Catholic theology begins its consideration of women with the Annunciation: the moment when the Archangel Gabriel appeared to a young woman in Nazareth and addressed her with words that have echoed through two millennia. From the very beginning of the New Covenant, God chose a woman to be the hinge of salvation history. Not an emperor, not a general, not a member of the Sanhedrin — but a virgin of humble station, whose free consent opened the door through which the Incarnation entered the world.

Mary's significance in Catholic theology cannot be overstated. She is the Theotokos — the God-bearer — a title solemnly defined at the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD. She is the New Eve, whose obedience reversed the disobedience of the first woman in the Garden. She is the Ark of the New Covenant, carrying within her body the very presence of God made flesh. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that Mary is "the most excellent fruit of redemption" (CCC 508) and that she "occupies a place in the Church which is the highest after Christ and yet very close to us" (Lumen Gentium 54).

Consider the enormity of this claim: the greatest Saint in the entire communion of saints — the single most honored creature in the history of creation — is not a man. She is a mother and a wife. The Catholic Church teaches that Mary was conceived without original sin (the Immaculate Conception), remained a perpetual virgin, was assumed body and soul into heaven (the Assumption), and reigns as Queen of Heaven and Earth. No pope, no Doctor of the Church, no apostle holds a higher place in the communion of saints than this woman.

This is not an afterthought or a sentimental addition to Catholic doctrine. It is woven into the very fabric of the Faith. Every Rosary recited, every Ave Maria sung, every cathedral dedicated under the title "Our Lady" testifies to the conviction that God chose to exalt womanhood to the highest possible dignity short of divinity itself.

The Catholic Church's elevation of women does not end with Mary. The Church recognizes four women among its thirty-seven Doctors of the Church — a title reserved for saints whose writings possess universal authority for the instruction of the faithful:

The point is unmistakable: in the Catholic tradition, women have not merely been tolerated or protected. They have been recognized as authoritative teachers of the universal Church, capable of instructing popes and reshaping the course of Christian history. Their authority derived not from institutional office but from holiness, wisdom, and the grace of God — which, Catholic theology insists, is no respecter of sex.

Catholic marriage theology is rooted in the creation account of Genesis and the teaching of Christ. The sacrament of Holy Matrimony unites one man and one woman in an indissoluble bond. The spouses are co-equal ministers of the sacrament to each other. Neither gives more nor receives less.

The model for the husband is not a patriarch who accumulates wives, but Christ who sacrificed everything — including His life — for the sake of His one Bride. Catholic teaching is unambiguous: polygamy is a grave offense against the dignity of marriage and the equal dignity of woman (CCC 2387).

A Catholic woman's salvation does not depend upon her husband's worthiness. Her relationship with God is direct, personal, and unmediated by any man. She receives the same sacraments, is nourished by the same Eucharist, and is called to the same holiness as any man in the Church. Her eternal destiny is between her and God — not contingent upon the spiritual performance of a male intermediary.

The Latter-day Saint theological framework presents a markedly different picture. While individual Latter-day Saints certainly love and respect women, the doctrinal and historical architecture of the tradition embeds structural asymmetries that are difficult to reconcile with the language of equality.

In LDS temple sealing ceremonies, the relationship between husband and wife has historically been framed in asymmetric terms. The woman gives herself to the man; the man receives her. A widowed man in the LDS Church may be sealed to a second wife in the temple; a widowed woman may not be sealed to a second husband unless her first sealing is cancelled. The asymmetry is not incidental — it is doctrinal.

Doctrine and Covenants 132, the foundational LDS text on celestial marriage, teaches that women who prove unfaithful or whose husbands are not exalted may be "given" to more righteous men in the eternities. Women are spoken of in the passive voice — they are received, given, and assigned. Their celestial glory is presented as fundamentally contingent upon the worthiness and exaltation of the men to whom they are sealed.

Furthermore, the LDS Church acknowledges the existence of a Heavenly Mother but explicitly forbids prayer or worship directed toward her. President Gordon B. Hinckley stated plainly that he regarded "it as inappropriate for anyone in the Church to pray to our Mother in Heaven." As historian Linda Wilcox has observed, Heavenly Mother remains "a shadowy and elusive belief floating around the edges of Mormon consciousness." The divine feminine in LDS theology is, in practice, silenced.

No figure better illustrates the tension between LDS rhetoric about women and the actual historical record than Emma Hale Smith. Emma was Joseph Smith's first wife, his companion through poverty, persecution, and the founding of a religious movement. In Doctrine and Covenants 25, she is called an "elect lady." She was the first president of the Relief Society. Yet in D&C 132 — the very revelation that canonizes plural marriage — Emma is singled out by name and threatened with divine destruction for her resistance to polygamy.

The historical context makes this even more troubling. By the time D&C 132 was recorded in July 1843, Joseph Smith had already married over twenty women — several without Emma's knowledge, and some already married to other living men. The revelation was dictated at the request of Hyrum Smith, who believed he could use the written text to convince Emma to accept the practice. When Hyrum returned, he reported that he had "never received a more severe talking to in my life." Joseph responded: "I told you you did not know Emma as well as I did."

Emma eventually destroyed the original manuscript of the revelation. A copy survived because Bishop Newel K. Whitney had already had it transcribed. The revelation that threatened a faithful wife with destruction was preserved not by Emma's consent, but against her explicit wishes.

If D&C 132 laid the doctrinal foundation, the words and actions of Joseph Smith's successors reveal how that foundation played out in practice.

Young's treatment of women who struggled with polygamy was particularly harsh. In a public sermon, he acknowledged that women across the territory were "wading through a perfect flood of tears" over the practice — and his solution was not compassion but ultimatum: submit, or be set at liberty. He invoked Emma Smith as a cautionary tale, warning women from the pulpit that if they opposed polygamy, they would "go to hell, just as sure as you are living women."

Helen Mar Kimball, the daughter Heber gave in marriage to Joseph Smith when she was fourteen years old, later wrote: "I would never have been sealed to Joseph had I known it was anything more than ceremony. I was young, and they deceived me, by saying the salvation of our whole family depended on it." This is not the language of a woman honored and elevated. It is the testimony of a girl manipulated through religious coercion.

Perhaps nothing captures the contrast more vividly than the status of the divine feminine in each tradition.

In Catholicism, Mary speaks. She proclaims the Magnificat. She intercedes. She appears at Guadalupe, Lourdes, and Fátima. The faithful pray to her daily. She is addressed by name, honored with feasts and solemnities, depicted in countless works of art, and invoked in every Hail Mary. Far from being silent, she is the most invoked intercessor in the history of Christianity.

In LDS theology, Heavenly Mother exists but must not be spoken to. She may be acknowledged in a doctrinal essay, but she may not be prayed to, worshipped, or given any meaningful role in the devotional life of the faithful. Elder Dale G. Renlund told members that a brief Gospel Topics essay represents everything he knows about Heavenly Mother. Members who have publicly advocated for greater engagement with the Heavenly Mother doctrine have faced church discipline.

The Catholic and LDS traditions thus present mirror images. In one, the supreme female figure in creation is crowned Queen of Heaven, speaks prophetically, instructs the faithful, and is the subject of more devotion than any other saint. In the other, the supreme female deity is acknowledged to exist but confined to silence — forbidden as an object of prayer and shrouded in what one historian called "sacred silence," with no authoritative explanation for why that silence must be maintained.

The evidence assembled here does not rest on caricature or selective quotation. It draws on the LDS Church's own canonized scripture, the published sermons of its founding prophets, the firsthand accounts of women who lived within the polygamous system, and the LDS Church's own Gospel Topics essays. It also draws on two thousand years of Catholic teaching, from the Council of Ephesus to the declaration of the female Doctors of the Church.

The Catholic vision of woman is grounded in the conviction that the highest creature God ever made was a woman; that women can teach, correct, and instruct the entire Church; that marriage is a sacrament of equal self-gift between one man and one woman; and that every woman's relationship with God is direct, personal, and unmediated by any man. Mary is not threatened — she is crowned. The women saints are not silenced — they are given the title of Doctor.

The Latter-day Saint historical record tells a different story. Emma Smith was threatened with destruction for protecting the integrity of her own marriage. Brigham Young told unhappy polygamous wives to submit or leave. Heber C. Kimball compared taking a wife to buying livestock. Women's celestial exaltation was made contingent upon the worthiness of the men to whom they were sealed. And the divine Mother herself was placed beyond the reach of prayer or worship.