Sealings

Joseph Smith introduced an expanded temple liturgy and cosmology in Nauvoo. He revealed sealing rituals that materialized heaven on earth and transformed men and women into kings and queens, priests and priestesses. Where there were no sealed relationships, there was no heaven. Church leaders immediately struggled to manage the construction of this heaven and introduced many practices that were not well understood. Wilford Woodruff pronounced a revelation in 1894. While maintaining a belief in eternal polygamy, he nevertheless deprecated many of its associated practices, beliefs, and teachings related to the temple. This revelation introduced a significant ambiguity into Mormon cosmology. Church members and leaders then struggled to implement a sealing practice rooted in nineteenth-century polygamy, complicated by familial structures of all sorts, and coupled with an emphasis on romantic monogamy.