According to their theory, men accumulate wives in a number of ways. In this life, they can be accumulated through attrition. They can also be accumulated by a divorce WITHOUT having the Temple sealing cancelled. Kinda a two tiered marriage (Married AND sealed -- two different things)
Like Big Love, early temporal marriages could be reassigned at the discretion of the "prophet". The tragic case of Zina Huntington Jacobs Smith Young is particularly heartwrenching(she had three husbands-- in the end, Brigham YOUNG excluded the others). Her sister Prescendia was also summarily reassigned. No divorce needed. Most times, the husband wouldn't be notified. He would discover on his own that his wife had been hijacked and taken. Not surprisingly, these hotties were "reassigned" to the "Prophet" and to an "Apostle" respectively. The mainstream LDS haven't practiced "reassignment" of wives since Smith and Young's days.
Brigham actually taught that women could "trade up" if they liked a man higher up in the priesthood. He actually taught that the former husband should just let it go and that no divorce was necessary. She could just start humping her new husband. (October 1861 conference) I guess Brigham didn't want the expense/trouble of all those marriages. He wouldn't even dignify some of his women with a marriage. (this should give you an idea of how women were treated in the church)
The church does actively teach that faithful wives of unfaithful husbands will be "reassigned" to a more worthy husband in the hereafter. My wife was terrified of this (until she saw the light). She was afraid I wouldn't be there because of my many questions. She was going to be reassigned and she didn't want that. The "pro family" LDS church is MASTER at splitting up families. They actively teach that the church is more important than wife or husband, son, daughter etc. In fact, the Temple wedding ceremony is a recommitment of each to the church. That is the focus of the ceremony, not love, not romance, not each other. Really disturbing. The church has NO problem wedging between spouses in order to leverage the doubter back into church. The LDS church has no proper boundaries.
In the hereafter, you make spirit babies with your many wives. You are a shitty parent as 1/3 grow up into open, violent rebellion against "dad" and their moms. These rebellious spirits get their asses kicked out of heaven so they can tempt your remaining kids when they are born into their new earth(as devils). After judgement, the rebellious spirits, along with Mormon Apostates like me are summarily discarded, their usefulness ended (Thanks Father)
Judgement separates people into the "Celestial"(best), "Terrestrial", and "Telestial". (I get outer darkness) The celestial kingdumb is where the most faithful go. If you are like Brigham, you can have wives in THE MILLIONS (he used those words). The Terrestrial kingdom is where christians of other faiths go. The Telestial kingdumb is where liars, murderers and masturbators go. Sexual sins are taught to be NEXT TO MURDER IN SERIOUSNESS. It is taught in the LDS church that it is better that you DIE fighting a rapist, and come home in a pine box, than to survive a rape. My wife is a rape survivor. She struggled with this doctrine for years, spoke with high authorities on it. They never rescinded, nor nullified their pernicious beliefs on rape. It helped get my wife out of that cult.
Somehow in the Celestial kindumb, we all live as families. I and my wife and kids. One big happy family. But somehow, my sons and their wives are to have their own families too. It was never clarified how we were all to live as a family when we all had our own separate families. One big house???
