, and altruistic orientation toward non-family strangers.[xvii]


… it appears that in premodern England and Holland the ideal was the nuclear family, late marriage, adult children leaving the family home, and romantic love as opposed to tribal arranged marriage. …


The social and political consequences of the change described in the last two paragraphs are profound. Modern liberalism and capitalism, modern universal ethics or morality, are latecomers and piggyback on the fundamental and centuries-long work done by the manorial system and Christianity in reshaping and perhaps rebreeding European man—for there is strong evidence that many of the behaviors described, such as altruism toward strangers, are by now hereditary in certain populations. The culture of civility on which liberal, private society is built is inconceivable without this preparatory work done by Christianity, and which was carried out most effectively at the root, determining who married who, and therefore what kind of children were to be born. Thus it is arguably precisely through its marriage and breeding laws that Christianity shaped the modern world.

Friedrich Nietzsche thought likewise, and in this book we are going to see the same argument regarding Christianity that has just been made, but from a different, and hostile, point of view. For Nietzsche, Christianity laid the groundwork for the calamity of modern liberalism, modern democracy, and modern socialism, which threatened to destroy, maybe permanently, not only the possibility of philosophy, but of life in the full sense of the word. And yet this same phenomenon was for Nietzsche a great opportunity. The root of all of Nietzsche’s concerns about the possibility of the rebirth of philosophy, and about the future of mankind, is his “strange concern with breeding,” which according to a recent interpreter he “inherited” from Plato and not from any of his contemporaries—although surely this can’t be completely true…at the very least it would have also been motivated by the need to respond to Darwin’s lifting of the veil from this matter.[xix] It would be more accurate to say that Nietzsche and Plato are prominent in having explicitly brought out the fundamental problem of human life, political life, and of nature itself, which, indeed, does have to do with breeding. This is what this book is about.

What is more even more fascinating the more I thought about the contents of Alamariu's book on selective breeding, is that not only did the Jews selectively breed the Jewish race through which Jesus was born, and plural marriage acted as a selective mechanism for a higher type of holy man; but LDS Scripture itself presents a form of selective breeding where in D&C 132: 15-17, those in the early LDS Church (prior to 1890) who do not abide God's celestial marriage law of plural marriage and the moral strictures required to enter into the practice, were to remain separately and singly and thus do not have an increas i.e. they do not breed the future souls (earthly bodies) of men destined to become gods through the lineage of the righteous fathers. From this perspective, Mormonism becomes quasi-Nietzschean in that it selects out the uncivil and unkind who cannot handle the moral strictures of Mormonism, as well as the strong and capable of higher rank, prone to orderly conduct, and climbing the ladder of the priesthood hierarchy in order to gain access to plural marriages. Also similar to Nietzsche's biologizing of God, the LDS concept of divinity, of the Gods, is that of a biologizing of God as a God that reproduces His Genome and the Saints (Image-bearers) then breed a Zion People as Supercouples (gods). From this perspective, it would seem that just like Nietzsche, Joseph Smith was equally concerned about spiritually breeding a healthy culture and People, and to do so Joseph felt inspired to present God (Jehovah) himself in the same way God operated in the Hebrew Bible, as a God of a People, and polygamy was the selective mechanism for not just doing the works of Abraham on earth, but that all future gods themselves as biological divinities, reproduce and breed the Only Begotten/Monogene (God's Royal Image and Resurrect-able Nature), the Genome of God, through all time and eternity.

This perspective of interpretation gives new meaning, for example, to the Happiness Letter. Notice below that the language of the letter is collective, not individualistic. So here are excerpts from the Happiness Letter from the Joseph Smith Papers (emphasis mine and words and brackets my own):

Happiness is the object and design of our existence, and will be the end thereof if we pursue the path that leads to it; …




… This is the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted—by revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the children of the kingdom are placed. Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, although we may not see the reason thereof [breeding a Zion People and a new Hebraic consciousness] till long after the events transpire [not until post 1890]. If we seek first the kingdom of God [building a quasi-ethnic tribal culture as a People, as God's Garden], all good [culturally good] things will be added. So with [the polygamist] Solomon—first he asked wisdom, and God gave it him, and with it every desire of his heart, even things which might be considered abominable to all who do not understand the order of heaven only in part, but which, in reality, were right, because God gave and sanctioned by special revelation.[5]

[Footnote 5 reads:] Solomon reportedly had “seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines.” A passage in the Book of Mormon states that “David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable” and that unless the Lord should “command my people” to “raise up seed unto me,” they must obey the strict law of monogamy. In July 1843 [Joseph Smith] dictated a revelation in which the Lord answered JS’s request “to know and understand wherein I the Lord justified my Servents Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; as also Moses, David and Solomon, my Servents as touching the principle and doctrin of their having many wives, and concubines.” The revelation explained that these Old Testament patriarchs and kings married plural wives with divine approval. (1 Kings 11:3; Book of Mormon, 1840 ed., 125 [Jacob 2:24, 30]; Revelation, 12 July 1843, in Revelations Collection, CHL [D&C 132:1, 29–39].)

… as God has designed our happiness, the happiness of all his creatures, he never has, he never will, institute an ordinance, or give a commandment to his people that is not calculated in its nature to promote that happiness which he has designed, and which will not end in the greatest amount of good and glory to those who become the recipients of his laws and ordinances.

Note that the recipients are God's People today (Mormons), who are experiencing the good of a new post-Augustinian consciousness and being part of a Zion People, as a quasi-ethnic culture with LDS dances, temples, and wards and cultural hall activities, etc., which was accomplished through the early breeding of Zion traits through plural marriages. Joseph continues in the letter:

Blessings offered, but rejected, are no longer blessings, but become like the talent hid in the earth by the wicked and slothful servant[6]—the proffered good returns to the giver, the blessing is bestowed on those who will receive, and occupy; for unto him that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundantly; …

The word use of "abundantly" here could harken back to John 10:10 (EXB, emphasis added):

A thief comes [L only] to steal and kill and destroy, but I came ·to give life [L that they might have life]—life in all its ·fullness [abundance].

Life in abundance here is the eternal lives of those who receive the seed of Christ, the fulness of God's glory, producing a Zion People.

As D&C 132 explains:

22 For strait is the gate, and narrow the way [plural marriage] that leadeth unto the exaltation and continuation of the lives

 

24 This is eternal lives—to know [experience by knowledge gained, the knowledge of a physical God of flesh] the only wise and true God, and Jesus Christ, whom he hath sent. I am he. Receive ye, therefore, my law [of plural marriage].

 

55 But if she [Emma] will not abide this commandment, then shall my servant Joseph do all things for her, even as he hath said; and I will bless him and multiply him [his seed, see Abraham 2:11] and give unto him an a hundred-fold [i.e., a People] in this world, of fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, houses and lands, wives and children, and crowns of eternal lives in the eternal worlds.

… 63 … for they [wives] are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfil the [Abrahamic] promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified.

Note as well that when Joseph mentioned the slothful servant who hides his talent, the footnote 6 in the Joseph Smith Papers says, "See Matthew 25:25–26", which reads (emphasis added):

Matthew 25:25-26

Expanded Bible:

So I was afraid and went and hid your ·money [T talent] in the ground. [L See] Here is ·your bag of gold [L what is yours].’

Matthew 25:26

Amplified Bible:

“But his master answered him, ‘You wicked, lazy servant, you knew that I reap [the harvest] where I did not sow and gather where I did not scatter seed.

Matthew 25:25-30

 J.B. Phillips New Testament:

24-25 “Then the man who had received the one thousand pounds came in and said, ‘

Sir, I always knew you were a hard man, reaping where you never sowed and collecting where you never laid out—so I was scared and I went off and hid your thousand pounds in the ground. Here is your money, intact.’ [Compare Genesis 38:9 where Onan spills his seed on the ground, rather than reproduce with the woman as commanded by God, which is the context in which Joseph Smith is using the concept of talents as seed].

26-30 “‘You’re a wicked, lazy servant!’ his master told him. ‘You say you knew that I reap where I never sowed and collect where I never laid out? Then you ought to have put my money in the bank, and when I came out I should at any rate have received what belongs to me with interest. Take his thousand pounds away from him and give it to the man who now has the ten thousand!’ (For the man who has something will have more given to him and will have plenty. But as for the man who has nothing, even his ‘nothing’ will be taken away.) ‘And throw this useless servant [compare D&C 132: 15-17] into the darkness outside, where he can weep and wail over his stupidity.’

Matthew 25:25-30 and John 10:10 are therefore used intentionally as a midrash against celibacy, and for emphasizing that building or growing the Kingdom of God is a process of seeding a People so that the slothful servant is like Onan in this regard. As the Abrahamic Covenant is the call to produce a People through breeding offspring on earth and to expand God's Image into the eternities. The slothful servant is comparable to the man who remains singly in D&C 132: 15-17 and does and expand his seed (his priesthood), which is the power to increase and become enlarged and glorify God the Father (see D&C 132:63). So that the restored gospel is the glad tidings of the continuation of the lives, the glorification of the continuation of lives, expanding the Kingdom of the First Cause, "Father of lights" (Lecture on Faith 2:2). So that God's Genome is like seed scattered into soil producing a Garden of Disciples, the Body of Christ, the True Vine. So in context, what Joseph Smith is saying is that the "talent" here that is being buried (hidden) and not planted (gaining interest, i.e. sprouting dividends/blessings as progeny and an expanded kingdom) is referenced in the Happiness Letter metaphorically as the man's seed; which can only sprout into the blessings of families and "eternal lives" through dynastic unions (as a great Chain of Belonging) and thus generating future progeny growing into the Mormon People.

The reason that Joseph goes on to say that engaging in non-monogamous sex outside the restraints of the plural marriage law commanded by God "would prove cursings and vexations in the end" and "wailings" and "regret", is because promiscuous sex leads to not building dynastic family ties and the seed growth of Peoplehood, but usually women feeling regret; and resulting in some form of emotional hurt and often unwanted pregnancies and illegitimate children, fatherless homes, and the breakdown of civil society. Remember that cursings in the Book of Mormon lead to the degeneration and dwindling or dismantling of families and a healthy culture due to atheistic selfishness; whereas God's blessings leads to an emotionally healthy, growing and thriving civil culture, a People: through the cultivation of traditional biblical families raising children, whether through monogamy or polygamy.

When joseph says in the Happiness Letter, "Our heavenly father is more liberal in his views, and boundless in his mercies and blessings" he is referring not just to an embodied God of flesh and his liberality regarding sexuality as a holy process, but he is likewise referencing Moses 1:39 in the Pearl of Great Price (words in brackets added):

39 For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man [i.e. the continuation of eternal lives]

God is more liberal than Nancy's Augustinian puritanism, for at the time Joseph composed this letter, the ideas of the time were that celibacy was a more holy lifestyle, like among Shakers in the 1830s, resulting in the Shaker's dwindling to an incredibly small number today. Compared to the Mormon People thriving as a culture today after embracing a positive attitude regarding the body and sexual reproduction. So God is more "liberal" in that God not only condones the joys of the flesh, but God is not interested in monkish celibacy like the Catholics and Shakers, but God's commands the planting of the man's seed in order to produce and cultivate God's People abundantly: producing the blessings of a multiplicity of children and families. Thus, Joseph later says in D&C 132, regarding plural marriage:

… 63 … for they [wives] are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfil the [Abrahamic] promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified.

Plural marriage quickly multiplied and replenished the earth between the 1840s and 1890, with the most devout type of Mormon, with the best virtues of strength and virility as well as loyalty and self-control etc., and these traits were selected for during the process of the practice of plural marriage which produced the Mormon People. As Supercouples produced a super healthy growing culture overtime; through which the premortal Intelligences of Abraham 3 could obtain bodies and be born as souls; and God's work of creating eternal lives could continue through reproducing the divine Image (God's Monogene).

Joseph concludes the letter by having God say:

… for I delight in those who seek diligently to know my precepts, and abide by the laws of my kingdom, for all things shall be made known unto them in mine own due time, and in the end they shall have joy.

In the end, the practice of polygamy would produce a joyful Mormon People. Note that this can be combined with the beginning of the letter when Joseph states

Whatever God requires [to expand his Image and Kingdom Realm] is right, no matter what it is, although we [today in the 1840s] may not see the reason thereof [that of breeding a People and a new Hebraic consciousness] till long after the events transpire …

In other words, Joseph's letter is explaining that this sacrifice, of plural marriage, will make sense only in the future long after the event of the practice of plural marriage has transpired, as the reasons for it will be proven through the future fruition of a Mormon People in the future; which we see with Mormonism then growing into a global religion and largely populating an entire state, Utah. So that even though the practice was not understood then in the 1840s, the reason thereof would make sense to future generations. In other words, God's Kingdom is a seeded Garden, the cultivation of a vibrant culture, the LDS People. So that in the end, Joseph means that they (God's People) would more fully understand the reason for the practice of plural marriage long after the events had transpired, as the practice ended in 1890. For now today Mormons can clearly see the reasons for plural marriage, that the results of the sorrows and joys of their ancestors' dynastic unions, family ties, and their posterity, was the selective breading of a People (Peoplehood). Today, LDS can look from the future backwards and see that those plural marriages provided future generations with the residual blessings of the polygamous Supercouples and extended dynastic families; and thus in the end, they (future generations) would indeed have joy being part of a healthy culture, the Mormon People. So, indeed, as D&C 132: 63 implies, in due time, all things were made known to the Saints: which is that the practice of plural marriage would and did lead to the net positive of the joys of family and children and the production of a healthy culture thriving in Utah and elsewhere today; and the joys of being part of a tight knit Mormon community is similar to the Jewish community, as a quasi-ethnic identity, as one's LDS Tribal Identity, as an extended spiritual family of brothers and sisters; all united as children of God, rooted and nourished as a collective People, a great Chain of Belonging, spanning the world over.

Cultivating a Luminous Countenance

Furthermore, this understanding of the breeding of Zion through the selection of higher "holy" types, is also in part the message of the Book of Mormon: wherein the repetitive theme is that of God encouraging what I call positive generational contagion; that is the contagious trait-reproduction of spiritual attitudes and a noble character, being spiritually bred into the next generation as the children of Christ, who have “the image of God engraven upon [our] countenances” (Alma 5:19); as Christ is the luminous Vine growing shining branches as LDS Christians.

 In order to accomplish this breeding of Vine-mindedness over Wickedness, the "mark" of black tattoo ink or a kind of skin disease on the Lamanites becomes unattractive to the white-lighted (i.e. purified by the refiner's fire), virtuous, Nephites. Hence Paul's admonition not to join with bad behaving and "dark" unbelievers, as light and darkness don't mix (see 2 Cor. 6:14). Thus, one's wicked ambience detours the righteous luminaries who choose other countenances of the Light and this acts as a culture producing selection mechanism; wherein, those infused with divine Light, shine like the white-lighted fruit in Lehi's dream; while the morally degenerate (selfish, hateful, and murderous) dwindle in their disbelief and become spiritually dimmed or "blackened" (in contrast to those who's demeanor is infused with Christ's luminary Light), and thus their "skins" (outer ambience) become metaphorically like rotting fruit with blackened skins signifying decay of soul and is off putting to those seeking the metaphorically ripe fruit of the Spirit as the fulness of glory growing a healthy body of believers; that is until the wicked ones repent, that is re-choose the path of Christ: the way of the Good (Culturally Generative), and the Plan of Happiness; and then their metaphysical "blackened" skin-peelings akin to fruit skins, becomes spiritually bright with life again; and these luminous traits and habits are selected for by other holy luminaries (saints) and this process overtime breeds Latter Day Saints.

Evidence of Selective Breeding & Mormon's as "Nicer," More "Christian" than Others

For some evidence of this above, see the Jolly Heretic's video Why Mormons Are So Nice? After the Jolly Heretic explains how Mormonism selects for people who are nicer on average (for the transcript see here), he then gets to plural marriage and says at 30 minutes the following (based on the YouTube Transcript):

In 1837, the Mormons went to Liverpool and by the 1850s there were 30, 477 English Mormons which was more than there were Americans. So they're genetically quite similar, they have genetic interests and they operate accordingly. The final issue is polygamy and what polygamy has done. The Mormons were polygamists until 1890 when their prophet…declared in 1890 that they were no longer polygamists. A previous prophet, John Taylor had declared (though it's disputed) that they had a new revelation saying that they should be polygamists and in the wake of this new prophet in 1890 saying they shouldn't, there [arose] various splits, the Mormons  Fundamentalist, the Apostolic Mormons and whatever, which exists today. What polygamy would have done with someone like Brigham Young having 55 wives is it would have very very much selected in favor of the qualities that make you have high social status because women will tend to sexually select for males who have high social status, because if they do that then their children are more likely to survive because they'll have access to wealth and resources; and so women are sexually selecting the status in a man … men tend to sexually select for youth and beauty and whatever. So something like Brigham Young’s 55 wives, what would he have been, he would have been a highly intelligent man because that predicts high social status but he also probably would have been high in general factors of personality, to flirt to a certain degree, high in agreeableness and conscientiousness because this helps to get you social status and indeed women are sexually attracted to these personality traits in men. So what this would have done is it would have selected out very heavily Mormons that are below in intelligence and low in general factors of personality, and it would have elevated the, superficial at least, niceness of Mormons. …

Here is the the data he draws from:

Sources

Apostate and Convert Personality: [What Drives Apostates and Converters? The Social and Familial Antecedents of Religious Change among Adolescents by Gregory S. Longo and Jungmeen Kim-Spoon]

Religion and Personality: Religion, Personality, and Social Behavior 1st Editionby Vassilis Saroglou  

Hills, P., Francis, L. J., Argyle, M. & Jackson, C. (2004). Primary personality trait correlates of religious practice and orientation. Personality and Individual Differences, 36: 61-73.

Who breeds? Slow and Steady Wins the Race: K Positively Predicts Fertility in the USA and Sweden June 2017 Evolutionary Psychological Science 3(2) DOI:10.1007/s40806-016-0077-1.

Blume, M. (2009). The reproductive benefits of religious affiliation. In E. Voland & W. Schiefenhövel (Eds). The Biological Evolution of Religious Mind and Behavior. New York: Springer. 

Mormon Religiousness: Gallup. (2009): Mormons most conservative major religious group in the US.

Stark, R. (2005). The Rise of Mormonism. New York: Columbia University Press.

From this perspective, LDS polygamy in Utah in the 1800s, can be seen as retaining the altruistic “nice” traits yet also deselecting for what Nietzsche would describe as the more docile or "Christian" traits: as the men who were most assertive, strong, and vitally alive likely rose the ranks to high priesthood status through their people skills, wealth building accomplishments, and high status yet also their Christian attributes of civility, kindness and charity, etc.; and thus were given access to more wives and thus their genes were more likely to be selected for. This has always been an interesting thing about Mormons as a People, they are both “nice” but capable of assertive aggression and showing strength at the same time. Joseph Smith set the standard for the cultural embodiment of these core traits in the Saints, with his combination of having an agreeable, playful and cheerful nature but also a strong wrestler's athletic body, a lion-will, a drive to overcome, subdue, and conquer. This original ideal set the standard from the start. As I heard one modern LDS apostle once put it, "we get things done." Another modern member once quipped that LDS means Let's Do Something.

Also see Jacob Hansen's Is the Church Good? - Fruits of the Gospel, where Hansen relies on several polls and studies showing that LDS culture is a healthy culture.

With this understanding of polygamy as a selecting for the higher type, the holy and strong, this would make polygamy simply a jump start of a process, a kind of getting the ball rolling, of producing a Zion (Nicer) People. Once the the growth of a People was established, there would not need to be the continued practice of plural marriage after 1890, as it had accomplished its aim which was to "raise up seed" as a  "[commanded people" (Jacob 2:30), with the intent to expand one's "seed" to "abound most plentifully" (Jacob 2:12; also see D&C 132: 30, 19).