Akon claims that having multiple wives provides a man with multiple lines of defense and support, effectively acting as a team to protect the household.

“Like so much easier, cuz you got to think like wives are like your best friends. They always got your back. >> Yeah. >> Like no matter what. They're going to hold you down, they're going to support, they're going to protect. So your your perimeter is already like you know, occupied by your soldiers.”

The implications of Mormon polygamy and Joseph Smith's practice were that women were discounted as property assigned by prophets.

“I've said this in many episodes before, the implications of Mormon polygamy, of Joseph Smith's polygamy, is that women are discounted, their cattle, their property to be assigned by God or God's prophets to to men.”

The introduction of the second anointing ritual helped put the conflict between Joseph and Emma Smith regarding polygamy on a better footing.

“in after after this moment, they do have I would say better Uh, it puts their relationship on a better footing for the remainder of Joseph's life.”

The practice of polygamy in the early church involved a consistent pattern of manipulation, secrecy, and exploitation of vulnerable women.

“It's always secret, right? It's always justified um as something God wants or an angel wants. Um but but it's but it's put on God as being the author of it. And there's often threats and or promises.”

The LDS Church's description of plural marriage in its new essays is intentionally misleading because it lacks context regarding coercion and the lack of true consent.

“I just don't think the church is being honest of that part. I don't think women were afraid to reject Joseph Smith. Like I know some of them were able to get away like the story of Martha Brotherton with Brigham Young.”

The LDS Church's historical practice of plural marriage was characterized by systematic deception and the coerced manipulation of women.

“Joseph's introduction of polygamy, the way it's lived out, not just under Joseph Smith, but here in Utah, it's all been done with just boatloads of deception, lying, and misrepresentation.”

Jess Hilarious believes that in the context of the show The Polygamist, the wives are in love with the situation or the lifestyle rather than the person.

“But how do you love that? If you just gave birth and he says, "I want this regardless." Like, how do you love that? So, you're not loving the person, you're loving the situation.”

Polygamy is a destructive concept that is fundamentally antithetical to the principle of partnership between men and women in the LDS church.

“To me in my particular religious organization, the concept of polygamy is one of the and maybe the first obvious thing that holds us back from moving into partnership because a a polygamous arrangement is antithetical to partnership. It simply is.”