Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mormon America: The Power and the Promise/Chapter 4

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Response to claims made in "Chapter 4: Polygamy Then and Now"

Chapter 3

A FAIR Analysis of: Mormon America: The Power and the Promise, a work by author: Richard N. Ostling and Joan K. Ostling

Chapter 5

Response to claims made in Mormon America "Chapter 4: Polygamy Then and Now"

Jump to details:

• Response to claim: 58 - Joseph Smith initiated polygamy in the Church and had a large number of wives
• Response to claim: 58 - The authors claim that Fawn Brodie’s research was largely substantiated by later scholarship
• Response to claim: 58 - There were at least five cases of women who rejected his polygamous proposals
• Response to claim: 58 - At least 11 of Joseph's wives married to another man
• Response to claim: 59 - It is claimed that Joseph Smith "often" asked close friends for their wives and daughters
• Response to claim: 59 - Some of the marriages were the result of pressure or spiritual coercion from the prophet
• Response to claim: 60 - The “comely sixteen-year-old Fanny Alger” became Joseph's plural wife in 1833
• Response to claim: 60 - W.W. Phelps introduced an anti-polygamy resolution in Oliver Cowdery's handwriting while Joseph was away, which was adopted by the Church
• Response to claim: 61 - Smith conducted marriage for Newell Knight against law, since the woman was not yet divorced from her non-Mormon husband
• Response to claim: 61 - Joseph's youngest bride, in some ways typical, was fourteen-year-old Helen Mar Kimball
• Response to claim: 62 - Helen Mar Kimball had not grasped that marriage in time to Joseph would eventually have a sexual component
• Response to claim: 66 - The Book of Mormon was "conventionally monogamous"
• Response to claim: 67 - Swedenborg taught “spiritual wifery” in marriage for eternity. Swedenborg was discussed in Smith’s hometown newspaper

Response to claim: 58 - Joseph Smith initiated polygamy in the Church and had a large number of wives

The author(s) of Mormon America make(s) the following claim:

Joseph Smith initiated polygamy in the Church and had a large number of wives.

Author's sources:

1. Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945). ( Index of claims )

• Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997). ( Index of claims )

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: This claim is based upon correct information - The author is providing knowledge concerning some particular fact, subject, or event

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V

Joseph Smith

Life and Character	Status in Latter-day Saint belief Joseph's trustworthiness Money digging Folk magic or the occult The Word of Wisdom Alleged narcissism
Youth	Joseph Smith's family as trustworthy and hard-working Education Use of seer stones as a youth The Hurlbut affidavits Joseph Smith's 1826 trial
Revelations and the Church	Witness of Jesus Christ First Vision Book of Mormon Joseph Smith's inspired revision of the Bible (JST) The restoration of the priesthood Personages who appeared to Joseph Smith Production of the Book of Abraham Kinderhook Plates
Prophetic Statements	The U.S. Civil War Rocky Mountain prophecy The White Horse prophecy Alleged false prophecies of Joseph Smith Joseph Smith and Old Testament practices
Society	Legal issues 1826 trial Creation of the Kirtland Safety Society Failure of the Kirtland Safety Society Campaign for President of the United States
Plural marriage (polygamy)	Plural marriage or polygamy Polygamy navigator Plural wives of Joseph Smith
Death	The Nauvoo Expositor Events surrounding the death of Joseph Smith Firing a gun at Carthage Jail Qualification as a martyr 1844 Succession to Joseph Smith

V

Joseph Smith's First Vision

Accounts	Accounts of Joseph Smith's First Vision Multiple accounts of the First Vision Differences in First Vision accounts
Historical context	Events leading to the First Vision Events after the First Vision
Doctrinal impact	The First Vision and doctrine Seldom taught before 1877?

When did Joseph Smith receive the revelation on plural marriage?

Joseph's first introduction to the concept of plural came during the 1829 translation of the Book of Mormon

Of the little we do know, much comes from later reminiscences. Later memories are not useless, but memory can change, and can be influenced by what people later came to believe or desire. Such data must be used with caution.

There are enough scattered bits of evidence, however, that let us form some tentative conclusions.

The first specifically-LDS encounter with plural marriage was the 1829 Book of Mormon. The prophet Jacob rebuked the Nephites for their practice of having many wives and concubines. Jacob forbade this practice, and declared monogamy to be the norm unless "I will…raise up seed unto me…."

It is not clear that the early Saints contemplated any exceptions to this command in their own case, until after Joseph had taught plural marriage. As late as May 1843, Hyrum Smith (not yet converted to Joseph's plural marriage doctrine) attempted to rebut rumors of plural marriage by citing the condemnation in Jacob 2.

Evidence points to a 1831 date for the revelation to Joseph regarding plural marriage

There are no contemporaneous records which tell us when Joseph first taught plural marriage, or when he first had a revelation endorsing it. One account has Brigham Young placing the revelation to Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Smith in 1829 while translating the Book of Mormon.

Most scholars have rejected this early date. Brigham was not even a member at this time, so he would have heard such a story second-hand at best, and may well have misunderstood the timing. There is nothing in the Book of Mormon that portrays plural marriage positively, so there is little which would inspire Joseph and Oliver to ask questions about it, and such questioning seems to have been a prerequisite to Joseph and Oliver's early revelations on baptism, the priesthood, and other matters. The journal which records the 1829 date may be in error, since there is another, earlier record in which Brigham Young opines that Joseph had the plural marriage revelation "as early as in the year 1831."

Other evidence also points to an 1831 date. Joseph undertook his revision/translation of the Bible, and was working on Genesis in February–March 1831. Hubert Howe Bancroft was the first to suggest this theory, while Joseph Noble, B.H. Roberts, and Joseph F. Smith have agreed. The obvious approval of the polygamous patriarchs in Genesis is a more likely stimulus for Joseph's questions to the Lord about plural marriage than the Book of Mormon's generally negative view.

Joseph was probably teaching the idea of plural marriage to a limited circle by the end of 1831

The date of 1831 is reinforced by a letter written years later by W.W. Phelps. Phelps reported that on 17 July 1831, the Lord told Joseph "It is my will, that in time, ye should take unto you wives of the Lamanites and Nephites, that their posterity may become white, delightsome and just." Phelps then said that he asked Joseph three years later how this commandment could be fulfilled. Joseph replied, "In the same manner that Abraham took Hagar and Keturah; and Jacob took Rachel, Bilhah and Zilpha, by revelation." Phelps' recollection is reinforced by Ezra Booth, an apostate Mormon. In November 1831, Booth wrote that Joseph had received a revelation commanding a "matrimonial alliance" with the natives, though he says nothing about plural marriage per se.

Since Joseph's explanation to Phelps came three years later, this does not help us date the receipt of the revelation specifically. It may be that Joseph did not understand the import of the July 1831 revelation any more than Phelps did. On the other hand, Orson Pratt reported that Joseph told some early members in 1831 and 1832 that plural marriage was a true principle but that the time to practice it had not yet come. Lyman Johnson also reportedly heard the doctrine from Joseph in 1831, as did a plural wife who recalled late in life that in 1831 Joseph told her that he had been commanded to one day take her as a plural wife. Mosiah Hancock reported that his father was taught about plural marriage in the spring of 1832.

Some authors have suggested that Phelps' late recollection is inconsistent with other things that he wrote earlier. Richard Van Wagoner argues that:

the Phelps letter has been widely touted as the earliest source documenting the advocacy of Mormon polygamy, [but] it is not without its problems. For example, Phelps himself, in a 16 September 1835 letter to his wife, Sally, demonstrated no knowledge of church-sanctioned polygamy: "I have no right to any other woman in this world nor in the world to come according to the law of the celestial kingdom."

It seems, though, that the problem is more in Van Wagoner's reading of the data. Phelps says nothing about "church-sanctioned polygamy," one way or the other. He merely tells his wife that he has no right to any other woman. This was certainly true, since Joseph Smith had introduced no other men to plural marriage by September 1835. In fact, Phelps' remark seems a strange comment to make unless he understood that there were circumstances in which one could have "right to" another woman.

Joseph F. Smith gave an account which synthesizes most of the preceding data:

The great and glorious principle of plural marriage was first revealed to Joseph Smith in 1831, but being forbidden to make it public, or to teach it as a doctrine of the Gospel, at that time, he confided the facts to only a very few of his intimate associates. Among them were Oliver Cowdery and Lyman E. Johnson, the latter confiding the fact to his traveling companion, Elder Orson Pratt, in the year 1832. (See Orson Pratt's testimony.)" (Andrew Jenson, The Historical Record 6 [Salt Lake City, Utah, May 1887]: 219)

The bulk of the evidence, therefore, suggests that plural marriage was known by Joseph by early 1831. The Prophet was probably teaching the idea to a limited circle by the end of that year.

Did Joseph Smith actually teach and practice polygamy?

Some splinter groups of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have claimed that Joseph Smith did not practice polygamy. Instead, these groups argue, polygamy was the later invention of a libidinous and greedy Brigham Young. Since, on these groups’ view, plural marriage was a man-made invention instead of a commandment from the divine, this is evidence that the modern Church is in apostasy and that we must seek the true authority elsewhere. A related charge is that the Church hasn’t taught that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy openly and frequently.

There is contemporaneous, reliable documentation to establish that Joseph Smith received the revelation on plural marriage and there is ample documentation that he and many of his colleagues practiced plural marriage.

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, "Joseph Smith: Monogamist or Polygamist?"

Brian C. Hales,  Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, (2017)

In the past decades much of the debate regarding Joseph Smith and plural marriage has focused on his motivation — whether libido or divine inspiration drove the process. Throughout these debates, a small group of observers and participants have maintained that Joseph did not practice polygamy at any time or that his polygamous sealings were nonsexual spiritual marriages. Rather than simply provide supportive evidence for Joseph Smith’s active involvement with plural marriage, this article examines the primary arguments advanced by monogamist proponents to show that important weaknesses exist in each line of reasoning.

Click here to view the complete article

The charts below, prepared by Brian Hales, outline all the evidence available for a polygamist Joseph in an easy-to-read way.

Video by The Interpreter Foundation.

When and how did plural marriage begin in the Church?

Of the little we do know, much comes from later reminiscences

Of the little we do know, much comes from later reminiscences. Later memories are not useless, but memory can change, and can be influenced by what people later came to believe or desire. Such data must be used with caution.

There are enough scattered bits of evidence, however, that let us form some tentative conclusions.

The first specifically-LDS encounter with plural marriage was the 1829 Book of Mormon

The first specifically-LDS encounter with plural marriage was the 1829 Book of Mormon. The prophet Jacob rebuked the Nephites for their practice of having many wives and concubines. Jacob forbade this practice, and declared monogamy to be the norm unless "I will…raise up seed unto me…."

It is not clear that the early Saints contemplated any exceptions to this command in their own case, until after Joseph had taught plural marriage. As late as May 1843, Hyrum Smith (not yet converted to Joseph's plural marriage doctrine) attempted to rebut rumors of plural marriage by citing the condemnation in Jacob 2.

There are no contemporaneous records which tell us when Joseph first taught plural marriage, or when he first had a revelation endorsing it

There are no contemporaneous records which tell us when Joseph first taught plural marriage, or when he first had a revelation endorsing it. One account has Brigham Young placing the revelation to Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Smith in 1829 while translating the Book of Mormon.

Most scholars have rejected this early date. Brigham was not even a member at this time, so he would have heard such a story second-hand at best, and may well have misunderstood the timing. There is nothing in the Book of Mormon that portrays plural marriage positively, so there is little which would inspire Joseph and Oliver to ask questions about it, and such questioning seems to have been a prerequisite to Joseph and Oliver's early revelations on baptism, the priesthood, and other matters. The journal which records the 1829 date may be in error, since there is another, earlier record in which Brigham Young opines that Joseph had the plural marriage revelation "as early as in the year 1831."

Evidence also points to an 1831 date for receipt of the revelation on plural marriage

Other evidence also points to an 1831 date. Joseph undertook his revision/translation of the Bible, and was working on Genesis in February–March 1831. Hubert Howe Bancroft was the first to suggest this theory, while Joseph Noble, B.H. Roberts, and Joseph F. Smith have agreed. The obvious approval of the polygamous patriarchs in Genesis is a more likely stimulus for Joseph's questions to the Lord about plural marriage than the Book of Mormon's generally negative view.

Joseph's First Mention of the Doctrine in 1831

The date of 1831 is reinforced by a letter written years later by W.W. Phelps. Phelps reported that on 17 July 1831, the Lord told Joseph "It is my will, that in time, ye should take unto you wives of the Lamanites and Nephites, that their posterity may become white, delightsome and just." Phelps then said that he asked Joseph three years later how this commandment could be fulfilled. Joseph replied, "In the same manner that Abraham took Hagar and Keturah; and Jacob took Rachel, Bilhah and Zilpha, by revelation." Phelps' recollection is reinforced by Ezra Booth, an apostate Mormon. In November 1831, Booth wrote that Joseph had received a revelation commanding a "matrimonial alliance" with the natives, though he says nothing about plural marriage per se.

Since Joseph's explanation to Phelps came three years later, this does not help us date the receipt of the revelation specifically. It may be that Joseph did not understand the import of the July 1831 revelation any more than Phelps did. On the other hand, Orson Pratt reported that Joseph told some early members in 1831 and 1832 that plural marriage was a true principle but that the time to practice it had not yet come. Lyman Johnson also reportedly heard the doctrine from Joseph in 1831, as did a plural wife who recalled late in life that in 1831 Joseph told her that he had been commanded to one day take her as a plural wife. Mosiah Hancock reported that his father was taught about plural marriage in the spring of 1832.

Some authors have suggested that Phelps' late recollection is inconsistent with other things that he wrote earlier. Richard Van Wagoner argues that:

…the Phelps letter has been widely touted as the earliest source documenting the advocacy of Mormon polygamy, [but] it is not without its problems. For example, Phelps himself, in a 16 September 1835 letter to his wife, Sally, demonstrated no knowledge of church-sanctioned polygamy: "I have no right to any other woman in this world nor in the world to come according to the law of the celestial kingdom."

It seems to me, though, that the problem is more in Van Wagoner's reading of the data. Phelps says nothing about "church-sanctioned polygamy," one way or the other. He merely tells his wife that he has no right to any other woman. This was certainly true, since Joseph Smith had introduced no other men to plural marriage by September 1835. In fact, Phelps' remark seems a strange comment to make unless he understood that there were circumstances in which one could have "right to" another woman.

Joseph F. Smith gave an account which synthesizes most of the preceding data:

The great and glorious principle of plural marriage was first revealed to Joseph Smith in 1831, but being forbidden to make it public, or to teach it as a doctrine of the Gospel, at that time, he confided the facts to only a very few of his intimate associates. Among them were Oliver Cowdery and Lyman E. Johnson, the latter confiding the fact to his traveling companion, Elder Orson Pratt, in the year 1832. (See Orson Pratt's testimony.)" (Andrew Jenson, The Historical Record 6 [Salt Lake City, Utah, May 1887]: 219)

The bulk of the evidence, therefore, suggests that plural marriage was known by Joseph by early 1831. The Prophet was probably teaching the idea to a limited circle by the end of that year.

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Source(s) of the criticism

Critical sources

George D. Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy: "...but we called it celestial marriage" (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2008), 1. ( Index of claims , (Detailed book review))

Notes

Response to claim: 58 - The authors claim that Fawn Brodie’s research was largely substantiated by later scholarship

The author(s) of Mormon America make(s) the following claim:

The authors claim that Fawn Brodie’s research was largely substantiated by later scholarship.

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: The author has stated erroneous information or misinterpreted their sources

No, it actually hasn't been substantiated. In reality, many of Brodie's claims have been losing ground in light of more recent scholarship. For example, see how Brodie's claims about Joseph Smith's alleged children through polygamous marriages have been refuted as the result of modern DNA research.

For a detailed response, see: No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith

Response to claim: 58 - There were at least five cases of women who rejected his polygamous proposals

The author(s) of Mormon America make(s) the following claim:

There were at least five cases of women who rejected his polygamous proposals.

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: This claim is based upon correct information - The author is providing knowledge concerning some particular fact, subject, or event

FAIR Answers—back to home page

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Plural marriage

Doctrinal foundation of plural marriage	Purpose of plural marriage Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation Plural marriage in early Christianity Plural marriage in the Book of Mormon Plural marriage and the Bible
Introduction of plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage 1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Plural marriage and the law
Questions about Joseph Smith and plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Joseph Smith's marriages to young women Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him? Mormon women refusing offers of plural marriage Polyandry Joseph Smith and children through plural marriage Marrying other men's wives? Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma Emma Smith's reaction to Joseph Smith's plural marriages Emma Smith in Doctrine and Covenants 132 Did Joseph have lustful motives for practicing polygamy? Did Joseph Smith send men on missions in order to steal their wives? Did Joseph Smith practice polygamy for the purpose of monetary gain?
John C. Bennett and Nauvoo polygamy	Bennett before Nauvoo Bennett and Prostitution Brothel at Nauvoo Rise and Fall of Bennett Sarah Pratt Nancy Rigdon Sidney Rigdon
Plural wives of Joseph Smith	Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Emma Smith Fanny Alger Louisa Beaman Prescindia Lathrop Huntington Buell Sarah Kingsley Howe Cleveland Agnes Moulton Coolbrith Elizabeth Davis Goldsmith Brackenbury Durfee Esther Dutcher Hannah S. Ells Olive Grey Frost Desdemona Catlin Wadsworth Fulmmer Lucinda Pendleton Morgan Harris Clarissa Reed Hancock Elvira Annie Cowles Holmes Sarah Maryetta Kingsley Howe Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde Vienna Jacques Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Almera Johnson Helen Mar Kimball Maria Lawrence Sarah Lawrence Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner Malissa Lott Sylvia Sessions Lyon Martha McBride Eliza Partridge Emily Partridge Rhoda Richards Ruth Vose Sayers Patty Bartlett Sessions Delcena Diadamia Johnson Sherman "Miss Smith" Mary Heron Snider Eliza R. Snow Lucy Walker Sarah Ann Whitney Nancy Maria Winchester Flora Ann Woodworth Fanny Young
Plural marriage in Utah	Difficulties with plural marriage Brigham Young's statements regarding plural marriage John Taylor's statements regarding polygamy Latter-day Saints and divorce in the nineteenth century Prevalence of plural marriage in Utah
End of plural marriage	The First Manifesto Official Declaration Number 1 Plural marriage practiced after the First Manifesto The Church of Jesus Christ and plural marriage today

Were plural wives forced into the marriage?

Plural wives were not forced into marriage

Brian Hales:

Some writers affirm that Joseph Smith put pressure on women to marry him. They portray him almost as a predator gallivanting about Nauvoo seeking new wives, even marrying other men’s spouses. While it makes for an entertaining storyline, it does not square with the historical record. One of Joseph’s plural wives, Lucy Walker, remembered the Prophet's counsel: "A woman would have her choice, this was a privilege that could not be denied her." The Prophet taught that eternal marriage was necessary for exaltation and encouraged all those he taught to comply, but he always respected their agency and choices in the matter.

How many Mormon women refused offers of plural marriage?

It is difficult to know how many women refused plural marriage—if they said nothing, then we may have no way of knowing if they refused. Some cited in LDS sources include:

• Sarah Granger Kimball
• Rachel Ivins (Grant)
• Lydia Moon
• Cordelia C. Morley (Cox)
• Esther M. Johnson
• Nancy Rigdon - daughter of Sidney Rigdon
• Sarah Pratt - wife of Orson Pratt

Anti-Mormon sources list several other possibilities, but it is hard to know how far to trust them. As Compton notes, "Some ... are fairly well documented; others are sensationalist and badly documented." These include:

• Jane Silverthorne (Law) - wife of William Law
• Leonora Cannon (Taylor) - wife of John Taylor
• Melissa Schindle
• Emeline White
• Mrs. Robert Foster
• Pamela Michael
• Mrs. Caroline Grant Smith
• Lucy Smith Milligan (or Miliken)
• Lavina Smith
• Miss Marks - daughter of William Marks
• Athalia Rigdon

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Source(s) of the criticism

Critical sources

Watchman Fellowship, The Watchman Expositor (Page 3)

Did any woman suffer consequences for turning down Joseph's proposal?

Two women afterward attacked Joseph's character and misrepresented his offer, to which Joseph responded. Those who did not were left strictly alone

There are numerous accounts of women to whom Joseph proposed plural marriage, who turned him down.

Two women afterward attacked Joseph's character and misrepresented his offer. He responded. Those who did not were left strictly alone. There were no consequences to these women. Sarah Kimball reported Joseph's mild reaction to the rejection:

Early in the year 1842, Joseph Smith taught me the principle of marriage for eternity, and the doctrine of plural marriage. He said that in teaching this he realized that he jeopardized his life; but God had revealed it to him many years before as a privilege with blessings, now God had revealed it again and instructed him to teach it with commandment, as the Church could travel (progress) no further without the introduction of this principle. I asked him to teach it to some one else. He looked at me reprovingly, and said, 'Will you tell me who to teach it to? God required me to teach it to you, and leave you with the responsibility of believing or disbelieving.‘ He said, 'I will not cease to pray for you, and if you will seek unto God in prayer you will not be led into temptation.'

(Sarah's husband was not a member of the Church until 1843. There was some tension between him and Joseph as a result of this episode, but he seems to have resolved any animosity he held for the prophet. They were later to go Utah with the Saints, where Sarah assumed a prominent role in the Relief Society. Her husband died while en route to a mission in Hawaii.

Other women loudly trumpeted the plural marriage doctrine in Nauvoo and the hostile press. These women's testimony and character were generally attacked to try to discredit them in an effort to preserve the secrecy which surrounded plural marriage. (This factor is complicated by the fact that at least some were guilty of inappropriate behavior (e.g., likely Sarah Pratt). Despite attacks on their character, some remained in Nauvoo and likewise suffered no physical harm (e.g., Nancy Rigdon).

Were women put under "tremendous pressure" to accept a proposal of plural marriage?

Given that the Saints believed Joseph was a prophet, any command from him would carry significant weight

• No one was coerced or forced into marriage (see above). However, given that the Saints believed Joseph was a prophet, any command from him would carry significant weight.
• Despite this, the reported initial reactions are all negative: these women were strong-minded, and did not simply obey because Joseph told them to.
• Because of their distaste for the idea, many plural wives reported divine revelations that confirmed the truth of plural marriage. Joseph encouraged women to seek for such divine confirmation.

Did Joseph Smith give a woman only one day to decide about entering a plural marriage, and would refusal mean terrible consequences?

One woman was told that the opportunity for plural marriage would expire in twenty-four hours. She was not threatened with damnation or physical consequences

This claim distorts the account of Lucy Walker. Joseph offered to teach Lucy about plural marriage, but she angrily refused:

When the Prophet Joseph Smith first mentioned the principle of plural marriage to me I became very indignant and told him emphatically that I did not wish him to ever mention it to me again....and so expressed myself to him....He counseled me, however, to pray to the Lord for light and understanding in relation thereto, and promised me if I would do so sincerely, I should receive a testimony of the correctness of the principle. Before praying I felt gloomy and downcast; in fact, I was so entirely given up to despair that I felt tired of life...."

Joseph then said nothing more to her for at least four months (and possibly as long as sixteen). Lucy continues:

[I] was so unwilling to consider the matter favorably that I fear I did not ask in faith for light. Gross darkness instead of light took possession of my mind. I was tempted and tortured beyond endurance until life was not desirable....

The Prophet discerned my sorrow. He saw how unhappy I was, and sought an opportunity of again speaking to me on this subject....

[He said] "I have no flattering words to offer. It is a command of God to you. I will give you until tomorrow to decide this matter. If you reject this message the gate will be closed forever against you."

– Lucy Walker, italics added

Lucy was told that the opportunity for plural marriage would expire in twenty-four hours. She was not threatened with damnation or physical consequences. Yet, she did not meekly obey:

This aroused every drop of scotch in my veins...I felt at this moment that I was called to place myself upon the altar a living Sacrafice, perhaps to brook the world in disgrace and incur the displeasure and contempt of my youthful companions; all my dreams of happiness blown to the four winds, this was too much, the thought was unbearable.... I...at last found utterance and said, "Although you are a prophet of God you could not induce me to take a step of so great importance, unless I knew that God approved my course. I would rather die. I have tried to pray but received no comfort, no light....The same God who has sent this message is the Being I have worshipped from my early childhood and He must manifest His will to me."

Joseph's response:

He walked across the room, returned, and stood before me. With the most beautiful expression of countenance, he said, "God almighty bless you. You shall have a manifestation of the will of God concerning you; a testimony that you can never deny. I will tell you what it shall be. It shall be that peace and joy that you never knew."

That night, Lucy reported:

It was near after another sleepless night when my room was lighted up by a heavenly influence. To me it was, in comparison, like the brilliant sun bursting through the darkest cloud. The words of the Prophet were indeed fulfilled. My soul was filled with a calm, sweet peace that "I never knew." Supreme happiness took possession of me, and I received a powerful and irresistible testimony of the truth of plural marriage, which has been like an anchor to the soul through all the trials of life. I felt that I must go out into the morning air and give vent to the joy and gratitude that filled my soul. As I descended the stairs, President Smith opened the door below, took me by the hand and said, "Thank God, you have the testimony. I too have prayed." He led me to a chair, placed his hands upon my head, and blessed me with every blessing my heart could possibly desire.

– Lucy Walker

Even with Lucy's revelation and consent, Joseph then sought the permission of her oldest male relative in Nauvoo, her brother William Holmes Walker. He said:

The Prophet invited me to hitch up my horse with one of his...and to ride with him....On this occasion the subject of celestial, or plural marriage, was introduced to me. As we returned home he remarked, 'If there was anything I did not understand to hold on a little, and I would understand it."....

In the spring of 1843, my father, being away on a mission, the Prophet asked my consent, for my sister Lucy in Marriage. I replied that if it was her free will and choice, I had no objection....

When father returned from his mission, the matter being fully explained in connection with the doctrine, received his endorsement and all parties concerned received his approbation.

— William Holmes Walker

This is the only case of any kind of deadline being given, and it only came because Joseph saw how unhappy Lucy was as she hesitated with a decision over a period of months.

Did Joseph claim that an angel threatened him with a "drawn sword" or "flaming sword" if a woman refused to marry him?

The references to the "angel with a sword" refer to Joseph's postponement of the initiation of polygamy

Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs said that Joseph mentioned an angel with a drawn sword. The account of a "flaming" sword came from Eliza Snow and Orson F. Whitney.

The "angel with a sword" reference refers to Joseph's postponement of the practice of polygamy. Brian Hales notes that,

"Twenty-one accounts by nine polygamy insiders left recollections that the Prophet told of one specific reason: an angel with a sword who threatened him if he did not proceed. All nine witnesses could have heard the statement from the Prophet himself; however, the narratives themselves suggest that Benjamin F. Johnson and Eliza R. Snow may have been repeating information gathered from other people. Joseph Lee Robinson's narrative is difficult to date and his actual source is not clear. Lorenzo Snow, Erastus Snow, and Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner quote the Prophet directly and Mary Elizabeth provides details not available elsewhere. Unfortunately, with the possible exception of the Robinson account, all of the reminiscences date to at least twenty to thirty years after the event."

Here are the quotes attributed to Zina on the matter:

1881: Zina Huntington—Zina D. Young told of Bro. Joseph's remark in relation to the revelation on celestial marriage. How an angel came to him with a drawn sword, and said if he did not obey this law he would lost his priesthood; and in the keeping of it he, Joseph, did not know but it would cost him his life.

1894: Zina Huntington—[Joseph] sent word to me by my brother, saying, 'Tell Zina I put it off and put it off till an angel with a drawn sword stood by me and told me if I did not establish that principle upon the earth, I would lost my position and my life.'"

Were women "locked in a room" in order to convince them to accept plural marriage?

While Nancy Rigdon and Martha Brotherton were likely approached about plural marriage in private, it is unlikely that they were locked in rooms or confined against their will

The author of Nauvoo Polygamy:..."but we called it celestial marriage," claims that "…both Nancy [Rigdon] and Martha [Brotherton] were…isolated in a locked room during the...effort" to persuade them to practice plural marriage.

The claims about being "locked in a room," while dramatic, seem unlikely. Much of the evidence hinges on the unreliable and vindictive John C. Bennett, who published the exposé, The History of the Saints, or an Exposé of Joe Smith and Mormonism. While Nancy and Martha were likely approached about plural marriage in private, it is unlikely that they were locked in rooms or confined against their will.

Hyrum Smith touched upon this subject during a Conference talk on April 6, 1842:

He [Hyrum Smith] then spoke in contradiction of a report in circulation about Elder Kimball, B. Young, himself, and others of the Twelve, alledging that a sister had been shut in a room for several days, and that they had endeavored to induce her to believe in having two wives...

Pres't. J. Smith spoke upon the subject of the stories respecting Elder Kimball and others, showing the folly and inconsistency of spending any time in conversing about such stories or hearkening to them, for there is no person that is acquainted with our principles would believe such lies, except Sharp the editor of the "Warsaw Signal."

The claim that Martha was locked in a room for "days" is likely an exaggerated rumor: It was more likely "about ten minutes" while Joseph was summoned

RLDS authors Richard and Pamela Price, who firmly believed that Joseph did not practice plural marriage, uses the Times and Seasons account to assert that Martha "changed her story" regarding the length of time during which she was held in the room:

The records show that Martha changed her story. As Hyrum reported to the Conference, at first she had told that she was locked in a room for days. But since that was such a ridiculous, unbelievable story, she changed it in her St. Louis affidavit to read that Brigham locked her in Joseph's office for only "about ten minutes."

However, we have no access to Martha's original story, so the Prices' assumption that Martha originally claimed that she was held in the room for a number of days cannot be verified. The source of the claim that Martha was held in the room for "days" is likely an exaggeration, however, the source of the rumor cannot be determined. The claim that she was locked in the office for "about ten minutes" while Joseph was summoned seems much more plausible.

The Prices provide additional reasoning against the idea that Martha was in the room for a number of days,

It would have been impossible for Martha to have been imprisoned in any room in the Red Brick Store without it being detected. In fact, she could not have gone up and down the stairs and from room to room without being observed by many. The store was a small, two-story building, and Joseph's office was only about ten feet square. Since dozens of people came to the store daily, her calls for help would have been heard. Martha had but one witness—John Bennett, who asserted in the Sangamo Journal for July 15, 1842, "She was locked up ... I saw her taken into the accursed room."

If Martha's story had been true, there would have been many witnesses, because Joseph' s store was the hub of activity in Nauvoo. People came to the store to buy everything from food to footwear. The store building also housed the headquarters for the Church and the city. There, the people paid their tithing and taxes, and conducted banking and real estate business. The store was alive with people by day and by night, for it was also in constant use as a civic and religious center…."

One suspects Bennett's influence in this part of the story, since Bennett would likewise claim Joseph locked him in a room. In Bennett's case, the story is unworkable and contradicted by a non-LDS eyewitnesses.

See also Brian Hales' discussion

The Faith of the Nauvoo Polygamists

Why did early members of the Church practice polygamy? Were they all dupes? Easily manipulated? Religious fanatics who believed Joseph could do no wrong? This article explores the initial reactions and eventual decisions made by the first generation of polygamists in Nauvoo.

Joseph Smith’s Proposals of Plural Marriage

Some critics would have readers believe that Joseph Smith simply had to smile at the young maidens of Nauvoo, and they would readily accept Joseph’s offers of marriage, perhaps acting on hidden desires to be with the handsome young prophet. Others characterize the women as acquiescing because of religious zealousness or coercion, unwilling victims of a lustful prophet wielding his powers of persuasion. While these make for dramatic stories, the reality was certainly more complex than these colorful narratives would lead one to believe.

⍗

Learn more about polygamy and claims of coercion

Key sources	Brian C. Hales, "Joseph Smith Realized Plural Marriage was Difficult," No Complaints from Joseph Smith's Plural Wives Concerning His Treatment of Them," "Did Joseph Smith Make Improper Proposals?." Hales' three volume work is the most complete and up-to-date analysis of Joseph Smith's plural marriages. These links are available on-line, and his books can be ordered for those who want more details.
Wiki links	Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him? Mormon women refusing offers of plural marriage
FAIR links	Brian C. Hales, "A Response to Concerns Regarding Joseph Smith and the Practice of Plural Marriage in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints", (October 17, 2013).
Navigators	Table of contents Abuse Bible Book of Abraham Book of Mormon CES Letter Church history Church finances Doctrine and Covenants First Vision Joseph Smith Latter-day Saint temples Mountain Meadows Massacre Plural marriage Prophets and leaders Scripture Brigham Young Template:To learn more box:polygamy

Notes

Response to claim: 58 - At least 11 of Joseph's wives married to another man

The author(s) of Mormon America: The Power and the Promise make(s) the following claim:

At least 11 of Joseph's wives married to another man. Mormon apologists have attempted to justify polygamy in part because it sheltered single women beyond marriageable age, the facts show otherwise. The vast majority of plural wives were younger than the first wife, often nubile teenagers.

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: This claim is based upon correct information - The author is providing knowledge concerning some particular fact, subject, or event

Joseph was sealed to the wives of at least 11 married men for eternity. In each case, the wives continued to live with the current husband for time and never had a relationship with Joseph.

Question: Was Joseph Smith married or sealed to women who were already married to other living men?

Joseph Smith was sealed to 11 women who were married to men who were still living. Some of these men were even active members of the Church

Among Joseph's plural marriages and/or sealings, between eight to eleven of them were to women who were already married. Of the eight well-documented cases, five of the husbands were Latter-day Saints, and the other three were either not active in or not associated with the Church. In all cases, these women continued to live with their husbands, most of them doing so until their husbands died. These eternal marriages appear to have had little effect upon the lives of the women involved, with the exception that they would be sealed to Joseph in the afterlife rather than to their earthly husbands. One of the most well-known of these "polyandrous" marriages was to Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs.

Of all the aspects of Joseph Smith's marital theology, this is the most difficult area to understand, because very little primary evidence exists. As one scholar noted:

Perhaps nothing is less understood than Joseph Smith's sealings to women already married, because the evidence supports conflicting interpretations.

Criticisms related to Joseph Smith's "polyandrous" marriages

These "polyandrous" marriages have given rise to a number of criticisms:

• Why would Joseph be sealed to other men's wives?
• What was the nature of these marriages? Were they consummated?
• Why did these 11 women continue to live with and have children with their husbands even after being sealed to Joseph Smith?
• One critic of the church notes, "Joseph Smith would frequently approach other men’s wives about being his own plural wives..."

At the time that celestial marriage was introduced, it was possible to be married for time to one person and sealed for eternity to another. These marriages appear to have been performed for the purpose of forming dynastic bonds in the afterlife, as there is no evidence that Joseph ever cohabited or had intimate relations with any of these women. No children from these marriages have ever been identified. These were sealings which would only affect Joseph's association with these women in the afterlife.

The Joseph Smith Papers: "Several later documents suggest that several women who were already married to other men were, like Marinda Hyde, married or sealed to Joseph Smith"

"Nauvoo Journals, December 1841–April 1843," The Joseph Smith Papers:

Several later documents suggest that several women who were already married to other men were, like Marinda Hyde, married or sealed to Joseph Smith. Available evidence indicates that some of these apparent polygynous/polyandrous marriages took place during the years covered by this journal. At least three of the women reportedly involved in these marriages—Patty Bartlett Sessions, Ruth Vose Sayers, and Sylvia Porter Lyon—are mentioned in the journal, though in contexts very much removed from plural marriage. Even fewer sources are extant for these complex relationships than are available for Smith’s marriages to unmarried women, and Smith’s revelations are silent on them. Having surveyed the available sources, historian Richard L. Bushman concludes that these polyandrous marriages—and perhaps other plural marriages of Joseph Smith—were primarily a means of binding other families to his for the spiritual benefit and mutual salvation of all involved.

Improvement Era (1946): "Did Joseph Smith Introduce Plural Marriage?...It is also possible, though the Church does not now permit it, to seal two living people for eternity only, with no association on earth"

"Did Joseph Smith Introduce Plural Marriage?," Improvement Era (November 1946):

Several approaches to eternal marriage may be made: Two living persons may be sealed to each other for time and eternity. A living man may be sealed for eternity to a dead woman; or a living woman to a dead man. Two dead persons may be sealed to each other. It is also possible, though the Church does not now permit it, to seal two living people for eternity only, with no association on earth.

Further, under a divine command to the Prophet Joseph Smith, it was possible for one man to be sealed to more than one woman for time and eternity. Thus came plural marriage among the Latter-day Saints. By another divine command, to Wilford Woodruff, a successor to Joseph Smith, this order of marriage was withdrawn in 1890. Since that time the Church has not sanctioned plural marriages. Anyone who enters into them now is married unlawfully, and is excommunicated from the Church.

"Did Joseph Smith Introduce Plural Marriage?," Improvement Era (November 1946)

Question: What was the nature of Joseph Smith's "polyandrous" marriages?

Evidence indicates that Joseph was sealed for eternity to eight to eleven women who were married to other men

The fact that these women continue to live with their earthly husbands and even have children by them indicates that the sealings to Joseph Smith were not marriages in the normal sense.

Joseph's sealing to their wives doesn't appear to have changed anything in their daily lives or their relationship to their current husbands

The relationship between these women and their husbands appear to have not changed even after they were sealed to Joseph Smith. Of the eight well-documented cases, five of the husbands were Latter-day Saints, and the other three were either not active in or not associated with the Church. In all cases, these women continued to live with their husbands, most of them doing so until their husbands died. These eternal marriages appear to have had little effect upon the lives of the women involved, with the exception that they would be sealed to Joseph in the afterlife rather than to their earthly husbands.

Question: Did Joseph Smith consummate any of these marriages with married women?

There is no evidence to indicate that Joseph consumated any polyandrous marriages, with one possible exception for a woman who considered herself divorced

The available evidence also does not support the claim that Joseph had intimate relations with these married women. Fawn Brodie, who repeatedly stated her belief that Joseph had intimate relations with many of his plural wives, identified several individuals that she thought “might” be children of Joseph Smith, Jr. Yet, even Brodie noted that “it is astonishing that evidence of other children than these has never come to light.” Brodie postulated, in spite of a complete lack of evidence, that Joseph must have been able to successfully practice some sort of primitive birth control, or that abortions must have been routinely employed.To date, DNA analysis has ruled out Joseph Smith as the father of any of the children of the women to whom he was sealed who were married to other men.

In 1915, Sylvia Sessions Lyon's daughter, Josephine, signed a statement that in 1882 Sylvia "told me that I was the daughter of the Prophet Joseph Smith"

In 1915, Sylvia Sessions Lyon's daughter, Josephine, signed a statement that in 1882 Sylvia "told me that I was the daughter of the Prophet Joseph Smith, she having been sealed to the Prophet at the time that her husband Mr. Lyon was out of fellowship with the Church." It is not known whether Sylvia was referring to her daughter as being a literal descendant of Joseph Smith, or if she was referring to the fact that she had been sealed to the prophet. In any case, in 2016 the daughter was shown by DNA testing to be definitively not the biological daughter of Joseph Smith.

In an article published in Mormon Historical Studies, Brian C. Hales demonstrates that Sylvia considered herself divorced prior to marrying Joseph polygamously.

Response to claim: 59 - It is claimed that Joseph Smith "often" asked close friends for their wives and daughters

The author(s) of Mormon America make(s) the following claim:

It is claimed that Joseph Smith "often" asked close friends for their wives and daughters.

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader

There is no evidence to support this claim.

Response to claim: 59 - Some of the marriages were the result of pressure or spiritual coercion from the prophet

The author(s) of Mormon America: The Power and the Promise make(s) the following claim:

Some of the marriages were the result of pressure or spiritual coercion from the prophet.

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: The author has stated erroneous information or misinterpreted their sources

Joseph did not force women to accept plural marriage. However, given that the Saints believed Joseph was a prophet, any command from him would carry significant weight.

FAIR Answers—back to home page

V

Plural marriage

Doctrinal foundation of plural marriage	Purpose of plural marriage Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation Plural marriage in early Christianity Plural marriage in the Book of Mormon Plural marriage and the Bible
Introduction of plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage 1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Plural marriage and the law
Questions about Joseph Smith and plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Joseph Smith's marriages to young women Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him? Mormon women refusing offers of plural marriage Polyandry Joseph Smith and children through plural marriage Marrying other men's wives? Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma Emma Smith's reaction to Joseph Smith's plural marriages Emma Smith in Doctrine and Covenants 132 Did Joseph have lustful motives for practicing polygamy? Did Joseph Smith send men on missions in order to steal their wives? Did Joseph Smith practice polygamy for the purpose of monetary gain?
John C. Bennett and Nauvoo polygamy	Bennett before Nauvoo Bennett and Prostitution Brothel at Nauvoo Rise and Fall of Bennett Sarah Pratt Nancy Rigdon Sidney Rigdon
Plural wives of Joseph Smith	Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Emma Smith Fanny Alger Louisa Beaman Prescindia Lathrop Huntington Buell Sarah Kingsley Howe Cleveland Agnes Moulton Coolbrith Elizabeth Davis Goldsmith Brackenbury Durfee Esther Dutcher Hannah S. Ells Olive Grey Frost Desdemona Catlin Wadsworth Fulmmer Lucinda Pendleton Morgan Harris Clarissa Reed Hancock Elvira Annie Cowles Holmes Sarah Maryetta Kingsley Howe Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde Vienna Jacques Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Almera Johnson Helen Mar Kimball Maria Lawrence Sarah Lawrence Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner Malissa Lott Sylvia Sessions Lyon Martha McBride Eliza Partridge Emily Partridge Rhoda Richards Ruth Vose Sayers Patty Bartlett Sessions Delcena Diadamia Johnson Sherman "Miss Smith" Mary Heron Snider Eliza R. Snow Lucy Walker Sarah Ann Whitney Nancy Maria Winchester Flora Ann Woodworth Fanny Young
Plural marriage in Utah	Difficulties with plural marriage Brigham Young's statements regarding plural marriage John Taylor's statements regarding polygamy Latter-day Saints and divorce in the nineteenth century Prevalence of plural marriage in Utah
End of plural marriage	The First Manifesto Official Declaration Number 1 Plural marriage practiced after the First Manifesto The Church of Jesus Christ and plural marriage today

Were plural wives forced into the marriage?

Plural wives were not forced into marriage

Brian Hales:

Some writers affirm that Joseph Smith put pressure on women to marry him. They portray him almost as a predator gallivanting about Nauvoo seeking new wives, even marrying other men’s spouses. While it makes for an entertaining storyline, it does not square with the historical record. One of Joseph’s plural wives, Lucy Walker, remembered the Prophet's counsel: "A woman would have her choice, this was a privilege that could not be denied her." The Prophet taught that eternal marriage was necessary for exaltation and encouraged all those he taught to comply, but he always respected their agency and choices in the matter.

How many Mormon women refused offers of plural marriage?

It is difficult to know how many women refused plural marriage—if they said nothing, then we may have no way of knowing if they refused. Some cited in LDS sources include:

• Sarah Granger Kimball
• Rachel Ivins (Grant)
• Lydia Moon
• Cordelia C. Morley (Cox)
• Esther M. Johnson
• Nancy Rigdon - daughter of Sidney Rigdon
• Sarah Pratt - wife of Orson Pratt

Anti-Mormon sources list several other possibilities, but it is hard to know how far to trust them. As Compton notes, "Some ... are fairly well documented; others are sensationalist and badly documented." These include:

• Jane Silverthorne (Law) - wife of William Law
• Leonora Cannon (Taylor) - wife of John Taylor
• Melissa Schindle
• Emeline White
• Mrs. Robert Foster
• Pamela Michael
• Mrs. Caroline Grant Smith
• Lucy Smith Milligan (or Miliken)
• Lavina Smith
• Miss Marks - daughter of William Marks
• Athalia Rigdon

⍗

Source(s) of the criticism

Critical sources

Watchman Fellowship, The Watchman Expositor (Page 3)

Did any woman suffer consequences for turning down Joseph's proposal?

Two women afterward attacked Joseph's character and misrepresented his offer, to which Joseph responded. Those who did not were left strictly alone

There are numerous accounts of women to whom Joseph proposed plural marriage, who turned him down.

Two women afterward attacked Joseph's character and misrepresented his offer. He responded. Those who did not were left strictly alone. There were no consequences to these women. Sarah Kimball reported Joseph's mild reaction to the rejection:

Early in the year 1842, Joseph Smith taught me the principle of marriage for eternity, and the doctrine of plural marriage. He said that in teaching this he realized that he jeopardized his life; but God had revealed it to him many years before as a privilege with blessings, now God had revealed it again and instructed him to teach it with commandment, as the Church could travel (progress) no further without the introduction of this principle. I asked him to teach it to some one else. He looked at me reprovingly, and said, 'Will you tell me who to teach it to? God required me to teach it to you, and leave you with the responsibility of believing or disbelieving.‘ He said, 'I will not cease to pray for you, and if you will seek unto God in prayer you will not be led into temptation.'

(Sarah's husband was not a member of the Church until 1843. There was some tension between him and Joseph as a result of this episode, but he seems to have resolved any animosity he held for the prophet. They were later to go Utah with the Saints, where Sarah assumed a prominent role in the Relief Society. Her husband died while en route to a mission in Hawaii.

Other women loudly trumpeted the plural marriage doctrine in Nauvoo and the hostile press. These women's testimony and character were generally attacked to try to discredit them in an effort to preserve the secrecy which surrounded plural marriage. (This factor is complicated by the fact that at least some were guilty of inappropriate behavior (e.g., likely Sarah Pratt). Despite attacks on their character, some remained in Nauvoo and likewise suffered no physical harm (e.g., Nancy Rigdon).

Were women put under "tremendous pressure" to accept a proposal of plural marriage?

Given that the Saints believed Joseph was a prophet, any command from him would carry significant weight

• No one was coerced or forced into marriage (see above). However, given that the Saints believed Joseph was a prophet, any command from him would carry significant weight.
• Despite this, the reported initial reactions are all negative: these women were strong-minded, and did not simply obey because Joseph told them to.
• Because of their distaste for the idea, many plural wives reported divine revelations that confirmed the truth of plural marriage. Joseph encouraged women to seek for such divine confirmation.

Did Joseph Smith give a woman only one day to decide about entering a plural marriage, and would refusal mean terrible consequences?

One woman was told that the opportunity for plural marriage would expire in twenty-four hours. She was not threatened with damnation or physical consequences

This claim distorts the account of Lucy Walker. Joseph offered to teach Lucy about plural marriage, but she angrily refused:

When the Prophet Joseph Smith first mentioned the principle of plural marriage to me I became very indignant and told him emphatically that I did not wish him to ever mention it to me again....and so expressed myself to him....He counseled me, however, to pray to the Lord for light and understanding in relation thereto, and promised me if I would do so sincerely, I should receive a testimony of the correctness of the principle. Before praying I felt gloomy and downcast; in fact, I was so entirely given up to despair that I felt tired of life...."

Joseph then said nothing more to her for at least four months (and possibly as long as sixteen). Lucy continues:

[I] was so unwilling to consider the matter favorably that I fear I did not ask in faith for light. Gross darkness instead of light took possession of my mind. I was tempted and tortured beyond endurance until life was not desirable....

The Prophet discerned my sorrow. He saw how unhappy I was, and sought an opportunity of again speaking to me on this subject....

[He said] "I have no flattering words to offer. It is a command of God to you. I will give you until tomorrow to decide this matter. If you reject this message the gate will be closed forever against you."

– Lucy Walker, italics added

Lucy was told that the opportunity for plural marriage would expire in twenty-four hours. She was not threatened with damnation or physical consequences. Yet, she did not meekly obey:

This aroused every drop of scotch in my veins...I felt at this moment that I was called to place myself upon the altar a living Sacrafice, perhaps to brook the world in disgrace and incur the displeasure and contempt of my youthful companions; all my dreams of happiness blown to the four winds, this was too much, the thought was unbearable.... I...at last found utterance and said, "Although you are a prophet of God you could not induce me to take a step of so great importance, unless I knew that God approved my course. I would rather die. I have tried to pray but received no comfort, no light....The same God who has sent this message is the Being I have worshipped from my early childhood and He must manifest His will to me."

Joseph's response:

He walked across the room, returned, and stood before me. With the most beautiful expression of countenance, he said, "God almighty bless you. You shall have a manifestation of the will of God concerning you; a testimony that you can never deny. I will tell you what it shall be. It shall be that peace and joy that you never knew."

That night, Lucy reported:

It was near after another sleepless night when my room was lighted up by a heavenly influence. To me it was, in comparison, like the brilliant sun bursting through the darkest cloud. The words of the Prophet were indeed fulfilled. My soul was filled with a calm, sweet peace that "I never knew." Supreme happiness took possession of me, and I received a powerful and irresistible testimony of the truth of plural marriage, which has been like an anchor to the soul through all the trials of life. I felt that I must go out into the morning air and give vent to the joy and gratitude that filled my soul. As I descended the stairs, President Smith opened the door below, took me by the hand and said, "Thank God, you have the testimony. I too have prayed." He led me to a chair, placed his hands upon my head, and blessed me with every blessing my heart could possibly desire.

– Lucy Walker

Even with Lucy's revelation and consent, Joseph then sought the permission of her oldest male relative in Nauvoo, her brother William Holmes Walker. He said:

The Prophet invited me to hitch up my horse with one of his...and to ride with him....On this occasion the subject of celestial, or plural marriage, was introduced to me. As we returned home he remarked, 'If there was anything I did not understand to hold on a little, and I would understand it."....

In the spring of 1843, my father, being away on a mission, the Prophet asked my consent, for my sister Lucy in Marriage. I replied that if it was her free will and choice, I had no objection....

When father returned from his mission, the matter being fully explained in connection with the doctrine, received his endorsement and all parties concerned received his approbation.

— William Holmes Walker

This is the only case of any kind of deadline being given, and it only came because Joseph saw how unhappy Lucy was as she hesitated with a decision over a period of months.

Did Joseph claim that an angel threatened him with a "drawn sword" or "flaming sword" if a woman refused to marry him?

The references to the "angel with a sword" refer to Joseph's postponement of the initiation of polygamy

Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs said that Joseph mentioned an angel with a drawn sword. The account of a "flaming" sword came from Eliza Snow and Orson F. Whitney.

The "angel with a sword" reference refers to Joseph's postponement of the practice of polygamy. Brian Hales notes that,

"Twenty-one accounts by nine polygamy insiders left recollections that the Prophet told of one specific reason: an angel with a sword who threatened him if he did not proceed. All nine witnesses could have heard the statement from the Prophet himself; however, the narratives themselves suggest that Benjamin F. Johnson and Eliza R. Snow may have been repeating information gathered from other people. Joseph Lee Robinson's narrative is difficult to date and his actual source is not clear. Lorenzo Snow, Erastus Snow, and Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner quote the Prophet directly and Mary Elizabeth provides details not available elsewhere. Unfortunately, with the possible exception of the Robinson account, all of the reminiscences date to at least twenty to thirty years after the event."

Here are the quotes attributed to Zina on the matter:

1881: Zina Huntington—Zina D. Young told of Bro. Joseph's remark in relation to the revelation on celestial marriage. How an angel came to him with a drawn sword, and said if he did not obey this law he would lost his priesthood; and in the keeping of it he, Joseph, did not know but it would cost him his life.

1894: Zina Huntington—[Joseph] sent word to me by my brother, saying, 'Tell Zina I put it off and put it off till an angel with a drawn sword stood by me and told me if I did not establish that principle upon the earth, I would lost my position and my life.'"

Were women "locked in a room" in order to convince them to accept plural marriage?

While Nancy Rigdon and Martha Brotherton were likely approached about plural marriage in private, it is unlikely that they were locked in rooms or confined against their will

The author of Nauvoo Polygamy:..."but we called it celestial marriage," claims that "…both Nancy [Rigdon] and Martha [Brotherton] were…isolated in a locked room during the...effort" to persuade them to practice plural marriage.

The claims about being "locked in a room," while dramatic, seem unlikely. Much of the evidence hinges on the unreliable and vindictive John C. Bennett, who published the exposé, The History of the Saints, or an Exposé of Joe Smith and Mormonism. While Nancy and Martha were likely approached about plural marriage in private, it is unlikely that they were locked in rooms or confined against their will.

Hyrum Smith touched upon this subject during a Conference talk on April 6, 1842:

He [Hyrum Smith] then spoke in contradiction of a report in circulation about Elder Kimball, B. Young, himself, and others of the Twelve, alledging that a sister had been shut in a room for several days, and that they had endeavored to induce her to believe in having two wives...

Pres't. J. Smith spoke upon the subject of the stories respecting Elder Kimball and others, showing the folly and inconsistency of spending any time in conversing about such stories or hearkening to them, for there is no person that is acquainted with our principles would believe such lies, except Sharp the editor of the "Warsaw Signal."

The claim that Martha was locked in a room for "days" is likely an exaggerated rumor: It was more likely "about ten minutes" while Joseph was summoned

RLDS authors Richard and Pamela Price, who firmly believed that Joseph did not practice plural marriage, uses the Times and Seasons account to assert that Martha "changed her story" regarding the length of time during which she was held in the room:

The records show that Martha changed her story. As Hyrum reported to the Conference, at first she had told that she was locked in a room for days. But since that was such a ridiculous, unbelievable story, she changed it in her St. Louis affidavit to read that Brigham locked her in Joseph's office for only "about ten minutes."

However, we have no access to Martha's original story, so the Prices' assumption that Martha originally claimed that she was held in the room for a number of days cannot be verified. The source of the claim that Martha was held in the room for "days" is likely an exaggeration, however, the source of the rumor cannot be determined. The claim that she was locked in the office for "about ten minutes" while Joseph was summoned seems much more plausible.

The Prices provide additional reasoning against the idea that Martha was in the room for a number of days,

It would have been impossible for Martha to have been imprisoned in any room in the Red Brick Store without it being detected. In fact, she could not have gone up and down the stairs and from room to room without being observed by many. The store was a small, two-story building, and Joseph's office was only about ten feet square. Since dozens of people came to the store daily, her calls for help would have been heard. Martha had but one witness—John Bennett, who asserted in the Sangamo Journal for July 15, 1842, "She was locked up ... I saw her taken into the accursed room."

If Martha's story had been true, there would have been many witnesses, because Joseph' s store was the hub of activity in Nauvoo. People came to the store to buy everything from food to footwear. The store building also housed the headquarters for the Church and the city. There, the people paid their tithing and taxes, and conducted banking and real estate business. The store was alive with people by day and by night, for it was also in constant use as a civic and religious center…."

One suspects Bennett's influence in this part of the story, since Bennett would likewise claim Joseph locked him in a room. In Bennett's case, the story is unworkable and contradicted by a non-LDS eyewitnesses.

See also Brian Hales' discussion

The Faith of the Nauvoo Polygamists

Why did early members of the Church practice polygamy? Were they all dupes? Easily manipulated? Religious fanatics who believed Joseph could do no wrong? This article explores the initial reactions and eventual decisions made by the first generation of polygamists in Nauvoo.

Joseph Smith’s Proposals of Plural Marriage

Some critics would have readers believe that Joseph Smith simply had to smile at the young maidens of Nauvoo, and they would readily accept Joseph’s offers of marriage, perhaps acting on hidden desires to be with the handsome young prophet. Others characterize the women as acquiescing because of religious zealousness or coercion, unwilling victims of a lustful prophet wielding his powers of persuasion. While these make for dramatic stories, the reality was certainly more complex than these colorful narratives would lead one to believe.

⍗

Learn more about polygamy and claims of coercion

Key sources	Brian C. Hales, "Joseph Smith Realized Plural Marriage was Difficult," No Complaints from Joseph Smith's Plural Wives Concerning His Treatment of Them," "Did Joseph Smith Make Improper Proposals?." Hales' three volume work is the most complete and up-to-date analysis of Joseph Smith's plural marriages. These links are available on-line, and his books can be ordered for those who want more details.
Wiki links	Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him? Mormon women refusing offers of plural marriage
FAIR links	Brian C. Hales, "A Response to Concerns Regarding Joseph Smith and the Practice of Plural Marriage in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints", (October 17, 2013).
Navigators	Table of contents Abuse Bible Book of Abraham Book of Mormon CES Letter Church history Church finances Doctrine and Covenants First Vision Joseph Smith Latter-day Saint temples Mountain Meadows Massacre Plural marriage Prophets and leaders Scripture Brigham Young Template:To learn more box:polygamy

Notes

FAIR Answers—back to home page

V

Plural marriage

Doctrinal foundation of plural marriage	Purpose of plural marriage Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation Plural marriage in early Christianity Plural marriage in the Book of Mormon Plural marriage and the Bible
Introduction of plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage 1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Plural marriage and the law
Questions about Joseph Smith and plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Joseph Smith's marriages to young women Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him? Mormon women refusing offers of plural marriage Polyandry Joseph Smith and children through plural marriage Marrying other men's wives? Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma Emma Smith's reaction to Joseph Smith's plural marriages Emma Smith in Doctrine and Covenants 132 Did Joseph have lustful motives for practicing polygamy? Did Joseph Smith send men on missions in order to steal their wives? Did Joseph Smith practice polygamy for the purpose of monetary gain?
John C. Bennett and Nauvoo polygamy	Bennett before Nauvoo Bennett and Prostitution Brothel at Nauvoo Rise and Fall of Bennett Sarah Pratt Nancy Rigdon Sidney Rigdon
Plural wives of Joseph Smith	Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Emma Smith Fanny Alger Louisa Beaman Prescindia Lathrop Huntington Buell Sarah Kingsley Howe Cleveland Agnes Moulton Coolbrith Elizabeth Davis Goldsmith Brackenbury Durfee Esther Dutcher Hannah S. Ells Olive Grey Frost Desdemona Catlin Wadsworth Fulmmer Lucinda Pendleton Morgan Harris Clarissa Reed Hancock Elvira Annie Cowles Holmes Sarah Maryetta Kingsley Howe Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde Vienna Jacques Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Almera Johnson Helen Mar Kimball Maria Lawrence Sarah Lawrence Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner Malissa Lott Sylvia Sessions Lyon Martha McBride Eliza Partridge Emily Partridge Rhoda Richards Ruth Vose Sayers Patty Bartlett Sessions Delcena Diadamia Johnson Sherman "Miss Smith" Mary Heron Snider Eliza R. Snow Lucy Walker Sarah Ann Whitney Nancy Maria Winchester Flora Ann Woodworth Fanny Young
Plural marriage in Utah	Difficulties with plural marriage Brigham Young's statements regarding plural marriage John Taylor's statements regarding polygamy Latter-day Saints and divorce in the nineteenth century Prevalence of plural marriage in Utah
End of plural marriage	The First Manifesto Official Declaration Number 1 Plural marriage practiced after the First Manifesto The Church of Jesus Christ and plural marriage today

Were plural wives forced into the marriage?

Plural wives were not forced into marriage

Brian Hales:

Some writers affirm that Joseph Smith put pressure on women to marry him. They portray him almost as a predator gallivanting about Nauvoo seeking new wives, even marrying other men’s spouses. While it makes for an entertaining storyline, it does not square with the historical record. One of Joseph’s plural wives, Lucy Walker, remembered the Prophet's counsel: "A woman would have her choice, this was a privilege that could not be denied her." The Prophet taught that eternal marriage was necessary for exaltation and encouraged all those he taught to comply, but he always respected their agency and choices in the matter.

How many Mormon women refused offers of plural marriage?

It is difficult to know how many women refused plural marriage—if they said nothing, then we may have no way of knowing if they refused. Some cited in LDS sources include:

• Sarah Granger Kimball
• Rachel Ivins (Grant)
• Lydia Moon
• Cordelia C. Morley (Cox)
• Esther M. Johnson
• Nancy Rigdon - daughter of Sidney Rigdon
• Sarah Pratt - wife of Orson Pratt

Anti-Mormon sources list several other possibilities, but it is hard to know how far to trust them. As Compton notes, "Some ... are fairly well documented; others are sensationalist and badly documented." These include:

• Jane Silverthorne (Law) - wife of William Law
• Leonora Cannon (Taylor) - wife of John Taylor
• Melissa Schindle
• Emeline White
• Mrs. Robert Foster
• Pamela Michael
• Mrs. Caroline Grant Smith
• Lucy Smith Milligan (or Miliken)
• Lavina Smith
• Miss Marks - daughter of William Marks
• Athalia Rigdon

⍗

Source(s) of the criticism

Critical sources

Watchman Fellowship, The Watchman Expositor (Page 3)

Did any woman suffer consequences for turning down Joseph's proposal?

Two women afterward attacked Joseph's character and misrepresented his offer, to which Joseph responded. Those who did not were left strictly alone

There are numerous accounts of women to whom Joseph proposed plural marriage, who turned him down.

Two women afterward attacked Joseph's character and misrepresented his offer. He responded. Those who did not were left strictly alone. There were no consequences to these women. Sarah Kimball reported Joseph's mild reaction to the rejection:

Early in the year 1842, Joseph Smith taught me the principle of marriage for eternity, and the doctrine of plural marriage. He said that in teaching this he realized that he jeopardized his life; but God had revealed it to him many years before as a privilege with blessings, now God had revealed it again and instructed him to teach it with commandment, as the Church could travel (progress) no further without the introduction of this principle. I asked him to teach it to some one else. He looked at me reprovingly, and said, 'Will you tell me who to teach it to? God required me to teach it to you, and leave you with the responsibility of believing or disbelieving.‘ He said, 'I will not cease to pray for you, and if you will seek unto God in prayer you will not be led into temptation.'

(Sarah's husband was not a member of the Church until 1843. There was some tension between him and Joseph as a result of this episode, but he seems to have resolved any animosity he held for the prophet. They were later to go Utah with the Saints, where Sarah assumed a prominent role in the Relief Society. Her husband died while en route to a mission in Hawaii.

Other women loudly trumpeted the plural marriage doctrine in Nauvoo and the hostile press. These women's testimony and character were generally attacked to try to discredit them in an effort to preserve the secrecy which surrounded plural marriage. (This factor is complicated by the fact that at least some were guilty of inappropriate behavior (e.g., likely Sarah Pratt). Despite attacks on their character, some remained in Nauvoo and likewise suffered no physical harm (e.g., Nancy Rigdon).

Were women put under "tremendous pressure" to accept a proposal of plural marriage?

Given that the Saints believed Joseph was a prophet, any command from him would carry significant weight

• No one was coerced or forced into marriage (see above). However, given that the Saints believed Joseph was a prophet, any command from him would carry significant weight.
• Despite this, the reported initial reactions are all negative: these women were strong-minded, and did not simply obey because Joseph told them to.
• Because of their distaste for the idea, many plural wives reported divine revelations that confirmed the truth of plural marriage. Joseph encouraged women to seek for such divine confirmation.

Did Joseph Smith give a woman only one day to decide about entering a plural marriage, and would refusal mean terrible consequences?

One woman was told that the opportunity for plural marriage would expire in twenty-four hours. She was not threatened with damnation or physical consequences

This claim distorts the account of Lucy Walker. Joseph offered to teach Lucy about plural marriage, but she angrily refused:

When the Prophet Joseph Smith first mentioned the principle of plural marriage to me I became very indignant and told him emphatically that I did not wish him to ever mention it to me again....and so expressed myself to him....He counseled me, however, to pray to the Lord for light and understanding in relation thereto, and promised me if I would do so sincerely, I should receive a testimony of the correctness of the principle. Before praying I felt gloomy and downcast; in fact, I was so entirely given up to despair that I felt tired of life...."

Joseph then said nothing more to her for at least four months (and possibly as long as sixteen). Lucy continues:

[I] was so unwilling to consider the matter favorably that I fear I did not ask in faith for light. Gross darkness instead of light took possession of my mind. I was tempted and tortured beyond endurance until life was not desirable....

The Prophet discerned my sorrow. He saw how unhappy I was, and sought an opportunity of again speaking to me on this subject....

[He said] "I have no flattering words to offer. It is a command of God to you. I will give you until tomorrow to decide this matter. If you reject this message the gate will be closed forever against you."

– Lucy Walker, italics added

Lucy was told that the opportunity for plural marriage would expire in twenty-four hours. She was not threatened with damnation or physical consequences. Yet, she did not meekly obey:

This aroused every drop of scotch in my veins...I felt at this moment that I was called to place myself upon the altar a living Sacrafice, perhaps to brook the world in disgrace and incur the displeasure and contempt of my youthful companions; all my dreams of happiness blown to the four winds, this was too much, the thought was unbearable.... I...at last found utterance and said, "Although you are a prophet of God you could not induce me to take a step of so great importance, unless I knew that God approved my course. I would rather die. I have tried to pray but received no comfort, no light....The same God who has sent this message is the Being I have worshipped from my early childhood and He must manifest His will to me."

Joseph's response:

He walked across the room, returned, and stood before me. With the most beautiful expression of countenance, he said, "God almighty bless you. You shall have a manifestation of the will of God concerning you; a testimony that you can never deny. I will tell you what it shall be. It shall be that peace and joy that you never knew."

That night, Lucy reported:

It was near after another sleepless night when my room was lighted up by a heavenly influence. To me it was, in comparison, like the brilliant sun bursting through the darkest cloud. The words of the Prophet were indeed fulfilled. My soul was filled with a calm, sweet peace that "I never knew." Supreme happiness took possession of me, and I received a powerful and irresistible testimony of the truth of plural marriage, which has been like an anchor to the soul through all the trials of life. I felt that I must go out into the morning air and give vent to the joy and gratitude that filled my soul. As I descended the stairs, President Smith opened the door below, took me by the hand and said, "Thank God, you have the testimony. I too have prayed." He led me to a chair, placed his hands upon my head, and blessed me with every blessing my heart could possibly desire.

– Lucy Walker

Even with Lucy's revelation and consent, Joseph then sought the permission of her oldest male relative in Nauvoo, her brother William Holmes Walker. He said:

The Prophet invited me to hitch up my horse with one of his...and to ride with him....On this occasion the subject of celestial, or plural marriage, was introduced to me. As we returned home he remarked, 'If there was anything I did not understand to hold on a little, and I would understand it."....

In the spring of 1843, my father, being away on a mission, the Prophet asked my consent, for my sister Lucy in Marriage. I replied that if it was her free will and choice, I had no objection....

When father returned from his mission, the matter being fully explained in connection with the doctrine, received his endorsement and all parties concerned received his approbation.

— William Holmes Walker

This is the only case of any kind of deadline being given, and it only came because Joseph saw how unhappy Lucy was as she hesitated with a decision over a period of months.

Did Joseph claim that an angel threatened him with a "drawn sword" or "flaming sword" if a woman refused to marry him?

The references to the "angel with a sword" refer to Joseph's postponement of the initiation of polygamy

Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs said that Joseph mentioned an angel with a drawn sword. The account of a "flaming" sword came from Eliza Snow and Orson F. Whitney.

The "angel with a sword" reference refers to Joseph's postponement of the practice of polygamy. Brian Hales notes that,

"Twenty-one accounts by nine polygamy insiders left recollections that the Prophet told of one specific reason: an angel with a sword who threatened him if he did not proceed. All nine witnesses could have heard the statement from the Prophet himself; however, the narratives themselves suggest that Benjamin F. Johnson and Eliza R. Snow may have been repeating information gathered from other people. Joseph Lee Robinson's narrative is difficult to date and his actual source is not clear. Lorenzo Snow, Erastus Snow, and Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner quote the Prophet directly and Mary Elizabeth provides details not available elsewhere. Unfortunately, with the possible exception of the Robinson account, all of the reminiscences date to at least twenty to thirty years after the event."

Here are the quotes attributed to Zina on the matter:

1881: Zina Huntington—Zina D. Young told of Bro. Joseph's remark in relation to the revelation on celestial marriage. How an angel came to him with a drawn sword, and said if he did not obey this law he would lost his priesthood; and in the keeping of it he, Joseph, did not know but it would cost him his life.

1894: Zina Huntington—[Joseph] sent word to me by my brother, saying, 'Tell Zina I put it off and put it off till an angel with a drawn sword stood by me and told me if I did not establish that principle upon the earth, I would lost my position and my life.'"

Were women "locked in a room" in order to convince them to accept plural marriage?

While Nancy Rigdon and Martha Brotherton were likely approached about plural marriage in private, it is unlikely that they were locked in rooms or confined against their will

The author of Nauvoo Polygamy:..."but we called it celestial marriage," claims that "…both Nancy [Rigdon] and Martha [Brotherton] were…isolated in a locked room during the...effort" to persuade them to practice plural marriage.

The claims about being "locked in a room," while dramatic, seem unlikely. Much of the evidence hinges on the unreliable and vindictive John C. Bennett, who published the exposé, The History of the Saints, or an Exposé of Joe Smith and Mormonism. While Nancy and Martha were likely approached about plural marriage in private, it is unlikely that they were locked in rooms or confined against their will.

Hyrum Smith touched upon this subject during a Conference talk on April 6, 1842:

He [Hyrum Smith] then spoke in contradiction of a report in circulation about Elder Kimball, B. Young, himself, and others of the Twelve, alledging that a sister had been shut in a room for several days, and that they had endeavored to induce her to believe in having two wives...

Pres't. J. Smith spoke upon the subject of the stories respecting Elder Kimball and others, showing the folly and inconsistency of spending any time in conversing about such stories or hearkening to them, for there is no person that is acquainted with our principles would believe such lies, except Sharp the editor of the "Warsaw Signal."

The claim that Martha was locked in a room for "days" is likely an exaggerated rumor: It was more likely "about ten minutes" while Joseph was summoned

RLDS authors Richard and Pamela Price, who firmly believed that Joseph did not practice plural marriage, uses the Times and Seasons account to assert that Martha "changed her story" regarding the length of time during which she was held in the room:

The records show that Martha changed her story. As Hyrum reported to the Conference, at first she had told that she was locked in a room for days. But since that was such a ridiculous, unbelievable story, she changed it in her St. Louis affidavit to read that Brigham locked her in Joseph's office for only "about ten minutes."

However, we have no access to Martha's original story, so the Prices' assumption that Martha originally claimed that she was held in the room for a number of days cannot be verified. The source of the claim that Martha was held in the room for "days" is likely an exaggeration, however, the source of the rumor cannot be determined. The claim that she was locked in the office for "about ten minutes" while Joseph was summoned seems much more plausible.

The Prices provide additional reasoning against the idea that Martha was in the room for a number of days,

It would have been impossible for Martha to have been imprisoned in any room in the Red Brick Store without it being detected. In fact, she could not have gone up and down the stairs and from room to room without being observed by many. The store was a small, two-story building, and Joseph's office was only about ten feet square. Since dozens of people came to the store daily, her calls for help would have been heard. Martha had but one witness—John Bennett, who asserted in the Sangamo Journal for July 15, 1842, "She was locked up ... I saw her taken into the accursed room."

If Martha's story had been true, there would have been many witnesses, because Joseph' s store was the hub of activity in Nauvoo. People came to the store to buy everything from food to footwear. The store building also housed the headquarters for the Church and the city. There, the people paid their tithing and taxes, and conducted banking and real estate business. The store was alive with people by day and by night, for it was also in constant use as a civic and religious center…."

One suspects Bennett's influence in this part of the story, since Bennett would likewise claim Joseph locked him in a room. In Bennett's case, the story is unworkable and contradicted by a non-LDS eyewitnesses.

See also Brian Hales' discussion

The Faith of the Nauvoo Polygamists

Why did early members of the Church practice polygamy? Were they all dupes? Easily manipulated? Religious fanatics who believed Joseph could do no wrong? This article explores the initial reactions and eventual decisions made by the first generation of polygamists in Nauvoo.

Joseph Smith’s Proposals of Plural Marriage

Some critics would have readers believe that Joseph Smith simply had to smile at the young maidens of Nauvoo, and they would readily accept Joseph’s offers of marriage, perhaps acting on hidden desires to be with the handsome young prophet. Others characterize the women as acquiescing because of religious zealousness or coercion, unwilling victims of a lustful prophet wielding his powers of persuasion. While these make for dramatic stories, the reality was certainly more complex than these colorful narratives would lead one to believe.

⍗

Learn more about polygamy and claims of coercion

Key sources	Brian C. Hales, "Joseph Smith Realized Plural Marriage was Difficult," No Complaints from Joseph Smith's Plural Wives Concerning His Treatment of Them," "Did Joseph Smith Make Improper Proposals?." Hales' three volume work is the most complete and up-to-date analysis of Joseph Smith's plural marriages. These links are available on-line, and his books can be ordered for those who want more details.
Wiki links	Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him? Mormon women refusing offers of plural marriage
FAIR links	Brian C. Hales, "A Response to Concerns Regarding Joseph Smith and the Practice of Plural Marriage in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints", (October 17, 2013).
Navigators	Table of contents Abuse Bible Book of Abraham Book of Mormon CES Letter Church history Church finances Doctrine and Covenants First Vision Joseph Smith Latter-day Saint temples Mountain Meadows Massacre Plural marriage Prophets and leaders Scripture Brigham Young Template:To learn more box:polygamy

Notes

1. REDIRECTDid Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him?#Did Joseph Smith give a woman only one day to decide about entering a plural marriage, and would refusal mean terrible consequences?

FAIR Answers—back to home page

V

Plural marriage

Doctrinal foundation of plural marriage	Purpose of plural marriage Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation Plural marriage in early Christianity Plural marriage in the Book of Mormon Plural marriage and the Bible
Introduction of plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage 1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Plural marriage and the law
Questions about Joseph Smith and plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Joseph Smith's marriages to young women Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him? Mormon women refusing offers of plural marriage Polyandry Joseph Smith and children through plural marriage Marrying other men's wives? Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma Emma Smith's reaction to Joseph Smith's plural marriages Emma Smith in Doctrine and Covenants 132 Did Joseph have lustful motives for practicing polygamy? Did Joseph Smith send men on missions in order to steal their wives? Did Joseph Smith practice polygamy for the purpose of monetary gain?
John C. Bennett and Nauvoo polygamy	Bennett before Nauvoo Bennett and Prostitution Brothel at Nauvoo Rise and Fall of Bennett Sarah Pratt Nancy Rigdon Sidney Rigdon
Plural wives of Joseph Smith	Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Emma Smith Fanny Alger Louisa Beaman Prescindia Lathrop Huntington Buell Sarah Kingsley Howe Cleveland Agnes Moulton Coolbrith Elizabeth Davis Goldsmith Brackenbury Durfee Esther Dutcher Hannah S. Ells Olive Grey Frost Desdemona Catlin Wadsworth Fulmmer Lucinda Pendleton Morgan Harris Clarissa Reed Hancock Elvira Annie Cowles Holmes Sarah Maryetta Kingsley Howe Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde Vienna Jacques Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Almera Johnson Helen Mar Kimball Maria Lawrence Sarah Lawrence Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner Malissa Lott Sylvia Sessions Lyon Martha McBride Eliza Partridge Emily Partridge Rhoda Richards Ruth Vose Sayers Patty Bartlett Sessions Delcena Diadamia Johnson Sherman "Miss Smith" Mary Heron Snider Eliza R. Snow Lucy Walker Sarah Ann Whitney Nancy Maria Winchester Flora Ann Woodworth Fanny Young
Plural marriage in Utah	Difficulties with plural marriage Brigham Young's statements regarding plural marriage John Taylor's statements regarding polygamy Latter-day Saints and divorce in the nineteenth century Prevalence of plural marriage in Utah
End of plural marriage	The First Manifesto Official Declaration Number 1 Plural marriage practiced after the First Manifesto The Church of Jesus Christ and plural marriage today

Were plural wives forced into the marriage?

Plural wives were not forced into marriage

Brian Hales:

Some writers affirm that Joseph Smith put pressure on women to marry him. They portray him almost as a predator gallivanting about Nauvoo seeking new wives, even marrying other men’s spouses. While it makes for an entertaining storyline, it does not square with the historical record. One of Joseph’s plural wives, Lucy Walker, remembered the Prophet's counsel: "A woman would have her choice, this was a privilege that could not be denied her." The Prophet taught that eternal marriage was necessary for exaltation and encouraged all those he taught to comply, but he always respected their agency and choices in the matter.

How many Mormon women refused offers of plural marriage?

It is difficult to know how many women refused plural marriage—if they said nothing, then we may have no way of knowing if they refused. Some cited in LDS sources include:

• Sarah Granger Kimball
• Rachel Ivins (Grant)
• Lydia Moon
• Cordelia C. Morley (Cox)
• Esther M. Johnson
• Nancy Rigdon - daughter of Sidney Rigdon
• Sarah Pratt - wife of Orson Pratt

Anti-Mormon sources list several other possibilities, but it is hard to know how far to trust them. As Compton notes, "Some ... are fairly well documented; others are sensationalist and badly documented." These include:

• Jane Silverthorne (Law) - wife of William Law
• Leonora Cannon (Taylor) - wife of John Taylor
• Melissa Schindle
• Emeline White
• Mrs. Robert Foster
• Pamela Michael
• Mrs. Caroline Grant Smith
• Lucy Smith Milligan (or Miliken)
• Lavina Smith
• Miss Marks - daughter of William Marks
• Athalia Rigdon

⍗

Source(s) of the criticism

Critical sources

Watchman Fellowship, The Watchman Expositor (Page 3)

Did any woman suffer consequences for turning down Joseph's proposal?

Two women afterward attacked Joseph's character and misrepresented his offer, to which Joseph responded. Those who did not were left strictly alone

There are numerous accounts of women to whom Joseph proposed plural marriage, who turned him down.

Two women afterward attacked Joseph's character and misrepresented his offer. He responded. Those who did not were left strictly alone. There were no consequences to these women. Sarah Kimball reported Joseph's mild reaction to the rejection:

Early in the year 1842, Joseph Smith taught me the principle of marriage for eternity, and the doctrine of plural marriage. He said that in teaching this he realized that he jeopardized his life; but God had revealed it to him many years before as a privilege with blessings, now God had revealed it again and instructed him to teach it with commandment, as the Church could travel (progress) no further without the introduction of this principle. I asked him to teach it to some one else. He looked at me reprovingly, and said, 'Will you tell me who to teach it to? God required me to teach it to you, and leave you with the responsibility of believing or disbelieving.‘ He said, 'I will not cease to pray for you, and if you will seek unto God in prayer you will not be led into temptation.'

(Sarah's husband was not a member of the Church until 1843. There was some tension between him and Joseph as a result of this episode, but he seems to have resolved any animosity he held for the prophet. They were later to go Utah with the Saints, where Sarah assumed a prominent role in the Relief Society. Her husband died while en route to a mission in Hawaii.

Other women loudly trumpeted the plural marriage doctrine in Nauvoo and the hostile press. These women's testimony and character were generally attacked to try to discredit them in an effort to preserve the secrecy which surrounded plural marriage. (This factor is complicated by the fact that at least some were guilty of inappropriate behavior (e.g., likely Sarah Pratt). Despite attacks on their character, some remained in Nauvoo and likewise suffered no physical harm (e.g., Nancy Rigdon).

Were women put under "tremendous pressure" to accept a proposal of plural marriage?

Given that the Saints believed Joseph was a prophet, any command from him would carry significant weight

• No one was coerced or forced into marriage (see above). However, given that the Saints believed Joseph was a prophet, any command from him would carry significant weight.
• Despite this, the reported initial reactions are all negative: these women were strong-minded, and did not simply obey because Joseph told them to.
• Because of their distaste for the idea, many plural wives reported divine revelations that confirmed the truth of plural marriage. Joseph encouraged women to seek for such divine confirmation.

Did Joseph Smith give a woman only one day to decide about entering a plural marriage, and would refusal mean terrible consequences?

One woman was told that the opportunity for plural marriage would expire in twenty-four hours. She was not threatened with damnation or physical consequences

This claim distorts the account of Lucy Walker. Joseph offered to teach Lucy about plural marriage, but she angrily refused:

When the Prophet Joseph Smith first mentioned the principle of plural marriage to me I became very indignant and told him emphatically that I did not wish him to ever mention it to me again....and so expressed myself to him....He counseled me, however, to pray to the Lord for light and understanding in relation thereto, and promised me if I would do so sincerely, I should receive a testimony of the correctness of the principle. Before praying I felt gloomy and downcast; in fact, I was so entirely given up to despair that I felt tired of life...."

Joseph then said nothing more to her for at least four months (and possibly as long as sixteen). Lucy continues:

[I] was so unwilling to consider the matter favorably that I fear I did not ask in faith for light. Gross darkness instead of light took possession of my mind. I was tempted and tortured beyond endurance until life was not desirable....

The Prophet discerned my sorrow. He saw how unhappy I was, and sought an opportunity of again speaking to me on this subject....

[He said] "I have no flattering words to offer. It is a command of God to you. I will give you until tomorrow to decide this matter. If you reject this message the gate will be closed forever against you."

– Lucy Walker, italics added

Lucy was told that the opportunity for plural marriage would expire in twenty-four hours. She was not threatened with damnation or physical consequences. Yet, she did not meekly obey:

This aroused every drop of scotch in my veins...I felt at this moment that I was called to place myself upon the altar a living Sacrafice, perhaps to brook the world in disgrace and incur the displeasure and contempt of my youthful companions; all my dreams of happiness blown to the four winds, this was too much, the thought was unbearable.... I...at last found utterance and said, "Although you are a prophet of God you could not induce me to take a step of so great importance, unless I knew that God approved my course. I would rather die. I have tried to pray but received no comfort, no light....The same God who has sent this message is the Being I have worshipped from my early childhood and He must manifest His will to me."

Joseph's response:

He walked across the room, returned, and stood before me. With the most beautiful expression of countenance, he said, "God almighty bless you. You shall have a manifestation of the will of God concerning you; a testimony that you can never deny. I will tell you what it shall be. It shall be that peace and joy that you never knew."

That night, Lucy reported:

It was near after another sleepless night when my room was lighted up by a heavenly influence. To me it was, in comparison, like the brilliant sun bursting through the darkest cloud. The words of the Prophet were indeed fulfilled. My soul was filled with a calm, sweet peace that "I never knew." Supreme happiness took possession of me, and I received a powerful and irresistible testimony of the truth of plural marriage, which has been like an anchor to the soul through all the trials of life. I felt that I must go out into the morning air and give vent to the joy and gratitude that filled my soul. As I descended the stairs, President Smith opened the door below, took me by the hand and said, "Thank God, you have the testimony. I too have prayed." He led me to a chair, placed his hands upon my head, and blessed me with every blessing my heart could possibly desire.

– Lucy Walker

Even with Lucy's revelation and consent, Joseph then sought the permission of her oldest male relative in Nauvoo, her brother William Holmes Walker. He said:

The Prophet invited me to hitch up my horse with one of his...and to ride with him....On this occasion the subject of celestial, or plural marriage, was introduced to me. As we returned home he remarked, 'If there was anything I did not understand to hold on a little, and I would understand it."....

In the spring of 1843, my father, being away on a mission, the Prophet asked my consent, for my sister Lucy in Marriage. I replied that if it was her free will and choice, I had no objection....

When father returned from his mission, the matter being fully explained in connection with the doctrine, received his endorsement and all parties concerned received his approbation.

— William Holmes Walker

This is the only case of any kind of deadline being given, and it only came because Joseph saw how unhappy Lucy was as she hesitated with a decision over a period of months.

Did Joseph claim that an angel threatened him with a "drawn sword" or "flaming sword" if a woman refused to marry him?

The references to the "angel with a sword" refer to Joseph's postponement of the initiation of polygamy

Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs said that Joseph mentioned an angel with a drawn sword. The account of a "flaming" sword came from Eliza Snow and Orson F. Whitney.

The "angel with a sword" reference refers to Joseph's postponement of the practice of polygamy. Brian Hales notes that,

"Twenty-one accounts by nine polygamy insiders left recollections that the Prophet told of one specific reason: an angel with a sword who threatened him if he did not proceed. All nine witnesses could have heard the statement from the Prophet himself; however, the narratives themselves suggest that Benjamin F. Johnson and Eliza R. Snow may have been repeating information gathered from other people. Joseph Lee Robinson's narrative is difficult to date and his actual source is not clear. Lorenzo Snow, Erastus Snow, and Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner quote the Prophet directly and Mary Elizabeth provides details not available elsewhere. Unfortunately, with the possible exception of the Robinson account, all of the reminiscences date to at least twenty to thirty years after the event."

Here are the quotes attributed to Zina on the matter:

1881: Zina Huntington—Zina D. Young told of Bro. Joseph's remark in relation to the revelation on celestial marriage. How an angel came to him with a drawn sword, and said if he did not obey this law he would lost his priesthood; and in the keeping of it he, Joseph, did not know but it would cost him his life.

1894: Zina Huntington—[Joseph] sent word to me by my brother, saying, 'Tell Zina I put it off and put it off till an angel with a drawn sword stood by me and told me if I did not establish that principle upon the earth, I would lost my position and my life.'"

Were women "locked in a room" in order to convince them to accept plural marriage?

While Nancy Rigdon and Martha Brotherton were likely approached about plural marriage in private, it is unlikely that they were locked in rooms or confined against their will

The author of Nauvoo Polygamy:..."but we called it celestial marriage," claims that "…both Nancy [Rigdon] and Martha [Brotherton] were…isolated in a locked room during the...effort" to persuade them to practice plural marriage.

The claims about being "locked in a room," while dramatic, seem unlikely. Much of the evidence hinges on the unreliable and vindictive John C. Bennett, who published the exposé, The History of the Saints, or an Exposé of Joe Smith and Mormonism. While Nancy and Martha were likely approached about plural marriage in private, it is unlikely that they were locked in rooms or confined against their will.

Hyrum Smith touched upon this subject during a Conference talk on April 6, 1842:

He [Hyrum Smith] then spoke in contradiction of a report in circulation about Elder Kimball, B. Young, himself, and others of the Twelve, alledging that a sister had been shut in a room for several days, and that they had endeavored to induce her to believe in having two wives...

Pres't. J. Smith spoke upon the subject of the stories respecting Elder Kimball and others, showing the folly and inconsistency of spending any time in conversing about such stories or hearkening to them, for there is no person that is acquainted with our principles would believe such lies, except Sharp the editor of the "Warsaw Signal."

The claim that Martha was locked in a room for "days" is likely an exaggerated rumor: It was more likely "about ten minutes" while Joseph was summoned

RLDS authors Richard and Pamela Price, who firmly believed that Joseph did not practice plural marriage, uses the Times and Seasons account to assert that Martha "changed her story" regarding the length of time during which she was held in the room:

The records show that Martha changed her story. As Hyrum reported to the Conference, at first she had told that she was locked in a room for days. But since that was such a ridiculous, unbelievable story, she changed it in her St. Louis affidavit to read that Brigham locked her in Joseph's office for only "about ten minutes."

However, we have no access to Martha's original story, so the Prices' assumption that Martha originally claimed that she was held in the room for a number of days cannot be verified. The source of the claim that Martha was held in the room for "days" is likely an exaggeration, however, the source of the rumor cannot be determined. The claim that she was locked in the office for "about ten minutes" while Joseph was summoned seems much more plausible.

The Prices provide additional reasoning against the idea that Martha was in the room for a number of days,

It would have been impossible for Martha to have been imprisoned in any room in the Red Brick Store without it being detected. In fact, she could not have gone up and down the stairs and from room to room without being observed by many. The store was a small, two-story building, and Joseph's office was only about ten feet square. Since dozens of people came to the store daily, her calls for help would have been heard. Martha had but one witness—John Bennett, who asserted in the Sangamo Journal for July 15, 1842, "She was locked up ... I saw her taken into the accursed room."

If Martha's story had been true, there would have been many witnesses, because Joseph' s store was the hub of activity in Nauvoo. People came to the store to buy everything from food to footwear. The store building also housed the headquarters for the Church and the city. There, the people paid their tithing and taxes, and conducted banking and real estate business. The store was alive with people by day and by night, for it was also in constant use as a civic and religious center…."

One suspects Bennett's influence in this part of the story, since Bennett would likewise claim Joseph locked him in a room. In Bennett's case, the story is unworkable and contradicted by a non-LDS eyewitnesses.

See also Brian Hales' discussion

The Faith of the Nauvoo Polygamists

Why did early members of the Church practice polygamy? Were they all dupes? Easily manipulated? Religious fanatics who believed Joseph could do no wrong? This article explores the initial reactions and eventual decisions made by the first generation of polygamists in Nauvoo.

Joseph Smith’s Proposals of Plural Marriage

Some critics would have readers believe that Joseph Smith simply had to smile at the young maidens of Nauvoo, and they would readily accept Joseph’s offers of marriage, perhaps acting on hidden desires to be with the handsome young prophet. Others characterize the women as acquiescing because of religious zealousness or coercion, unwilling victims of a lustful prophet wielding his powers of persuasion. While these make for dramatic stories, the reality was certainly more complex than these colorful narratives would lead one to believe.

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Learn more about polygamy and claims of coercion

Key sources	Brian C. Hales, "Joseph Smith Realized Plural Marriage was Difficult," No Complaints from Joseph Smith's Plural Wives Concerning His Treatment of Them," "Did Joseph Smith Make Improper Proposals?." Hales' three volume work is the most complete and up-to-date analysis of Joseph Smith's plural marriages. These links are available on-line, and his books can be ordered for those who want more details.
Wiki links	Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him? Mormon women refusing offers of plural marriage
FAIR links	Brian C. Hales, "A Response to Concerns Regarding Joseph Smith and the Practice of Plural Marriage in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints", (October 17, 2013).
Navigators	Table of contents Abuse Bible Book of Abraham Book of Mormon CES Letter Church history Church finances Doctrine and Covenants First Vision Joseph Smith Latter-day Saint temples Mountain Meadows Massacre Plural marriage Prophets and leaders Scripture Brigham Young Template:To learn more box:polygamy

Notes

Response to claim: 60 - The “comely sixteen-year-old Fanny Alger” became Joseph's plural wife in 1833

The author(s) of Mormon America make(s) the following claim:

The “comely sixteen-year-old Fanny Alger” became Joseph's plural wife in 1833.

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: This claim is based upon correct information - The author is providing knowledge concerning some particular fact, subject, or event

FAIR Answers—back to home page

V

Plural marriage

Doctrinal foundation of plural marriage	Purpose of plural marriage Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation Plural marriage in early Christianity Plural marriage in the Book of Mormon Plural marriage and the Bible
Introduction of plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage 1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Plural marriage and the law
Questions about Joseph Smith and plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Joseph Smith's marriages to young women Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him? Mormon women refusing offers of plural marriage Polyandry Joseph Smith and children through plural marriage Marrying other men's wives? Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma Emma Smith's reaction to Joseph Smith's plural marriages Emma Smith in Doctrine and Covenants 132 Did Joseph have lustful motives for practicing polygamy? Did Joseph Smith send men on missions in order to steal their wives? Did Joseph Smith practice polygamy for the purpose of monetary gain?
John C. Bennett and Nauvoo polygamy	Bennett before Nauvoo Bennett and Prostitution Brothel at Nauvoo Rise and Fall of Bennett Sarah Pratt Nancy Rigdon Sidney Rigdon
Plural wives of Joseph Smith	Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Emma Smith Fanny Alger Louisa Beaman Prescindia Lathrop Huntington Buell Sarah Kingsley Howe Cleveland Agnes Moulton Coolbrith Elizabeth Davis Goldsmith Brackenbury Durfee Esther Dutcher Hannah S. Ells Olive Grey Frost Desdemona Catlin Wadsworth Fulmmer Lucinda Pendleton Morgan Harris Clarissa Reed Hancock Elvira Annie Cowles Holmes Sarah Maryetta Kingsley Howe Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde Vienna Jacques Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Almera Johnson Helen Mar Kimball Maria Lawrence Sarah Lawrence Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner Malissa Lott Sylvia Sessions Lyon Martha McBride Eliza Partridge Emily Partridge Rhoda Richards Ruth Vose Sayers Patty Bartlett Sessions Delcena Diadamia Johnson Sherman "Miss Smith" Mary Heron Snider Eliza R. Snow Lucy Walker Sarah Ann Whitney Nancy Maria Winchester Flora Ann Woodworth Fanny Young
Plural marriage in Utah	Difficulties with plural marriage Brigham Young's statements regarding plural marriage John Taylor's statements regarding polygamy Latter-day Saints and divorce in the nineteenth century Prevalence of plural marriage in Utah
End of plural marriage	The First Manifesto Official Declaration Number 1 Plural marriage practiced after the First Manifesto The Church of Jesus Christ and plural marriage today

What do we know about Joseph Smith's first plural wife Fanny Alger?

There are no first-hand accounts of the relationship between Joseph Smith and Fanny Alger

One of the wives about whom we know relatively little is Fanny Alger, Joseph's first plural wife, whom he came to know in early 1833 when she stayed at the Smith home as a house-assistant of sorts to Emma (such work was common for young women at the time). There are no first-hand accounts of their relationship (from Joseph or Fanny), nor are there second-hand accounts (from Emma or Fanny's family). All that we do have is third hand (and mostly hostile) accounts, most of them recorded many years after the events.

Unfortunately, this lack of reliable and extensive historical detail leaves much room for critics to claim that Joseph Smith had an affair with Fanny and then later invented plural marriage as way to justify his actions which, again, rests on dubious historical grounds. The problem is we don't know the details of the relationship or exactly of what it consisted, and so are left to assume that Joseph acted honorably (as believers) or dishonorably (as critics).

There is some historical evidence that Joseph Smith knew as early as 1831 that plural marriage would be restored, so it is perfectly legitimate to argue that Joseph's relationship with Fanny Alger was such a case. Mosiah Hancock (a Mormon) reported a wedding ceremony; and apostate Mormons Ann Eliza Webb Young and her father Chauncery both referred to Fanny's relationship as a "sealing." Ann Eliza also reported that Fanny's family was very proud of Fanny's relationship with Joseph, which makes little sense if it was simply a tawdry affair. Those closest to them saw the marriage as exactly that—a marriage.

Did Joseph Smith marry Fanny Alger as his first plural wife in 1833?

Joseph Smith met Fanny Alger in 1833 when she was a house-assistant to Emma

Joseph Smith came to know Fanny Alger in early 1833 when she stayed at the Smith home as a house-assistant to Emma. Neither Joseph nor Fanny ever left any first-hand accounts of their relationship. There are no second-hand accounts from Emma or Fanny's family. All that we do have is third hand accounts from people who did not directly observe the events associated with this first plural marriage, and most of them recorded many years after the events.

Joseph said that the "ancient order of plural marriage" was to again be practiced at the time that Fanny was living with his family

Benjamin F. Johnson stated that in 1835 he had "learned from my sister’s husband, Lyman R. Sherman, who was close to the Prophet, and received it from him, 'that the ancient order of Plural Marriage was again to be practiced by the Church.' This, at the time did not impress my mind deeply, although there lived then with his family (the Prophet’s) a neighbor’s daughter, Fannie Alger, a very nice and comely young woman about my own age, toward whom not only myself, but every one, seemed partial, for the amiability for her character; and it was whispered even then that Joseph loved her."

Joseph asked the brother-in-law of Fanny's father to make the request of Fanny's father, after which a marriage ceremony was performed

Mosiah Hancock discusses the manner in which the proposal was extended to Fanny, and states that a marriage ceremony was performed. Joseph asked Levi Hancock, the brother-in-law of Samuel Alger, Fanny’s father, to request Fanny as his plural wife:

Samuel, the Prophet Joseph loves your daughter Fanny and wishes her for a wife. What say you?" Uncle Sam says, "Go and talk to the old woman [Fanny’s mother] about it. Twill be as she says." Father goes to his sister and said, "Clarissy, Brother Joseph the Prophet of the most high God loves Fanny and wishes her for a wife. What say you?" Said she, "Go and talk to Fanny. It will be all right with me." Father goes to Fanny and said, "Fanny, Brother Joseph the Prophet loves you and wishes you for a wife. Will you be his wife?" "I will Levi," said she. Father takes Fanny to Joseph and said, "Brother Joseph I have been successful in my mission." Father gave her to Joseph, repeating the ceremony as Joseph repeated to him.

How could Joseph and Fanny have been married in 1831 if the sealing power had not yet been restored?

There is historical evidence that Joseph Smith knew as early as 1831 that plural marriage would be restored

There is historical evidence that Joseph Smith knew as early as 1831 that plural marriage would be restored. Mosiah Hancock (a Mormon) reported a wedding ceremony in Kirtland, Ohio in 1833.

Apostate Mormons Ann Eliza Webb Young and her father Chauncery both referred to Fanny's relationship as a "sealing." Ann Eliza also reported that Fanny's family was very proud of Fanny's relationship with Joseph, which makes little sense if it was simply a tawdry affair. Those closest to them saw the marriage as exactly that—a marriage.

Joseph and Fanny's marriage was a plural marriage, not an eternal marriage

Some have wondered how the first plural marriages (such as the Alger marriage) could have occurred before the 1836 restoration of the sealing keys in the Kirtland temple (see D&C 110). This confusion occurs because we tend to conflate several ideas. They were not all initially wrapped together in one doctrine:

1. plural marriage - the idea that one could be married (in mortality) to more than one woman: being taught by 1831.
2. eternal marriage - the idea that a man and spouse could be sealed and remain together beyond the grave: being taught by 1835.
3. "celestial" marriage - the combination of the above two ideas, in which all marriages—plural and monogamous—could last beyond the grave via the sealing powers: implemented by 1840-41.

Thus, the marriage to Fanny would have occurred under the understanding #1 above. The concept of sealing beyond the grave came later. Therefore, the marriage of Joseph and Fanny would have been a plural marriage, but it would not have been a marriage for eternity.

Perhaps it is worth mentioning that priesthood power already gave the ability to ratify certain ordinances as binding on heaven and earth (D&C 1:8), that the sealing power was given mention in earlier revelations such as Helaman 10:7, and that the coming of Elijah and his turning of the hearts of children and fathers was prophesied in 3 Nephi 25:5-6. This supports the view that it is unlikely that Joseph was just making up the sealing power and priesthood power extemporaneously to justify getting married to Fanny and having sexual relations with her.

Did some of Joseph Smith's associates believe that he had an affair with Fanny Alger?

Oliver Cowdery perceived the relationship between Joseph and Fanny as a "dirty, nasty, filthy affair"

Some of Joseph's associates, most notably Oliver Cowdery, perceived Joseph's association with Fanny as an affair rather than a plural marriage. Oliver, in a letter to his brother Warren, asserted that "in every instance I did not fail to affirm that which I had said was strictly true. A dirty, nasty, filthy affair of his and Fanny Alger's was talked over in which I strictly declared that I had never deserted from the truth in the matter, and as I supposed was admitted by himself."

Gary J. Bergera, an advocate of the "affair" theory, wrote:

I do not believe that Fanny Alger, whom [Todd] Compton counts as Smith’s first plural wife, satisfies the criteria to be considered a "wife." Briefly, the sources for such a "marriage" are all retrospective and presented from a point of view favoring plural marriage, rather than, say, an extramarital liaison…Smith’s doctrine of eternal marriage was not formulated until after 1839–40.

There are several problems with this analysis. While it is true that sources on Fanny are all retrospective, the same is true of many early plural marriages. Fanny's marriage has more evidence than some. Bergera says that all the sources about Fanny's marriage come "from a point of view favoring plural marriage," but this claim is clearly false.

Even hostile accounts of the relationship between Joseph and Fanny report a marriage or sealing

For example, Fanny's marriage was mentioned by Ann Eliza Webb Young, a later wife of Brigham Young's who divorced him, published an anti-Mormon book, and spent much of her time giving anti-Mormon, anti-polygamy lectures. Fanny stayed with Ann Eliza's family after leaving Joseph and Emma's house, and both Ann Eliza and her father Chauncey Webb refer to Joseph's relationship to Fanny as a "sealing." Eliza also noted that the Alger family "considered it the highest honor to have their daughter adopted into the prophet's family, and her mother has always claimed that she [Fanny] was sealed to Joseph at that time." This would be a strange attitude to take if their relationship was a mere affair. And, the hostile Webbs had no reason to invent a "sealing" idea if they could have made Fanny into a mere case of adultery.

It seems clear, then, that Joseph, Fanny's family, Levi Hancock, and even hostile witnesses saw their relationship as a marriage, albeit an unorthodox one. The witness of Chauncey Webb and Ann Eliza Webb Young make it untenable to claim that only a later Mormon whitewash turned an affair into a marriage.

See also Brian Hales' discussion

The Prophet Receives the Sealing Keys in 1836	It appears that shortly after the April 3 vision, Joseph Smith recorded a first-hand account of the vision in his own personal journal or notes. That original record has not been found and is probably lost. Nonetheless, these important visitations were documented in other contemporaneous records. Within a few days, the Prophet’s secretary Warren Cowdery transcribed Joseph’s first-hand account into a third-hand account to be used in the Church history then being composed.
Joseph Smith does not Mention Eternal Marriage until 1841	Despite the importance of Elijah and the Kirtland Temple visitations, Joseph Smith did not publicly teach eternal marriage for perhaps six years after he received the authority to perform those ordinances.
Joseph Smith and Fanny Alger: A Plural Marriage Ceremony	Sometime in late 1835 or early 1836, in a priesthood ceremony performed by Levi Hancock, Joseph secretly married Fanny Alger, a domestic living in the Smith home. When Oliver Cowdery and Emma Smith learned of the relationship, they did not consider it a legitimate marriage. Joseph was unable to convince them the polygamous marriage was approved of God. Fanny left the area and married a non-member a few months later and never returned to the Church. Her family and other who were close to her remained true to Joseph Smith, following him to Nauvoo and later migrating with the Saints to Utah.

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Source(s) of the criticism

Critical sources

Gary James Bergera, "Identifying the Earliest Mormon Polygamists, 1841–44," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought no. 3 (Fall 2005), 30n75. MormonThink.com website (as of 28 April 2012). Page: http://mormonthink.com/joseph-smith-polygamy.htm George D. Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy: "...but we called it celestial marriage" (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2008), {{{pages}}}. ( Index of claims , (Detailed book review))

Did Emma Smith discover her husband Joseph with Fanny Alger in a barn?

William McLellin claimed to have heard a story that Fanny and Joseph were in the barn and Emma had observed them

In 1872, William McLellin (then an apostate excommunicated nearly 34 years prior) wrote a letter to Emma and Joseph's son, Joseph Smith III:

Now Joseph I will relate to you some history, and refer you to your own dear Mother for the truth. You will probably remember that I visited your Mother and family in 1847, and held a lengthy conversation with her, retired in the Mansion House in Nauvoo. I did not ask her to tell, but I told her some stories I had heard. And she told me whether I was properly informed. Dr. F. G. Williams practiced with me in Clay Co. Mo. during the latter part of 1838. And he told me that at your birth your father committed an act with a Miss Hill [sic]—a hired girl. Emma saw him, and spoke to him. He desisted, but Mrs. Smith refused to be satisfied. He called in Dr. Williams, O. Cowdery, and S. Rigdon to reconcile Emma. But she told them just as the circumstances took place. He found he was caught. He confessed humbly, and begged forgiveness. Emma and all forgave him. She told me this story was true!! Again I told her I heard that one night she missed Joseph and Fanny Alger. She went to the barn and saw him and Fanny in the barn together alone. She looked through a crack and saw the transaction!!! She told me this story too was verily true.

Some critics interpret "transaction" to mean intercourse in this case and that Emma caught Joseph in the very act. But McLellin reported on the event again three years afterwards in 1875 to J. H. Beadle and makes it clear that he is talking about the wedding or sealing ceremony:

He [McLellin] was in the vicinity during all the Mormon troubles in Northern Missouri, and grieved heavily over the suffering of his former brethren. He also informed me of the spot where the first well authenticated case of polygamy took place in which Joseph Smith was "sealed" to the hired girl. The "sealing" took place in a barn on the hay mow, and was witnessed by Mrs. Smith through a crack in the door! The Doctor was so distressed about this case, (it created some scandal at the time among the Saints,) that long afterwards when he visited Mrs. Emma Smith at Nauvoo, he charged her as she hoped for salvation to tell him the truth about it. And she then and there declared on her honor that it was a fact—"saw it with her own eyes."

Ann Eliza Webb, who was born 11 years after Joseph's marriage to Fanny, claimed that Emma threw Fanny out of the house

Ann Eliza Webb, who was born in 1844, was not even alive at the time of these events, could only only comment based upon what her father told her about Joseph and Fanny. Ann apostatized from the Church and wrote an "expose" called Wife No. 19, or The story of a Life in Bondage. She described Fanny as follows:

Mrs. Smith had an adopted daughter, a very pretty, pleasing young girl, about seventeen years old. She was extremely fond of her; no mother could be more devoted, and their affection for each other was a constant object of remark, so absorbing and genuine did it seem. Consequently is was with a shocked surprise that people heard that sister Emma had turned Fanny out of the house in the night.

Did Fanny Alger have a child by Joseph Smith?

A suggestion that Fanny was pregnant by Joseph surfaced in an 1886 anti-Mormon book with a claim that Emma "drove" Fanny out of the house

The first mention of a pregnancy for Fanny is in an 1886 anti-Mormon work, citing Chauncey Webb, with whom Fanny reportedly lived after leaving the Smith home. Webb claimed that Emma "drove" Fanny from the house because she "was unable to conceal the consequences of her celestial relation with the prophet." If Fanny was pregnant, it is curious that no one else remarked upon it at the time, though it is possible that the close quarters of a nineteenth-century household provided Emma with clues. If Fanny was pregnant by Joseph, the child never went to term, died young, or was raised under a different name.

Fawn Brodie claimed that Fanny's son Orrison was the son of Joseph Smith, but this was disproven by DNA research

Fawn Brodie, in her critical work No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, claimed that "there is some evidence that Fannie Alger bore Joseph a child in Kirtland." However, DNA research in 2005 confirmed Fanny Alger’s son Orrison Smith is not the son of Joseph Smith, Jr.

Notes

Response to claim: 60 - W.W. Phelps introduced an anti-polygamy resolution in Oliver Cowdery's handwriting while Joseph was away, which was adopted by the Church

The author(s) of Mormon America: The Power and the Promise make(s) the following claim:

W.W. Phelps introduced an anti-polygamy resolution in Oliver Cowdery's handwriting while Joseph was away, which was adopted by the Church.

Author's sources:

1. Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), 185. ( Index of claims )

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: This claim is based upon correct information - The author is providing knowledge concerning some particular fact, subject, or event

This is correct.

FAIR Answers—back to home page

V

Plural marriage

Doctrinal foundation of plural marriage	Purpose of plural marriage Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation Plural marriage in early Christianity Plural marriage in the Book of Mormon Plural marriage and the Bible
Introduction of plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage 1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Plural marriage and the law
Questions about Joseph Smith and plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Joseph Smith's marriages to young women Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him? Mormon women refusing offers of plural marriage Polyandry Joseph Smith and children through plural marriage Marrying other men's wives? Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma Emma Smith's reaction to Joseph Smith's plural marriages Emma Smith in Doctrine and Covenants 132 Did Joseph have lustful motives for practicing polygamy? Did Joseph Smith send men on missions in order to steal their wives? Did Joseph Smith practice polygamy for the purpose of monetary gain?
John C. Bennett and Nauvoo polygamy	Bennett before Nauvoo Bennett and Prostitution Brothel at Nauvoo Rise and Fall of Bennett Sarah Pratt Nancy Rigdon Sidney Rigdon
Plural wives of Joseph Smith	Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Emma Smith Fanny Alger Louisa Beaman Prescindia Lathrop Huntington Buell Sarah Kingsley Howe Cleveland Agnes Moulton Coolbrith Elizabeth Davis Goldsmith Brackenbury Durfee Esther Dutcher Hannah S. Ells Olive Grey Frost Desdemona Catlin Wadsworth Fulmmer Lucinda Pendleton Morgan Harris Clarissa Reed Hancock Elvira Annie Cowles Holmes Sarah Maryetta Kingsley Howe Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde Vienna Jacques Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Almera Johnson Helen Mar Kimball Maria Lawrence Sarah Lawrence Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner Malissa Lott Sylvia Sessions Lyon Martha McBride Eliza Partridge Emily Partridge Rhoda Richards Ruth Vose Sayers Patty Bartlett Sessions Delcena Diadamia Johnson Sherman "Miss Smith" Mary Heron Snider Eliza R. Snow Lucy Walker Sarah Ann Whitney Nancy Maria Winchester Flora Ann Woodworth Fanny Young
Plural marriage in Utah	Difficulties with plural marriage Brigham Young's statements regarding plural marriage John Taylor's statements regarding polygamy Latter-day Saints and divorce in the nineteenth century Prevalence of plural marriage in Utah
End of plural marriage	The First Manifesto Official Declaration Number 1 Plural marriage practiced after the First Manifesto The Church of Jesus Christ and plural marriage today

V

the Doctrine and Covenants

The Doctrine and Covenants

Adding sections to the Doctrine and Covenants Overview of changes to the Doctrine and Covenants Examples of changes to the Doctrine and Covenants Lectures on Faith Possible contradictions in the Doctrine and Covenants Oliver Cowdery and the "rod of nature" The Doctrine and Covenants and Book of Mormon geography 1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy Remission of sins before or after baptism?

Why did the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants include a statement of marriage that denied the practice of polygamy at a time when some were actually practicing it?

Polygamy was not being taught to the general Church membership at that time

The Article on Marriage was printed in the 1835 D&C as section 101 and in the 1844 D&C as section 109. The portion of the Article on Marriage relevant to polygamy states:

Inasmuch as this church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication, and polygamy: we declare that we believe, that one man should have one wife; and one woman, but one husband, except in case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again.

This was true—the Church membership generally was not being taught plural marriage, and were not living it at that time.

The statement itself was not changed between the 1835 and 1844 editions of the D&C

In fact, the statement remained in the D&C until the 1876 edition, even though plural marriage had been taught to specific individuals since at least 1831, practiced in secret since 1836, and practiced openly since 1852. The matter of not removing it in 1852 was simply due to the fact that a new edition of the D&C was not published until 1876.

The available evidence suggests that Joseph Smith supported its publication

While some have suggested that the article was published against Joseph's wishes or without his knowledge, the available evidence suggests that he supported its publication. It was likely included to counter the perception that the Mormon's practice of communal property (the "law of consecration") included a community of wives.

The statement was not a revelation given to Joseph Smith - it was written by Oliver Cowdery

This statement was not a revelation given to Joseph Smith—it was written by Oliver Cowdery and introduced to a conference of the priesthood at Kirtland on 17 August 1835. Cowdery also wrote a statement of belief on government that has been retained in our current edition of the D&C as section 134. Both were sustained at the conference and included in the 1835 D&C, which was already at the press and ready to be published. Joseph Smith was preaching in Michigan at the time Oliver and W.W. Phelps introduced these two articles to the conference; it is not known if he approved of their addition to the D&C at the time, although he did retain them in the 1844 Nauvoo edition, which argues that he was not opposed to them. (Phelps read the article on marriage, while Cowdery read the one on government.)

Some have suggested that the manner in which the conference was called suggests that Joseph was not the instigator of it, since it seems to have been done quite quickly, with relatively few high church leaders in attendance:

The General Assembly, which may have been announced on only twenty-four hours' notice, was held Monday, August 17[, 1835]. Its spur-of-the-moment nature is demonstrated by observing that a puzzling majority of Church leaders were absent. Missing from the meeting were all of the Twelve Apostles, eight of the twelve Kirtland High Council members nine of the twelve Missouri High Council members, three of the seven Presidents of the Quorum of Seventy, Presiding Bishop Partridge, and...two of the three members of the First Presidency.

However, there is also some evidence that an article on marriage was already anticipated, and cited four times in the new D&C's index, which was prepared under Joseph's direction and probably available prior to his departure. Thus, "if a disagreement existed, it was resolved before the Prophet left for Pontiac."

Was Oliver Cowdery aware that some in the Church were practicing polygamy in 1835 at the time he authored the "Article on Marriage"?

Oliver Cowdery, the author of the 1835 "Article on Marriage," was aware that some in the Church were practicing polygamy at the time that the statement was published

On July 7, 1878, Joseph F. Smith discussed Oliver's awareness of polygamy at the time of this publication:

To put this matter more correctly before you, I here declare that the principle of plural marriage was not first revealed on the 12th day of July, 1843. It was written for the first time on that date, but it had been revealed to the Prophet many years before that, perhaps as early as 1832. About this time, or subsequently, Joseph, the Prophet, intrusted this fact to Oliver Cowdery; he abused the confidence imposed in him, and brought reproach upon himself, and thereby upon the church by "running before he was sent," and "taking liberties without license," so to speak, hence the publication, by O. Cowdery, about this time, of an article on marriage, which was carefully worded, and afterwards found its way into the Doctrine and Covenants without authority. This article explains itself to those who understand the facts, and is an indisputable evidence of the early existence of the knowledge of the principle of patriarchal marriage by the Prophet Joseph, and also by Oliver Cowdery.

However, there continues to be debate about whether Oliver Cowdery knew about--or prematurely practiced--plural marriage in the 1830s. Oliver would learn about the Fanny Alger marriage, but his reaction at the time seems to have been wholly negative.

The original D&C 101 article outlined the general practice of performing a Latter-day Saint wedding, explained LDS beliefs about the marriage relationship, and denied that the Saints were practicing polygamy.

Was the practice of polygamy general knowledge among Latter-day Saints in 1835 when the "Article on Marriage" was published?

Knowledge of the practice of polygamy among the Saints was limited prior to the 1840s

Some have argued that rumors of "polygamy" may already have been circulating as a result of the Prophet teaching the concept to some of his close associates. However, Brian Hales has argued that there are few if any extant attacks on Joseph or the Saints about polygamy prior to the 1840s:

...if the article was designed to neutralize reports about Joseph Smith and his alleged "crimes," polygamy would not have been included because that allegation was not made then nor at any other time during the Kirtland period according to any documentation currently available. In other words, assuming that the denial of polygamy in the "Marriage" article [of D&C 101] was specifically tied to rumors of Joseph Smith's behavior is problematic, unless other corroborating evidence can be located.

Charges of polygamy or "free love" or having wives in common were often made against new or little-known religious or social groups

On the other hand, charges of polygamy or "free love" or having wives in common were often made against new or little-known religious or social groups. As Hales reports:

Some [nineteenth-century utopian societies] experimented with novel marital and sexual practices, which focused suspicion on all the groups....Accordingly, early Latter-day Saint efforts to live the law of consecration, even though it sustained traditional monogamy, were instantly misunderstood....

John L. Brooke...wrote: "Among the non-Mormons in Ohio there were suspicions that the community of property dictated in the 'Law of Consecration' included wives."...

It seems plausible, even likely, that beginning in 1831, some uninformed individuals assumed that the law of consecration included a community of wives as one of its tenets, even publishing such claims, although there is no indication that this is how the Mormons themselves interpreted the law of consecration. Understandably, Church leaders would actively seek to deny such untrue allegations in a document on marriage to be included in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants.

Gilbert Scharffs notes:

The original Section 101 (never claimed as a revelation but approved as a statement of belief) did state that monogamy was the practice of the Church at that time. The section was not written by Joseph Smith and was voted upon by members in his absence. Perhaps the section was intended to prevent members from getting involved with plural marriage until such a time as the practice would be authorized by the Lord Church-wide. When that became the fact, the current Section 132 replaced the old Section 101.

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Learn more about polygamy: 1835 Doctrine and Covenants

Wiki links	1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy
Navigators	Table of contents Abuse Bible Book of Abraham Book of Mormon CES Letter Church history Church finances Doctrine and Covenants First Vision Joseph Smith Latter-day Saint temples Mountain Meadows Massacre Plural marriage Prophets and leaders Scripture Brigham Young polygamy

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Source(s) of the criticism

Critical sources

Richard Abanes, Becoming Gods: A Closer Look at 21st-Century Mormonism (Harvest House Publishers: 2005). 226. ( Index of claims ) Richard Abanes, One Nation Under Gods: A History of the Mormon Church (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003), 133, n42 (PB) ( Index of claims ) Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), 28. ( Index of claims ) MormonThink.com website (as of 28 April 2012). Page: http://mormonthink.com/joseph-smith-polygamy.htm Richard N. and Joan K. Ostling, Mormon America: The Power and the Promise, (New York:HarperCollins Publishers, 2000), 60. ( Index of claims ) Jerald and Sandra Tanner, The Changing World of Mormonism (Moody Press, 1979), 205.( Index of claims ) Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 6. Watchman Fellowship, The Watchman Expositor (Page 3)

Notes

FAIR Answers—back to home page

V

Plural marriage

Doctrinal foundation of plural marriage	Purpose of plural marriage Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation Plural marriage in early Christianity Plural marriage in the Book of Mormon Plural marriage and the Bible
Introduction of plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage 1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Plural marriage and the law
Questions about Joseph Smith and plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Joseph Smith's marriages to young women Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him? Mormon women refusing offers of plural marriage Polyandry Joseph Smith and children through plural marriage Marrying other men's wives? Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma Emma Smith's reaction to Joseph Smith's plural marriages Emma Smith in Doctrine and Covenants 132 Did Joseph have lustful motives for practicing polygamy? Did Joseph Smith send men on missions in order to steal their wives? Did Joseph Smith practice polygamy for the purpose of monetary gain?
John C. Bennett and Nauvoo polygamy	Bennett before Nauvoo Bennett and Prostitution Brothel at Nauvoo Rise and Fall of Bennett Sarah Pratt Nancy Rigdon Sidney Rigdon
Plural wives of Joseph Smith	Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Emma Smith Fanny Alger Louisa Beaman Prescindia Lathrop Huntington Buell Sarah Kingsley Howe Cleveland Agnes Moulton Coolbrith Elizabeth Davis Goldsmith Brackenbury Durfee Esther Dutcher Hannah S. Ells Olive Grey Frost Desdemona Catlin Wadsworth Fulmmer Lucinda Pendleton Morgan Harris Clarissa Reed Hancock Elvira Annie Cowles Holmes Sarah Maryetta Kingsley Howe Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde Vienna Jacques Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Almera Johnson Helen Mar Kimball Maria Lawrence Sarah Lawrence Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner Malissa Lott Sylvia Sessions Lyon Martha McBride Eliza Partridge Emily Partridge Rhoda Richards Ruth Vose Sayers Patty Bartlett Sessions Delcena Diadamia Johnson Sherman "Miss Smith" Mary Heron Snider Eliza R. Snow Lucy Walker Sarah Ann Whitney Nancy Maria Winchester Flora Ann Woodworth Fanny Young
Plural marriage in Utah	Difficulties with plural marriage Brigham Young's statements regarding plural marriage John Taylor's statements regarding polygamy Latter-day Saints and divorce in the nineteenth century Prevalence of plural marriage in Utah
End of plural marriage	The First Manifesto Official Declaration Number 1 Plural marriage practiced after the First Manifesto The Church of Jesus Christ and plural marriage today

V

the Doctrine and Covenants

The Doctrine and Covenants

Adding sections to the Doctrine and Covenants Overview of changes to the Doctrine and Covenants Examples of changes to the Doctrine and Covenants Lectures on Faith Possible contradictions in the Doctrine and Covenants Oliver Cowdery and the "rod of nature" The Doctrine and Covenants and Book of Mormon geography 1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy Remission of sins before or after baptism?

Why did the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants include a statement of marriage that denied the practice of polygamy at a time when some were actually practicing it?

Polygamy was not being taught to the general Church membership at that time

The Article on Marriage was printed in the 1835 D&C as section 101 and in the 1844 D&C as section 109. The portion of the Article on Marriage relevant to polygamy states:

Inasmuch as this church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication, and polygamy: we declare that we believe, that one man should have one wife; and one woman, but one husband, except in case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again.

This was true—the Church membership generally was not being taught plural marriage, and were not living it at that time.

The statement itself was not changed between the 1835 and 1844 editions of the D&C

In fact, the statement remained in the D&C until the 1876 edition, even though plural marriage had been taught to specific individuals since at least 1831, practiced in secret since 1836, and practiced openly since 1852. The matter of not removing it in 1852 was simply due to the fact that a new edition of the D&C was not published until 1876.

The available evidence suggests that Joseph Smith supported its publication

While some have suggested that the article was published against Joseph's wishes or without his knowledge, the available evidence suggests that he supported its publication. It was likely included to counter the perception that the Mormon's practice of communal property (the "law of consecration") included a community of wives.

The statement was not a revelation given to Joseph Smith - it was written by Oliver Cowdery

This statement was not a revelation given to Joseph Smith—it was written by Oliver Cowdery and introduced to a conference of the priesthood at Kirtland on 17 August 1835. Cowdery also wrote a statement of belief on government that has been retained in our current edition of the D&C as section 134. Both were sustained at the conference and included in the 1835 D&C, which was already at the press and ready to be published. Joseph Smith was preaching in Michigan at the time Oliver and W.W. Phelps introduced these two articles to the conference; it is not known if he approved of their addition to the D&C at the time, although he did retain them in the 1844 Nauvoo edition, which argues that he was not opposed to them. (Phelps read the article on marriage, while Cowdery read the one on government.)

Some have suggested that the manner in which the conference was called suggests that Joseph was not the instigator of it, since it seems to have been done quite quickly, with relatively few high church leaders in attendance:

The General Assembly, which may have been announced on only twenty-four hours' notice, was held Monday, August 17[, 1835]. Its spur-of-the-moment nature is demonstrated by observing that a puzzling majority of Church leaders were absent. Missing from the meeting were all of the Twelve Apostles, eight of the twelve Kirtland High Council members nine of the twelve Missouri High Council members, three of the seven Presidents of the Quorum of Seventy, Presiding Bishop Partridge, and...two of the three members of the First Presidency.

However, there is also some evidence that an article on marriage was already anticipated, and cited four times in the new D&C's index, which was prepared under Joseph's direction and probably available prior to his departure. Thus, "if a disagreement existed, it was resolved before the Prophet left for Pontiac."

Was Oliver Cowdery aware that some in the Church were practicing polygamy in 1835 at the time he authored the "Article on Marriage"?

Oliver Cowdery, the author of the 1835 "Article on Marriage," was aware that some in the Church were practicing polygamy at the time that the statement was published

On July 7, 1878, Joseph F. Smith discussed Oliver's awareness of polygamy at the time of this publication:

To put this matter more correctly before you, I here declare that the principle of plural marriage was not first revealed on the 12th day of July, 1843. It was written for the first time on that date, but it had been revealed to the Prophet many years before that, perhaps as early as 1832. About this time, or subsequently, Joseph, the Prophet, intrusted this fact to Oliver Cowdery; he abused the confidence imposed in him, and brought reproach upon himself, and thereby upon the church by "running before he was sent," and "taking liberties without license," so to speak, hence the publication, by O. Cowdery, about this time, of an article on marriage, which was carefully worded, and afterwards found its way into the Doctrine and Covenants without authority. This article explains itself to those who understand the facts, and is an indisputable evidence of the early existence of the knowledge of the principle of patriarchal marriage by the Prophet Joseph, and also by Oliver Cowdery.

However, there continues to be debate about whether Oliver Cowdery knew about--or prematurely practiced--plural marriage in the 1830s. Oliver would learn about the Fanny Alger marriage, but his reaction at the time seems to have been wholly negative.

The original D&C 101 article outlined the general practice of performing a Latter-day Saint wedding, explained LDS beliefs about the marriage relationship, and denied that the Saints were practicing polygamy.

Was the practice of polygamy general knowledge among Latter-day Saints in 1835 when the "Article on Marriage" was published?

Knowledge of the practice of polygamy among the Saints was limited prior to the 1840s

Some have argued that rumors of "polygamy" may already have been circulating as a result of the Prophet teaching the concept to some of his close associates. However, Brian Hales has argued that there are few if any extant attacks on Joseph or the Saints about polygamy prior to the 1840s:

...if the article was designed to neutralize reports about Joseph Smith and his alleged "crimes," polygamy would not have been included because that allegation was not made then nor at any other time during the Kirtland period according to any documentation currently available. In other words, assuming that the denial of polygamy in the "Marriage" article [of D&C 101] was specifically tied to rumors of Joseph Smith's behavior is problematic, unless other corroborating evidence can be located.

Charges of polygamy or "free love" or having wives in common were often made against new or little-known religious or social groups

On the other hand, charges of polygamy or "free love" or having wives in common were often made against new or little-known religious or social groups. As Hales reports:

Some [nineteenth-century utopian societies] experimented with novel marital and sexual practices, which focused suspicion on all the groups....Accordingly, early Latter-day Saint efforts to live the law of consecration, even though it sustained traditional monogamy, were instantly misunderstood....

John L. Brooke...wrote: "Among the non-Mormons in Ohio there were suspicions that the community of property dictated in the 'Law of Consecration' included wives."...

It seems plausible, even likely, that beginning in 1831, some uninformed individuals assumed that the law of consecration included a community of wives as one of its tenets, even publishing such claims, although there is no indication that this is how the Mormons themselves interpreted the law of consecration. Understandably, Church leaders would actively seek to deny such untrue allegations in a document on marriage to be included in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants.

Gilbert Scharffs notes:

The original Section 101 (never claimed as a revelation but approved as a statement of belief) did state that monogamy was the practice of the Church at that time. The section was not written by Joseph Smith and was voted upon by members in his absence. Perhaps the section was intended to prevent members from getting involved with plural marriage until such a time as the practice would be authorized by the Lord Church-wide. When that became the fact, the current Section 132 replaced the old Section 101.

⍗

Learn more about polygamy: 1835 Doctrine and Covenants

Wiki links	1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy
Navigators	Table of contents Abuse Bible Book of Abraham Book of Mormon CES Letter Church history Church finances Doctrine and Covenants First Vision Joseph Smith Latter-day Saint temples Mountain Meadows Massacre Plural marriage Prophets and leaders Scripture Brigham Young polygamy

⍗

Source(s) of the criticism

Critical sources

Richard Abanes, Becoming Gods: A Closer Look at 21st-Century Mormonism (Harvest House Publishers: 2005). 226. ( Index of claims ) Richard Abanes, One Nation Under Gods: A History of the Mormon Church (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003), 133, n42 (PB) ( Index of claims ) Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), 28. ( Index of claims ) MormonThink.com website (as of 28 April 2012). Page: http://mormonthink.com/joseph-smith-polygamy.htm Richard N. and Joan K. Ostling, Mormon America: The Power and the Promise, (New York:HarperCollins Publishers, 2000), 60. ( Index of claims ) Jerald and Sandra Tanner, The Changing World of Mormonism (Moody Press, 1979), 205.( Index of claims ) Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 6. Watchman Fellowship, The Watchman Expositor (Page 3)

Notes

FAIR Answers—back to home page

V

Plural marriage

Doctrinal foundation of plural marriage	Purpose of plural marriage Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation Plural marriage in early Christianity Plural marriage in the Book of Mormon Plural marriage and the Bible
Introduction of plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage 1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Plural marriage and the law
Questions about Joseph Smith and plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Joseph Smith's marriages to young women Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him? Mormon women refusing offers of plural marriage Polyandry Joseph Smith and children through plural marriage Marrying other men's wives? Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma Emma Smith's reaction to Joseph Smith's plural marriages Emma Smith in Doctrine and Covenants 132 Did Joseph have lustful motives for practicing polygamy? Did Joseph Smith send men on missions in order to steal their wives? Did Joseph Smith practice polygamy for the purpose of monetary gain?
John C. Bennett and Nauvoo polygamy	Bennett before Nauvoo Bennett and Prostitution Brothel at Nauvoo Rise and Fall of Bennett Sarah Pratt Nancy Rigdon Sidney Rigdon
Plural wives of Joseph Smith	Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Emma Smith Fanny Alger Louisa Beaman Prescindia Lathrop Huntington Buell Sarah Kingsley Howe Cleveland Agnes Moulton Coolbrith Elizabeth Davis Goldsmith Brackenbury Durfee Esther Dutcher Hannah S. Ells Olive Grey Frost Desdemona Catlin Wadsworth Fulmmer Lucinda Pendleton Morgan Harris Clarissa Reed Hancock Elvira Annie Cowles Holmes Sarah Maryetta Kingsley Howe Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde Vienna Jacques Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Almera Johnson Helen Mar Kimball Maria Lawrence Sarah Lawrence Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner Malissa Lott Sylvia Sessions Lyon Martha McBride Eliza Partridge Emily Partridge Rhoda Richards Ruth Vose Sayers Patty Bartlett Sessions Delcena Diadamia Johnson Sherman "Miss Smith" Mary Heron Snider Eliza R. Snow Lucy Walker Sarah Ann Whitney Nancy Maria Winchester Flora Ann Woodworth Fanny Young
Plural marriage in Utah	Difficulties with plural marriage Brigham Young's statements regarding plural marriage John Taylor's statements regarding polygamy Latter-day Saints and divorce in the nineteenth century Prevalence of plural marriage in Utah
End of plural marriage	The First Manifesto Official Declaration Number 1 Plural marriage practiced after the First Manifesto The Church of Jesus Christ and plural marriage today

V

the Doctrine and Covenants

The Doctrine and Covenants

Adding sections to the Doctrine and Covenants Overview of changes to the Doctrine and Covenants Examples of changes to the Doctrine and Covenants Lectures on Faith Possible contradictions in the Doctrine and Covenants Oliver Cowdery and the "rod of nature" The Doctrine and Covenants and Book of Mormon geography 1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy Remission of sins before or after baptism?

Why did the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants include a statement of marriage that denied the practice of polygamy at a time when some were actually practicing it?

Polygamy was not being taught to the general Church membership at that time

The Article on Marriage was printed in the 1835 D&C as section 101 and in the 1844 D&C as section 109. The portion of the Article on Marriage relevant to polygamy states:

Inasmuch as this church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication, and polygamy: we declare that we believe, that one man should have one wife; and one woman, but one husband, except in case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again.

This was true—the Church membership generally was not being taught plural marriage, and were not living it at that time.

The statement itself was not changed between the 1835 and 1844 editions of the D&C

In fact, the statement remained in the D&C until the 1876 edition, even though plural marriage had been taught to specific individuals since at least 1831, practiced in secret since 1836, and practiced openly since 1852. The matter of not removing it in 1852 was simply due to the fact that a new edition of the D&C was not published until 1876.

The available evidence suggests that Joseph Smith supported its publication

While some have suggested that the article was published against Joseph's wishes or without his knowledge, the available evidence suggests that he supported its publication. It was likely included to counter the perception that the Mormon's practice of communal property (the "law of consecration") included a community of wives.

The statement was not a revelation given to Joseph Smith - it was written by Oliver Cowdery

This statement was not a revelation given to Joseph Smith—it was written by Oliver Cowdery and introduced to a conference of the priesthood at Kirtland on 17 August 1835. Cowdery also wrote a statement of belief on government that has been retained in our current edition of the D&C as section 134. Both were sustained at the conference and included in the 1835 D&C, which was already at the press and ready to be published. Joseph Smith was preaching in Michigan at the time Oliver and W.W. Phelps introduced these two articles to the conference; it is not known if he approved of their addition to the D&C at the time, although he did retain them in the 1844 Nauvoo edition, which argues that he was not opposed to them. (Phelps read the article on marriage, while Cowdery read the one on government.)

Some have suggested that the manner in which the conference was called suggests that Joseph was not the instigator of it, since it seems to have been done quite quickly, with relatively few high church leaders in attendance:

The General Assembly, which may have been announced on only twenty-four hours' notice, was held Monday, August 17[, 1835]. Its spur-of-the-moment nature is demonstrated by observing that a puzzling majority of Church leaders were absent. Missing from the meeting were all of the Twelve Apostles, eight of the twelve Kirtland High Council members nine of the twelve Missouri High Council members, three of the seven Presidents of the Quorum of Seventy, Presiding Bishop Partridge, and...two of the three members of the First Presidency.

However, there is also some evidence that an article on marriage was already anticipated, and cited four times in the new D&C's index, which was prepared under Joseph's direction and probably available prior to his departure. Thus, "if a disagreement existed, it was resolved before the Prophet left for Pontiac."

Was Oliver Cowdery aware that some in the Church were practicing polygamy in 1835 at the time he authored the "Article on Marriage"?

Oliver Cowdery, the author of the 1835 "Article on Marriage," was aware that some in the Church were practicing polygamy at the time that the statement was published

On July 7, 1878, Joseph F. Smith discussed Oliver's awareness of polygamy at the time of this publication:

To put this matter more correctly before you, I here declare that the principle of plural marriage was not first revealed on the 12th day of July, 1843. It was written for the first time on that date, but it had been revealed to the Prophet many years before that, perhaps as early as 1832. About this time, or subsequently, Joseph, the Prophet, intrusted this fact to Oliver Cowdery; he abused the confidence imposed in him, and brought reproach upon himself, and thereby upon the church by "running before he was sent," and "taking liberties without license," so to speak, hence the publication, by O. Cowdery, about this time, of an article on marriage, which was carefully worded, and afterwards found its way into the Doctrine and Covenants without authority. This article explains itself to those who understand the facts, and is an indisputable evidence of the early existence of the knowledge of the principle of patriarchal marriage by the Prophet Joseph, and also by Oliver Cowdery.

However, there continues to be debate about whether Oliver Cowdery knew about--or prematurely practiced--plural marriage in the 1830s. Oliver would learn about the Fanny Alger marriage, but his reaction at the time seems to have been wholly negative.

The original D&C 101 article outlined the general practice of performing a Latter-day Saint wedding, explained LDS beliefs about the marriage relationship, and denied that the Saints were practicing polygamy.

Was the practice of polygamy general knowledge among Latter-day Saints in 1835 when the "Article on Marriage" was published?

Knowledge of the practice of polygamy among the Saints was limited prior to the 1840s

Some have argued that rumors of "polygamy" may already have been circulating as a result of the Prophet teaching the concept to some of his close associates. However, Brian Hales has argued that there are few if any extant attacks on Joseph or the Saints about polygamy prior to the 1840s:

...if the article was designed to neutralize reports about Joseph Smith and his alleged "crimes," polygamy would not have been included because that allegation was not made then nor at any other time during the Kirtland period according to any documentation currently available. In other words, assuming that the denial of polygamy in the "Marriage" article [of D&C 101] was specifically tied to rumors of Joseph Smith's behavior is problematic, unless other corroborating evidence can be located.

Charges of polygamy or "free love" or having wives in common were often made against new or little-known religious or social groups

On the other hand, charges of polygamy or "free love" or having wives in common were often made against new or little-known religious or social groups. As Hales reports:

Some [nineteenth-century utopian societies] experimented with novel marital and sexual practices, which focused suspicion on all the groups....Accordingly, early Latter-day Saint efforts to live the law of consecration, even though it sustained traditional monogamy, were instantly misunderstood....

John L. Brooke...wrote: "Among the non-Mormons in Ohio there were suspicions that the community of property dictated in the 'Law of Consecration' included wives."...

It seems plausible, even likely, that beginning in 1831, some uninformed individuals assumed that the law of consecration included a community of wives as one of its tenets, even publishing such claims, although there is no indication that this is how the Mormons themselves interpreted the law of consecration. Understandably, Church leaders would actively seek to deny such untrue allegations in a document on marriage to be included in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants.

Gilbert Scharffs notes:

The original Section 101 (never claimed as a revelation but approved as a statement of belief) did state that monogamy was the practice of the Church at that time. The section was not written by Joseph Smith and was voted upon by members in his absence. Perhaps the section was intended to prevent members from getting involved with plural marriage until such a time as the practice would be authorized by the Lord Church-wide. When that became the fact, the current Section 132 replaced the old Section 101.

⍗

Learn more about polygamy: 1835 Doctrine and Covenants

Wiki links	1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy
Navigators	Table of contents Abuse Bible Book of Abraham Book of Mormon CES Letter Church history Church finances Doctrine and Covenants First Vision Joseph Smith Latter-day Saint temples Mountain Meadows Massacre Plural marriage Prophets and leaders Scripture Brigham Young polygamy

⍗

Source(s) of the criticism

Critical sources

Richard Abanes, Becoming Gods: A Closer Look at 21st-Century Mormonism (Harvest House Publishers: 2005). 226. ( Index of claims ) Richard Abanes, One Nation Under Gods: A History of the Mormon Church (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003), 133, n42 (PB) ( Index of claims ) Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), 28. ( Index of claims ) MormonThink.com website (as of 28 April 2012). Page: http://mormonthink.com/joseph-smith-polygamy.htm Richard N. and Joan K. Ostling, Mormon America: The Power and the Promise, (New York:HarperCollins Publishers, 2000), 60. ( Index of claims ) Jerald and Sandra Tanner, The Changing World of Mormonism (Moody Press, 1979), 205.( Index of claims ) Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 6. Watchman Fellowship, The Watchman Expositor (Page 3)

Notes

Response to claim: 61 - Smith conducted marriage for Newell Knight against law, since the woman was not yet divorced from her non-Mormon husband

The author(s) of Mormon America make(s) the following claim:

Smith conducted marriage for Newell Knight against law, since the woman was not yet divorced from her non-Mormon husband. Smith said "Gentile law has no power to call me to account for it."

Author's sources:

1. D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power (Signature Books, 1994), 623.

• Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 623.

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: This claim is false

No law was broken, and marriage certificates were issued by the state of Ohio; no license was required. Any religious leader had a right to perform marriages in Ohio.

This claim is also made in One Nation Under Gods: p. 129, 529n14-15

1. REDIRECTPlural marriage and the law
2. REDIRECTPlural marriage and the law

Response to claim: 61 - Joseph's youngest bride, in some ways typical, was fourteen-year-old Helen Mar Kimball

The author(s) of Mormon America make(s) the following claim:

Joseph's youngest bride, in some ways typical, was fourteen-year-old Helen Mar Kimball.

Author's sources:

1. Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), 486-534. ( Index of claims )

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader

Note the authors' pejorative opinion: "in some ways typical." The marriage to Helen, in fact, was not "typical."

Question: Why was Joseph Smith sealed to young women?

Joseph Smith's polygamous marriages to young women may seem difficult to understand or explain today, but in his own time such age differences were not typically an obstacle to marriage

Some of Joseph Smith's polygamous marriages were to young women.

• Were these marriages to young women evidence that he was immoral, or perhaps even a pedophile?
• One critic of the church notes, "Joseph Smith married over 30 women, some as young as 14 years old..."

Joseph Smith's polygamous marriages to young women may seem difficult to understand or explain today, but in his own time such age differences were not typically an obstacle to marriage. The plural marriages were unusual, to say the least; the younger ages of the brides were much less so. Critics do not provide this perspective because they wish to shock the audience and have them judge Joseph by the standards of the modern era, rather than his own time.

The information we have on Joseph Smith's plural marriages is sketchy, simply because there were few official records kept at the time because of the fear of misunderstanding and persecution. What we do know is culled from journals and reminiscences of those who were involved.

The most conservative estimates indicate that Joseph entered into plural marriages with 29–33 women, 7 of whom were under the age of 18. The youngest was Helen Mar Kimball, daughter of LDS apostle Heber C. Kimball, who was 14. The rest were 16 (two) or 17 (three). One wife (Maria Winchester) about which virtually nothing is known, was either 14 or 15.

Helen Mar Kimball

Some people have concluded that Helen did have sexual relations with Joseph, which would have been proper considering that they were married with her consent and the consent of her parents. However, historian Todd Compton does not hold this view; he criticized the anti-Mormons Jerald and Sandra Tanner for using his book to argue for sexual relations, and wrote:

The Tanners made great mileage out of Joseph Smith's marriage to his youngest wife, Helen Mar Kimball. However, they failed to mention that I wrote that there is absolutely no evidence that there was any sexuality in the marriage, and I suggest that, following later practice in Utah, there may have been no sexuality. (p. 638) All the evidence points to this marriage as a primarily dynastic marriage.

In other words, polygamous marriages often had other purposes than procreation—one such purpose was likely to tie faithful families together, and this seems to have been a purpose of Joseph's marriage to the daughter of a faithful Apostle. (See: Law of Adoption.)

Critics who assume plural marriage "is all about sex" may be basing their opinion on their own cultural biases and assumptions, rather than upon the actual motives of Church members who participated in the practice.

Evidence from the "Temple Lot" case of non-consummation of Helen Mar Kimball marriage

Hales has identified a further line of evidence which suggests that Helen's marriage was not consummated. In 1892, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS, now Community of Christ) brought suit against the Hendrickite, or "Temple Lot" break-off group. They claimed that the Independence, Missouri temple site was rightfully RLDS property, since they were the direct heirs of Joseph Smith's original religious group.

Although not embracing plural marriage themselves, the Temple Lot group was anxious to demonstrate that Joseph Smith had taught plural marriage--for, if this was so, then the RLDS (who denied that Joseph had practiced it, and certainly did not embrace the doctrine) would have difficulty proving that they were the direct successors to the church founded by Joseph.

Hales reports:

Nine of Joseph Smith's plural wives were still living when depositions started at Salt Lake City on March 14, 1892. Three were polyandrous wives (Zina Huntington Jacobs Young, Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, and Patty Bartlett Sessions) and six were nonpolyandrous (Helen Mar Kimball, Martha McBride, Almera Johnson, Emily Partridge, Malissa Lott, and Lucy Walker.) Factors evidently affecting the choice of witnesses involved the health and travel distances for the women, and importantly, whether their polygamous marriages to the Prophet included conjugality. Non-sexual sealings would have been treated as spiritual marriages of little importance and would have played right into the hands of RLDS attorneys....

Among nonpolyandrous wives who were not summoned was Martha McBride who lived in Hooper, Utah (thirty-seven miles to the north). McBride's relationship with Joseph Smith is poorly documented, with no evidence of sexual relations....Also passed by was Salt Lake resident Helen Mar Kimball who had written two books defending the practice of plural marriage. Her sealing to the Prophet ocurred when she was only fourteen and the presence or absence of sexual relations in her plural marriage is debated by historians.

Throughout the length question-and-answer sessions with Malissa Lott, Emily Partridge, and Lucy Walker, the details of their polygamous marriages with Joseph Smith were paramount; the physical aspect of sexuality was a core issue. If [Helen or others] could not testify to such relations, their testimonies as the Prophet's polygamous wives could hurt the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) cause.

Helen's personal account

Helen "took pen and paper in hand before she died to describe vividly her ties as a member of the Latter-day Saint Church during its first two decades of existence in a series of articles published in the Woman's Exponent" in the 1880s. Some of her articles dealt with plural marriage: "Her personal remembrances of those days constitute an important source that, taken together with other first-hand accounts by participants, provides a more complete view of the introduction of one of the most distinctive features of nineteenth-century Mormonism." Helen Mar's writings, an important source of LDS history, were published by BYU's Religious Studies Center in 1997 in a book entitled A Woman's View: Helen Mar Whitney's Reminiscences of Early Church History. The book also includes her 1881 autobiography to her children wherein, concerning her marriage to the Prophet Joseph Smith, she wrote:

I have long since learned to leave all with [God], who knoweth better than ourselves what will make us happy. I am thankful that He has brought me through the furnace of affliction & that He has condesended to show me that the promises made to me the morning that I was sealed to the Prophet of God will not fail & I would not have the chain broken for I have had a view of the principle of eternal salvation & the perfect union which this sealing power will bring to the human family & with the help of our Heavenly Father I am determined to so live that I can claim those promises.

Fanny Alger

One of the wives about whom we know relatively little is Fanny Alger, Joseph's first plural wife, whom he came to know in early 1833 when she stayed at the Smith home as a house-assistant of sorts to Emma (such work was common for young women at the time). There are no first-hand accounts of their relationship (from Joseph or Fanny), nor are there second-hand accounts (from Emma or Fanny's family). All that we do have is third hand accounts, most of them recorded many years after the events.

Unfortunately, this lack of reliable and extensive historical detail leaves much room for critics to claim that Joseph Smith had an affair with Fanny and then later invented plural marriage as way to justify his actions. The problem is we don't know the details of the relationship or exactly of what it consisted, and so are left to assume that Joseph acted honorably (as believers) or dishonorably (as critics).

There is some historical evidence that Joseph Smith knew as early as 1831 that plural marriage would be restored, so it is perfectly legitimate to argue that Joseph's relationship with Fanny Alger was such a case. Mosiah Hancock (a Mormon) reported a wedding ceremony; and apostate Mormons Ann Eliza Webb Young and her father Chauncery both referred to Fanny's relationship as a "sealing." Ann Eliza also reported that Fanny's family was very proud of Fanny's relationship with Joseph, which makes little sense if it was simply a tawdry affair. Those closest to them saw the marriage as exactly that—a marriage.

Historical and cultural perspective

Plural marriage was certainly not in keeping with the values of "mainstream America" in Joseph Smith's day. However, modern readers also judge the age of the marriage partners by modern standards, rather than the standards of the nineteenth century.

Within Todd Compton's book on Joseph Smith's marriages, he also mentions the following monogamous marriages:

Wife	Wife's Age	Husband	Husband's Age	Difference in age
Lucinda Pendleton	18	William Morgan	44	26
Marinda Johnson	19	Orson Hyde	29	10
Almira McBride	17	Sylvester Stoddard	40s	>23
Fanny Young	44	Roswell Murray	62	18

And, a variety of Mormon and non-Mormon historical figures had similar wide differences in age:

Husband	Husband's Age	Wife	Wife's Age	Difference
Johann Sebastian Bach	36	Anna Magdalena Wilcke	19	17
Lord Baden-Powell (Founder of Scouting)	55	Olave Soames	23	32
William Clark (of the Lewis and Clark Expedition)	37	Julia Hancock	16	21
Grover Cleveland (22nd, 24th US President)	49	Frances Cleveland	21	28
Thomas A. Edison	24	Mary Stillwell	16	8
Thomas A. Edison	39	Mina Miller	20	19
Martin Harris (1808)	24	Lucy Harris (1st cousin)	15	9
Levi Ward Hancock (7 April 1803)	30	Clarissa Reed	17	13
Andrew Mellon	45	Nora Mary McMullen	20	25
John Milton (Paradise Lost)	34	Mary Powell (1st wife)	17	17
John Milton	55	Elizabeth Minshull (3rd wife)	24	31
Edgar Allen Poe	26	Virginia Clemn (his cousin)	13	13
Alexander Smith	23	Elizabeth Kendall	16	7
David Hyrum Smith	26	Clara Hartshorn	18	8
Frederick Granger Williams Smith	21	Annie Maria Jones	16	5
Joseph Smith, III	66	Ada Rachel Clark	29	37
John Tyler (US President, 1844)	56	Julia Gardiner	24	32
Almonzo Wilder	28	Laura Ingalls (Little House)	18	10

Statistical information for marital ages is available from the 1850 census. Using a 1% random sample of individuals, 989 men and 962 women indicated they had been married within the last year. The plot below breaks these individuals down by census age.

Of note is that 41.7% of women married as teenagers compared to only 4.1% of men. The mean age for men was more than five years older than that for women (27.6 vs. 22.5). For young women, marriage in the early to mid teens was rare, but not unheard of as both the anecdotal and statistical evidence above show. Teenage brides married a husband that averaged 6.6 +/- 4.7 (std) years older. To put that in perspective, 13% of the time the husband was over 10 years older than his teenage wife.

The 21st century reader is likely to see marriages of young women to much older men as inappropriate, though it is still not uncommon. In the U.S. today, in most states, the "age of consent" is set by statute to be 18. This is the age at which a person can consent to sexual activity or to marriage. However, even today, the "marriageable age," the minimum age at which a person may marry with parental permission or with a judge's permission, is 16 in most states. In California, there is no minimum marriageable age; a child of any age may marry with parental consent. So Joseph Smith's marriage to Helen Mar Kimball, having been done with her parents' permission, would be legal in California even today, except for the polygamous aspect of it.

But the modern age limits in most states represent only the modern attitude. The age of consent under English common law was ten. United States law did not raise the age of consent until the late nineteenth century. In Joseph Smith's day, most states still had the declared age of consent to be ten. Some had raised it to twelve, and Delaware had lowered it to seven!

It is significant that none of Joseph's contemporaries complained about the age differences between polygamous or monogamous marriage partners. This was simply part of their environment and culture; it is unfair to judge nineteenth century members by twenty-first century social standards. As one non-LDS scholar of teenage life in American history noted:

Until the twentieth century, adult expectations of young people were determined not by age but by size. If a fourteen-year-old looked big and strong enough to do a man's work on a farm or in a factory or mine, most people viewed him as a man. And if a sixteen-year-old was slower to develop and couldn't perform as a man, he wasn't one. For, young women, the issue was much the same. To be marriageable was the same as being ready for motherhood, which was determined by physical development, not age....

The important thing, though, was that the maturity of each young person was judged individually.

In past centuries, women would often die in childbirth, and men often remarried younger women afterwards. Women often married older men, because these were more financially established and able to support them than men their own age.

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, "Assessing the Criticisms of Early-Age Latter-Day Saint Marriages"

Craig L. Foster,  Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, (February 22, 2019)

Critics of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have accused Joseph Smith and other early Latter-day Saint men of pedophilia because they married teenaged women. Indeed, they have emphatically declared that such marriages were against 19th-century societal norms. However, historians and other experts have repeatedly stated that young people married throughout the 19th-century, and such marriages have been relatively common throughout all of US history. This article examines some of the accusations of early Latter-day Saint pedophilia and places such marriages within the greater historical and social context, illustrating that such marriages were normal and acceptable for their time and place.

Click here to view the complete article

Response to claim: 62 - Helen Mar Kimball had not grasped that marriage in time to Joseph would eventually have a sexual component

The author(s) of Mormon America make(s) the following claim:

Helen Mar Kimball had not grasped that marriage in time to Joseph would eventually have a sexual component.

Author's sources:

1. Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), 486-534. ( Index of claims )

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: This claim is false

The statement is not supported by the source. Compton never states anything about a "sexual component." There is not evidence, even from Helen's own writings, that there was ever a "sexual component" to the marriage.

Response to claim: 66 - The Book of Mormon was "conventionally monogamous"

The author(s) of Mormon America make(s) the following claim:

The Book of Mormon was "conventionally monogamous:" "Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, Saith the Lord…Hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none" (Jacob 2:24, 27)

Author's sources:

• Jacob 2꞉24-27
• Encyclopedia of Mormonism

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: This claim is based upon correct information - The author is providing knowledge concerning some particular fact, subject, or event

This is correct, although the author fails to note the conditions stated by the Book of Mormon for which polygamy was permitted.

FAIR Answers—back to home page

V

Articles about the Book of Mormon

Authorship	Book of Mormon Joseph Smith listed as author and proprietor Spalding theory View of the Hebrews theory Late War theory Golden Pot theory Sidney Rigdon theory Mushrooms and entheogenics theory Creative fiction theories Possible 19th Century influences on Book of Mormon Theory of Book of Mormon place names from area around Joseph Smith's home Theory of Book of Mormon place names from Comoros Islands Understanding accusations of plagiarism
Translation process	Seer stones and the Urim and Thummim Gold plates and the translation process Artistic depictions of the translation Joseph Smith and the translation process
Gold plates	Weight and size Plates too heavy to run? Engravings and sealed portion Stone box where the gold plates were deposited Attempts to steal the gold plates from Joseph Smith Gold plates and the translation process Metal plates in ancient Israel The Plausibility of the Translation Actually Fitting on the Gold Plates
Witnesses	Eleven official witnesses Statement of the Three Witnesses Oliver Cowdery David Whitmer Martin Harris Statement of the Eight Witnesses Christian Whitmer Jacob Whitmer Peter Whitmer Jr. John Whitmer Hiram Page Joseph Smith Sr. Hyrum Smith Samuel Smith Other witnesses to the Book of Mormon Doctrine & Covenants 5 Stipulating that There Only Be Three Witnesses
The Bible and the Book of Mormon	Bible passages in the Book of Mormon The New Testament and the Book of Mormon KJV italicized text in the Book of Mormon KJV translation errors in the Book of Mormon Joseph Smith Translation and the Book of Mormon The Apocrypha and the Book of Mormon Isaiah and the Book of Mormon The documentary hypothesis and the Book of Mormon
Language and the Book of Mormon	Hebraisms Chiasmus Names in the Book of Mormon Hebrew and Native American languages Reformed Egyptian and the Book of Mormon The Book of Mormon as an ancient text
Geography	Church statements on Book of Mormon geography Evaluating Book of Mormon geography theories Old world geography in the Book of Mormon Lehi's journey in the Old World Possible locations for the Valley of Lemuel Possible locations for Shazer Possible locations for Nahom Possible locations for Nephi's Bountiful The Hill Cumorah Mesoamerican Model Hemispheric Geography Model Great Lakes Model Heartland Model Hoaxes related to Book of Mormon geography claims Geographical issues related to DNA and the Book of Mormon The Book of Mormon and Mesoamerican Directionality
DNA	DNA and the Book of Mormon Identifying ancient DNA related to Book of Mormon people Geographical issues related to DNA and the Book of Mormon
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Lamanites	Identity of the Lamanites Native Americans and the Lamanites Relationship of the Maya and the Olmec to the Lamanites and the Jaredites Polynesians and the Lamanites The Lamanite curse Wrath of God on the Lamanites
Other	Population and demographics The Nephite calendar Biblical archaeology compared to the Book of Mormon Thomas Stuart Ferguson and Mormon archaeology Attempt to sell the Book of Mormon copyright in Canada Textual changes The Book of Mormon as history Legal codes in the Book of Mormon Lehi's ancestry and place of residence Three days of darkness The killing of Laban Human sacrifice Warfare in the Book of Mormon Events in Ether The death of Shiz

V

Plural marriage

Doctrinal foundation of plural marriage	Purpose of plural marriage Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation Plural marriage in early Christianity Plural marriage in the Book of Mormon Plural marriage and the Bible
Introduction of plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage 1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Plural marriage and the law
Questions about Joseph Smith and plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Joseph Smith's marriages to young women Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him? Mormon women refusing offers of plural marriage Polyandry Joseph Smith and children through plural marriage Marrying other men's wives? Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma Emma Smith's reaction to Joseph Smith's plural marriages Emma Smith in Doctrine and Covenants 132 Did Joseph have lustful motives for practicing polygamy? Did Joseph Smith send men on missions in order to steal their wives? Did Joseph Smith practice polygamy for the purpose of monetary gain?
John C. Bennett and Nauvoo polygamy	Bennett before Nauvoo Bennett and Prostitution Brothel at Nauvoo Rise and Fall of Bennett Sarah Pratt Nancy Rigdon Sidney Rigdon
Plural wives of Joseph Smith	Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Emma Smith Fanny Alger Louisa Beaman Prescindia Lathrop Huntington Buell Sarah Kingsley Howe Cleveland Agnes Moulton Coolbrith Elizabeth Davis Goldsmith Brackenbury Durfee Esther Dutcher Hannah S. Ells Olive Grey Frost Desdemona Catlin Wadsworth Fulmmer Lucinda Pendleton Morgan Harris Clarissa Reed Hancock Elvira Annie Cowles Holmes Sarah Maryetta Kingsley Howe Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde Vienna Jacques Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Almera Johnson Helen Mar Kimball Maria Lawrence Sarah Lawrence Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner Malissa Lott Sylvia Sessions Lyon Martha McBride Eliza Partridge Emily Partridge Rhoda Richards Ruth Vose Sayers Patty Bartlett Sessions Delcena Diadamia Johnson Sherman "Miss Smith" Mary Heron Snider Eliza R. Snow Lucy Walker Sarah Ann Whitney Nancy Maria Winchester Flora Ann Woodworth Fanny Young
Plural marriage in Utah	Difficulties with plural marriage Brigham Young's statements regarding plural marriage John Taylor's statements regarding polygamy Latter-day Saints and divorce in the nineteenth century Prevalence of plural marriage in Utah
End of plural marriage	The First Manifesto Official Declaration Number 1 Plural marriage practiced after the First Manifesto The Church of Jesus Christ and plural marriage today

Does the Book of Mormon condemn polygamy?

Book of Mormon Central, KnoWhy #64: What Does the Book of Mormon Say About Polygamy? (Video)

"For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things"

Jacob 2:24-29 states:

24 Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord.

25 Wherefore, thus saith the Lord, I have led this people forth out of the land of Jerusalem, by the power of mine arm, that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph.

26 Wherefore, I the Lord God will not suffer that this people shall do like unto them of old.

27 Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none;

28 For I, the Lord God, delight in the chastity of women. And whoredoms are an abomination before me; thus saith the Lord of Hosts.

29 Wherefore, this people shall keep my commandments, saith the Lord of Hosts, or cursed be the land for their sakes.

Those who cite this as a condemnation of plural marriage generally refrain from citing the very next verse:

30 For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things. (Jacob 2:30).

The Book of Mormon makes it clear that the Lord may, under some circumstances, command the practice of plural marriage.

Why does Doctrine and Covenants 132 speak favorably about some Old Testament practitioners of plural marriage, while Jacob 2 is negative?

Jacob demonstrates that some of David and Solomon's actions were contrary to Torah, and contrary to God's established order

Jacob demonstrates that some of David and Solomon's actions were contrary to Torah, and contrary to God's established order. If God will not justify even the kings of Israel in such behavior (Jacob seems to argue) why do you think he will justify you in taking plural wives which I, Jacob, have not approved as God's representative among you?

On the other hand, the Doctrine and Covenants' intention is to explain under what circumstances God has and would not only permit but command plural marriage through his prophets.

These two texts are not discussing the same thing at all. This is not immediately obvious, but becomes clear as we look closer.

At some point after David and Solomon, it was encoded into Mosaic law that a man was not to have many wives

One of the challenges is that at some point after these events (David and Solomon), it was encoded into Mosaic law that a man was not to have many wives—and this (back when polygamy was still considered acceptable in mainstream Judaism) was later interpreted by the Rabbis to mean that a man could have as many as four wives.

This injunction on the number of wives seems to be carried over into the polemic given in Jacob. The key in this interpretation of the text is the phrase "Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines...". This is a citation of the Old Testament text found in Deuteronomy 17:17, although the rendering is much closer to the NIV than to the KJV. (Deuteronomy in its present form was probably not written before the Lehites' departure, but a similar body of law and thought would have gone back to Lehi's day.)

Here is the relevant passage from the New International Version of the Bible (NIV), which describes the responsibilities and powers of the king.

Deuteronomy 17:14-20 (NIV, emphasis added)

14 When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, "Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,"

15 be sure to appoint over you the king the Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your own brothers. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not a brother Israelite.

16 The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, "You are not to go back that way again."

17 He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold.

18 When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the priests, who are Levites.

19 It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees

20 and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.

Compare this with the KJV:

Deuteronomy 17:14-20 (KJV, emphasis added)

14 When thou art come unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me;

15 Thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the LORD thy God shall choose: one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee: thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother.

16 But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the LORD hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way.

17 Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.

18 And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites:

19 And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them:

20 That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel.

It is probable that Jacob is effectively quoting this passage (or a precursor to it) from the Brass Plates

It is probable that Jacob is effectively quoting this passage (or a precursor to it) from the Brass Plates, and whether or not some of those wives/concubines were given to these men by God is to an extent irrelevant to his point. In other words, the passage in the Book of Mormon and the passage in the Doctrine and Covenants, quite possibly, are really not discussing the same issue at all.

Jacob was not just saying that David and Solomon had more than one wife, he says that they "truly had many wives," as if to say, "there is no question that David and Solomon had many wives." The fact that the Old Testament strictly forbade the practice of taking many wives for a king (both Solomon and David were kings) leads one to conclude that they were in violation of Torah. The reason to suggest it as a recitation of Deuteronomy 17:17 is because of the context.

If it is not a recitation, then there is no previous indication that this is an abomination (at least within the scriptures that we have today) and that this would be a new rule. How then could it be retroactively applied to Solomon and David? This ultimately is the point—Jacob was defending the new 'party line' on polygamy from the scriptures.

The Book of Mormon account is basing its statements on an interpretation of Mosaic Law to defend a new (to them) negative position on polygamy. The Doctrine and Covenants, by contrast, wishes to explain how and when polygamy can be acceptable to God. One states that the abomination of Solomon and David was in their breaking the commandments in Torah according to the text, and while there are many polygamous figures in the Old Testament, very few "truly had many wives." It is doubtful that the Nephite proponents of polygamy restricted their proof texts to only David and Solomon.

It was the murder of Uriah and the taking of his wife that was the sin David committed, not polygamy

What were the wrongdoings of David and Solomon from Jacob's perspective? Was polygamy the sinful act they committed, or was it something else? Obviously, polygamy was accepted by the Lord at times, since many of His prophets participated in the practice. In fact, the Bible says that God gave David his plural wives:

2 Samuel 12:7-8 (emphasis added)

7 And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul;

8 And I gave thee thy master's house, and thy master's wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things.

Would God give anyone something that was sinful, wrong, or evil? Absolutely not. If polygamy was not the sin that David committed, then what was it? The very next verse in the Bible explains the sin.

2 Samuel 12:9 (emphasis added)

Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the LORD, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.

It was the murder of Uriah and the taking of his wife that was the sin David committed, not polygamy. David already had plural wives. These wives were given to him by God. Polygamy was not the sin David was guilty of, but murder and coveting another's wife was. David committed this murder (or rather caused it to happen) so he could have Uriah's wife as his own. In other words, David took an additional wife that the Lord did not give him. But the fact that he had plural wives was in no wise a sin.

The Doctrine and Covenants confirms what the Bible tells us concerning this matter.

D&C 132꞉39

David's wives and concubines were given unto him of me, by the hand of Nathan, my servant, and others of the prophets who had the keys of this power; and in none of these things did he sin against me save in the case of Uriah and his wife;

It was the fact that Solomon allowed some of his wives to turn his heart away from the Lord that resulted in sin, not polygamy

What of Solomon? Was polygamy his sin? Not according to the Bible.

1 Kings 11:1-6 (emphasis added)

1 BUT king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites;

2 Of the nations concerning which the LORD said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods: Solomon clave unto these in love.

3 And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart.

4 For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father.

5 For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.

6 And Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD, and went not fully after the LORD, as did David his father.

It was the fact that Solomon allowed some of his wives to turn his heart away from the Lord, just like Uriah's wife did with David, that resulted in sin or evil. It was not polygamy that was evil. The Book of Mormon explains that only when God commands it can a man have more than one wife at a time.

Now, let's return to the second chapter of Jacob:

Jacob 2꞉23 (emphasis added)

But the word of God burdens me because of your grosser crimes. For behold, thus saith the Lord: This people begin to wax in iniquity; they understand not the scriptures...

Remember that verse 30 could be the "exception clause." That is why it is important to look at the full account in the scriptures, and not selectivity pick one or two verses.

Jacob 2꞉23 (emphasis added)

...for they seek to excuse themselves in committing whoredoms, because of the things which were written concerning David, and Solomon his son.

The Lord had not given permission for the people to have more than one wife at that time. The people were selectively using the scriptures to obtain more than one wife. Because the Lord had not given His permission, it was wrong to have more than one wife at a time, and Jacob can demonstrate how both these kings were also condemned by the Law for their unapproved actions.

Jacob 2꞉24

Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord.

It was not the concubines or the multiple wives that was abominable, but the fact that not all of it was specifically approved by the Lord

It was not the concubines or the multiple wives that was abominable, it was abominable because there was some abuse and not all of it was specifically approved by the Lord.

Jacob 2꞉27-30

27 Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none;

28 For I, the Lord God, delight in the chastity of women. And whoredoms are an abomination before me; thus saith the Lord of Hosts.

29 Wherefore, this people shall keep my commandments, saith the Lord of Hosts, or cursed be the land for their sakes.

30 For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; OTHERWISE they shall hearken unto these things.

Their plural wives and concubines were an abomination in that not all of them were approved by the Lord. They were kings who used their temporal power to take that which God had not approved.

⍗

Source(s) of the criticism

Critical sources

[needs work]

Did early Church leaders state that the Book of Mormon condemns polygamy?

Critics of the Book of Mormon attempt to use the words of early LDS leaders to bolster their position. For example, note how the words of Orson Pratt are "mined" to support the critic's assertion that the Book of Mormon condemns polygamy:

Reference	Original quote...	What the critics want the quote to say...
Tanner, The Changing World of Mormonism, p. 221 quoting Orson Pratt in Journal of Discourses 6:351	The Book of Mormon, therefore, is the only record (professing to be Divine) which condemns plurality of wives as being a practice exceedingly abominable before God. But even that sacred book makes an exception in substance as follows—"Except I the Lord command my people." The same Book of Mormon and the same article that commanded the Nephites that they should not marry more than one wife, made an exception. Let this be understood—"Unless I the Lord shall command them." We can draw the conclusion from this, that there were some things not right in the sight of God, unless he should command them. We can draw the same conclusion from the Bible, that there were many things which the Lord would not suffer his children to do, unless he particularly commanded them to do them.	The Book of Mormon, therefore, is the only record (professing to be divine) which condemns the plurality of wives as being a practice exceedingly abominable before God.

The critics use this quote to state that Orson Pratt "admitted" that the Book of Mormon condemns plural marriage by extracting only the portion of his quote that mentions it. They omit Pratt's subsequent explanation regarding the exception mentioned in Jacob 2:30, thus implying that Pratt was making an "admission" that the Book of Mormon condemned polygamy.

The Smoot hearings

Jerald and Sandra Tanner quote Vol. 1, p. 480 of the Smoot hearings for this claim. They ignore the exchange on the very next page in which President Joseph F. Smith responds to this claim in the Senate, with the senate making the same error made by the Tanners and other critics.

Joseph F. Smith insists that the senate consider what is now Jacob 2:30. Anti-Mormon attacks have not changed much since.

Is Jacob 2:30 actually not saying that polygamy is an occasional exception to monogamy?

Introduction to Question

A splinter group of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints known as the "Doctrine of Christ" have been adamant that the Book of Mormon doesn’t actually condone polygamy under certain circumstances.

The focus is over Jacoh 2:30. Jacob is speaking to Nephite men and women. Here are the verses in question verbatim

23 But the word of God burdens me because of your grosser crimes. For behold, thus saith the Lord: This people begin to wax in iniquity; they understand not the scriptures, for they seek to excuse themselves in committing whoredoms, because of the things which were written concerning David, and Solomon his son.

24 Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord.

25 Wherefore, thus saith the Lord, I have led this people forth out of the land of Jerusalem, by the power of mine arm, that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph.

26 Wherefore, I the Lord God will not suffer that this people shall do like unto them of old.

27 Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none;

28 For I, the Lord God, delight in the chastity of women. And whoredoms are an abomination before me; thus saith the Lord of Hosts.

29 Wherefore, this people shall keep my commandments, saith the Lord of Hosts, or cursed be the land for their sakes.

30 For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.

Those associated with the Doctrine of Christ have interpreted this verse in a variety of ways that do not include the "exception clause" provided by Jacob 2:30 that polygamy may be commanded by God when God needs to raise up seed.

This article will respond to the major arguments in favor of reinterpreting this passage.

Response to Question

"Command My People" May Mean "Move to a Different Location"

One of the arguments is that to "raise up seed", God wouldn’t need to command polygamy but, like Lehi, he could just command his covenant people to move to another location. In the case of Lehi, he was commanded to leave Jerusalem and sail to another location. At the beginning of 1 Nephi 7, Nephi informs us of the following:

And now I would that ye might know, that after my father, Lehi, had made an end of prophesying concerning his seed, it came to pass that the Lord spake unto him again, saying that it was not meet for him, Lehi, that he should take his family into the wilderness alone; but that his sons should take daughters to wife, that they might raise up seed unto the Lord in the land of promise.

Thus, the Lord commanded Lehi to get his sons to take daughters to wife and take them to the land of promise where they could raise up seed. Monogamously, the Nephites may very well have done that. There are many verses in the Book of Mormon that speak of the Nephites multiplying monogamously.

In Jacob 2 itself Jacob declares:

Wherefore, thus saith the Lord, I have led this people forth out of the land of Jerusalem, by the power of mine arm, that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph.

But verse 30 does not entirely rule out that polygamy might be among the strategies the Lord might pursue in order to raise up seed. Leading people away from hostile environments might only be one of those strategies. Saying that verse 30 totally rules out polygamy is thus a form of eisegesis.

The Book of Mormon clearly states that the David and Solomon’s sin was having many wives and concubines

The next major assertion is that Jacob flatly condemns polygamy in his discourse. At first blush, this assertion seems to be entirely correct. Jacob 2:25 says:

Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord.

There is a lot more complexity to Jacob’s assertion though. We have outlined that complexity in the article below.

As a clue to some of the complexity, several biblical characters practiced plural marriage and they did not receive condemnation from neither God nor Jacob.

Richard and Pamela Price's Interpretation

Richard Price "is a Reorganization conservative who interprets redirection in the church’s policy and doctrine as evidence of apostacy [sic] from the truths of the Restoration. He has become the chief spokesman for Reorganization fundamentalists, and a rival church organization is now developing around him." Him and his wife Pamela are the authors of the three-volume series Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy.

They claim the following:

The true interpretation of the passage shows that it is definitely monogamous, and that it is in harmony with all the rest of the revelation which the Lord gave through Jacob. The true interpretation is:

For if I will, saith the Lord of hosts, raise up [righteous] seed unto me, I will command my people [the Lord will be their commander—He will give them commandments to obey]: otherwise [if the Lord is not their commander; or they do not obey His commandments], they shall hearken unto these things [they shall practice the sins of polygamy].

This is the true meaning of this passage—and therefore it condemns polygamy, rather than justifying it as the Mormon Church leaders claim.

Other authors have followed their lead in interpreting Jacob 2:30 this way.

Gregory L. Smith pointed out the major flaws of their argument in a post on the FAIR Blog:

This is certainly a creative reading. I see a few problems, however:

1. The reading requires the "shall hearken" to be read as predictive (what will happen), not imperative (what should happen). Yet, in Joseph’s day, shall is typically an imperative when applied in the second and third person, not a future tense. See Webster’s 1828 dictionary, "shall," definition #2.
2. It seems strange for the Lord to say simply that He will be "their commander,"–the verse is clearly talking about commanding SOMETHING. And, it involves the Lord "will"[ing] something that He might not will in other situations.
3. It ignores the fact that Jacob is almost certainly commenting on Deuteronomic (or Deuteronomy-like) writing about plural marriage in Judaic kings, some of whom clearly had wives given them by God. (e.g., 2 Sam 11:8) See here and here for analysis on these lines by FAIR.

Conclusion

These rebuttals should suffice in demonstrating that the major arguments in favor of reinterpretation are all either false or non-determinative.

Gospel Topics: The Bible and the Book of Mormon teach that the marriage of one man to one woman is God’s standard, except at specific periods when He has declared otherwise

"Plural Marriage and Families in Early Utah," Gospel Topics on LDS.org

The Bible and the Book of Mormon teach that the marriage of one man to one woman is God’s standard, except at specific periods when He has declared otherwise.

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Source(s) of the criticism

Critical sources

Richard Abanes, Becoming Gods: A Closer Look at 21st-Century Mormonism (Harvest House Publishers: 2005). 240. ( Index of claims ) Richard Abanes, One Nation Under Gods: A History of the Mormon Church (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003), 308-309 ( Index of claims ) Peter Bartley, Mormonism: The Prophet, the Book, and the Cult (Dublin: Veritas, 1989), 88. Walter Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults (Revised) (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1997), 207. ( Index of claims ) Richard N. and Joan K. Ostling, Mormon America: The Power and the Promise, (New York:HarperCollins Publishers, 2000), 66. ( Index of claims ) Jerald and Sandra Tanner, The Changing World of Mormonism (Moody Press, 1979), Chapter 9.( Index of claims ) Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 3. Contender Ministries, Questions All Mormons Should Ask Themselves. Answers Tower to Truth Ministries, "50 Questions to Ask Mormons," towertotruth.net (accessed 15 November 2007). 50 Answers Watchman Fellowship, The Watchman Expositor (Page 3)

Notes

Response to claim: 67 - Swedenborg taught “spiritual wifery” in marriage for eternity. Swedenborg was discussed in Smith’s hometown newspaper

The author(s) of Mormon America make(s) the following claim:

Swedenborg taught “spiritual wifery” in marriage for eternity. Swedenborg was discussed in Smith’s hometown newspaper.

Author's sources:

1. D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, revised and enlarged edition, (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998), 115, 153, 176, 217-219, 487n ( Index of claims )

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader

This is simply an assumption on the part of the author's source (Quinn). There is no evidence that Joseph modeled his ideas about plural marriage from Swedenborg's work.

Question: Did Joseph Smith derive the idea of "three degrees of glory" from Emanuel Swedenborg's book, Heaven and its Wonders and Hell?

The charge that Swedenborg was Joseph's source is a late one, and was not even mentioned by those who disliked both Joseph and Swedenborg, and knew both works

It is claimed by critics of Mormonism that Joseph Smith derived the idea of "three degrees of glory" in the afterlife from Emanuel Swedenborg's book, Heaven and its Wonders and Hell From Things Heard and Seen (1758). It is also claimed that Joseph Smith's practice of plural marriage was similar to Swedenborg's philosophy of "spiritual wifery."

Swedenborg said,

There are three heavens, entirely distinct from each other, an inmost or third, a middle or second, and an outmost or first. These have the same order and relation to each other as the highest part of man, or his head, the middle part, or body, and the lowest, or feet; or as the upper, the middle, and the lower stories of a house. In the same order is the Divine that goes forth and descends from the Lord; consequently heave, from the necessity of order, is threefold....The Divine that flows in from the Lord and is received in the third or inmost heaven is called celestial, and in consequence the angels there are called celestial angels; the Divine that flows in from the Lord and is received in the second or middle heaven is called spiritual, and in consequence the angels there are called spiritual angels; while the Divine that flows in from the Lord and is received in the outmost or first heaven is called natural; but as the natural of that heaven, unlike the natural of the world, has the spiritual and celestial within it, that heaven is called the spiritual- and the celestial-natural, and in consequence the angels there are called the spiritual-natural and celestial-natural. Those who receive influx from the middle or second heaven, which is the spiritual heaven, are called spiritual-natural; and those who receive influx from the third or inmost heaven, which is the celestial heaven, are called celestial-natural. The spiritual-natural angels and the celestial-natural angels are distinct from each other; nevertheless they constitute one heaven, because they are in the same degree.

However, elements in Joseph's schema are present in the Bible, but not present in Swedenborg's model. The claim of "similarity" rests on a few superficial similarities between Joseph and Swedenborg and the Bible—and ignores the many marked differences between them.

Even if one is not inclined to grant Joseph Smith prophetic status, it seems far more plausible that his view of a three-tiered heaven derives from the New Testament, and not from Swedenborg.

Some believe that Joseph Smith borrowed the concept of three degrees of glory from Swedish philosopher and theologian Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772). This portrait shows him at age 75. Original from en.wikipedia.org.

The concept of different degrees of heaven is not original to Swedenborg

1 Corinithians 15꞉41:

There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.

Swedenborg was hardly the first theologian or thinker to suggest that heavenly rewards were not all identical, but graduated into degrees of glory. The discussion and debate about the fate of the righteous in heaven goes back to the earliest Christian centuries. Non-LDS scholar Emma Disley indicates that the primary sources for the idea of different degrees of glory are Matthew 5:; John 14:2 ("in my Father's house are many mansions"); 1 Corinithians 15:41 (stars differ in glory from one another); Matthew 20:1-4 (parable of the Vineyard).

Thus, the "raw material" for such ideas is Biblical, and noted long before Joseph or Swedenborg. Joseph received the vision of the three degrees of glory on 16 February 1832. Joseph had been involved in his translation/revision of the Bible, and indicates that this effort was what led to the reflections which preceded the vision. Joseph indicated that the vision came after reading John 5:29: "And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation."

Problems with the thesis that Joseph borrowed Swedenborg's ideas

The issues arguing against borrowing come in at least three different ways:

1. a common source for both Swedenborg and Joseph
2. no early charge that Joseph had borrowed from Swedenborg
3. the "similarities" are superficial, while there are many deep differences.

Part of the basis for Doctrine and Covenants Section 76 is clearly rooted in the New Testament, and Swedenborg cannot be the source for the notion of three heavens because of this

First, as discussed above, there is the issue of other sources available to both Joseph and Swedenborg. 1 Corinthians 15: uses both the words celestial and terrestrial to name two of the three heavens. Joseph Smith in Section 76 uses both of these terms. Swedenborg only uses the word celestial. Whether or not Joseph borrowed from Swedenborg, part of the basis for Section 76 is clearly rooted in the New Testament. Swedenborg cannot be the source for the notion of three heavens because of this. At the most we could say that some of Swedenborg's expansions on the idea of heavenly glory have something in common with the revelations received by Joseph Smith.

The charge of Joseph "borrowing" idea from Swedenborg only occurs much later

Second, we don't really see any early charges that Joseph Smith borrowed from Swedenborg. That is, with the Book of Mormon, we have a nearly constant stream of claims that Joseph stole his ideas in the book from somewhere else—Spaulding's manuscript, Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews, and so on. But, we don't see anyone claiming that Joseph borrowed from Swedenborg—until D. Michael Quinn makes the claim late in the twentieth century.

Joseph's early critics and readers were quite familiar with Swedenborg—one early critique of Joseph compared him to Swedenborg since both were regarded as false prophets, but said nothing about Swedenborg as a source for Joseph's ideas. A second critique complained about the lack of symbolism in Joseph's ideas. While regarding Swedenborg as a fraud and false prophet, this critic notes that while Swedenborg "was vailed in figures, tropes, and parabols: It: is not so with Joseph Smith: He speaks plainly. He lies openly; and hopes to succeed by inspiring falsehood with the fearlessness of truth...." Thus, neither critic saw the parallels which modern critics are so keen to insist were there.

The lack of an early attack on Joseph on these grounds is thus problematic for a couple of reasons. First, while we know that Joseph probably had some contact with Swedenborg's writings by 1839, the same kinds of arguments made for early access to Swedenborg can also be made for those around Joseph. Swedenborg's work was, after all, in the public library of Joseph's home town, and it was widely published. The same kinds of individuals who would have talked to Joseph certainly could have talked to those around him—and yet we don't get the claims of his being influenced. And this means that it is quite likely that this discussion is purely of more recent manufacture.

The claim ignores the many differences between Joseph's concepts and Swedenborg's

Third, it is easy to claim that there is borrowing when you get to summarize everything. It's a lot harder when you get to read the texts. Here, for example, is the first part of the bit about three heavens from Swedenborg:

There Are Three Heavens

29. There are three heavens, entirely distinct from each other, an inmost or third, a middle or second, and an outmost or first. These have the same order and relation to each other as the highest part of man, or his head, the middle part, or body, and the lowest, or feet; or as the upper, the middle, and the lower stories of a house. In the same order is the Divine that goes forth and descends from the Lord; consequently heave, from the necessity of order, is threefold.

30. The interiors of man, which belong to his mind and disposition, are also in like order. He has an inmost, a middle, and an outmost part; for when man was created all things of Divine order were brought together in him, so that he became Divine order and form, and consequently a heaven in miniature. For this reason man, as regards his interiors, has communication with the heavens and comes after death among the angels, either among those of the inmost, or of the middle, or of the outmost heaven, in accordance with his reception of Divine good and truth from the Lord during his life in the world.

31. The Divine that flows in from the Lord and is received in the third or inmost heaven is called celestial, and in consequence the angels there are called celestial angels; the Divine that flows in from the Lord and is received in the second or middle heaven is called spiritual, and in consequence the angels there are called spiritual angels; while the Divine that flows in from the Lord and is received in the outmost or first heaven is called natural; but as the natural of that heaven, unlike the natural of the world, has the spiritual and celestial within it, that heaven is called the spiritual- and the celestial-natural, and in consequence the angels there are called the spiritual-natural and celestial-natural. Those who receive influx from the middle or second heaven, which is the spiritual heaven, are called spiritual-natural; and those who receive influx from the third or inmost heaven, which is the celestial heaven, are called celestial-natural. The spiritual-natural angels and the celestial-natural angels are distinct from each other; nevertheless they constitute one heaven, because they are in the same degree.

32. In each heaven there is an internal and an external; those in the internal are called internal angels, while those in the external are called external angels. The internal and the external in the heavens, or in each heaven, hold the same relation as the voluntary and intellectual in man - the internal corresponding to the voluntary, and the external to the intellectual. Every thing voluntary is intellectual; one cannot exist without the other. The voluntary may be compared to a flame and the intellectual to the light therefrom.

So, there are three heavens in Swedenborg. And there are three heavens in Joseph Smith, and there are three heavens in 1 Cor. 15. In the New Testament we have "bodies celestial" - from 1 Cor. 15:40

40 There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.

And in Section 76 we have celestial bodies (verse 78)

78 Wherefore, they are bodies terrestrial, and not bodies celestial, and differ in glory as the moon differs from the sun.

And in Swedenborg, we get External, Spiritual-Natural Angels.

The New Testament and the D&C both use a tiered system based on the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars—but Swedenborg's system is repeatedly brought back to a comparison with the body. Swedenborg suggests that "... for when man was created all things of Divine order were brought together in him, so that he became Divine order and form, and consequently a heaven in miniature" and for Joseph Smith, man is created in God's image.

It is therefore very easy to portray similarities—but here we can read Swedenborg, and it sounds very little like Joseph Smith. Sure, we can point to some shared words—words like "degree"—but these are not unique to Joseph Smith or to Swedenborg, and so they aren't that useful in demonstrating a connection. On the surface it sounds nice, but once you spend the time to read both texts, it becomes hard to imagine one as the source for the other.

Notes