Jacob 2:31-33

Brant Gardner

In these three verses, Jacob focuses on the position of the women in Nephite society who have become multiple wives. He has them mourning, as though their marriages were equal to a death. In verse 33 he says that the daughters should not be led away captive. It is difficult to know how these verses are to be read. Were the women coerced into the marriages? There is insufficient evidence to tell.

What we can do, however, is look at the interesting combination of the two sins that were so great that they initiated this sermon. The first was pride through wealth and the second is having multiple wives. Why were these seemingly different sins grouped together?

The answer is speculative, but based on the events occurring in the New World in the region, and at the time, that we believe Book of Mormon peoples lived in that region. Economic development requires that there be an excess production of some desirable good which may be exchanged with someone else. The popularity of the exchange would increase the demand, and those who can produce more are able to trade for more. Although this image is from a monetized society, the more you sell, the more money you make.

At that time, there were people who were creating trade goods, and, as Jacob indicated, gathering wealth. The key to wealth was production, and at this early stage production was a family business. Thus, the more hands, the more product. In the history of the early Maya region, those hands were supplied by multiple wives and the larger number of children available. Therefore, in that time and place, these two incipient sins were precisely the sins most widespread and developing in multiple societies. Since trade would typically be outside the community, those ideas were clearly affecting the way the Nephites saw themselves and what was desirable.

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