However, Bills does not view this as ecclesiastical polygamy. They also contradict other comments made by Joseph Fielding Smith as well as Brigham Young, Joseph Smith Jr. and many other church leaders. Sometimes, a bishop or stake president asks, but does not require, that a man seeking another temple marriage obtain a letter from his ex-wife explaining the divorce from her perspective. In such cases, whether a letter is written or not, or whether it implicates him in wrong doing or not, the male may be able to marry in the temple again. Tippetts Avery explains that situations like these vary between bishops, stake presidents and other church leaders, and can be a source of confusion.
Further confusion lies in differentiating policies, tenets and doctrine.
People have to be careful when the church is doing theology and history. The Mormon church has a hard time doing both. Ed Cox and his wife Joan share myriad experiences with ecclesiastical polygamy, making up a hodgepodge of entanglements and complications wrought through various sealings in Mormon temples. Cox's father was married and sealed to a woman who later died, then he married Ed's mother and was sealed to her as well. Long before his marriage to Joan, Ed Cox was married and sealed in the temple to his first wife.