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Joseph Smith’s Polygamy: Toward a Better Understanding

Ten months after the release of these essays, the national press has quieted, losing interest after exhausting the mileage obtained from sensational soundbites. Among many in the Latter-day Saint community, however, the topic is proving to have a much longer shelf life, as some members wrestle with deep concerns and an inability to embrace and understand the Church’s relationship with polygamy.

Instead of acting as a much needed salve, the essays may have reopened a deep wound prevented from festering only by the thinnest of scabs—denial and neglect. Polygamy is a topic that has been mostly ignored, brushed aside, and minimalized in Church discourse for nearly a century. With the release of the essays, long-existing concerns about the practice of polygamy in the early Church and its enduring legacy have been pulled off the proverbial shelf and some members are re-examining their significance.

Not all members are equally troubled by this issue, though. Recently I was approached by an acquaintance who asked a simple and sincere question. “Why,” she asked “do people get angry about polygamy?” Another friend e-mailed me after hearing a news story about members leaving the Church over the issue and asked, “Why now? This information has been around for years.” In both cases, I did my best to explain the factors I see contributing to the distress felt by many members of the Church—both male and female—over this most painful topic.

I don’t remember when I first learned that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy, but my knowledge of it expanded uncomfortably after reading Brian Hales’ overly comprehensive, 1500-page treatise on the topic. What I learned on those pages was informative, but also at times discomforting, disappointing, and even shocking. There were clandestine marriages, pretend husbands, young brides, already married brides, altogether too many brides, Abrahamic-like tests, and surprising interactions between Joseph, Emma, and his plural wives, coupled with a doctrine that I struggled to understand.

As I grieved the loss of the Prophet Joseph I thought I had known, I embarked on a quest to not only answer lingering questions but also attempt to develop sympathy and respect for the characters in a drama played out nearly 175 years ago. Perhaps as I share a few thing I have learned, you, too, will be able to gain better understanding and maybe even feel a little more empathy—for those early Saints who practiced “the principle” and for those who anguish over it today.

Joseph Smith’s Personal Practice of Polygamy

It is plausible the Prophet married up to thirty-six women. [4] Descriptions of these marriages have been the subject of dozens of books, scores of scholarly articles, and more than one master’s thesis. The most popular theory promoted for this string of marriages is a zest for unfettered sexual conquest, but that doesn’t hold up under careful scrutiny any more than another popular theory that Joseph only acted because of repeated prodding from an increasingly frustrated angel. Discarding completely the merits of either of these opposing theories might lead to error. What I propose it probably something in between.

Processing Polygamy through a Monogamous Mindset

While doing research for his landmark article “Plural Marriage,” published in 1887, independent historian Andrew Jenson interviewed Eliza Snow, who wrote the name Fanny Alger on a list of Joseph’s plural wives. Fanny is widely considered to have been Joseph’s first plural wife. Of this union, Benjamin F. Johnson, one of Joseph’s good friends, wrote: [I]t was whispered among the residents of Kirtland that Joseph loved Fanny.” [5] The thought that Joseph Smith, the Prophet of the Restoration, would love any other woman but his legal wife Emma may be uncomfortable to think about, but it is likely he did.

Lucy Walker, another of Joseph’s plural wives, said on one occasion that Joseph told her: “Men did not take polygamous wives because they loved them or fancied them or because they were voluptuous, but because it was a command of God.” [6] Another time she mentioned that Joseph “often referred to the feelings that should exist between husband and wives, that they, his wives, should be his bosom companions, the nearest and dearest objects on earth in every sense of the word.” [7] Though plural marriages may not have been initiated for carnal reasons, after the nuptials, there was every expectation a plural marriage for time and eternity would eventually contain the same elements of affection as that of a monogamous marriage.

For some, it might be more comforting to see Joseph marrying mostly widows and spinsters or stepping up to the plate because of a supposed shortage of marriageable males in Nauvoo, but that is not what happened. The creative marital dynamics Joseph engaged in, left unexplained, appear odd to most, even with favorable historical gap-filling. While eternity-only sealings to civilly married women with non-member husbands may be more understandable, similar sealings to women with active husbands may always defy explanation. Time-and-eternity unions to five women of prime marrying age, who had come to live with the Smith family in the Mansion, has caused some to cry foul, despite the lack of any accusations of coercion from the women. And the Prophet instructing trusted associates such as Joseph Kingsbury that a man “had the privilege of having more than one wife . . . if he was considered worthy,” [8] somehow does not make one feel better about the thirty-five wives. Though we know Joseph was not infallible, we may naively expect him to always have behaved with wisdom beyond his years, knowledge beyond his education, and social enlightenment beyond his time — lofty accomplishments even for a prophet.

Marriage to Helen Mar Kimball

Regarding one plural marriage, though, further context may quiet an often-repeated criticism. Joseph married Helen Mar Kimball, his youngest bride, “several months before her 15th birthday,” [9] which means she was fourteen. One morning in May of 1843, Helen’s father, Heber C. Kimball, who was preparing to leave for a mission to the East, casually asked Helen “if she would believe him if he told [her] that it was right for married men to take other wives.” Helen’s first impulse was anger as she thought her father was testing her virtue. She replied “emphatically, No. I wouldn’t!” Her reaction seemed to please her father, but then he started talking seriously and explained to her the principle of plural marriage, and why it was again to be established upon the earth, but he did not tell her then “that anyone had yet practiced it, but left [her] to reflect upon it for the next twenty-four hours.” [10]

In her writings, Helen shared some of the thoughts she had that night. Mostly they centered on her repugnancy for the doctrine in contrast to her belief that her father “loved her too well to teach [her] anything that was not strictly pure, virtuous and exalting in its tendencies.” The next day she was taught the principle by the Prophet and was sealed to him for time and eternity. Helen mentioned that the sole reason she accepted the marriage proposal was because of her father’s teachings, who loved the Prophet and wished to bind his family to Joseph’s for eternity. [11]

In a letter composed for her children late in life, Helen speaks of her youthful marriage in an often quoted poem. Her words mention thoughts that this union was for “eternity alone,” sadness at being “bar’d out from social scenes,” and feeling like a “fettered bird.” She also shares that she did “brood and imagine future woes.” Less frequently quoted is a line in the middle of the poem where she speaks to the young Helen and gives her counsel: “But could’st thou see the future & view that glorious crown, Awaiting you in Heaven you would not weep nor mourn.” [12] Those don’t sound like the words of a mature woman crying victimhood but rather those of one documenting spiritual growth over time.

In February 1846, following the Prophet’s death, Helen was sealed for time to Horace Whitney in the Nauvoo temple. [13] After the death of her second child in as many years, Helen fell into a deep depression, lamenting she “hated polygamy” because of the trials she had seen her mother go through. [14] Helen had been sealed to Joseph Smith in 1843, but there is no evidence that the marriage was consummated, though it could have been as it had been performed with her agreement and the permission of her parents. Her sealing to Joseph Smith appears to have been more similar to a betrothal than a marriage.

In time, Helen would gain a testimony of the “principle” and not only give two plural wives to her husband Horace but also write much in defense of polygamy and the Prophet Joseph Smith’s teachings on the topic. She respected and loved her father and didn’t resent the things he taught or asked of her. [15] While we may not understand Heber’s desire to bind his family to Joseph’s through the marriage of his young daughter, let’s be careful not to exaggerate this episode into something it was not. Helen was not “underage” according to legal codes or social mores and brokering of marriages in the nineteenth century was not that unusual.

Doctrine and Covenants 132

Joseph Smith’s practice of polygamy has not been the sole object of enhanced scrutiny and discussion. Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants, which discusses plural marriage, has some people questioning its validity and value as scripture. Though it has the unique distinction of being the only modern-day revelation to appear in two books of canonized scripture simultaneously, [16] I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of members didn’t linger there long until recently.

Several factors could contribute to its lack of appeal. First, it is a confusing revelation. Extracting exact meaning from some passages is impossible and getting even close requires a large amount of historical context. President Brigham Young explained why some scripture, like this one, may be particularly difficult to comprehend: “When revelations are given through an individual appointed to receive them, they are given to the understandings of the people. These revelations, after a lapse of years, become mystified to those who were not personally acquainted with the circumstances at the time they were given.” [17]

The revelation now known as D&C 132 was recorded for the benefit of Emma Smith. In 1842, Joseph, who up to that time had been the sole male participant in plural marriages, began authorizing and encouraging the practice among trusted associates and the twelve apostles. Counterintuitively, his confidants did not include members of his first presidency, his brother Hyrum, or his legal wife Emma. Somehow the secret was kept despite rumors. [18] It is hard to imagine Emma, so upset by the Fanny Alger incident in Kirtland, [19] not having at least a suspicion, but the human mind is an interesting thing. It is often loath to follow the breadcrumbs when it is not capable of accepting where they may lead.

We don’t know when Joseph told Emma about his plural wives. He may have done it in stages: first introducing the concept of eternity-only sealings and later revealing sealings that included marriage for time and eternity. By May of 1843, Emma was, at least temporarily, on board with the prospect, participating in the unions of the Partridge and Lawrence sisters to Joseph. [20] Soon thereafter, she changed her mind, and what ensued was the most difficult period in Joseph and Emma’s marriage, with divorce, after having passed through so much together, becoming a serious possibility. [21]

William Clayton recounted that he wrote “the revelation on Celestial marriage given through the Prophet Joseph Smith on the 12th day of July 1843. When the revelation was written there was no one present except the prophet Joseph, his brother Hyrum and myself. . . . It took some three hours to write it. Joseph dictated sentence by sentence. . . . After the whole was written Joseph requested me to read it slowly and carefully which I did, and he then pronounced it correct.” [22]

From William Clayton’s journal, we learn what happened next:

After it was wrote Presidents Joseph and Hyrum presented it and read it to E[mma] who said she did not believe a word of it and appeared very rebellious. Joseph told me to Deed all the unencumbered lots to E[mma]. And the children. He appears much troubled about E[mma]. [23]

Emma’s Revelations

This was not the first revelation that was directed at Emma. Section 25 of the Doctrine and Covenants was dictated in July 1830. Emma treasured this first revelation, which instructed her to compile a hymnal and referred to her as an elect lady. [24] The words of this revelation are loving, affirming, and gentle in their reproving. If Emma was expecting something similar from this second revelation, she was most surely disappointed.

The tone of the two starkly contrast each other. A comparison of verses from both sections, which impart essentially the same meaning but in diverse manners vividly illustrates the difference. In section 25:15, Emma is reminded: “Keep my commandments continually, and a crown of righteousness thou shalt receive. And except thou do this, where I am you cannot come.” In section 132:54, the Lord warns: “But if she [meaning Emma] will not abide this commandment [plural marriage] she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abide not in my law.”

Of the canonized scripture revealed through Joseph, section 132 is singular for its harsh tone and frequent use of the word “destroy.” In section 19:7, the Lord reveals that the term “eternal damnation,” which the term “destroy” could plausibly equate to in the context of its usage in section 132, may be used so “that it might work upon the hearts of the children of men.” This could account for the abundant use of the word in the revelation. Joseph preached that he had been commanded of God to practice polygamy, and Emma was rebelling and impeding his ability to comply with that commandment. It is also conceivable there were additional factors that affected the framing of the revelation as it currently reads.

The Process of Receiving and Printing Revelations

Elder Orson Pratt, who lived with the Smiths for a period of time, described the manner in which the Prophet received revelations: “Joseph . . . received the ideas from God, but clothed those ideas with such words that came to his mind.” [25] Authors at The Joseph Smith Papers further elaborated on the process of receiving and recording revelations: [26]

Joseph Smith and his followers considered his revelations to be true in the sense that they communicated the mind and will of God, not infallible in an idealized sense of literary flawlessness. “The revelations were not God’s diction, dialect, or native language,” historian Richard Bushman has written. “They were couched in language suitable to Joseph’s time.” [27]  Smith and others appointed by revelation . . . edited the revelations based on the same assumption that informed their original receipt: namely, that although Smith represented the voice of God condescending to speak to him, he was limited by a “crooked broken scattered and imperfect language.” [28]

Wilford Woodruff once wrote of Joseph Smith that he was “full of revelation,” which he defined as “the inspiration of the Holy Ghost to man.” [29] In the early days of the Church, the revelations were written down and circulated among the members. Because of the inaccuracies that inevitably were introduced into copies, members voted to print the revelations and make them available for distribution. Orson Pratt described the compilation process:

Joseph, the Prophet, in selecting the revelations from the Manuscripts, and arranging them for publication, did not arrange them according to the order of the date in which they were given, either did he think it necessary to publish them all in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, but left them to be published more fully in his History. Hence, paragraphs taken from the revelations of a later date, are, in a few instances, incorporated with those of an earlier date. Indeed, at the time of compilation, the Prophet was inspired in several instances to write additional sentences and paragraphs to the earlier revelations. In this manner the Lord did truly give “line upon line, here a little and there a little.” [30]

Section 132 never went through this process because the Prophet was killed on June 27, 1844, and it was not added to the Doctrine and Covenants until 1876.

Even in 1878, there was some controversy about the revelation and its language. Elder Joseph F. Smith remarked in a conference that year:

When the revelation was written, in 1843, it was for a special purpose, by the request of the Patriarch Hyrum Smith, and was not then designed to go forth to the church or to the world. It is most probable that had it been then written with a view to its going out as a doctrine of the church, it would have been presented in a somewhat different form. There are personalities [Emma Smith specifically] contained in a part of it which are not relevant to the principle itself, but rather to the circumstances which necessitated its being written at that time. Joseph Smith, on the day it was written, expressly declared that there was a great deal more connected with the doctrine which would be revealed in due time, but this was sufficient for the occasion. [31]

The decision to include the revelation in the Doctrine in Covenants without further clarification and editing has rendered some verses “mystified,” [32] leading to much debate about their meaning.

Polygamy Is Not Commanded of Everyone

Several questionable interpretations have gained traction. For example, some mistakenly assume that plural marriage is commanded to the general membership in this section. In its 66 verses, there is discussion of Abraham and other Patriarchs righteously participating in plural marriage when commanded (v. 34, 35; 37–39), that Joseph was authorized to permit its divinely sanctioned practice (v. 48), and that if the holder of the sealing keys (in this case Joseph) taught his wife the principle then she (in this case Emma) was obliged to accept plural marriage or be destroyed (v. 64). No other group is mentioned specifically.

The Section Is Not a Rule Book for Polygamy

Others have asserted that the revelation is meant as a rulebook for the practice of polygamy. Verses 61–62 are particularly singled out in this discussion. They state in part:

And again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood [plural marriage]—if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouseth another, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified; he cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him; for he cannot commit adultery with that that belongeth unto him and to no one else. . . . [A]nd if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore is he justified.

Some contend this verse specifies that a man must have the permission of the first wife to marry another and that that woman must be a virgin.

The principle of Occam’s Razor, which states that the simplest explanation is usually correct, may be helpful in evaluating this argument. If verse 61 contains the requirements for all plural marriages, Joseph would have dictated a revelation that went counter to his own behavior and those of other Nauvoo polygamists. Heber C. Kimball, most probably the second sanctioned polygamist in Nauvoo, took Sarah Noon as his first plural wife in the spring of 1842. Sarah’s husband had deserted her and returned to England leaving her and her children penniless. At Joseph’s encouragement, Heber married Sarah, a non-virgin, without his legal wife’s knowledge. [33] This would clearly be in violation of the supposed rule.

Another interpretation of the references to virgins and the first wife’s consent, which has the added benefit of comporting with history, is that this may have been a reference to Joseph’s marriages to Emily and Eliza Partridge. After Emma had placed their hands in Joseph’s, she almost immediately regretted the decision and began pestering them into divorcing Joseph and marrying other men. [34] References to marrying up to ten virgins could have been included to address the number of wives Joseph had married and Emma’s desire to reduce that number. It reflects his teachings to early polygamists as captured by William Clayton: “It is your privilege to have all the wives you want.” [35]

The Giving of Virgins

Another criticism of these verses is that they reference virgins being “given” unto men. One young woman mentioned that the phrase gave her cognitive dissonance because on the one hand she was told she was a daughter of her Heavenly Father, who loves her, [36] and on the other she reads in this section that she can be given to another. [37] It made her feel like chattel. This is definitely an overly literal reading. “Given” was a common term in marriage rituals of the time. [38] Even today, the word “give” is commonly used in wedding ceremonies in and out of the Church. [39] But that is only part of the story.

In a recent address before the Mormon Historical Association, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich noted that women were indeed considered chattel, or property, if you will, in the nineteenth century, both legally and socially, and marriage was considered to be for life, making divorce an undertaking of the rich or of those with connections. If anything, Joseph Smith was sympathetic to the cause of women caught in unhappy marital relationships. According to Ulrich, “about 20 percent of plural wives in Nauvoo before Joseph Smith’s death were legally married to other men. . . . Their splits were either consensual or the wives left through folk divorces or desertions, sometimes by the husband.” Joseph began marrying couples in an anachronistic “idealized notion both spiritual and sentimental.” In Ulrich’s estimation, “relationships are too important not to marry where there is affection. You don’t want to be bound for eternity with someone you can’t get along with.” [40] In no case, are we led to believe that a woman was married against her will to Joseph. In fact, many of the women who married Joseph left testimonies of their personal struggle to first accept the concept of plural marriage and then to accept Joseph’s proposal. [41] If the “virgins” (or non-virgins) were “given” in marriage, it was because they chose to give themselves.

And as you would expect, not all virgins chose this option. In 1908, Almira Hanscom, daughter of Martha McBride Knight, was asked if she had ever received a proposal to be a plural wife. She looked startled and answered, “Yes and No.” She recalled, “One day mother and I were in the front room and Joseph Smith came walking down the street and turned in at our gate. I had a hunch and as he entered the front door I went out the back and remained until he left. When I returned my Mother told me that Joseph had come at the request of his brother, Hyrum, to ask me to be his wife. And also asked Mother to ask me, seeing I wasn’t in. So when my mother said, Almira what do you say about it?” I said, “No.” [42]

The Law of Sarah

In verse 65 of section 132, there is a reference to the “law of Sarah,” which is not fully defined. It is the only specific reference to such a concept in all of scripture. Of anything in the section, this, I have found, tends to raise ire. The distress seems to be of a two-pronged nature. First, comparing the Old Testament practice of polygamy in a land where progeny were necessary for survival and polygamy was socially and legally acceptable to a needed practice in nineteenth century Nauvoo where both of those elements were missing seems incongruous. Second, some women feel the law of Sarah is unfair, with the first wife only given power to participate in polygamy rather than to veto polygamy.

Verse 34 states that “God commanded Abraham and Sarah gave Haagar to Abraham to wife. And why did she do it? Because this was the law .” Notice different motivations are given for Abraham and Sarah’s behavior. Abraham was commanded, but Sarah was following the “law.” Why not just say that both were commanded? The distinction seems deliberate.

Abraham and Sarah were governed by laws preserved in the Code of Hammurabi, which is the Babylonian law of ancient Mesopotamia, discovered and translated at the beginning of the twentieth century. [43] Parts of this code were later incorporated into the Law of Moses. Under the Code of Hammurabi, if a man’s wife was childless, he was allowed to take a concubine, a wife of lesser social status, and bring her into his house, or the first wife might give her husband a servant. [44] Interestingly, the husband needed to obtain the permission of the first wife unless there were special circumstances such as barrenness, illness, or misconduct on the part of the first wife. The law was actually designed to restrict a husband from taking additional wives without good reason or his first wife’s blessing. [45]

In section 132, we learn that monogamy is the marriage standard and plural marriage is divinely sanctioned only when it is commanded of God and authorized by his representative on earth who holds the sealing keys. [46] Why was Sarah not commanded to give Abraham a plural wife? A reasonable interpretation could be because she was already compelled to do so by the law of the land.

Why does a wife become a transgressor and lose the ability to administer unto her husband when she does not obey a command to practice plurality? Because her dominion would impede his ability to obey the commandment and would therefore limit his agency. In this analysis, the mention of the law of Sarah is not an offering of any great power to an obedient first wife, but more of a guarantee that a wife cannot exert her will to force her husband to disobey a direct command from God. [47] Historically, this could be a reference to Emma’s rejection of Fanny Alger years earlier as Joseph’s first plural wife and his subsequent sanctioned secret plural marriages later in Nauvoo. [48]

As mentioned earlier, this revelation was not very popular with Emma. At her request, Joseph allowed the original manuscript of the revelation to be burned. [49] If it were the only copy, then we wouldn’t be here talking about its meaning. [50] It wasn’t. A copy was shared with dozens of individuals in Nauvoo including Lucy Walker, [51] Mercy Thompson, [52] the Laws, [53] and the Nauvoo High Council [54] and then quietly disappeared from circulation for the next nine years.

Polygamy Is No Longer a Secret

By the fall of 1851, federal officers appointed by the president of the United States had hastily left the Utah territory after extended verbal skirmishes with the seated governor. Their reports of the practice of polygamy, especially by Brigham Young, were published around the country, and one LDS missionary in particular felt the need to respond not only by publishing an affirmation on the purported size of Governor Young’s family but also by promoting the practice of plural marriage as a moral band aid to a “false ‘Christianity.’” Parley Pratt, ever zealous, concluded his publication by proclaiming, “The law of God, from Zion, in the top of the mountains, when taught to the nations, will provide the means for every female to answer the end of their creation; to be protected in honor and virtue; and to become a happy wife and mother, so far as they are capacitated and inclined.” [55] With that, he tacitly acknowledged the worst-kept secret in the Utah territory.

Whether it was in response to this article or simply a matter of convenience, the decision was made to present plural marriage to the general membership of the Church in conjunction with the next conference. On August 21, 1852, a notice appeared in the Deseret News that read: “Special Conference of the elders of Israel, to commence, Saturday 28 Aug. 10 a.m. at the Tabernacle. All elders, within reach, read and attend .” [56]

A week later, President Heber C. Kimball announced the business of the conference to the nearly two thousand men in attendance: “We have come together to-day, according to previous appointment, to hold a special conference to transact business, a month earlier than usual, inasmuch as there are elders to be selected to go to the nations of the earth and they want an earlier start than formerly.” [57] Before adjourning for the day, over 100 men had been called to missions to such diverse locations as China, Ireland, New Orleans, and the Sandwich Islands.

When the conference commenced the next day Elder Orson Pratt timidly began the meeting with these words:

It is quite unexpected to me brethren and sister to be called upon to address you this forenoon; and still more so, to address you upon the principle which has been named, namely, a plurality of wives. . . . It is rather new ground for me, that is, I have not been in the habit of publicly speaking upon this subject: . . . we shall have to break new ground. It is well known however, to the congregation before me, that the Latter Day Saints have embraced the doctrine of a plurality of wives, as a part of their religious faith. It is not, as many have supposed, a doctrine embraced by them to gratify the carnal lusts and feelings of man; that is not the object of the doctrine. We shall endeavor to setforth before this enlightened assembly, some of the causes why the Almighty has revealed such a doctrine, and why it is considered a part and portion of our religious faith. [58]

He then continued with what turned out to be a prediction of a battle that would play out over the greater part of the remainder of that century and into the next:

And I believe that . . . the government of the United States [will not] try us for treason for believing and practicing our religious notions and ideas. . . . [T]he constitution gives the privilege to all the inhabitants of this country, of the free exercise of their religious notions, and the freedom of their faith, and the practice of it. Then, if it can be proven . . . that the Latter Day Saints have actually embraced . . . the doctrine of a plurality of wives, it is constitutional. [59]

In explaining the doctrine to the congregation, he started by recounting the first eternal marriage—that of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. They were immortal beings; therefore, their marriage was eternal. In the final dispensation of time, all things needed to be restored. [60] Thus, eternal marriage needed to be restored because that ordinance had been lost. Here was offered some much needed clarification on what essential ordinance needed to be restored as part of the restitution of all things. [61]

In Acts 3:21, we are taught the Savior will not be received in heaven “until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.” Of course, “all things” didn’t need to be restored as we have not adopted the Law of Moses, which was fulfilled with the atonement of Christ. [62] The essential covenants and ordinances of the gospel are what needed to be brought back. The first of these to be restored was baptism through the Aaronic priesthood, which occurred on May 15, 1829. [63] The second was the oath and covenant of the Melchizedek priesthood given to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery by Peter, James, and John shortly thereafter. [64] No additional authorities with their associated ordinances or covenants were restored until the Kirtland Temple was dedicated on April 3, 1836. On that date, three angelic messengers appeared, Moses, Elias, and Elijah, restoring keys and authorities that apparently could not be bestowed without a temple and are used to officiate in temple ordinances. [65]

While the keys restored by John the Baptist and Peter, James, and John allowed for the establishment of an earthly church organization, the keys restored in the Kirtland Temple authorized the sealing of families that will continue after death in the celestial kingdom. The framework for building eternal families begins by laying a foundation through an eternal marriage covenant, the uniting of a husband and wife together forever. [66] Plural marriage can be considered a part of the “restitution of all things,” but only so far as a practice sometimes allowed within the larger doctrine of eternal marriage. There has never been a covenant or ordinance of plural marriage in the modern Church, though the first wife sometimes participated, the words to the plural marriage ceremony did not divulge whether the man had been previously sealed to another woman. [67]

Though Elder Pratt would later preach on the necessity of allowing plurality to ensure the exaltation of all righteous women, [68] on this occasion he encouraged the taking of plural wives for different reasons. In addition to his brother Parley’s argument that it would curtail sexual sin in society, he added that it would provide homes for noble spirits to raise up a righteous generation, and allow men to claim the blessings of Abraham, namely “a promise of seed as numerous as the sand upon the sea shore.” [69] The revelation dictated for Emma in Nauvoo was read to the congregation that day [70] and later distributed in pamphlet form, making plural marriage the new marital expectation in the Church.

Consistent and Changing Themes

Slightly over a decade after the Prophet Joseph Smith introduced plural marriages to select Church members, the rhetoric had already started to change. In part, the theological defense became more nuanced, but in other respects, leaders began to promote the practice with dialogue not traceable to Joseph in a somewhat parallel evolution with the justifications for the priesthood and temple ban. No longer was plural marriage described as an onerous burden that must be borne. Instead it was a blessing that came with righteousness, though it was difficult. The menacing angel with the sword, so familiar today, was only referenced twice in recorded priesthood discourses of the period.” [71] In its place, other themes were regularly emphasized: plurality provided for more noble spirits to come to righteous homes and all members were at that time under the obligation to obey or their reward would be of less glory. The last item was emphasized with more and more rigor as the century progressed. [72]

Monogamy Is Once Again the Standard

With the issue of the Manifesto in 1890, monogamy once again became the standard in the Church. Members began the slow process of accepting a new dialogue regarding marriage, which included changes in understanding and vocabulary. Celestial marriage, patriarchal marriage, and the new and everlasting covenant of marriage, once associated mainly with plural marriage [73] now equated to monogamy. Some critics would dwell on statements of past leaders, uttered under a different divine dictate, holding them up as if they had efficacy today. The utility in debating what past leaders preached in light of what current leaders now preach is an exercise in historical curiosity rather than an indication of current doctrine. On May 4, 2007, the Newsroom of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released this statement: “Because different times present different challenges, modern-day prophets receive revelation relevant to the circumstances of their day. . . . [T]he Church does not preclude future additions or changes to its teachings or practices. This living, dynamic aspect of the Church provides flexibility in meeting those challenges.” [74]

Eternity and Agency

The practice of earthly polygamy has not been sanctioned by the Church since 1904, so why are we still talking about it? Polygamy on earth does not sit well with what the majority of twenty-first century members envision as an optimal marital dynamic and its practice in heaven is nearly as impossible to embrace. Current Church dialogue centers on the marriage of one man to one woman for time and eternity. [75] Nevertheless, this only eliminates the performing of plural marriage in part, as a widower is allowed to marry another woman in the temple for time and eternity. The fear that some women retain is that they will pass away prematurely, and their husbands will remarry, making them eternal polygamists independent of their agency. The common response that no woman will be forced to stay in a relationship may provide little comfort because none of the choices seem optimal from our current, earthly perspective. Her spirit world options would include leaving her husband, accepting the plural union, finding a new man to be sealed to, or remaining separate and single without exaltation for the rest of eternity.

One situation that seems to be of increasing concern is created by the single feature that is most desirable about a marriage performed in a temple: eternal marriage is eternal. Elder Nelson has emphasized that “celestial marriage is a pivotal part of preparation for eternal life. It requires one to be married to the right person , in the right place , by the right authority , and to obey that sacred covenant faithfully .” [76] This task is not as easy as it sounds. Even in conservative Victorian America, Brigham Young recognized the difficulty in finding a companion for eternity. He once gave this enlightened advice:

[W]hen your daughters have grown up, and wish to marry, let them have their choice in a husband, if they know what their choice is. But if they should happen only to guess at it, and marry the wrong man, why let them try again; and if they do not get it the right place the second time, let them try again. That is the way I shall do with my daughters, and it is the way I have already done. . . . Take this or that man if you want them my girls, I give you good counsel about it, nevertheless you shall have your own agency in the matter, even as I want mine. [77]

When a couple is married in the temple, at least in the United States, they receive a marriage certificate that indicates they were joined in the holy bond of matrimony for time and eternity. The Church considers that bond valid even if a legal divorce ensues. In a case of a couple who divorces legally then remarries later; their temple ceremony does not need to be repeated. Should a couple divorce legally and a woman desire to marry another man in the temple, a cancellation of the sealing needs to be obtained first to avoid polyandry. The marriage bond is considered intact without a cancellation .

If a divorced man desires to marry in the temple, he needs to receive clearance to marry another in the temple. After receiving that clearance, he is free to be married for time and eternity to another woman, with the marriage for time and eternity to two living women remaining intact until such time as a sealing cancellation is granted. [78] Obtaining that sealing cancellation is a long and invasive process. In fact, now that the Church has computerized the cancellation application process the choices offered for “reason for request” do not even include the possibility that a man may want to cancel a sealing to a legally divorced wife simply due to the reasons the divorce occurred in the first place.

Some members find this theologically problematic. The second sealed wife of a legally divorced man may struggle to ignore that, on paper at least, she is a polygamous second wife unless that first sealing has been officially cancelled by the first presidency. Assurances that all will work out in the end seem to be the only comfort that are now being given. While acknowledging that these sealings are solemn and are designed to be eternal, and divorce is undesirable for many reasons, perhaps someday this type of ceremonial polygamy will be more easily addressed than at present.

So why is there so much recent outcry about polygamy? One reason could be that the details of Joseph Smith’s plural marriages are new to many, peculiar, and readily available on the Internet with varying degrees of accuracy. Finding this information outside of traditional channels has left some members thinking they have been betrayed or were taught a false narrative. Many grieve at the loss of perceptions held dear. Passing through the grieving process can lead to greater understanding or hopelessness, with the person feeling they are in the midst of a crisis that needs immediate resolution. Richard Bushman cautioned against panicking. He noted:

We are in a period of transition with regard to our history. The narrative is in the process of reconstruction. Right now that means there is the standard, comforting story, and then a series of controversies. . . . In time I think this problem will go away. All the controversial questions will be absorbed into the standard narrative, and we won’t have a sense of two tracks. . . . There are already lots of surprising things in the standard narrative. We will simply flesh that out. [79]

Such patience like Dr. Bushman advocates may not be an easy sell to a Google generation accustomed to answers at a click of the mouse, but it might go over better if peppered with affirmation, support, empathy, and, importantly, more accurate information. Increased engagement of the Church membership in discussing our collective history and theology can be a good thing as we go through these growing pains together. If members feel safety in sharing concerns as they progress through the initial shock, fear, and panic of learning information that challenges their belief, they will better weather the nadir if there is a faithful member holding their hand in empathy. Encouragement, validation, and direction will provide needed support as they grieve. If members don’t find this care within their congregations and families, they may feel their only option is to turn to other communities for support.

Better information will help inoculate members, reducing additional distress. The essays on polygamy are a good step in that direction, but the Church’s efforts to inform have not stopped there. The Gospel Topics Essays have been incorporated into Institute curriculum, and the Church History department continues to add new information to such websites as The Joseph Smith Papers and nine other associated websites that provide context to Church history. [80] For this wound to fully heal, though, more must be done by rand-and-file members in spreading this information; creating a safe environment for family members, friends, and ward members to explore, and showing empathy. In this way, we can all work toward a better understanding of Joseph Smith’s polygamy. History is in the past, but the future is what we make of it.

Question: With many more adult females than males in the church today, would plural marriage be a viable solution?

Answer: Gratefully, I am not the key holder, so I don’t need to contemplate that question.

Question: How do we reconcile the sealing commandment with the dearth of lack of eligible male suitors on the church?

Answer: I think if we look at what we’re doing in the temple, sealing past, people who didn’t have the opportunity to have the gospel, the same type of thing we’ve been told and taught will happen in the Millennium. So that’s how I would reconcile it.

Question: What do you think of LeRoi Snow’s account of Emma throwing a plural wife of Joseph’s down some stairs?

Answer: I would say it didn’t happen. And actually in our book, we cover that in two pages. LeRoi Snow’s account is fourth hand. And actually if you look at pictures of the homestead where – Eliza Snow was the plural wife who was supposedly thrown down the stairs – the way that LeRoi Snow described it, it could not have occurred, so I don’t believe it.

That doesn’t have to do with plural marriage.

Question: In the age of DNA why do you think there is not a documented offspring from Joseph Smith’s many marriages?

Answer: Well, actually, quite a bit of DNA work has been done by Dr. Ugo Perego who currently lives in Italy but used to work out of Salt Lake – and you’re probably aware that the world of genetics has exploded over the last 20 years and the last time a study was run on expected progeny of Joseph Smith, there was only one that came even close and that’s one we expect to be positive, though it came up equivocal, and that is Josephine Lyon. There is technology now to determine more closely if the DNA will prove conclusively that there is a tie, and Dr. Perego has a GoFundMe going right now and you can contribute to that to fund that study.

Question: What reasons do we have for thinking Joseph and Helen’s marriage was not consummated?

Answer: Well, we have no reason to believe — I’ve read everything written by Helen herself on the topic — that they were actually alone together. I think her statement that she hated polygamy because of her mother’s suffering is very telling. Helen did not testify in the temple lot case. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it was in 1892. They were trying to prove that polygamy started with Joseph Smith and so that the Utah church was the legitimate church rather than the Reorganized Church. So several of Joseph Smith’s plural wives were still alive at the time and were called to testify, three in particular. And they lived, some of them, quite far away. One was in Logan. Helen lived a few blocks away and she was not called to testify, and you would think, if it had been consummated, that it would be easier for her to testify. So that is probably another clue that we have that it wasn’t consummated. Plus, in Utah, men were instructed, sure, you can marry younger brides, but wait until they grow a little bit older before you consummate their marriages. We assume that policy started in Nauvoo.

Question: This is so difficult, losing sons and grandkids over it. Please help us.

Answers: It is a difficult topic. We are losing people over it. I think part of the problem is that we came into the game late. We let other people tell the story with varying degrees of accuracy and that is part of the reason why, though I don’t really choose to talk about the topic of plural marriage out of a delight in it, it’s out of a necessity to make sure the facts are clear. Because I have found they become conflated, stories get mixed up, they get blown out of proportion and Brother Otterson talked about presentism. We look at it from our perspective now and it doesn’t make sense. I think for me the most helpful thing is to have read the testimonies of the plural wives who married Joseph. They’re powerful and they give me something to hold onto. Also, Brother Bushman — I quoted him earlier – said how important it is to base our testimony on Christ. We do love the prophet of the Restoration. We’re grateful for all he did. But also he wasn’t a perfect man. He never said he was a perfect man. We may have done things differently and we just need to separate that from our testimony in Christ. I believe that is the most helpful.

[1] The first time was in 2008, during Warren Jeffs’ trial and the invasion of the YFZ ranch in Texas; the second time was during the 2012 Presidential campaign, where Mitt Romney’s religion was brought up in this discussion as well as his credentials.

[2] “Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, accessed July 9, 2015, https://www.lds.org/topics/plural-marriage-in-kirtland-and-nauvoo.

[3] Laurie Goodstein, “It’s Official: Mormon Founder Had up to 40 Wives,” The New York Times , November 10, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/us/its-official-mormon-founder-had-up-to-40-wives.html.

[4] Brian C. Hales and Laura H. Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy: Toward a Better Understanding (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2015), 103–04.

[5] Dean R. Zimmerman, ed., I Knew the Prophets: An Analysis of the Letter of Benjamin F. Johnson to George F. Gibbs, Reporting Doctrinal Views of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young (Bountiful, Utah: Horizon, 1976), 37–38.

[6] Lucy Walker Smith Kimball, “Talks of Polygamy,” Salt Lake Tribune , December 24, 1899, 4.

[7] Lyman Omer Littlefield, Reminiscences of Latter-day Saints: Giving An Account of Much Individual Suffering Endured for Religious Conscience (Logan, Utah: Utah Journal Co., 1888), 45–46.

[8] Joseph Kingsbury, deposition, Temple Lot Transcript, respondent’s testimony, part 3, pp. 209–10, questions 681–89, 714.

[9] “Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo,” para 19.

[10] “Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo,” para 19.

[11] Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, “Autobiography, 30 March 1881,” MS 744, CHL; italics added. See opening paragraph and last two lines of poem.

[12] Jeni Broberg Holzapfel & Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, A Woman’s View (Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1997), 486 (1881 Autobiography); italics added.

[13] Holzapfel and Holzapfel, A Woman’s View , 327.

[14] Augusta Joyce Crocheron, Representative Women of Deseret (Salt Lake City: J.C. Graham & Co., 1884), 112; italics added.

[15] Holzapfel and Holzapfel, A Woman’s View , 198.

[16] From 1879 to 1891, the revelation appeared in both the Doctrine and Covenants and The Pearl of Great Price .

[17] Brigham Young, in Journal of Discourses , 3:333.

[18] Emily D. Partridge Young, autobiographical sketch, CHL. See also Almira Hanscom statement, 1908 in “Autobiography of Hyrum Belnap,” from a compilation by Della Belnap titled “Biographies of the Belnap and Knight Families,” copied by BYU library 1958; copy at BYU HBLL Special Collections—Amer BX 8670.1 .B41. This statement is found on page 55 of whole compilation or page 20 of Hyrum Belnap Autobiography.

[19] Eliza R. Snow, “Sketch of My Life,” Utah and Mormons Collection, Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley; microfilm copy in CHL, MS 8305, Reel 1, item 11, 7.

[20] Emily D. Partridge Young, “Incidents in the Life of a Mormon Girl,” MS 5220, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah, 186, 186b.

[21] George D. Smith, ed., An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995), 117.

[22] William Clayton, letter to Madison M. Scott, November 11, 1871, William Clayton Letterbooks, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah.

[23] Smith, ed., An Intimate Chronicle , 110.

[24] Matt Grow, “Thou Art an Elect Lady,” January 9, 2013, accessed July 6, 2015, https://history.lds.org/article/doctrine-and-covenants-emma-smith?lang=eng .

[25] Minutes of the School of the Prophets, Salt Lake Stake, December 9, 1872, CHL. Quoted in Robert J. Woodford, “The Story of the Doctrine and Covenants,” Ensign , December 1984, accessed July 8, 2015, https://www.lds.org/ensign/1984/12/the-story-of-the-doctrine-and-covenants?lang=eng .

[26] The Joseph Smith Papers, “Introduction to the Manuscript Revelation Books, accessed July 21, 2015, http://josephsmithpapers.org/intro/introduction-to-revelations-and-translations-volume-1?p=1&highlight=revelation .

[27] Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995), 174.

[28] [Introduction to?] “The Conference Minutes and Record Book of Christ’s Church of Latter Day Saints,” Minute Book 2, 1838, 1842, 1844. CHL.

[29] Millennial Star , October 12, 1891, 642.

[30] Millennial Star 17, April 25, 1857, 260.

[31] Joseph F. Smith, in Journal of Discourses , 20:29 (July 7, 1878); brackets in original.

[32] Brigham Young, in Journal of Discourses , 3:333.

[33] Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, “Scenes and Incidents in Nauvoo,” Woman’s Exponent 10, no. 10 (October 15, 1881): 74.

[34] Emily D. Partridge Young, “Incidents in the Life of a Mormon Girl,” 186–186b.

[35] Affidavit by William Clayton, February 16, 1874, CHL, MS 3423_1_30; also quoted in Andrew Jenson, “Plural Marriage,” Historical Record 6 (July 1887): 225–26.

[36] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Young Women Theme,” accessed July 23, 2015, https://www.lds.org/young-women/personal-progress/young-women-theme.

[37] See D&C 132:62.

[38] See Paul F. Bradshaw, New SCM Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship (Norwich, UK: SCM Press, 2002), 306.

[39] Great Officiants, “Ceremony Samples,” accessed July 23, 2015, http://www.greatofficiants.com/design-your-ceremony .

[40] Peggy Fletcher Stack, “Bad Marriages Had Women Running to and away from Mormon Polygamy, Historian Says,” The Salt Lake Tribune , July 1, 2015, accessed July 17, 2015, http://www.sltrib.com/home/2626102-155/bad-marriages-had-women-running-to .

[41] Brian C. Hales, “Stories of Faith: Joseph Smith’s Plural Wives,” Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, accessed July 23, 2015, http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/stories-of-faith-joseph-smiths-plural-wives/ .

[42] Almira Hanscom statement, 1908 in “Autobiography of Hyrum Belnap.”

[43] Charles F. Horne, “Introduction,” in The Code of Hammurabi , The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy, accessed July 21, 2015, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hamframe.asp .

[44] Walter Scheidel, Sex and Empire: A Darwinian Perspective (Stanford: Stanford University, 2006), 21, accessed July 21, 2015, http://www.princeton.edu/~pswpc/pdfs/scheidel/050603.pdf.

[45] Scheidel, Sex and Empire , 21.

[46] See D&C 132:34, 38–39.

[47] See Orson Pratt, “Celestial Marriage,” The Seer 1, no. 2 (February 1853): 16; Steven M. Murphy, ed., L.D.S. Conference Report Extracts: 1852–1886 (Wendover, Utah: Peace Mountain Publishing, 1998), 474 (September 21, 1856).

[48] “Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo,” para 28.

[49] Orson Pratt, in Journal of Discourses , 13:193 (October 7, 1869).

[50] Affidavit by William Clayton, February 16, 1874, CHL, MS 3423_1_30; also quoted in Andrew Jenson, “Plural Marriage,” Historical Record 6 (July 1887): 225–26.

[51] Lucy Walker Kimball, deposition, Temple Lot Transcript, respondent’s testimony, part 3, p. 452, questions 66–68.

[52] Jed Woodworth, “Mercy Thompson and the Revelation on Marriage,” Revelations in Context, accessed July 22, 2015, https://history.lds.org/article/doctrine-and-covenants-eternal-marriage , para 30.

[53] William Law, “Affidavit,” Nauvoo Expositor , June 7, 1844, 2.

[54] Fred C. Collier, ed., The Nauvoo High Council Minute Books of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints , 114 (August 12, 1843).

[55] Parley P. Pratt, “‘Mormonism!’ ‘Plurality of Wives!’ An Especial Chapter, for the Especial Edification of Certain Inquisitive News Editors, Etc.,” San Francisco, July 13, 1852, accessed July 22, 2015, https://ia600801.us.archive.org/28/items/mormonismplurali00smit/mormonismplurali00smit.pdf .

[56] Conference notice, Deseret News , 2, no. 21, Saturday, August 21, 1852, 3.

[57] Heber C. Kimball, Deseret News—Extra , September 14, 1852, 1.

[58] Orson Pratt, Deseret News—Extra , September 14, 1852, 14.

[59] Orson Pratt, Deseret News—Extra , September 14, 1852, 14.

[60] Orson Pratt, Deseret News—Extra , September 14, 1852, 15.

[61] Orson Pratt, Deseret News—Extra , September 14, 1852, 17–18.

[62] See 3 Nephi 9:17.

[63] D&C 13:1.

[64] D&C 27:12.

[65] D&C 110:11–16.

[66] Russell M. Nelson, “Celestial Marriage,” Ensign , November 2008, 92.

[67] Orson Pratt, “Celestial Marriage,” The Seer 1, no. 2 February 1843.

[68] Orson Pratt, in Journal of Discourses , 6:358–59 (July 24, 1859).

[69] Orson Pratt, Deseret News—Extra , September 14, 1852, 19–20.

[70] The original was preserved, but the copy was kept by Bishop Whitney who gave it to Brigham Young at Winter Quarters. Brigham Young, Deseret News—Extra , September 14, 1852, 25.

[71] See Erastus Snow, St. George Utah Stake Conference General Minutes, June 17, 1883, LR 783611, Reel 1, CHL; Joseph F. Smith, in Journal of Discourses , 20:29 (July 7, 1978).

[72] Joseph F. Smith, in Journal of Discourses , 20:24–31 (July 7, 1978).

[73] See, for example, James R. Clark, ed., Messages of the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1965–75), 5:329.

[74] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Newsroom, “Approaching Mormon Doctrine,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, May 4, 2007, accessed July 10, 2015, http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/approaching-mormon-doctrine .

[75] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Lesson 19: The Doctrine of Eternal Marriage and Family,” Foundations of the Restoration Teacher Manual (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2015), 84–88, accessed July 23, 2015, https://www.lds.org/bc/content/ldsorg/manual/institute/Foundations_of_the_Restoration.v2_eng.pdf .

[76] Russell M. Nelson, “Celestial Marriage,” Ensign , November 2008, 94 (quoting Bruce R. McConkie); italics added.

[77] Richard S. VanWagoner, The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young , 5 vols. (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2010), 2:782.

[78] A temple marriage is only considered “intact” or valid if it is sealed with the “Holy Spirit of promise,” which requires worthiness of both parties. See D&C 132:19. If the man remarries without a formal cancellation of the first sealing, a second wife might worry that a once unworthy first wife would repent and the ordinance would become valid again. In a second case, both women may be worthy, but presumably the “Holy Spirit of promise” would not bless the first sealing because of the reasons for the legal divorce. Paperwork reflecting the long-term status of the first marriage that ended in divorce would alleviate confusion.

[79] “Richard Bushman AMA, 3 pm to 6 pm, Eastern Time,” accessed July 25, 2015, https://www.reddit.com/r/latterdaysaints/comments/3dnmfn/richard_bushman_ama_3_pm_to_6_pm_eastern_time/.

[80] In addition to www.JosephSmithPapers.org , see “Explore,” at https://history.lds.org , for a complete listing of sponsored websites.

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Polygamy: What Latter-day Saints Really Believe

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints practiced polygamy between 1840 and 1890. At present, the Church strongly asserts that God’s standard for marriage is only between one man and one woman.  

Why did some early members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints practice polygamy? 

Some leaders and members of the Church practiced polygamy during the mid 1800s because they were commanded by God to do so. So marriage then between one man to several women was according to God’s will. Though all the reasons for this commandment are not clear, some reasons are understood. For example, the Book of Mormon teaches that men should have only one wife unless the Lord commands His people to “raise up seed unto [Him]” ( Jacob 2:30 ). The practice of plural marriage by early Latter-day Saints did cause a surge in the number of children born during that era.

Another side that the Church looked into is the fact that Polygamy was practiced by many known Biblical figures like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and David. In this context, the early Latter-day Saints believed that these ancient principles and practices taught by the Bible must be restored and adapted by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Whatever the reasons for the practice of Polygamy, early Latter-day Saints strongly believed that they were following God’s commandment. And in doing so, blessings will come their way because of the obedience they showed.

Some leaders and members of the Church practiced polygamy during the mid-1800s because they were commanded by God to do so.

What polygamy was like for early Latter-day Saints? 

The practice of polygamy faced fierce objection and resistance in its early years. During its introduction, selected members of the Church were ordered by Joseph Smith to keep it a secret as many men including Smith himself, were hesitant to jump into the practice by marrying another woman. It became open when they received a confirmation from God, which affirmed that engaging in the practice of polygamy is God’s will. As soon as the news spread, many Church members condemned it and outsiders were outraged. This resulted in chaos and division among members of the Church, resulting in many members leaving the Church.

On the brighter side, there were polygamous families living warmly, happily and were contented. Women, who would probably be on the losing side of a polygamous marriage, soon came to the defense of Joseph Smith and the practice of polygamy itself.

Under the practice of polygamy by the Church, it’s noteworthy to mention that women were given freedom to marry at their own will, without any force or intimidation. They can choose their husband, can turn down any proposals, or remain unmarried. Additionally, divorce and remarriage were allowed for men and women in unhappy marriages.

Devoted Church members opted not to practice polygamy. During the year 1857, about half of the people living in the Utah Territory are in a polygamous family. By 1870, this number of people living in polygamous households dropped to about 25 to 30 percent. It has continually declined through the passage of time.

As early as 1890, the practice of polygamy had come to its end when Church President Wilford Woodruff was inspired by God to issue a declaration.

Do Mormons believe in polygamy today? 

No. The Church does not authorize and sternly prohibits polygamy today. As early as 1890, the practice of polygamy came to an end when Church President Wilford Woodruff was inspired by God to issue a declaration. Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008), a former President of the Church, was quoted as he explained the Church’s position:

“I wish to state categorically that this Church has nothing whatever to do with those practicing polygamy. . . .

“If any of our members are found to be practicing plural marriage, they are excommunicated, the most serious penalty the Church can impose. Not only are those so involved in direct violation of the civil law, they are in violation of the law of this Church. An article of our faith is binding upon us. It states, ‘We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law’ (Articles of Faith 1:12). One cannot obey the law and disobey the law at the same time...

“More than a century ago God clearly revealed unto His prophet Wilford Woodruff that the practice of plural marriage should be discontinued, which means that it is now against the law of God. Even in countries where civil or religious law allows polygamy, the Church teaches that marriage must be monogamous and does not accept into its membership those practicing plural marriage” (“What Are People Asking about Us?” Ensign, Nov. 1998, 71–72).

What do Mormons believe about marriage and family? 

Mormons are into the belief that marriage between one man and one woman is the will of God, and that such marriage is an important part of His plan for His children. To learn more about what Mormons believe about marriage and family,  ComeUntoChrist.org . ◼︎

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Welcome to the most complete online source of information on joseph smith’s plural marriage practices and teachings., introduction.

If you’re new to this topic, have only heard rumors, or want a quick overview, start with this brief introduction.

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Polyandry? Young Wives? Fanny Alger? Get answers to some of the most commonly asked questions about early Mormon polygamy.

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Joseph Smith did not fight or deny polygamy Study Guide

Joseph Smith's Polygamy: Toward a Better Understanding

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Read and listen to the unfolding of plural marriage in its historical context in saints, fanny alger:.

Chapter 25: Move on to the West

Nauvoo Polygamy:

Chapter 36: Incline Them to Gather

Chapter 37: We Will Prove Them

Chapter 38: A Traitor or a True Man

Chapter 39: The Seventh Trouble

Chapter 40: United in an Everlasting Covenant

Chapter 41: God Must Be the Judge

Chapter 42: Round Up Your Shoulders

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Polygamy essays provide information about early LDS Church — and current leadership

By Tad Walch

SALT LAKE CITY — The two essays published Wednesday by the LDS Church about its polygamous past are noteworthy for what they say about the faith's early leaders like Joseph Smith, say Mormon studies experts.

The essays, titled " Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo " and " The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage, " also reveal something about today's church leadership, which continues to signal a willingness to openly address difficult topics.

"It's the most open and frank any official church statement has ever been on Joseph Smith, polygamy, age of wives and polyandry," said Paul Reeve, who teaches classes on Mormon, Utah and U.S. history at the University of Utah. "It's the most open the church has been about post-Manifesto polygamy."

The lengthy essays posted on LDS.org describe the beginnings and endings of plural marriage in the faith's early history and call it "one of the most challenging aspects of the Restoration," a "difficult" one few Mormons initially welcomed in the 1840s but that also caused "complicated, painful — and intensely personal — decisions" at its end in the years after the 1890 Manifesto.

"These bookends of polygamy — the introduction and the end — are wrenching for Mormonism," Reeve said. "And those two bookends are the two periods we know the least about. The church went from secrecy about polygamy in Kirtland to openness in Utah back to secrecy after the Manifesto, and from monogamy to polygamy and back to monogamy in this 60-year period."

Joseph Smith

The essays don't break new ground. Official church acknowledgement of key information in them does, such as the number, ages and previous marital status of Joseph Smith's wives and the practice of plural marriage after the Manifesto.

"The actual details here are not new to scholars, which is true for many of the essays on its history that the church has released in the past year," said Patrick Mason, Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University. "Scholars have been publishing about Joseph's wives, their ages and polyandry (marriage of a woman to more than one man) for years. The significance is that the church is being open and honest and transparent about it.

"That, I think, is a positive development."

Joseph Smith, who married Emma Hale Smith in 1827, balked at the principle of plural marriage in the early 1830s, telling others that he was rebuked by angels for not following it. He eventually married his first plural wife, Fanny Alger, in Kirtland, Ohio, in the mid-1830s, according to the Kirtland/Nauvoo essay. He next was sealed to Louisa Bearman in Nauvoo in 1841.

It is unknown how many wives Joseph had before his death in 1844, though one of the essay's footnotes says careful estimates place the number between 30 and 40.

The essay also provides context. For instance, it makes a distinction about the era's temple marriages, known as sealings, that might seem foreign to modern Latter-day Saints.

In that era, the church distinguished between two types of sealings. Some marriages, as they are today, were for time and eternity, which meant they "included commitments and relationships during this life, generally including the possibility of sexual relations."

Others were for "eternity only," which indicated relationships set aside for eternity alone. Joseph Smith was sealed to several married women and a 14-year-old girl — at the time a legal age for marriage — who reported their sealings were for eternity only.

The essays say a "significant number" of Mormons practiced plural marriage, though the majority was always monogamous.

Anguish and complexity

Those involved in polygamy at the beginning or at the end faced challenges, anguish, complexity and pain.

The essays state that "the beginning and end of the practice were directed by revelation through God’s prophets," and "marriage between one man and one woman is God’s standard for marriage, unless He declares otherwise, which He did through His prophet, Joseph Smith."

Still, the faithful's belief in latter-day revelation didn't make either era easy. Leaders and members found that revelations didn't always come with clear ways for carrying them out.

The first essay, " Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo ," says "the principle was among the most challenging aspects of the Restoration — for Joseph personally and for other church members. Plural marriage tested faith and provoked controversy and opposition. Few Latter-day Saints initially welcomed the restoration of a biblical practice entirely foreign to their sensibilities. But many later testified of powerful spiritual experiences that helped them overcome their hesitation and gave them courage to accept this practice."

"Polygamy was torturous for a lot of people," Mason said. "It was hard on Joseph Smith. The essays are correct that he didn't rush into this. He later did become an enthusiastic proponent, but for all that, it was one of the most difficult things they did.

"Both of these essays do credit to the sacrifice and challenges members had, not only with opposition by the government and critics but internally and on a personal level, it was a real struggle. Polygamy was really hard on those 19th-century church members."

That was never more clear than after the Manifesto ending polygamy was issued by church leaders in 1890, which is covered in the second essay, " The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage ."

"One thing I liked was that the essay makes it clear the Manifesto provided no clear directive about what it meant for families already in polygamy," Reeve said. "That led to a 14-year period of ambiguity where some members of the hierarchy are entering into plural marriages and marrying people into plural marriages. That's a very important acknowledgement to have on the website."

A second Manifesto in 1904 put church members "on notice that new plural marriages stood unapproved by God and the Church," the essay said.

The essay uses the term "anguish" to describe the difficulties for Mormons trying to live their faith while managing changes to marriage and family relationships.

"We lose two members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and one is later excommunicated," Reeve said. "This disabuses members from the notion that the Manifesto came out in 1890 and polygamy was gone. … It was a complicated process, and the essay addresses in a way that hasn't been done in an official publication before."

For Mason, the bookend essays provide important insight into the times.

"The beginning of it is messy, and the ending of it is messy," he said. "I'm glad these came out at the same time."

Yearlong effort

Both essays continue the church's new practice of publishing academically rich essays on its website about its history and doctrine, an effort begun last November. A dozen of the essays now exist in the Gospel Topics section of LDS.org, which is found under the LDS.org home page tab for "Teachings."

Links to the new plural marriage essays are found on a Gospel Topics page called " Plural Marriage in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ." Another link on that page takes readers to a third essay, released earlier this year, " Plural Marriage and Families in Early Utah ."

"I think they're terrific," Mason said. "They are very much in line with the other essays that have come out from the church history department on the Gospel Topics pages. They show a clear effort to get ahead of the issue, to deal with issues as transparently and honestly as they can while still in a context of faith.

Some of the essays released in the past year include " Race and the Priesthood ," " First Vision Accounts " and " Book of Mormon Translation ."

Each essay is guided and approved by the church's First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, church historian Steven E. Snow said last year . He said church leaders are providing the essays to help members study chapters of their history with the best information available.

Reeve and Mason said they know some critics don't think the essays go far enough, but while they think the information "tiptoed" around some subjects, their main concern is that few Mormons are aware of any of the essays released over the past year.

"Most of the people in the pews don't know about them," Mason said. "Far more people know about 'Meet the Mormons' than know about the essays."

Reeve said, "But I understand they are walking a tightrope, where they want to provide this information for those who are struggling with these issues and having a crisis of faith while not creating one for others."

Mason agreed.

"These are sensitive issues," he said. "They have shaken the faith of some people. I understand wanting to help those with questions but not wanting to hurt those who don't have those questions. I think that's a responsible and appropriate position to take, especially from a pastoral perspective."

There are signs, Reeve said, that the essays are beginning to be used in church seminary and institute courses, which are classes for teen- and college-age members. He said they may be incorporated into online curriculum for youth classes on Sundays and a similar new curriculum being developed for adults.

Other essays published by the church in the past year include: "Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham," "Book of Mormon and DNA Studies," and "Are Mormons Christians?"

Mason called the appearance of the essays a win-win situation.

"It's a win for transparency and honesty," Mason said. "It's a win for the relationship between the church and scholarship. I think it’s a win just for historical honesty and accuracy and the confidence that we can deal with tough issues inside the church.

"The signal is, 'we're not going to argue about history and we're not going to argue about fact. We can broadly agree on what happened. Now, what does it mean?' That's a theological question, not a historical one."

Email: [email protected]

• Introduction
• Book of Mormon
• Book of Mormon Translation
• First Vision
• Book of Abraham
• Polygamy | Polyandry
• Kinderhook Plates & Translator Claims
• Testimony & Spiritual Witness
• Priesthood Restoration
• Temples & Freemasonry

So, the question of Polyandry. Polygamy is when a man has multiple wives. Polyandry is when a man marries another man’s wife. Joseph did both — Elder Marlin K. Jensen, LDS Church Historian , Swedish Rescue Fireside | Audio

One of the things that also truly disturbed me in my research was discovering the real origins of polygamy and how Joseph Smith really practiced it.

The Church and apologists now attempt to justify these polyandrous marriages by theorizing that they probably didn’t include sexual relations and thus were “eternal” or “dynastic” sealings only. How is not having sex with a living man’s wife on earth only to take her away from him in the eternities to be one of your [Joseph] forty wives any better or any less immoral?

During the summer of 1841, Joseph Smith tested Helen Mar Kimball’s father, Apostle Heber C. Kimball, by asking Heber to give his wife, Vilate – Helen’s mother – to Joseph:

If Joseph’s polygamous/polyandrous marriages are innocuous “dynastic sealings” meant for the afterlife, as the Church and apologists are now theorizing, and Joseph wanted to “dynastically link” himself to the Kimball family, why was Apostle Heber C. Kimball so troubled by Joseph’s command for his wife that he “touched neither food nor water for three days and three nights”?

Joseph took 14-year-old Helen Mar Kimball’s hand in marriage after his disturbing Abrahamic test on her father, Heber, while promising Helen and her family eternal salvation and exaltation if she accepted:

Why all the agony and anguish if this was an innocuous “Dynastic Linking” and sealing for the afterlife? Why did it seem “cruel” to Vilate, “whose heartstrings were already stretched”?

If some of these marriages were non-sexual “dynastic” “eternal” sealings only, as theorized by the Church and apologists, why would Joseph need to be sealed to a mother and daughter set? The mother would be sealed to the daughter and would become part of Joseph’s afterlife family through the sealing to her mother.

) than it was to be sealed to his own parents and to his own children?

if the girls didn’t marry him.

territory. This is not the Joseph Smith I grew up learning about in the Church and having a testimony of. This is not the Joseph Smith to whom I sang “Praise to the Man” or taught others about for two years in the mission field.

) on how polygamy is to be practiced. It is the kind of revelation you would expect from the likes of Warren Jeffs to his FLDS followers.

” It does not say that the man must get a specific revelation from the living prophet, although many members today assume that this is how polygamy was practiced.

# Again, contrary to D&C 132, the following summarizes how polygamy was actually practiced by Joseph Smith

• Unions without the knowledge or consent of the husband, in cases of polyandry.
• These married women continued to live as husband and wife with their first husband after marrying Joseph.
• Unions without the knowledge or consent of first wife Emma, including to teenagers who worked with Emma in the Smith home such as the Partridge sisters and the Lawrence girls.
• Promises of salvation and exaltation for the girls and/or their entire families.

# Joseph's polygamy also included:

William McLellin reported a conversation he had with Emma Smith in 1847, which account 38 is accepted by both LDS and non-LDS historians, describing how Emma discovered her husband’s affair with Fanny Alger:

. Zina Huntington had been married seven and a half months and was about six months pregnant with her first husband’s baby at the time she married Joseph; clearly she didn’t need any more help to “bear the souls of men.”

How about the consent of the first wife, which receives so much attention in D&C 132? Emma was unaware of most of Joseph’s plural marriages, at least until after the fact, which violated D&C 132.

The secrecy of the marriages and the private and public denials by Joseph Smith are not congruent with honest behavior. Emma was not informed of most of these marriages until after the fact. The Saints did not know what was going on behind the scenes as polygamy did not become common knowledge until 1852 when Brigham Young revealed it in Utah. Joseph Smith did everything he could to keep the practice secret from the Church and the public. In fact, Joseph’s desire to keep this part of his life a secret is what ultimately contributed to his death when he ordered the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor, which dared publicly expose his private behavior in June 1844. This event initiated a chain of events that ultimately led to his death at the Carthage jail.

Consider the following denial made by Joseph Smith to Latter-day Saints in Nauvoo in May 1844 – a mere few weeks before his death:

It is a matter of historical fact that Joseph had secretly taken over 30 plural wives by May 1844 when he made the above denial that he was ever a polygamist.

essay acknowledges that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. The facts speak for themselves – from 100% LDS sources – that Joseph Smith was dishonest.

The following 1835 edition of Doctrine & Covenants revelations bans polygamy:

and Joseph publicly taught that the doctrine of the Church was monogamy. Nevertheless, Joseph continued secretly marrying multiple women and girls as these revelations/scriptures remained in force.

stating that Joseph did not practice polygamy. Pointing to the above-mentioned D&C 101:4 scripture, these witnesses claimed the following:

to Joseph as a plural wife a few months earlier on July 27, 1842. Whitney’s wife and Sarah’s mother Elizabeth (also a signer) witnessed the ceremony.

What does it say about Joseph Smith and his character to include his plural wife and associates – who knew about his secret polygamy/polyandry – to lie and perjure in a sworn public affidavit that Joseph was not a polygamist?

Now, does the fact that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy and polyandry while denying and lying to Emma, the Saints, and the world over the course of 10+ years of his life prove that he was a false prophet? That the Church is false? No, it doesn’t.

What it does prove, however, is that Joseph Smith’s pattern of behavior or modus operandi for a period of at least 10 years of his adult life was to keep secrets, to be deceptive, and to be dishonest – both privately and publicly.

It’s when you take this snapshot of Joseph’s character and start looking into the Book of Abraham, the Kinderhook Plates, the Book of Mormon, the multiple First Vision accounts, Priesthood Restoration, and so on that you begin to see a very disturbing pattern and picture.

Today, Warren Jeffs is more closely aligned to Joseph Smith’s Mormonism than the modern LDS Church is.

← Book of Abraham Prophets →

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LDS essay: Mormons practiced polygamy after Manifesto

Religion • Article is posted days after federal judge struck down Utah's anti-cohabitation statutes.

By Peggy Fletcher Stack The Salt Lake Tribune

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Just days after a federal judge struck down parts of Utah's anti-polygamy laws, the LDS Church published an official essay about its historic ties to plural marriage, including an acknowledgment that the practice persisted even into the early 20th century.

The carefully worded article, " Plural Marriage and Families in Early Utah ," was posted Monday on the gospel topics page at lds.org, the faith's website, and spells out Mormonism's experiment with polygamy.

It comes in the wake of federal Judge Clark Waddoups' decision issued Friday that the "unlawful cohabitation" statutes of Utah were unconstitutional. The essay also follows the LDS Church's release the previous week of an article about " Race and the Priesthood ," repudiating theories behind its former ban on blacks entering the all-male priesthood .

Most of the details in the piece on plural marriage are well-known to historians, but some of them may be news to longtime Mormons or new converts in the 15 million-member Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The practice of LDS men marrying more than one wife began with a divine revelation to church founder Joseph Smith in the early 1840s, the site says. "Thereafter, for more than half a century, plural marriage was practiced by some Latter-day Saints."

In 1890, the article says, God "inspired" then-church President Wilford Woodruff to issue a statement that became known as "the Manifesto," ushering in the end of the church's practice of polygamy.

In the Manifesto, now canonized in Mormon scripture as "Official Declaration 1," Woodruff "declared his intention to abide by U.S. law forbidding plural marriage and to use his influence to convince members of the church to do likewise."

After that time, the church preached monogamy, but some "new plural marriages were performed between 1890 and 1904, especially in Mexico and Canada," as well as "a small number" in the United States.

After 1904, "the church strictly prohibited new plural marriages," the article says. "Today, any person who practices plural marriage cannot become or remain a member of the church."

Mormons do not know fully why God instituted plural marriage, the essay says, but it taught members of the new faith the principle of "personal sacrifice," "the spirit of unselfishness and the pure love of Christ for everyone involved."

Polygamous families produced a large number of Mormon children, allowed virtually every member who wanted to be married to join a family, reduced income inequality between families, and helped unite "a diverse immigrant population," the article says. "Plural marriage also helped create and strengthen a sense of cohesion and group identification among Latter-day Saints."

Mormons came to see themselves "as a 'peculiar people,' covenant-bound to carry out the commands of God despite outside opposition," it says, "willing to endure ostracism for their principles."

Jan Shipps, a retired American religion scholar in Indiana and a pre-eminent expert on Mormonism, lauds the essay as a "well-done summary of what has been covered by several scholars who have spent years researching plural marriage."

It also is a timely response to all the bad historical information on the Internet, Shipps says. "Now the people who Google a question about Mormon history will get good scholarly answers, rather than the kind that have been provided by anti-Mormons or people who are not experts in the field."

Shipps sees the essay as part of the faith's recent efforts at transparency about its past. "The LDS Church is becoming far more open about its history than it ever has been, making real information available to members and to the public."

Even though plural marriage is a distant memory in the Utah-based LDS Church, Mormon scriptures — such as Doctrine and Covenants Section 132 — describe and defend the practice and remain part of the mainline LDS canon.

Plus, men can be "sealed," or married for eternity (Mormonism's crowning rite), to more than one woman, while a woman can be sealed to only one man.

Some point to that policy as proof that, under LDS doctrine, polygamy will continue in heaven.

The new church article on plural marriage makes no mention of the future.

But after Waddoups' ruling last week, a church spokesman emphasized that Mormons "do not practice polygamy, regardless of its legal or cultural acceptance." Even in countries that permit plural marriage, polygamists are not allowed to join the LDS faith and members who do are booted out.

[email protected]

Twitter: @religiongal —

More facts about early Mormon polygamy

• Some Mormon men were recruited to enter plural marriages; others made the choice themselves.

• Brigham Young and other LDS leaders had large polygamous families, but "two-thirds of polygamist men had only two wives at a time."

• Women unhappy in their marriages could obtain divorces and remarry.

• During the decade after the Mormon pioneers arrived in Salt Lake City, a number of LDS women, like their frontier counterparts, married at "age 16 or 17 or, infrequently, younger."

• By 1857, about half of the Utah territory's residents lived in a polygamous family. That number fell to no more than 30 percent by 1870 and continued to decline thereafter.

Source: " Plural Marriage and Families in Early Utah " at lds.org —

Trib Talk: What now for Utah polygamists?

In a landmark ruling Friday, U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups effectively decriminalized polygamy. The decision simultaneously invigorated polygamy supporters, disappointed its critics and meant business as usual for those living in the twin border towns of Hildale and Colorado City.

On Tuesday at 12:15 p.m., civil-rights attorney Stewart Gollan, law professors Nate Oman and Sarah Barringer Gordon and Salt Lake Tribune reporter Jim Dalrymple join Jennifer Napier-Pearce to discuss the ruling and what happens now for polygamous communities in Utah and elsewhere.

You can join the discussion by sending questions and comments to the hashtag #TribTalk on Twitter and Google+ or submit comments in the comment section below this story.

Official LDS Essay on Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo, Annotated

The following essay is the official LDS released essay entitled "Plural  Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvooo." It was released by the church to help dispel myths about common public beliefs about how Joseph Smith introduced not just polygamy (having multiple wives) to the church, but polyandry (marrying women who are already married to a husband). In the below essay, all text in black is the unedited essay from the church essay, with my comments in blue. The essay below can be found on the LDS website here .

The annotated essay below is adapted from the following source, who continues to update the material for those who would like to read the original. You can view that by clicking here .

One point I want to make ahead of the essay is to note that while the church often remarks that prophets are 'imperfect men' when they were engaging in activities that are now deemed to be sinful,their own writings tell us to "Follow the Prophet" regardless of whether or not you believe it to be moral or acceptable. Prophet Benson released the fourteen fundamentals in following the prophet in 1981 to make it clear that "The prophet will never lead the Church astray." This is very important moving forward, as Joseph Smith engaged in practices that are now disavowed and very difficult to comprehend. The entire church rises and falls based on the legitimacy of Joseph Smith, and this essay highlights an area where Joseph Smith introduced a practice that appears to be indefensible, with reasons that are very contradictory which will be detailed below.

This essay with notes is fairly long, but it is important to include all of this information. Most of the information in the essay is new to many members, and our additional notes are new to almost all members. It is important to truly get a full picture of Joseph Smith and polygamy in order to understand just how different it is from the current church narrative. As prominent LDS historian Richard Bushman noted , "I think that for the Church to remain strong it has to reconstruct its narrative. The dominant narrative is not true; it can’t be sustained . The Church has to absorb all this new information or it will be on very shaky grounds and that’s what it is trying to do and it will be a strain for a lot of people, older people especially. But I think it has to change."

As with all of our material, please email us at [email protected] if you have any issues with our comments or suggestions to add. And without further adieu...

Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo

Latter-day Saints believe that monogamy—the marriage of one man and one woman—is the Lord’s standing law of marriage. 1 (Plural marriages/polygamy is still practiced today for widowers and men who are civilly divorced) In biblical times, the Lord commanded some of His people to practice plural marriage—the marriage of one man and more than one woman. 2 (This footnote refers to D&C 132:34-39, which states that God commanded Abraham to sleep with Hagar, his wife’s handmaiden. But according to the Bible it was Abraham’s wife Sara, not God , who told Abraham to take her handmaiden so that Abraham would be able to father children.( Genesis 16:1-3 (KJV). Nowhere in the Bible are men commanded by God to take plural wives, with the one possible exception of Hosea, which was not anything like what Joseph implemented. The Book of Mormon author Jacob strongly condemned polygamy, and specifically David’s and Solomon’s practice, which Jacob characterized as an “abomination” before God. (Jacob 2:24). But Jacob did allow a loophole: “For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed to me, I will command my people, otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.”(Jacob 2:30). The Bible is very clear on some aspects of plural marriage, so we must be very careful about using the Bible as a justification for polygamy because it requires that we pick and choose only the specific verses that suit our needs. For example, L eviticus 18 forbids marrying a mother and her daughter, and marrying sisters which is important because as we will see, Joseph Smith and other early leaders did both of these things. (Campbell & Campbell, 1978, Utah Historical Quarterly, V 46, N. 1 ; Daynes, 2001, More Wives Than One, p 70)   Some early members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also received and obeyed this commandment given through God’s prophets.

After receiving a revelation commanding him to practice plural marriage (It needs to be noted that this revelation was not recorded until 1843, approximately 10 years after his first plural marriage was performed in secret) , Joseph Smith married multiple (up to 40)  wives and introduced the practice to close associates. This principle was among the most challenging aspects of the Restoration—for Joseph personally and for other Church members. Plural marriage tested faith and provoked controversy and opposition. Few Latter-day Saints initially welcomed the restoration of a biblical practice entirely foreign to their sensibilities. But many later testified of powerful spiritual experiences that helped them overcome their hesitation and gave them courage to accept this practice.

Although the Lord commanded the adoption—and later the cessation—of plural marriage in the latter days, He did not give exact instructions on how to obey the commandment . (​While the essay wants to set the table that the polygamy revelation was unclear, it does so against the revelations they use to justify it. There is a very specific polygamy revelation that states, “Behold, mine house is a house of order, saith the Lord God, and not a house of confusion .” ( D&C 132:8). That same section begins the revelation about polygamy by saying: “Therefore, prepare thy heart to receive and obey the instructions which I am about to give unto you,” which is then followed by a very clear and specific set of instructions.

And why would God not give instructions for such an important, difficult and controversial commandment, considering that the D&C is full of very specific instructions about much more insignificant things like mission callings, the buying and selling of property, exact amounts that specific people should invest in the Nauvoo House, etc. But this statement appears to be dishonest because God actually did give exact instructions to Joseph. The problem is that Joseph didn’t follow them . The actual words in D&C 132 are very clear on how polygamy was to be practiced. First, D&C 132 states that Joseph was to marry only virgins (verses 61-62), but this essay later admits that many of Joseph’s wives were simultaneously married to other men and definitely not virgins . It also specifies that he should obtain the consent of his first wife (verse 61), but quickly introduces the loophole (verse 65) that if the first wife does not accept polygamy, Joseph could take virgin brides without her consent. It is very important to note that Joseph had many wives long before he even revealed the idea of polygamy to Emma, so he ignored the very clear process of this part of the revelation as well. D&C 132 also explicitly declares that if she stands in the way, Emma will be “destroyed. ”  And if that’s not enough, according to church apologists, in addition to these very specific instructions, God revealed to Joseph the very words for the plural marriage ceremony. (Brian Hales, Bio of Sarah Ann Whitney, www.josephsmithspolygamy.com , citing an unpublished revelation.) Which leaves the question of why the essay would declare that God did not give specific instructions on polygamy when, in fact, the instructions were very clear but not followed.

Significant social and cultural changes often include misunderstandings and difficulties. Church leaders and members experienced these challenges as they heeded the command to practice plural marriage and again later as they worked to discontinue it after Church President Wilford Woodruff issued an inspired statement known as the Manifesto in 1890, which led to the end of plural marriage in the Church. (This is another point of the essay that is not entirely true. While the manifesto was a claim to the outside world that the church had ended polygamy, church leaders actually continued to perform secret plural marriages until the Second Manifesto ended polygamy “for real” in 1904... although there were still occasional authorized polygamous marriages up until 1920 ) Through it all, Church leaders and members sought to follow God’s will.   (The church started a colony in Chihuahua, Mexico where polygamy could continue outside of the reach of US jurisdiction, which would be against God's will to cease polygamy altogether)

Many details about the early practice of plural marriage are unknown. Plural marriage was introduced among the early Saints incrementally, and participants were asked to keep their actions confidential . They did not discuss their experiences publicly or in writing until after the Latter-day Saints had moved to Utah and Church leaders had publicly acknowledged the practice. (This is also important because Joseph Smith did not record the 'revelation' he received until 1843, 10 years after he began the practice. He also kept this info secret from his initial wife Emma, and many early church members including Oliver Cowdery heard nothing of polygamy early on and assumed Joseph Smith was having an affair with Fanny Alger (Oliver Cowdery, Letter to Warren A. Cowdery, January 21, 1838))   The historical record of early plural marriage is therefore thin: few records of the time provide details, and later reminiscences are not always reliable. Some ambiguity will always accompany our knowledge about this issue. Like the participants, we “see through a glass, darkly” and are asked to walk by faith. 3

(This paragraph is designed to help dilute the impact of what is coming next by trying to muddy the waters and force members who are reading this information to rely solely on faith and not on the historical facts we now have. It is very difficult to reconcile the revelation with God's teachings, and even more difficult when it becomes clear that Joseph Smith blatantly disregarded the revelation in ways that are very hard to comprehend.)

The Beginnings of Plural Marriage in the Church

The revelation on plural marriage was not written down until 1843, but its early verses suggest that part of it emerged from Joseph Smith’s study of the Old Testament in 1831. (This date is inferred because Joseph was already being accused of polygamy in the early thirties, due to his"affair" with his 16-year old live-in maid Fanny Alger, that we are told became his wife around 1833 although no marriage records exist. There were also accusations of other incidents besides Fanny. For instance, the famous mob attack in which Joseph was tarred and feathered was led by one of the Johnson brothers, fueled by his accusation that Joseph had been indecently involved with their little sister. It is significant that they brought a doctor along to castrate Joseph. In these times, that is the only behavior that warranted punishment by castration) People who knew Joseph well later stated he received the revelation about that time. 4   (The people referred to here are W.W. Phelps, Oliver Cowdery and five other men who received instruction for their mission to the Indians to take “wives of the Lamanites and Nephites, that their posterity may become white, delightsome and just.” This is probably not mentioned specifically in the essay because of its racist overtones and contradiction to the instructions in D&C 132. This statement also contradicts the church’s other polygamy essay (Plural Marriage and Families in Early Utah), which says, “the practice of plural marriage - the marriage of one man to two or more women  - was instituted among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the early 1840s ”)   The revelation, recorded in Doctrine and Covenants 132, states that Joseph prayed to know why God justified Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and Solomon in having many wives. The Lord responded that He had commanded them to enter into the practice. 5

Here we have a problem, in that God seems to have changed his mind somewhere between the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants, which can only be explained by the need to reconcile Joseph’s interest in polygamy.

Jacob 2:24 - Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me , saith the Lord.

D&C 132: 38 - David also received many wives and concubines, and also Solomon and Moses my servants, as also many others of my servants, from the beginning of creation until this time; and in nothing did they sin save in those things which they received not of me.  

39- David’s wives and concubines were given unto him of me…

There is no way to reconcile these two scriptures - one of which Joseph revealed before he started practicing polygamy, and the other that he revealed after he had begun taking plural wives.

Latter-day Saints understood that they were living in the latter days, in what the revelations called the “dispensation of the fullness of times.” 6 Ancient principles—such as prophets, priesthood, and temples—would be restored to the earth. Plural marriage was one of those ancient principles. ( There is no biblical support for this concept . In the Bible God did not command men to take multiple wives. It was not a “principle,” but rather a secular practicality that allowed men to expand their tribe, particularly when a wife could not conceive).

Polygamy had been permitted for millennia in many cultures and religions, but, with few exceptions, was rejected in Western cultures. 7 In Joseph Smith’s time, monogamy was the only legal form of marriage in the United States. Joseph knew the practice of plural marriage would stir up public ire. After receiving the commandment, he taught a few associates about it, but he did not spread this teaching widely in the 1830s. 8   (This is an admission that Joseph was blatantly breaking the law. This is important to keep this in mind when legality is mentioned later in the essay)

When God commands a difficult task, He sometimes sends additional messengers to encourage His people to obey. Consistent with this pattern, Joseph told associates that an angel appeared to him three times between 1834 and 1842 and commanded him to proceed with plural marriage when he hesitated to move forward. During the third and final appearance, the angel came with a drawn sword, threatening Joseph with destruction unless he went forward and obeyed the commandment fully. 9

This leads to another important question: Is this really how God operates, or is this a way to manipulate someone to do something that is otherwise contrary to their morals/conscience? Why didn’t God instead send the angel to the girls to inspire them, rather than using a completely unverifiable story with an unusual demand that goes against all teaching in the Bible?

If the angel first appeared in the early 1830s and Joseph complied by marrying Fanny Alger, why did this angel need to keep returning to threaten Joseph? In fact, Joseph continued to use the angel warning with women even after he already had 20 wives. As in Fanny’s case, Joseph sometimes obtained his brides (many in the mid-teenage years) by promising their parents a guarantee of exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom as a reward for sacrificing their daughter to him. He would then sometimes use the story of the angel with the drawn sword if his first proposals were unsuccessful. Why would God take away the free agency of these women when the promise of exaltation was extended to an entire family, furthered by the warning that an angel would destroy Joseph if they were not entered into a polygamous marriage?

It is important to step back and consider the events of the restoration (as given by Joseph Smith) that were so important that God needed to send an angelic messenger to make sure the message was driven home:

Moroni’s delivery of the Gold Plates

The restoration of the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods

Elijah’s transfer of the sealing keys

Joseph’s failure to marry enough wives

We are told in this essay to believe that polygamy and polyandry are such a high priority in God’s plan that an angel would kill Joseph Smith for not fully participating. If that is the case, how they were these same revelations so easily disavowed with a letter written by Wilford Woodruff to “whom it may concern?” (Doctrine and Covenants, Official Declaration 1)

One final point on the angel story:

The story itself is very disturbing in what we are to believe of God's will. We are told to accept that God sent an angel to command Joseph Smith who then used the story to intimidate/pressure potential polygamous brides, yet we are clearly told the entire revelation only came about because Joseph Smith himself inquired why others were allowed plural wives in the Bible. "Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you my servant Joseph, that inasmuch as you have inquired of my hand to know and understand wherein I, the Lord, justified my servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as also Moses, David and Solomon, my servants, as touching the principle and doctrine of their having many wives and concubines" (D&C 132)

The authors of this official church essay, approved by the First Presidency, are looking you in the eye and with a straight face asking you to not only believe this story, but to embrace it as morally commendable and redeeming. After Joseph Smith asked God why others were allowed to have 'many wives and concubines,' God answered by not only telling Joseph that it was OK (which goes against the Bible), and then sent an angel to make sure Joseph Smith expanded an idea that was from his own inquiry. It just does not make sense on any level.

Fragmentary evidence suggests that Joseph Smith acted on the angel’s first command by marrying a plural wife, Fanny Alger, in Kirtland, Ohio, in the mid-1830s. (There is no marriage record to corroborate this marriage) Several Latter-day Saints who had lived in Kirtland reported decades later that Joseph Smith had married Alger, who lived and worked in the Smith household, after he had obtained her consent and that of her parents. 10   (First, as with many problematic issues in the church, the details appear decades after the problem. Second, there is no record that gives an indication that the parents of Fanny Alger gave consent to Joseph, and all accounts that we do have incidicate this was an affair)

Little is known about this marriage (There is actually a good amount known about it from the letters and journals of several people heavily involved in the church) , and nothing is known about the conversations between Joseph and Emma regarding Alger (Except that Emma, who had previously loved their live-in babysitter and housekeeper like a daughter, immediately kicked her out of the house upon discovering her relationship with Joseph. This is the relationship that Oliver Cowdery described as a “dirty, nasty, filthy affair.” (Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, p. 323), an accusation that resulted in Oliver’s excommunication. Fanny was the first of many teenage girls that Joseph first brought into his home as a servant or foster daughter and then later married without Emma’s knowledge or approval. Another example is the Partridge sisters, who Joseph and Emma took into their home as foster daughters after the death of their father. Joseph secretly married them and then, as will be revealed later in this essay, was forced to marry them again in a mock wedding with Emma’s knowledge) . After the marriage with Alger ended in separation, Joseph seems to have set the subject of plural marriage aside until after the Church moved to Nauvoo, Illinois. (A “separation” which consisted of Emma throwing Fanny out of the house in the middle of the night after she caught her and Joseph in the act by peeking through a gap between the boards of the barn (Compton, 1997, In Sacred Loneliness, p. 34. In Sacred Loneliness is also footnote #29 in this essay, which means the LDS church considers it a reputable source).

So we must ask, what kind of “marriage” did Joseph have with Fanny Alger? It was not a legal marriage, because he was already legally married to Emma. According to the laws of Ohio and the United States this relationship was considered adultery. What do the 12th Article of Faith say about obeying the law? Neither can we call this a celestial marriage, because the Fanny affair happened around 1833-34 and the sealing power would not be restored until 1836 with the visit of Elijah to the Kirtland temple. Joseph’s own reason, as stated to Levi Hancock, who claims to have performed the marriage (although there is much doubt about whether such a ceremony was actually performed, since it was only reported decades later), was simply that Joseph was in love with Fanny.

Sarah Ann Whitney was a 17-year old teenage bride who married Joseph with her parents’ approval in trade for Joseph’s promise of their eternal glory. On August 18th, several weeks after the marriage, Joseph wrote a letter to his new bride and her parents while he was hiding from the law at a home on the outskirts of Nauvoo: “...my feelings are so strong for you since what has passed lately between us...it seems, as if I could not live long in this way; and if you three would come and see me...it would afford me great relief...I know it is the will of God that you should comfort me now in this time of affliction...the only thing to be careful of; is to find out when Emma comes then you cannot be safe, but when she is not here, there is the most perfect safty (sic)...burn this letter as soon as you read it; keep all locked up in your breasts...You will pardon me for my earnestness on this subject when you consider how lonesome I must be...I think emma wont come tonight if she dont dont fail to come tonight...” (Dean C. Jessee, The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, 539–540). We don’t know how many letters were burned but Sarah was not the only bride who kept a letter from Joseph with instructions to burn it after reading.

Plural Marriage and Eternal Marriage

The same revelation that taught of plural marriage was part of a larger revelation given to Joseph Smith—that marriage could last beyond death and that eternal marriage was essential to inheriting the fullness that God desires for His children. As early as 1840, Joseph Smith privately taught Apostle Parley P. Pratt that the “heavenly order” allowed Pratt and his wife to be together “for time and all eternity.” 11 Joseph also taught that men like Pratt—who had remarried following the death of his first wife—could be married (or sealed) to their wives for eternity, under the proper conditions. 12 (Pratt met an untimely death when he was stabbed to death by the legal husband of the woman who he had taken for his 12th wife).

The sealing of husband and wife for eternity was made possible by the restoration of priesthood keys and ordinances. On April 3, 1836, the Old Testament prophet Elijah appeared to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in the Kirtland Temple (two or three years after Joseph’s supposed sealing to Fanny ) and restored the priesthood keys necessary to perform ordinances for the living and the dead, including sealing families together. 13 Marriages performed by priesthood authority could link loved ones to each other for eternity, on condition of righteousness; marriages performed without this authority would end at death. 14

Marriage performed by priesthood authority meant that the procreation of children and perpetuation of families would continue into the eternities. Joseph Smith’s revelation on marriage declared that the “continuation of the seeds forever and ever” helped to fulfill God’s purposes for His children. 15 This promise was given to all couples who were married by priesthood authority and were faithful to their covenants.

The revelation on eternal marriage was first written down in 1843 after Emma demanded to see a revelation before she would agree to let Joseph marry plural wives, even though he already had 20 or so wives that he was keeping secret from her. The new potential wives were the Partridge sisters, who were the Smith’s foster daughters. Joseph produced the document and Hyrum delivered it to Emma. She burned it. Fortunately Hyrum had another copy which is now preserved as Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants. If you read the entire section, including the verses that are never included in Sunday school discussions, it is clear that the “new and everlasting covenant” refers specifically to plural marriage, not to monogamous temple marriage, as we are taught today. Brigham Young later clearly differentiated between “celestial marriage” (i.e. polygamy) and monogamy. (Journal of Discourses, vol. 14, p. 43 (May 8, 1870) and openly derided monogamy and identified it as an evil practice: “... this monogamic system which now prevails throughout all Christendom, and which has been so fruitful a source of prostitution and whoredom throughout all the Christian monogamic cities of the Old and New World, until rottenness and decay are at the root of their institutions both national and religious.” (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, v. 11, p. 128)

Plural Marriage in Nauvoo

For much of Western history, family “interest”—economic, political, and social considerations—dominated the choice of spouse. Parents had the power to arrange marriages or forestall unions of which they disapproved. By the late 1700s, romance and personal choice began to rival these traditional motives and practices. 16 By Joseph Smith’s time, many couples insisted on marrying for love, as he and Emma did when they eloped against her parents’ wishes.

Latter-day Saints’ motives for plural marriage were often more religious than economic or romantic. Besides the desire to be obedient, a strong incentive was the hope of living in God’s presence with family members. In the revelation on marriage, the Lord promised participants “crowns of eternal lives” and “exaltation in the eternal worlds.” 17 Men and women, parents and children, ancestors and progeny were to be “sealed” to each other—their commitment lasting into the eternities, consistent with Jesus’s promise that priesthood ordinances performed on earth could be “bound in heaven.” 18

Actually, early prophets made it clear that men who did not participate in polygamy could not participate in exaltation in the highest degree of glory, and would not even be allowed to keep the one wife to which they were sealed:

“Now, where a man in this church says, ‘I don't want but one wife, I will live my religion with one.' He will perhaps be saved in the Celestial Kingdom; but when he gets there he will not find himself in possession of any wife at all.... and he will remain single forever and ever.” (Prophet Brigham Young, Deseret News, September 17, 1873

“I  understand the law of celestial marriage to mean that every man in this Church, who has the ability to obey and practice it in righteousness and will not, shall be damned, I say I understand it to mean this and nothing less, and I testify in the name of Jesus that it does mean that. (Prophet Joseph F. Smith, Journal of Discourses, Vol.20, p.31, July 7, 1878)

“… Wo unto that Nation or house or people who seek to hinder my People from obeying the Patriarchal Law of Abraham [polygamy] which leadeth to a Celestial Glory… for whosoever doeth those things shall be damned Saith the Lord.” ( Prophet Wilford Woodruff's Journal 1833-1898, under January 26, 1880, v. 7, pp. 546)

The first plural marriage in Nauvoo took place when Louisa Beaman and Joseph Smith were sealed in April 1841. 19   (Before moving to Nauvoo, Joseph apparently married his second plural wife Lucinda Pendleton Morgan Harris in Missouri as early as 1838. This was also his first polyandrous marriage, as Lucinda was already married to a devout LDS member and leader, George Washington Harris)

Joseph married many additional wives (Footnote 24 below says: “Careful estimates put the number between 30 and 40.” See Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy,2:272–73) and authorized other Latter-day Saints to practice plural marriage. The practice spread slowly at first. By June 1844, when Joseph died, approximately 29 men and 50 women had entered into plural marriage, in addition to Joseph and his wives (who had nearly twice as many wives as all other men combined) . When the Saints entered the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, at least 196 men and 521 women had entered into plural marriages. 20 Participants in these early plural marriages pledged to keep their involvement confidential, though they anticipated a time when the practice would be publicly acknowledged.

Nevertheless, rumors spread. A few men (specifically, the former mayor of Nauvoo and Joseph’s once good friend Dr. John C. Bennett and Joseph’s brother William, who was also an apostle and served for a while as the church’s patriarch) unscrupulously used these rumors to seduce women to join them in an unauthorized practice sometimes referred to as “spiritual wifery.” When this was discovered, the men were cut off from the Church. 21 (It is important to note that the ONLY difference between these marriages and Joseph’s marriages is that they were done without Joseph’s express permission. Joseph’s marriages were equally secret and illegal) The rumors prompted members and leaders to issue carefully worded denials that denounced spiritual wifery and polygamy but were silent about what Joseph Smith and others saw as divinely mandated “celestial” plural marriage. 22 The statements emphasized that the Church practiced no marital law other than monogamy while implicitly leaving open the possibility that individuals, under direction of God’s living prophet, might do so. 23

This is another area of the essay that is clearly dishonest when they refer to "carefully worded denials.”  The footnote from the essay explains these denials thus: “In the denials, “polygamy” was understood to mean the marriage of one man to more than one woman but without Church sanction.” Effectively, they are differentiating between “polygamy” and “plural marriage” as verbal semantics that Joseph used to lie to both the public and most members of the church about his secret marriages. Just to make it clear, the “members and leaders” mentioned here refers mostly to Joseph himself. In other words he lied publicly, both in printed articles and in public speeches about his plural marriages by using a politician’s trick of having a different definition in his head from the definition that he knows you have in your head. When Bill Clinton said, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman,” he was excluding oral sex from his personal definition of sexual relations. This is a ploy that later came to be known among the church leadership as “lying for the lord” and there are many examples of it.  Remember, this essay was approved by the First Presidency and Apostles. It flatly states that Joseph committed a crime and then lied about it. In order to convince us that the so-called “carefully worded denials” aren't damaging to the reasons why polygamy is from God, the essay redefines a very important word and buries it in an endnote, which they know most people will not read. Put another way, the essay contends that if Joseph Smith chooses to call his relationships with all of these polygamous wives “celestial marriage” it’s gives him room to deceptively deny the charges of “polygamy.”

In one example of Joseph’s public “carefully worded denials” he said, "What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven wives, when I can only find one" - (Joseph Smith - LDS History of the Church 6:411). Joseph had over 20 wives at the time he made this statement.

From the Gospel Principles Manual lesson 31, Honesty:

Complete honesty is necessary for our salvation. President Brigham Young said, “If we accept salvation on the terms it is offered to us, we have got to be honest in every thought, in our reflections, in our meditations, in our private circles, in our deals, in our declarations, and in every act of our lives” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young [1997], 293).”

Satan would have us believe it is all right to lie. He says, “Yea, lie a little; … there is no harm in this” ( 2 Nephi 28:8 ). Satan encourages us to justify our lies to ourselves. Honest people will recognize Satan’s temptations and will speak the whole truth, even if it seems to be to their disadvantage.

There are many other forms of lying. When we speak untruths, we are guilty of lying. We can also intentionally deceive others by a gesture or a look, by silence, or by telling only part of the truth. Whenever we lead people in any way to believe something that is not true, we are not being honest.

In 1842, Emma, although she knew about some of Joseph’s previous indiscretions with other women and girls, was still unaware that Joseph was actively taking wives which by then were over 20. The persistent rumors motivated her to commit the relief society to the purpose of eradicating polygamy from Nauvoo, and Joseph played along. Here is a statement that was published in the church newspaper and signed by Emma and the rest of her Relief Society presidency with Joseph’s encouragement:

“We the undersigned members of the ladies’ relief society, and married females do certify and declare that we know of no system of marriage being practiced in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints save the one contained in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants... [i.e., the now-deleted Section 101:4 that forbids polygamy]...“ (Times & Seasons, vol. 3, p. 940 (Oct. 1, 1842)

Emma Smith, President,

Elizabeth Ann Whitney, Counselor,

Sarah M. Cleveland, Counselor,

Eliza R. Snow, Secretary

What Emma did not know at the time was that all three of the other members of her presidency who signed this statement were secretly committed to polygamy and two were actually married clandestinely to her own husband:

• Elizabeth Ann Whitney was an eyewitness to her daughter Sarah Ann’s plural marriage to Joseph Smith on July 27, 1842 (Compton, p. 347);

• Sarah M. Cleveland was married to Joseph Smith on June 29, 1842, officiated by Brigham Young and witnessed by Eliza Snow (id., p. 277);

• Eliza R. Snow was married to Joseph Smith also on June 29, 1842, officiated by Brigham Young and witnessed by Sarah M. Cleveland) (id., p. 313).

It is very difficult to read this information and not feel incredibly sorry for Emma, who had absolutely no idea not only what her husband was up to, nor what her closest friends in the church were doing in the name of God without her knowledge.

Joseph Smith and Plural Marriage

During the era in which plural marriage was practiced, Latter-day Saints distinguished between sealings for time and eternity and sealings for eternity only (The essay fails to mention that there were also time-only polygamous and polyandrous marriages , the exact opposite of eternity-only) . Sealings for time and eternity included commitments and relationships during this life, generally including the possibility of sexual relations (To be clear here, the church is establishing that marriages for "time" are sexual, where eternal marriages may or may not include sex with multiple wives) .   Eternity-only sealings indicated relationships in the next life alone. (This is a concept that is based purely on assumptions for this essay. This paragraph is intended to help get give those with questions an out by suggesting that some of the marriages might not have had a sexual component. For some reason the authors think that if they can show that some of the marriages didn’t involved sex people won’t care as much that the rest did.)

Evidence indicates that Joseph Smith participated in both types of sealings (This is the church's way of indicating that many included sex with wives beyond Emma, but not all 30-40) . The exact number of women to whom he was sealed in his lifetime is unknown because the evidence is fragmentary. 24 Some of the women who were sealed to Joseph Smith later testified that their marriages were for time and eternity (Yes, at least some of these women explicitly stated that they had sex with Joseph, and some of them even did it under oath at the church’s request to PROVE that Joseph was a polygamist for the Temple Lot case) , while others indicated that their relationships were for eternity alone (No sexual relations specifically mentioned) . 25

Emily Dow Partridge, one of the teenage sisters mentioned previously, testified under oath that she had “carnal intercourse” with Joseph Smith on multiple occasions (Emily Dow Partridge Young, Deposition, Temple Lot Transcript, Part 3). Apologists have tried to explain this as a false testimony that she was forced to give at the command of  Brigham Young and other priesthood leaders who were unquestionably having sex with multiple women at the time. Again we are left with a moral dilemma: was Emily telling the truth about her sexual encounters with the prophet Joseph, or was the current prophet forcing her to lie about Joseph’s sexual relationship with her?  One of these must be the correct answer but either implicates a prophet. Neither option is good, but one of them must be true.

Most of those sealed to Joseph Smith were between 20 and 40 years of age at the time of their sealing to him. The oldest, Fanny Young, was 56 years old. The youngest was Helen Mar Kimball, daughter of Joseph’s close friends Heber C. and Vilate Murray Kimball, who was sealed to Joseph several months before her 15th birthday (The authors really, really, really do not want to admit that Helen was just 14 years old when she married 37-year old Joseph Smith, even though apologists contend there was nothing wrong with it and it was actually common for a 37 year old to marry a 14 year old (and while it was certainly more common for women to get married at 14 than it is now, it wasn't at all common for that marriage to be with someone 23 years older)) . Marriage at such an age, inappropriate by today’s standards, was legal in that era, and some women married in their mid-teens. 26

Notice the emphasis is made here on the legality of marrying a 14-year old, as if the fact that it’s legal is all we should be concerned about. If the authors are really concerned about legality this might be a good time to remind them that this marriage was already undeniably illegal because of its polygamous nature, so the legality argument goes right out the window. The essay also fails to mention Joseph’s other illegal 14-year old wife, Nancy Maria Winchester (Compton, p. 606).

I will also challenge the favorite apologetic excuse for Joseph’s marriage to Helen and other teenagers that it was common for older men to marry 14-year olds at the time. This is absolutely not true. Yes, it was legal (if the only marriage), but it was rare and it was no less scandalous in Victorian America than it is today. The average marriage age for women was 20 and for men 24, almost always marrying someone near their own age. It must also be pointed out that 19th century girls typically had their first period three years later than girls do today. In terms of sexual maturity, marrying a 19th century 14-year old was the equivalent of marrying a 21st century 11-year old, so these were very possibly prepubescent girls (Boaz, 1999, Essentials of biological anthropology).

To put it in more modern, church-relevant terms, Joseph's wives break down like this:

-Mia Maids: 2

-Laurels: 5

-YSA girls: 7

-Relief Society sisters: 20+ (half of them already married to other men)

These comments sound very harsh, but there are facts that speak for themselves. Given the details surrounding the revelation, it is important to note the inconsistencies, the timeline issues, how Joseph Smith broke D&C 132, and how he lied to everyone about it including his wife. These are not "anti-Mormon" statements, but verifiable facts through church approved sources.

We must also consider the circumstances around Helen’s betrothal to Joseph. First Joseph commanded Helen’s father, Heber C. Kimball to turn his own wife, Vilate, over to Joseph as a plural wife. After a great deal of anguish, Heber finally agreed. When the Kimballs showed up to deliver Vilate to Joseph, and when Joseph saw how distraught and broken-hearted the Kimballs were, he showed mercy and told them the request had really only been a test of Heber’s loyalty, with Vilate serving as a prop. Heber would be allowed to keep his wife after all, but was later allowed to offer his 14-year old daughter in her stead, and as was common in these proposals, Joseph would guarantee a place in the Celestial Kingdom for the entire Kimball family. How could the family turn down such a high pressure offer? Once Joseph knew that Heber was more loyal to him than to his own family he knew he could ask anything of him.

Helen Mar Kimball spoke of her sealing to Joseph as being “for eternity alone,” suggesting that the relationship did not involve sexual relations. 27 After Joseph’s death, Helen remarried and became an articulate defender of him and of plural marriage. 28

This defense of plural marriage is a reference to a poem that Helen wrote much later in life, but in which she tells a much more complicated story. Here is the potion to which they are referring. Helen actually seems to be longing for freedom from here relationship with Joseph:

I thought through this life my time will be my own

The step I now am taking’s for eternity alone,

No one need be the wiser, through time I shall be free,

And as the past hath been the future still will be.

If you read the entire poem you will see that she actually complains about how she felt deceived that she had been told that the marriage was for “eternity alone” but afterward found that she was removed from society, became the target of “slanderous tongues”  and realized that she had made a “generous sacrifice” without weighing the “bitter price.”

She also wrote that her father had traded her to the Prophet to get into Joseph’s inner circle. She said: “My father had but one Ewe Lamb, but willingly laid her upon the alter: how cruel this seemed to the mother whose heartstrings were already stretched until they were ready to snap asunder, for he had taken Sarah Noon to wife & she thought she had made sufficient sacrifice, but the Lord required more… I will pass over the temptations which I had during the twenty four hours after my father introduced to me this principle & asked me if I would be sealed to Joseph, who came next morning & with my parents I heard him teach & explain the principle of Celestial marriage -- after which he said to me, “If you will take this step, it will ensure your eternal salvation and exaltation & that of your father’s household & all of your kindred.”   (How can Joseph Smith guarantee an entire family exaltation for the daughter becoming a polygamous wife? It does not work under the doctrines of the church whatsoever) This promise was so great that I willingly gave myself to purchase so glorious a reward. None but God & his angels could see my mother’s bleeding heart — when Joseph asked her if she was willing, she replied “If Helen is willing I have nothing more to say.” She had witnessed the sufferings of others, who were older & who better understood the step they were taking, & to see her child, who had scarcely seen her fifteenth summer, following in the same thorny path, in her mind she saw the misery which was as sure to come as the sun was to rise and set; but it was all hidden from me” (Helen Mar Whitney, Autobiography, March 30, 1881). This is not as tidy as you are led to believe, and these decisions with heartbreaking for these women to make. This agonized memoir was written almost 40 years later, after Helen had supposedly become, according to this essay, an “articulate defender” of polygamy.

Although this essay tries to dissuade us from any notion that these marriages were sexual in nature, Helen, in another document stressed in her own words the essentially sexual nature of these polygamous marriages : “It was revealed to the latter that there were thousands of spirits, yet unborn, who were anxiously waiting for the privilege of coming down to take tabernacles of flesh... which makes this plural wife system an actual necessity… The principle was established by the Prophet Joseph Smith, and all who have entered into it in righteousness, have done so for the purpose of raising a righteous seed. (Helen Mar Whitney, Why We Practice Plural Marriage, pp. 7-8 (Juvenile Instructor 1884 - spelling and grammar as in original).Consider that Helen asks us to accept that the sole purpose of plural marriage is for procreation, why should we assume that she herself is the exception?

After Joseph’s death Helen remarried, moved to Utah and had 11 children with her new husband, but was never permitted to be sealed to him because she she already belonged to Joseph - What kind of God would deny eternal life and sealing to the father of 11 children based on Joseph Smith marrying her as he did? That is a question that has no answer.

Following his marriage to Louisa Beaman and before he married other single women, Joseph Smith was sealed to a number of women who were already married. 29 Neither these women nor Joseph explained much about these sealings, though several women said they were for eternity alone. 30 Other women left no records, making it unknown whether their sealings were for time (designation to include sex) and eternity or were for eternity alone.

This is, again, a misleading statement. This essay wants you to assume that Joseph only married into all of these polygamous relationships to build a dynasty for himself after his death. While it is true that some of the women left no record, others certainly did!  For example, Joseph’s polyandrous wife Patty Bartlett Sessions wrote in her journal: “I was sealed to Joseph Smith by Willard Richards Mar 9, 1842, in Newel K. Whitney's chamber, Nauvoo, for time and all eternity ... (Noall, Intimate Disciple, Portrait of Willard Richards, p. 611).

Other polyandrous wives indicated that their marriage was more than just dynastic in nature. After Joseph’s death some of these women were claimed by Brigham Young and had children with him . Louisa bore 5 children to Brigham. When Joseph married Zina Jacobs (after several rejected proposals and finally a warning of retribution by the sword-wielding angel) she was already pregnant by her husband Henry, who was a faithful member of the church and a president of the Seventy, and who remained deeply in love with his wife for the rest of his life despite being sent away on many missions, during one of which Joseph married his wife. Later Brigham sent Henry on a mission and impregnated Zina while he was away (Compton, pp. 84, 88, 90–9). Women like Louisa and Zina are the best evidence that these polyandrous marriages were NOT merely for eternity. Brigham said he practiced polygamy exactly as taught to him by Joseph Smith . These women remained sealed to Joseph after his death but were married for time only (Designation here, again, for sex) to Brigham Young, all while they remained married to their original husbands.

But what is the reason of designating an “eternity alone” marriage anyway, apart from a rhetorical tactic for church apologists to avoid the implication of sex? First, it defies the proclaimed purpose of polygamy, which is to “raise up righteous seed.” Second, even if these marriages were purely dynastic in nature (but they weren’t and this essay admits this despite its attempts to tiptoe around it), was it really more honorable for Joseph to take a man’s wife for all of eternity, rather than for just a few years, just to grow Joseph’s own dynasty while robbing the dynasty of another man who would otherwise have shared with his wife for eternity? It seems not only wrong on a moral level, but it has no connection to any Biblical teachings before Joseph Smith.

Regardless of whether or not Joseph had sex with Helen, the church today recognizes that he did have sex with other young wives, because they themselves testified that he did, and some even signed affidavits to that effect to disprove the claims of the Reorganized church that Joseph was not a polygamist. But why should this be such a surprise? There is no argument that Brigham Young and later prophets’ marriages, many of them to teenagers, were not sexual in nature, including some women and girls who had also been married to Joseph. Brigham even had his own expanded version of polyandry; if he wanted a woman he would simply take her away from her husband by authority of his superior priesthood standing. He even gave a General Conference talk about it where he said, “If a woman can find a man holding the keys of the priesthood with higher power and authority than her husband (i.e. himself and those around him) , and he is disposed to take her, he can do so, otherwise she has got to remain where she is. (George D. Watts, Conference Reports, Oct. 8, 1861)

In addition, it is well understood that other polygamist men in Nauvoo, such as Joseph Smith’s personal secretary William Clayton, had children with their plural wives, and with Joseph’s permission. If these men had not been living the principle correctly Joseph would have called them to repentance and removed them from their callings, and probably from the church entirely, as he did with the men who practiced “spiritual wifery” without his express permission as referenced above. Instead, Joseph kept these men close to him and in his confidence and they retained their high priesthood callings. He gave them his blessing and encouraged them to take even more wives.

There are several possible explanations for this practice. These sealings may have provided a way to create an eternal bond or link between Joseph’s family and other families within the Church. 31 These ties extended both vertically, from parent to child, and horizontally, from one family to another. Today such eternal bonds are achieved through the temple marriages of individuals who are also sealed to their own birth families, in this way linking families together. Joseph Smith’s sealings to women already married may have been an early version of linking one family to another (This is quite an assumption with no doctrinal basis) . In Nauvoo, most if not all of the first husbands seem to have continued living in the same household with their wives during Joseph’s lifetime, and complaints about these sealings with Joseph Smith are virtually absent from the documentary record. 32   (But not entirely absent. Even less absent are the complaints from very upset husbands of women who were approached by Joseph but who rejected his proposals. These include worthy priesthood holders like Orson Pratt, Albert Smith, William Law and Hiram Kimball).

These sealings may also be explained by Joseph’s reluctance to enter plural marriage because of the sorrow it would bring to his wife Emma. He may have believed that sealings to married women would comply with the Lord’s command without requiring him to have normal marriage relationships (which include sex) . 33 This could explain why, according to Lorenzo Snow, the angel reprimanded Joseph for having “demurred” on plural marriage even after he had entered into the practice. 34 (The essay is now telling us that the angel was actually sent to threaten Joseph with death because he wasn’t having enough “normal marriage relationships!”) After this rebuke, according to this interpretation, Joseph returned primarily to sealings with single women.

Another possibility is that, in an era when life spans were shorter than they are today, faithful women felt an urgency to be sealed by priesthood authority. Several of these women were married either to non-Mormons or former Mormons (But many were married to faithful Mormons, and this violates D&C 132 which says you can only espouse virgins) , and more than one of the women later expressed unhappiness in their present marriages (This is an awful justification for taking extra wives) . Living in a time when divorce was difficult to obtain, these women may have believed a sealing to Joseph Smith would give them blessings they might not otherwise receive in the next life. 35 (If women were actually pursuing Joseph why did he continue to use the angel-with-sword story to convince them?)

It is a deceptive misdirection to suggest that Joseph was heroically rescuing these women from substandard husbands. Take the example of Sarah Pratt. Joseph started making proposals to her (which she rejected) after sending her husband Orson was on a mission in Europe. Orson was a good enough man to be called on a mission and to become the longest serving apostle in the church. Did Sarah need Joseph because her husband wasn’t a worthy priesthood holder? Or Marinda Johnson Hyde, who Joseph married after he sent her husband Orson, also an apostle, to Jerusalem as the Lord’s emissary to consecrate Palestine for the gathering of Israel. Not a worthy priesthood holder?

Take a moment to consider about how this information has been presented to you by the church. Did you notice how many times the authors use phrases like “may be,” “may have,” “another possibility,” “several possible explanations,” or “he may have believed” are used? Why is it that this essay, sanctioned by the Prophet and Apostles, cannot provide clear and unequivocal answers to these most basic and important questions? How are we supposed to give Joseph a pass because he was an imperfect product of his times when he violated his own revelations that were only written down years after the information on polygamy was becoming public knowledge? Overall, this essay is really insisting that Joseph was doing exactly what God demanded, so why are church authorities and apologists always using the “you shouldn’t expect our leaders to be perfect” explanation? This essay is structured to put the burden on you for either being unfaithful for not accepting without question, or for having unreasonable expectations, which are also mutually exclusive propositions.

If plural marriage was intended only to link families together why did so many of Joseph’s wives have to be young girls and other men’s wives? The Law of Adoption, which Joseph also practiced on occasion, allowed men to be sealed to other men as adopted sons. Why didn’t Joseph just seal those men to him directly, rather than sealing himself to their daughters? Or why didn’t Joseph seal these girls to himself as celestial daughters, rather than wives, and allow them to find worthy husbands for the eternities? Why remove them from a normal social life and prevent them from finding companionship with someone their own age?  Helen Kimball made it very clear that she was forbidden to associate with her peers because she was now a married woman. Or why not limit the sealings to older women and widows, as we were all once told was the real reason for polygamy, if there really was no sexual component to these relationships?

And this is where the "dynastic/kinship bond" argument falls completely flat. If it was really all about eternity-only sealings that were intended to eternally join friends in the afterlife there would be no need for the secrecy and lying. Joseph could simply have said, "Emma, I love the Kimballs and I want to be connected with them for eternity. God has revealed to me an ordinance that will make this possible;" no lying, no denying, no “when Emma comes then you cannot be safe ...burn this letter as soon as you read it.” Why couldn’t it just be forthright, transparent and honest?  If all of this was really as noble and godly as the authors of this essay want us to believe there wouldn’t have been a need for all of this hand wringing and excuse making. Simply sealing families to other families would not have been illegal and it would not have caused so much pain and damage to families and young girls.

The women who united with Joseph Smith in plural marriage risked reputation and self-respect in being associated with a principle so foreign to their culture and so easily misunderstood by others. “I made a greater sacrifice than to give my life,” said Zina Huntington Jacobs, “for I never anticipated again to be looked upon as an honorable woman.” (Does this read like she merely participated in a symbolic “eternity only” ceremony?) Nevertheless, she wrote, “I searched the scripture & by humble prayer to my Heavenly Father I obtained a testimony for myself.” 36 After Joseph’s death, most of the women sealed to him moved to Utah with the Saints, remained faithful Church members, and defended both plural marriage and Joseph.37   (Once isolated in Utah these woman, who had mostly been passed on to Brigham Young, John Taylor, and Heber C. Kimball, had little choice but to become defenders of plural marriage if they wanted to see bread on the table for those men’s children.)

This might be a good time to point out that Joseph Smith was not only breaking the laws of the land and lying to Emma and everyone outside of his secret circle, he was also disobeying every revelation he had received on the subject of marriage. We have already seen how he was disobeying the requirement to marry only virgins, as commanded in D&C 132 . At least a dozen of his wives were already married to other men. But worse, he was doing all of this while the Doctrine and Covenants still contained the original Section 101 , which has been deleted from today’s version of the D&C. The former Section 101 was replaced in the 1876 version of the D&C by the Section 132 we have today. Why the change? Because the former Section was in complete contradiction to Joseph’s behavior at the time. It clearly denounced polygamy and contained the unambiguous commandment that all members of the LDS Church practice ONLY monogamy. The relevant verse says: “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 the case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again ( D&C 101:4 - 1835 ed.). Notice that this section was added to the D&C solely because Joseph Smith had been accused of polygamy. Joseph’s behavior constituted adultery under both the laws of the land and the laws of God, according to canonized latter-day scripture. Would God have given Joseph Smith a revelation that was not true as we now know Section 101 to have been when supposedly given?

Joseph and Emma

Plural marriage was difficult for all involved. For Joseph Smith’s wife Emma, it was an excruciating ordeal (And unnecessary given the essay’s claim that it was only about linking families) . Records of Emma’s reactions to plural marriage are sparse; she left no firsthand accounts, making it impossible to reconstruct her thoughts (This is again misleading in order to avoid diving into the issue deeper. We have a lot of information from journals and diaries to clearly show that Emma despised polygamy, and near the end of her life continued to lie that there was never any polygamy conducted by Joseph) . Joseph and Emma loved and respected each other deeply. After he had entered into plural marriage, he poured out his feelings in his journal for his “beloved Emma,” whom he described as “undaunted, firm and unwavering, unchangeable, affectionate Emma.” After Joseph’s death, Emma kept a lock of his hair in a locket she wore around her neck. 38

Emma approved, at least for a time of four of Joseph Smith’s plural marriages in Nauvoo, and she accepted all four of those wives into her household (and then kicked them out almost immediately) .

There is a lot more to this story. Emily and Eliza Partridge, who were living with the Smiths as foster daughters, had already married Joseph without the knowledge or consent of Emma. However, two months later Joseph finally persuaded Emma to allow him to take plural wives. Emma gave Joseph permission to marry the Partridge girls. Instead of being honest with his "beloved Emma," Emily and Eliza were married for a second time to Joseph in a mock wedding. (Compton, p. 409). Emma had second thoughts and kicked the two girls out of her house almost immediately. Emily wrote that shortly after, “She sent for us one day to come to her room. Joseph was present, looking like a martyr. Emma said some very hard things ...She would rather her blood would run...than be polluted in this manner...Joseph came to us and shook hands with us, and the understanding was that all was ended between us” (Compton: 409-411). Joseph did have knowledge and permission - briefly - from Emma for a few of his 30 to 40 marriages, even though many years later in her firsthand  interview with Joseph Smith III , and in contradiction to what this essay claims, Emma denied ever having any knowledge that Joseph practiced polygamy.

She may have approved of other marriages as well. 39 But Emma likely did not know about all of Joseph’s sealings. 40 (It is very telling that Joseph didn’t rush to be sealed to Emma as soon as he claimed to receive the sealing keys. In fact he waited 7 years . Joseph and Emma were sealed on May 28, 1843. By that date Joseph already had around 25 secret plural wives , to whom, according to this essay, he WAS sealed. Emma was not allowed to be sealed to Joseph because she didn’t know he was a polygamist, and until she allowed him to marry the Partridge sisters, because sealing was exclusively an ordinance of polygamy ) . She vacillated in her view of plural marriage, at some points supporting it and at other times denouncing it. (Again, this is misleading. Emma approved for polygamy for a very brief window for just four of Joseph Smith's polygamous relationships, but was deeply against polygamy at all over times. It is very misleading to claim she was constantly changing back and forth, but the essay needs to do this in order to paint what Joseph Smith was doing in the best light possible)

In the summer of 1843, Joseph Smith dictated the revelation on marriage, a lengthy and complex text containing both glorious promises and stern warnings , some directed at Emma 41 (Specifically that she was denied her request to take William Law as a second husband and was explicitly threatened that she would be “destroyed” if she didn’t submit to Joseph’s plural marriages. If you look at footnote 41, referenced here, you will see that it is a warning that this threat of destruction is still considered relevant for all LDS women today. The footnote reads: “ Doctrine and Covenants 132:54, 64 . The warning to Emma Smith also applies to all who receive sacred ordinances by authority of the priesthood but do not abide the covenants associated with those ordinances .” While polygamy is not currently practiced on Earth, it is still practiced in the after-life and currently through sealings in the temples.)   The revelation instructed women and men that they must obey God’s law and commands in order to receive the fullness of His glory (and stresses that women must obey the man to whom they are “ given ” (verses 51, 52, 61, 62, 63, or they will be “ destroyed ” (verses 52, 54, 64). Again - is this how we are to believe that God would respond to a question that Joseph Smith initiated when he prayed to know why some in the Bible had concubines but not him?).

The revelation on marriage required that a wife give her consent before her husband could enter into plural marriage. 42 Nevertheless, toward the end of the revelation, the Lord said that if the first wife “receive not this law”—the command to practice plural marriage—the husband would be “exempt from the law of Sarah,” presumably the requirement that the husband gain the consent of the first wife before marrying additional women. 43 After Emma opposed plural marriage (and before, since Joseph never asked early on and just married women behind her back) , Joseph was placed in an agonizing dilemma, forced to choose between the will of God and the will of his beloved Emma. He may have thought Emma’s rejection of plural marriage exempted him from the law of Sarah. Her decision to “receive not this law” permitted him to marry additional wives without her consent (This is quite the convenient loophope in a revelation that was written long after Joseph had already married a couple dozen women/girls behind Emma’s back without even giving her the option to permit or reject those marriages) . Because of Joseph’s early death and Emma’s decision to remain in Nauvoo and not discuss plural marriage (her heart was broken and she knew that polygamy had been the cause of Joseph’s death) after the Church moved west, many aspects of their story remain known only to the two of them. (What is not stressed in current LDS history is that it was the polygamous contingent of the church that moved west, and those who were still unaware of the depths of polygamy. Those who knew about polygamy and did not want to participate stayed behind and formed the RLDS. In their view it was the polygamists who left the church as it does not fit with the teachings of God and not them. These saints numbered in the thousands and included Emma and her children, Joseph’s mother, his only living brother, the Three Witnesses and all of the living Eight Witnesses).

Part of Emma’s short-lived approval of polygamy was contingent on a contractual agreement that she would be taken care of financially regardless of what happened to Joseph. Joseph’s personal secretary William Clayton recorded that only hours after Emma initially rejected the polygamy revelation, “Joseph told me to deed all the unencumbered lots to Emma and the children. He appears much troubled about Emma.” Three days later, Clayton recorded: “Made Deed for 1/2 Steam Boat Maid of Iowa from Joseph to Emma. Also a Deed to Emma for over 60 city lots”(The Journals of William Clayton, Signature Books, 1995). William Law remembered that Emma confided to him in a conversation that probably occurred in the fall of 1843, “Joe and I have settled our troubles on the basis of equal rights.” (The Law Interview, The Daily Tribune: Salt Lake City, July 31, 1887). After this exchange, Emma finally gave Joseph permission to marry the Partridge girls, unaware that he was already married to them. She was also finally permitted to get her own temple endowment.

Trial and Spiritual Witness

Years later in Utah, participants in Nauvoo plural marriage discussed their motives for entering into the practice. God declared in the Book of Mormon that monogamy was the standard; at times, however, He commanded plural marriage so His people could “raise up seed unto [Him].” 44 Plural marriage did result in an increased number of children born to believing parents. 45 (This is an untrue and apparently intentionally misleading statement.  Footnote 45 contains no such information, but merely reroutes us to another footnote in their Utah polygamy essay which informs us that: “Studies have shown that monogamous women bore more children per wife than did polygamous wives except the first.” In other words, the entire premise of polygamy as a way to quickly grow the church is false and this essay uses a “carefully worded denial” to circumvent that inconvenient fact. This is not even a half-truth; it is a non-truth. Once again the entire premise of this revelation is undercut, which again begs the question as to why God would give a revelation that would be detrimental to the stated goal of raising up seed).

Some Saints also saw plural marriage as a redemptive process of sacrifice and spiritual refinement. According to Helen Mar Kimball, Joseph Smith stated that “the practice of this principle would be the hardest trial the Saints would ever have to test their faith.” Though it was one of the “severest” trials of her life, she testified that it had also been “one of the greatest blessings.” 46 Her father, Heber C. Kimball, agreed. “I never felt more sorrowful,” he said of the moment he learned of plural marriage in 1841. “I wept days. … I had a good wife. I was satisfied.” 47   (The reason that Heber Kimball noted that he wept for days is because Joseph Smith had commanded him to give up *his wife* to be one of Joseph's wives. Joseph then said it was a test and he would not take his wife before then asking for and marrying his 14 year old daughter. In exchange, Joseph promised the entire Kimball family exaltation, which goes against doctrine and once again treats women like a commodity to polygamists.)

The decision to accept such a wrenching trial usually came only after earnest prayer and intense soul-searching. Brigham Young said that, upon learning of plural marriage, “it was the first time in my life that I had desired the grave.” 48 “I had to pray unceasingly,” he said, “and I had to exercise faith and the Lord revealed to me the truth of it and that satisfied me.” 49 (It is difficult to find much sincerity in this statement considering that Brigham went on to be the world’s most famous and enthusiastic polygamist, even bragging in General Conference about his prowess with girls: “I could find more girls who would choose me for a husband than can any of the young men.” (Journal of Discourses, 26 vols., 5: 210)) . Heber C. Kimball found comfort only after his wife Vilate had a visionary experience attesting to the rightness of plural marriage. “She told me,” Vilate’s daughter later recalled, “she never saw so happy a man as father was when she described the vision and told him she was satisfied and knew it was from God.” 50

Why was Heber so happy? His wife had finally given him permission to start bringing other women into their marriage, just like Joseph.  What Vilate didn’t know at the time was that Heber was already secretly married to his first plural wife, Sarah Noon, in violation of D&C 132’s admonition that the first wife must give approval before taking other wives. Heber went on to marry 43 women. He said, “For a man of God to be confined to one woman is small business... I do not know what we should do if we had only one wife apiece” (Heber C. Kimball, Deseret News, April 22, 1857). One of the things he is remembered for was repeatedly chastising missionaries for marrying the pretty girls and sending the “ugly” ones back to Utah for him and the other General Authorities to pick through. Here’s one of several of his well documented comments along those lines: “The brother missionaries have been in the habit of picking out the prettiest women for themselves before they get here, and bringing on the ugly ones for us; hereafter you have to bring them all here before taking any of them, and let us all have a fair shake."( Apostle Heber C. Kimball, The Lion of the Lord, New York, 1969, pp.129-30) . Kimball also famously declared before a gathering of the saints, “I think no more of taking another wife than I do of buying a cow.” (Ann-Eliza Snow, Wife No. 19, Chapter 17) When women are treated as commodities, it is difficult to feel that there is any sincerity among the men participating in polygamy that they are spiritually troubled by it.

Lucy Walker recalled her inner turmoil when Joseph Smith invited her to become his wife. “Every feeling of my soul revolted against it,” she wrote. Yet, after several restless nights on her knees in prayer (and fasting, which helps to lead people into emotional/spiritual confirmation when they are seeking confirmation) , she found relief as her room “filled with a holy influence” akin to “brilliant sunshine.” She said, “My soul was filled with a calm sweet peace that I never knew,” and “supreme happiness took possession of my whole being.” 51 (This was recounted decades later in Utah while she was married to Heber C. Kimball for time only (i.e. sex). Lucy is a another example where Joseph took girls into his house as servants or foster children and then secretly marrying them. Lucy arrived in Nauvoo with her father, mother, and 9 siblings. When her mother died of malaria Joseph immediately sent Lucy’s father on a mission, promising to care for his family. Six of the children were sent to other homes but Joseph said, “the four Eldest shall come to my house and [be] received and treated as my own children” Lucy was 15 years old at the time.  Shortly after her father was on his mission Joseph came to Lucy and told her she was commanded to become his wife and that it would ensure the salvation of her and her entire family. He told her she had one day to consider before he revoked the eternal privileges. After a great deal of agony, Lucy accepted and was married secretly to Joseph. Remember, this was a child entirely dependent on this man for her family's eternal exaltation as well as temporal living. She said ““ Emma Smith was not present and she did not consent to the marriage; she did not know anything about it at all .”  Of the relationship, Lucy said,  " I afterwards married Joseph as a plural wife and lived and cohabitated with him as such … It was not a love matter, so to speak, in our affairs, - at least on my part it was not, but simply the giving up of myself as a sacrifice to establish that grand and glorious principle that God had revealed to the world.” (Bushman; 492,  Compton; 462-464 ).

Not all had such experiences. Some Latter-day Saints rejected the principle of plural marriage and left the Church (although many remained devout believers in the restoration while merely rejecting the polygamist Brighamite faction of the church) , while others declined to enter the practice but remained faithful (they went west but they were barred from holding any priesthood office and told that they were exempt from exaltation in the highest kingdom of heaven as a result) . 52 Nevertheless, for many women and men, initial revulsion and anguish was followed by struggle, resolution, and ultimately, light and peace. Sacred experiences enabled the Saints to move forward in faith. 53

The challenge of introducing a principle as controversial as plural marriage is almost impossible to overstate. A spiritual witness of its truthfulness allowed Joseph Smith and other Latter-day Saints to accept this principle. Difficult as it was, the introduction of plural marriage in Nauvoo did indeed “raise up seed” unto God (Do not forget footnote 45 which contradicts the argument that more children are born from polygamous marriages than traditional marriages. This essay overtly and erroneously claims that polygamy provided more children than monogamy, but indirectly admits the truth, via the footnotes within footnotes, that it actually yielded fewer offspring than monogamous marriages. This is an intentional misrepresentation of the facts) . A substantial number of today’s members descend through faithful Latter-day Saints who practiced plural marriage.

Church members no longer practice plural marriage. 54 Consistent with Joseph Smith’s teachings, the Church permits a man whose wife has died to be sealed to another woman when he remarries (¼ of the current apostles at the time of this writing are sealed to multiple women who they believe will be their polygamist wives in the next life) . Moreover, members are permitted to perform ordinances on behalf of deceased men and women who married more than once on earth, sealing them to all of the spouses to whom they were legally married (in other words we are still performing polygamous marriages in the temple, but only for those who have died, and for living men with one of more wives that have passed) . The precise nature of these relationships in the next life is not known, and many family relationships will be sorted out in the life to come (This is quite the admission that the church did some unthinkable things when they claim to not even know what it all means in the afterlife!) . Latter-day Saints are encouraged to trust in our wise Heavenly Father, who loves His children and does all things for their growth and salvation. 55

So the essay’s ultimate conclusion is that, regardless of what went on in Kirtland and Nauvoo, God will sort it all out in the end anyway? So why then did Joseph Smith have to do all of this in the first place? Why secretly marry these women and girls behind Emma’s back? Why marry women who already had worthy, devoted, and moral husbands? Why did Joseph destroy the Nauvoo Expositor printing press, which this essay verifies was actually telling the truth about him , and which resulted in his arrest for treason and his subsequent murder? Why did God threaten Joseph with a sword-wielding angel if He was just going to sort things out in the end anyway?

I also would like to understand why our church leaders can’t give us any satisfactory answers rather than two conflicting options. Should we “give Brother Joseph a break” (Neil L. Andersen, General Conference, October 2015), along with his friends and later prophets and apostles because they were imperfect men and a products of their times, or should we accept the theme in this essay, which is that God left them to figure it out on their own without proper instructions (even though the instructions were clear, but not followed by Joseph who recorded the revelation ten years after he begun having these relationships)? Or should we believe, as this essay also asserts, that Joseph was doing exactly what God wanted, and that God sent a sword-wielding angel to force him to do it against his will, even though it meant disobeying clear instructions given to him by God in the D&C 132 revelation? Even though it required him to break the law? Even though it brought so much sorrow to Emma and so many others?

This essay leaves us with many more unanswered questions. For instance, we might ask why we should believe this essay’s claim that polygamy was essential, doctrinal, and demanded by God and ignore a more recent prophet who, before this essay was written, declared “I condemn it [polygamy], yes, as a practice, because I think it is not doctrinal ” (Gordon B. Hinckley, Larry King Live, September 8, 1998).

This essay reveals some very difficult truths. It admits that Joseph Smith married dozens of women and teenage girls as young as 14, and that he married women who were already married to other men. It suggests that he may not have had sexual relationships with some of them but tacitly acknowledges that he did with others. It admits that he publicly lied about these relationships and that he did most of this behind Emma’s back. I believe that anyone who lives the kind of strict moral life that the LDS church demands of its members should be deeply shaken when they read these things. The disconcerting thing about this essay and the intentions of the people behind it is that it not only excuses this behavior, it actually condones it and asks us to embrace it as righteous and godly.

The creators of this essay take those values about families that we cherish most and they tell you that, in regards to certain priesthood leaders, it’s ok for you to look the other way. In fact, if you have a problem with polygamy it is because you have not prayed enough. They place you in a position where you feel that if you that if you are uncomfortable with these things it is your fault for not being faithful enough. This is the definition of gaslighting and victim blaming and it’s an unhealthy relationship because it requires you to ignore our own moral compass and look to others to tell you what is right or wrong, to ignore what is glaringly obvious not only to your conscience, but to your common sense.

There is a reason this essay has caused many members to leave - it forces you to believe that God forced Joseph Smith to conduct polygamy by threat of angel after Joseph himself initiated the question. It also forces you to believe that God is willing to let a prophet disobey the commandments of D&C 101 and replace it with another revelation that Joseph Smith again disobeyed.

It also much be asked what kind of God would allow for a man to take the wives of other faithful, believing members while they are on missions for eternity, robbing those men of the chance to be with their wives forever. Or why God would allow a man to marry the very teenage girls he has taken the responsibility to care for as daughters.

The ultimate conclusion that the answers can be given through personal revelation ignore the fact that many current polygamous sects do just that - and receive revelation from God *today* that polygamy is the will of God. If they can receive this personal revelation, why are we to believe that the revelations we receive now that match what church leaders tell us are any more valid, and not just a confirmation of our previous bias? The video of other religions talking about their spiritual revelations is here, and will start with the polygamist teenager bearing her testimony.

Thank you for reading this annotated essay to the end. I know it is long, and I know it is very difficult to read these things that were previously unknown to almost all LDS members. I hope that you will continue to research this issue and that you will be willing to research from both LDS and non-LDS sources to get the full picture, and read Doctrine and Covenants section 132 in its entirety knowing what is in the above essay and notations we have made. It is impossible to believe that God would allow for this kind of behavior that puts intimidation and stress on young women who have to choose between marrying a self-proclaimed prophet of God in marriage or losing her entire family's chance at exaltation. It is wrong, it is immoral, and the timelines and details do not lend any credibility to Joseph Smith being a true prophet of God.

Please email us with any suggestions, corrections, or if you have any sources that can provide more information that can help enhance this essay. Thank you again!

LDS Resources/Footnotes:

See “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” ; Jacob 2:27, 30 .

Doctrine and Covenants 132:34–39 ; Jacob 2:30 ; see also Genesis 16 .

1 Corinthians 13:12 ; Jeffrey R. Holland, “ Lord, I Believe ,” Ensign, May 2013.

See Andrew Jenson, “Plural Marriage,” Historical Record 6 (May 1887): 232–33; “Report of Elders Orson Pratt and Joseph F. Smith,” Millennial Star 40 (Dec. 16, 1878): 788; Danel W. Bachman, “New Light on an Old Hypothesis: The Ohio Origins of the Revelation on Eternal Marriage,” Journal of Mormon History 5 (1978): 19–32.

See Doctrine and Covenants 132:1, 34–38 .

Doctrine and Covenants 112:30 ; 124:41 ; 128:18 .

“Polygamy,” in The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, ed. John Bowker (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 757; John Cairncross, After Polygamy Was Made a Sin: The Social History of Christian Polygamy (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974).

Lorenzo Snow, deposition, United States Testimony 1892 (Temple Lot Case), part 3, p. 124, Church History Library, Salt Lake City; Orson Pratt, in Journal of Discourses, 13:193; Ezra Booth to Ira Eddy, Dec. 6, 1831, in Ohio Star, Dec. 8, 1831.

See Brian C. Hales, “Encouraging Joseph Smith to Practice Plural Marriage: The Accounts of the Angel with a Drawn Sword,” Mormon Historical Studies 11, no. 2 (Fall 2010): 69–70.

See Andrew Jenson, Research Notes, Andrew Jenson Collection, Church History Library, Salt Lake City; Benjamin F. Johnson to Gibbs, 1903, Benjamin F. Johnson Papers, Church History Library, Salt Lake City; “Autobiography of Levi Ward Hancock,” Church History Library, Salt Lake City.

Parley P. Pratt, The Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, One of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ed. Parley P. Pratt Jr. (New York: Russell Brothers, 1874), 329.

Hyrum Smith, sermon, Apr. 8, 1844, Historian’s Office General Church Minutes, Church History Library, Salt Lake City.

These were the same priesthood keys Elijah had given to Apostles anciently. (See Matthew 16:19 ; 17:1–9 ; Doctrine and Covenants 2 .)

Doctrine and Covenants 132:7 ; 131:2–3 .

Doctrine and Covenants 132:19–20, 63 ; see also “ Becoming Like God .”

Stephanie Coontz, Marriage, A History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage (New York: Viking Penguin, 2005), 145–60; Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500–1800, abridged ed. (Middlesex, UK: Penguin Books, 1985), 217–53.

Doctrine and Covenants 132:55, 63 .

Doctrine and Covenants 132:46 ; Matthew 16:19 .

Joseph Smith’s practice of plural marriage has been discussed by Latter-day Saint authors in official, semi-official, and independent publications. See, for example, Jenson, “Plural Marriage,” 219–34; B. H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1930), 2:93–110, Danel W. Bachman and Ronald K. Esplin, “Plural Marriage,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 2:1091-95; and Glen M. Leonard, Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, a People of Promise (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and Brigham Young University, 2002), 343–49.

Brian C. Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, 3 vols. (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2013),1:3, 2:165.

Joseph Smith, Journal, May 19, 24, and 26, 1842; June 4, 1842, available at josephsmithpapers.org . Proponents of “spiritual wifery” taught that sexual relations were permissible outside of legalized marital relationships, on condition that the relations remained secret.

In the denials, “polygamy” was understood to mean the marriage of one man to more than one woman but without Church sanction.

See, for example, “On Marriage,” Times and Seasons, Oct. 1, 1842, 939–40; and Wilford Woodruff journal, Nov. 25, 1843, Church History Library, Salt Lake City; Parley P. Pratt, “This Number Closes the First Volume of the ‘Prophet,’” The Prophet, May 24, 1845, 2. George A. Smith explained, “Any one who will read carefully the denials, as they are termed, of plurality of wives in connection with the circumstances will see clearly that they denounce adultery, fornication, brutal lust and the teaching of plurality of wives by those who were not commanded to do so” (George A. Smith letter to Joseph Smith III, Oct. 9, 1869, in Journal History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Oct. 9, 1869, Church History Library, Salt Lake City).

Careful estimates put the number between 30 and 40. See Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy,2:272–73.

See Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, 2:277–302. Despite claims that Joseph Smith fathered children within plural marriage, genetic testing has so far been negative, though it is possible he fathered two or three children with plural wives. (See Ugo A. Perego, “Joseph Smith, the Question of Polygamous Offspring, and DNA Analysis,” in Newell G. Bringhurst and Craig L. Foster, eds., The Persistence of Polygamy: Joseph Smith and the Origins of Mormon Polygamy [Independence, MO: John Whitmer Books, 2010], 233–56.)

J. Spencer Fluhman, “A Subject that Can Bear Investigation’: Anguish, Faith, and Joseph Smith’s Youngest Plural Wife,” in Robert L. Millet, ed., No Weapon Shall Prosper: New Light on Sensitive Issues (Provo and Salt Lake City: Brigham Young University Religious Studies Center and Deseret Book, 2011), 104–19; Craig L. Foster, David Keller, and Gregory L. Smith, “The Age of Joseph Smith’s Plural Wives in Social and Demographic Context,” in Bringhurst and Foster, eds., The Persistence of Polygamy, 152–83.

Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, Autobiography, [2], Church History Library, Salt Lake City.

Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, Plural Marriage as Taught by the Prophet Joseph: A Reply to Joseph Smith, Editor of the Lamoni (Iowa) “Herald” (Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1882); Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, Why We Practice Plural Marriage (Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1884).

Estimates of the number of these sealings range from 12 to 14. (See Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith [Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997], 4, 6; Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, 1:253–76, 303–48.) For an early summary of this practice, see John A. Widtsoe, “Evidences and Reconciliations: Did Joseph Smith Introduce Plural Marriage?” Improvement Era 49, no. 11 (Nov. 1946): 766–67.

Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, 1:421–37. Polyandry, the marriage of one woman to more than one man, typically involves shared financial, residential, and sexual resources, and children are often raised communally. There is no evidence that Joseph Smith’s sealings functioned in this way, and much evidence works against that view.

Rex Eugene Cooper, Promises Made to the Fathers: Mormon Covenant Organization (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1990), 138–45; Jonathan A. Stapley, “Adoptive Sealing Ritual in Mormonism,” Journal of Mormon History 37, no. 3 (Summer 2011): 53–117.

For a review of the evidence, see Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, 1:390–96.

Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Knopf, 2005), 440.

See Lorenzo Snow, deposition, United States Testimony 1892 (Temple Lot Case), part 3, p. 124.

The revelation on marriage provided powerful incentives for a marriage performed by priesthood authority. (See Doctrine and Covenants 132:17–19, 63.)

Zina Huntington Jacobs, autobiographical sketch, Zina Card Brown Family Collection, Church History Library, Salt Lake City; spelling modernized.

The historical record is striking for the lack of criticism found among those who had once been Joseph Smith’s plural wives, although most of the wives left no written record.

Joseph Smith, Journal, Aug. 16, 1842, in Andrew H. Hedges, Alex D. Smith, and Richard Lloyd Anderson, eds., Journals, Volume 2: December 1841–April 1843, vol. 2 of the Journals series of The Joseph Smith Papers, edited by Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, and Richard Lyman Bushman (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2011), 93–96, available at josephsmithpapers.org ; Mary Audentia Smith Anderson, ed., Joseph Smith III and the Restoration (Independence, MO: Herald House, 1952), 85.

Jenson, “Historical Record,” 229–30, 240; Emily Dow Partridge Young, deposition, United States Testimony 1892 (Temple Lot Case), part 3, pp. 365–66, 384; Orson Pratt, in Journal of Discourses, 13:194.

Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, 2:8, 48–50, 80; Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 473.

Doctrine and Covenants 132:54, 64 . The warning to Emma Smith also applies to all who receive sacred ordinances by authority of the priesthood but do not abide the covenants associated with those ordinances. See, for example, Psalm 37:38 ; Isaiah 1:28 ; Acts 3:19–25 ; and Doctrine and Covenants 132:26, 64 .

Doctrine and Covenants 132:61 . In Utah, the first wife was part of the plural marriage ceremony, standing between her husband and the bride and placing the hand of the bride in the hand of the husband. “Celestial Marriage,” The Seer 1 (Feb. 1853): 31.

Doctrine and Covenants 132:65 ; see also Genesis 16:1–3 .

Jacob 2:30 .

On the question of children, see note 6 of “ Plural Marriage and Families in Early Utah .”

Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, Why We Practice Plural Marriage, 23–24.

Heber C. Kimball, Discourse, Sept. 2, 1866, George D. Watt Papers, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, transcribed from Pitman shorthand by LaJean Purcell Carruth.

Brigham Young, in Journal of Discourses, 3:266.

Brigham Young, Discourse, June 18, 1865, George D. Watt Papers, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, transcribed from Pitman shorthand by LaJean Purcell Carruth; see also Brigham Young, in Journal of Discourses, 11:128.

Orson F. Whitney, Life of Heber C. Kimball, an Apostle: The Father and Founder of the BritishMission (Salt Lake City: Kimball Family, 1888), 338; see also Kiersten Olson, “‘The Embodiment of Strength and Endurance’: Vilate Murray Kimball (1806–1867),” in Women of Faith in the Latter Days, Volume One, 1775–1820, ed. Richard E. Turley Jr. and Brittany A. Chapman (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2011), 137.

Lucy Walker Kimball, “Brief Biographical Sketch,” 10–11, Church History Library, Salt Lake City.

Sarah Granger Kimball, for example, rejected plural marriage in Nauvoo but came west with the Saints. Many of the individuals who rejected plural marriage, including Emma Smith, later became members of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

For example, see “Evidence from Zina D. Huntington-Young,” Saints’ Herald, Jan. 11, 1905, 29; Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, “Mary Elizabeth Rollins,” Susa Young Gates Papers, Utah State Historical Society.

Gordon B. Hinckley, “ What Are People Asking about Us? ” Ensign, Nov. 1998; “ Polygamy ,” Newsroom, topics page.

Alma 26:35 ; Doctrine and Covenants 88:41 ; 1 Nephi 11:17 .

Additional Resources:

Campbell, Eugene E., and Bruce L. Campbell. Divorce Among Mormon Polygamists: Extent and Explanations. Utah Historical Quarterly, 1978.

Compton, Todd. In sacred loneliness: The plural wives of Joseph Smith. Signature Books, 1997.

Daynes, Kathryn M. More wives than one: transformation of the Mormon marriage system, 1840-1910. University of Illinois Press, 2001.

Newell, Linda King, and Valeen Tippetts Avery. Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith. University of Illinois Press, 1994.

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Gospel Topic Essays: 010: Polygamy

• July 26, 2020 April 24, 2023

We continue our tour of the Gospel Topics Essays and with the essay Plural Marriage in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints .  The Goal – To share the LDS Church’s Gospel Topic Essays and help the both the believing member and the non-believer get a sense of the why these essays were written, who the intended audience is, whether these essays resolve the concerns of the faithful and non-believer and why they perhaps these essays even add to the disbelief of those who skeptical of the issues they find in Mormon History.

RESOURCES: https://josephsmithspolygamy.org/mormon_polygamy/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormonism_and_polygamy

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/topic/polygamy

http://www.mormonthink.com/joseph-smith-polygamy.htm

https://www.fairmormon.org/conference/august-2015/joseph-smiths-polygamy-toward-a-better-understanding

Co-Hosts of this episode

Allan Mount is Co-host of the Marriage on a Tightrope podcast with his wife Kattie. After 35 faithful years in the church, it was the Gospel Topic Essays that acted as a catalyst to his faith transition. He is a sales director for a technology company in South Jordan Utah. Kattie and Allan have 4 children.

Anthony Miller is an entrepreneur and education enthusiast in Billings, Montana, with Masters degrees in Business Administration and in Financial Services. After a lifetime of faithful membership in the church, he experienced a faith transition after he stumbled across the Gospel Topics Essays and similar materials in 2016, while he was searching for resources to support his adult gay son. Anthony blogs at UnpackingAmbiguity.com and is a frequent contributor to post and progressive Mormon support communities.

Lindsay Hansen Park is an American Mormon feminist blogger, podcaster, and the Executive Director for the Salt Lake City-based non-profit Sunstone Education Foundation . She blogs for Feminist Mormon Housewives (FMH) about women’s issues inside and outside of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She is the main voice behind the Year of Polygamy podcast .  Her work and voice have been referenced in The Wall Street Journal, The Salt Lake Tribune’s Trib Talk, Salt Lake City Weekly, The Guardian and Quartz.

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2 thoughts on “Gospel Topic Essays: 010: Polygamy”

30 min intro, wow. I’m absolute fan of LHP and yearofpolygamy.com podcast. She is truly exceptional, and humble.

As a young male convert to the church, I was sort of disappointed that there wasn’t more polygamous stuff, we are sort of anti-polygamy today and that’s how my wife likes it.

Should circumstances permit it. I will attend the sunstone event.

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Scott D. Pierce: New docuseries delves into the ‘secrets’ of Utah polygamists

Woman who escaped flds church comes forward because of her family..

Faith Bistline grew up a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and there’s something she wants everyone to know about it.

“I hope that they see that the FLDS is a criminal organization. Straight up,” Bistline told The Tribune. “Every facet of these extreme polygamous groups, there’s always children who are suffering. There’s always crimes against children.”

She makes that point quite forcefully in “Secrets of Polygamy,” which premieres Monday on A&E. In addition to the FLDS, there are episodes that feature the Kingstons (aka The Order) and the Apostolic United Brethren.

Bistline — who grew up with three mothers and 27 siblings — didn’t exactly jump at the chance to appear in “Secrets.” She’s done interviews before, but this is her first time on TV, and she struggled with the decision because she knew it would, inevitably, involve her bringing members of her family into it.

“I was very scared about re-victimizing my little sisters and the women in my family,” Bistline said. “And also exploiting them, and telling their story without their permission.”

She eventually said yes to the show’s producers because she “started to get frustrated with the fact that my little sisters wouldn’t come forward” as witnesses in the case against Samuel Bateman. Followers told The Tribune in 2022 that Bateman lied to members of the FLDS Church, telling them that imprisoned FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs is dead and that he is the new leader. Arrested in August 2022, Bateman is facing 51 felony charges — including for sexually assaulting underage girls he took as “brides.”

(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Samuel Bateman leaves the courthouse during the trial of Warren Jeffs in St. George on Sept. 14, 2007. Bateman was present as an observer and supporter of Jeffs.

Most of Bistline’s family, she said, is following Bateman. Bistline said her older brother gave his underage daughters — one just 12 years old — to Bateman as wives. (The brother was arrested last May, and other members of Bistline’s family are also facing charges.)

Bistline is in the first of 10 episodes of “Secrets of Polygamy,” which airs Monday on A&E — 8 p.m. on Dish and DirecTV; 11 p.m. on Comcast. She agreed to be interviewed, she said, when she “started to realize” her sisters wouldn’t come forward “because they didn’t have an example in their life of someone doing that. I decided to speak out to be an example.”

As she explains in the program, Bistline left the FLDS Church in 2011, when she was 19. She said she felt there was “more than this” to life and she didn’t want “to be stuck in a marriage where I was just one of multiple women and I don’t have an identity. And my only purpose in life is to have children. … That can be a great purpose. But if that’s chosen for me, it feels like I’m an object.”

And entering the world outside the church “was a culture shock, for sure.” She not only recalls wearing a bikini for the first time, but has vivid memories of when she began wearing pants. “I would catch myself in the mirror and just, like, shock myself, because I had legs,” she said with a laugh. “I mean, I don’t want to say it wasn’t hard, because I was missing my family a lot. But it was very exciting.”

Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune Handcuffed and flanked by Las Vegas Metro PD Swat officers, FLDS leader Warren Jeffs appeared before Judge James M. Bixler in the Clark County Regional Justice Center on August 31, 2006, and waived an extradition hearing, agreeing to be returned to Utah to face charges related to allegedly arranging an underage marriage.

Bistline went to college, got a nursing degree, and “nursing became my new identity.” But now Bateman “has entered the chat.”

“There was a period of years between when I left and when Sam Bateman took over my family that I felt pretty normal,” Bistline said. “I went years trying to shove it away. I wanted to be known for my career and my brain. And then when all of this started happening with Sam Bateman, I had a realization that there’s … not a greater cause than to fight for children who are stuck in situations like this.”

“Secrets” isn’t the first documentary or series about polygamy, and it’s not chock full of secrets. Most of it will only be new to those who haven’t paid much attention. It’s in the vein of “Keep Sweet” or “Escaping Polygamy” — it’s not one of those so-called reality shows like “Sister Wives,” which quickly devolved into unintended comedy.

It’s a serious story, complete with ominous music and a straightforward narrative that is a bit flat. If you’re already interested in the subject of polygamy, it will be of interest to you. And, judging by the number of shows and documentaries about polygamy, there are plenty of people who are interested. Exactly why is hard to say, even for a former member of the FLDS Church.

“This is my life. It’s hard for me to step outside and see what the fascination is,” Bistline said. “I don’t know what it’s like to have just a two-parent household.”

But she has come to some conclusions about the FLDS Church, the people who remain in it and the people who’ve escaped.

“Growing up, I was always told that anyone who leaves regrets it and they always want to come back,” Bistline said. “And in my brain, I thought, ‘Oh, they can’t survive without the religion. They need the religion because they need a purpose.’

“But once I left, I realized, ‘Oh my God, it’s not the religion that they need — it’s their family.’ That’s the hard part.”

Editor’s note • This story is available to Salt Lake Tribune subscribers only. Thank you for supporting local journalism.

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512: Discussing the New LDS.org Polygamy Essays Part 2 – With Lindsay Hansen Park, J. Nelson-Seawright, and Joe Geisner

• December 3, 2014

In this second installment, we bring together an all-star cast of Mormon Stories favorites to discuss the  Early Utah Polygamy essay:

• Lindsay Hansen Park, who in the middle of an amazing and incredibly exhaustive project for Feminist Mormon Housewives in the  Year of Polygamy podcast series.
• Joe Geisner, a long-time Mormon historian who has been assisting Lindsay in her research for the Year of Polygamy project.
• J. Nelson-Seawright , a political science professor at Northwestern University, frequent blogger and commenter on Mormonism and a favorite guest of Mormon Stories.

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77 Responses

For me, it only played 7 minutes and 4 seconds. Is the error on my end?

Me too….

I got three more seconds. Mine ended abruptly, mid-sentence, at 7:07.

Thanks for the interview!

Re. Section 132 – Aren’t there more options than complete decanonization and doing nothing?

Thank you very much Joan for listening. Do you see other options? I would love to hear you thoughts.

I’ve seen suggestions that v. 26, 41-44, 51-58 and 61-65 be removed, along with other minor adjustments.

Thank you Joan for your response. I wrote this for another group, about this podcast, in response to the idea that Mormon Theology does not allow for the de-canonization of 132. Here is my response:

I think it is quite debatable if Mormonism has a theology (I am not the only person who suggests this). With that being said, you can make theology say what ever you want it to say. Theology doesn’t need evidence or logic or history. You can just make it up. So, yes, Mormon “theology” can say what ever the leaders want it to say. I am correct about 132, there is historical precedent and it would be quite easy for the 15 to De-canonize. There is nothing in Mormonism that has absolute ties. I really like what Mark Scherer has written and said: “The Community of Christ has to decide whether they would follow a prophet from Palmyra or a carpenter of Nazareth?” They chose to follow the carpenter and as I told Mark, they are on solid footing, we Utah Mormons are on sand.

In the piece you wrote for the other group, what exactly is it about Mormon theology (if we have one) that “does not allow for the de-canonization of Section 132?” Since, as you say, theology is just made up, I assume Mormonism “doesn’t allow for de-canonization” in the sense of : the costs of doing so would be too high. Does all the same have to be true in the case of a radical revision? Wouldn’t that please the most people by not getting rid of it entirely.

I really think there is a connection between the true 24 November 1889 revelation by Woodruff, in which the entire quorum of the twelve, felt happiness, “great joy”, or as Abraham Cannon wrote “heart[s] filled with joy and peace. It sets all doubts at rest concerning the course to pursue.” and what George Q Cannon meant when he read D&Cov 124:49-50 directly after Woodruff announced the manifesto in the 6 Oct 1890 general conference. Cannon saw the manifesto as pertaining to the US only, as did most of the apostles. The federal pressure (US Sec of Interior), the pressing need to get the confiscated property back, etc forced the church back into as Lindsay expresses “doublespeak” time, i.e. giving the feds what they wanted to hear, and everyone else something different. Woodruff was going way off the rails, when he even began abandoning his own plural wives and declaring in general and stake conferences doctrine which he didn’t believe himself, like “no cohabitation with your wives married to you before the manifesto”. That was really painful for the saints to be forced into divorcing entirely their own wives and children. This was why we had in the Juarez, MX high council minutes in April 1894 George Cannon quoted as saying, “I believe in concubinage, or some plan whereby men and women can live together under sacred ordinances and vows until they can be married. Thus our surplus of girls can be cared for, and the law of God to multiple and replenish the earth can be fulfilled.” These are historical facts, not anti-mormon rumors. Then this re-appeared with Richard Lyman who for 20 years had a polygamous wife in secret while serving in the quorum of 12. I think when Hinckley said to Larry King that there are “no Mormon fundamentalists” this monopolization on the word/trademark Mormon is ludicrous, bull-headed – why can’t someone who believes in polygamy and the book of mormon call themselves Mormons?

First of all, thanks to all of you who participated in this podcast. There were some very good things brought out by each of you.

I did have a question for Lindsey. When is the podcast you did with Natasha on polygamy supposed to be released? I’m very much wanting to hear it.

I am a woman who is in her early 40’s and I have to say that polygamy and the nauseating weight of knowing it almost certainly will be required after this life has tormented me since I was young enough to have read or heard anything about it. I have read endless numbers of books on the topic over the years trying to understand it more, but it only continued to gnaw on my soul the more I learned over the years. It essentially was the reason I finally decided to leave the church. Everything about it is demeaning to women and I cannot and will not believe that God wants any woman to feel like a piece of eternal property. My marriage is severely on the rocks because of my decision and my family is torn apart on the belief spectrum. I have been blamed for my lack of faith. But I wish the blame could ever be put where it truly belongs, but despite the essays and their strides to be more open about the topic, there still is so much ache in my heart wanting more. The essays did little to soothe the broken heart that I have had because of feeling stuck in a religion that I loved and hated. Had it not been for the whole polygamy thing and all the implications that have been apart of our church and our doctrine because of it, I more than likely would still be in the church. It is the biggest factor that I wrestled with that eventually led me out for my own spiritual sanity.

Hey, peg, the pain in your posting is palpable (apologies for the accidental alliteration). You have my empathy. TBMs often seem to see us as pains in the butt, at best, and Satan-worshiping heretics at worst. Your experience illustrates how viscerally painful it is to leave the religion you were raised with, especially this one, and how “leaving the church and leaving it alone” is really not an option. Your first-person experience provides support for John’s statistical work about why people leave. This is real and deserves respect.

I think that almost all disaffected Mormons feel as they do because we both were sold and bought an idyllic concept of truth that seems naive as we age and the world opens up. (Maybe I am only speaking for myself, as many TBMs have posted here and elsewhere they they knew long ago of Joseph’s polygamy and polyandry. I did not.) The protective cocoon of the church is a source of both tremendous comfort, but certain revelations create great pain and frustration. You don’t have to embrace all of it or any of it. For me, the greatest source of satisfaction outside the church is the ability to decide for myself what I believe and which path to follow.

Whatever happens to you, and I hope your family holds up during this transition, you will emerge on the other side of the refiner’s fire with a stronger sense of self because you will have chosen; you will own the decision. Best of luck.

Thank you David. I sincerely appreciate that.

Amen Square Peg–amen!! I am done with this church and all religion and even God and this essay–Nauvoo one is the nail in the coffin. I am a man, I have a large sex drive, but I love my one wife and I keep those external desires at bay!! No woman should feel like a piece of meat and under valued because a man-not a God says we can have more than one wife. So Hell it is for me if the Mormobs are right. The woman in my life deserve more than what Josrph Smith and his sex starved friends desired. Sorry to offend anyone LDS–this is coming from a member whose family joined the church when he was 6, and I have been active ALL my life!!

Goto, There’s no way God would send you to hell for treating your wife the way she deserves to be treated. I have to believe that was NEVER the will of God-merely man assigning God to their actions to justify themselves. If there is a God, he will punish instead those who treated his daughters poorly instead. No Father would want his daughters to be devalued in such ways.

This is blaming the victim at its finest. WE were the ones who were punched in the throat by the church that was supposed to have our best interests in mine yet we are the ones who are blamed for our lack of faith. Just know that you have lots of company and lots of prayers on your (our) behalf to that God I’m not sure I believe in any more!

Yes Bill, It does feel that way. I hope we all can find the help and the strength needed to work through our individual faith journeys. I hope we all find ourselves in happier and healthier places in the future. Best wishes to all who find themselves in these difficult circumstances.

Square Peg,

People fall for Mormonism and things like polygamy because they do not believe in or know what Christ taught. They don’t even know what Joseph Smith taught. They just believe whatever the ‘Church’ today tells them. Blind faith will always cause people to be deceived.

The truth will set you free from your troubling feelings about polygamy, for polygamy was never and will never be a law of God. But it is usually what false prophets preach and practice. Even many true prophets throughout time have fallen for polygamy, for it is very enticing to the natural man and most men desire it in one form or another. ‘Serial’ polygamy, by divorce & remarriage, being the most common & accepted form of polygamy in the Church today.

But the bottom line is Christ continually condemned polygamy in every way. If we study his teachings and example on love, the Golden Rule and his words on marriage, we find there is no way he would have ever allowed for polygamy. It is the opposite of love, it is extreme abuse & selfishness on the part of men. It is completely contrary to the Golden Rule, for men would never want done to them what they do to women in polygamy, nor would men put up with it, as women shouldn’t either. And last but not least, Christ clearly taught in Matt. 19:9, that married men can’t marry another woman or it’s adultery, even if he divorces his 1st wife 1st, for there is no such thing as divorce in God’s eyes, it’s just a vain invention of man. So Christ condemned all polygamy when he condemned remarriage after divorce, because his reason was that marriage is unbreakable and only between 2 people.

So if we want to have peace and know right from wrong we need to study, live and believe the words of Christ, then we won’t fall for men who teach abusive whoredoms like polygamy.

If you even just study the words of Joseph Smith and how he spent his whole life preaching, warning & fighting ‘against’ polygamy, then you will feel better, realizing that he warned us that if we fell for men who preached or practiced polygamy we would be damned. But Brigham had other ideas and desires, and when Joseph was gone Brigham started preaching opposite to Joseph and changed the scriptures and started saying that Joseph really did live polygamy secretly. But there is no proof of that whatsoever, only lots of vile hearsay against Joseph, usually by those who had every reason to lie to justify their adulteries.

Even if it ends up that Joseph really did weaken and fall for polygamy and lie is whole life, it still just means he was a false prophet, for Christ also clearly taught that true prophet would not lie. And even if Joseph didn’t lie about polygamy and was innocent of it, it appears he lied about almost everything else. So I believe he was innocent of polygamy but that he was just another false prophet teaching many things contrary to the words of Christ. And Christ warned us about falling for just such false prophets.

So even though we are raised in a Church and thus tend to believe it’s the only true church, like anyone in any other religion does who was raised in their churches, we all have to one day follow Christ and ‘prove all things’ and test to see if the Church we were raised in is really true or not. Which I found it was not and none are.

But the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true and we can follow him independently of any church or man or prophet. For his Gospel is simple to understand and it’s easy to tell true prophets from false ones if we study and live his Gospel.

It all boils down to who you gonna believe, Christ or anyone else.

Hello, Joseph did practice polygamy and polyandry. The church admitted this already.

Something that I haven’t seen in any of the podcasts on polygamy are the genetic repercussions of the practice. Because of the practice I believe that genetic predispositions to nondominant genes were passed down. Also with so many different half siblings it was difficult to track who were cousins. Hasn’t this also caused some pockets of genetic illness in Utah descendants? Just curious….

I have not heard of any genetic abnormalities in the Utah/Idaho/Arizona population as a whole or polygamous descendants as a whole, perhaps because the population was large enough and as was mentioned only practiced by perhaps 50% of the population and immigration helped. Where it has clearly caused genetic abnormalities are among the flds in Colorado city / hildale utah. It has greatly increased the incidence of fumarase deficiency. Just google that phrase and Colorado city and you’ll find a gold mine on the Internet. A small closed population is where the problems really begin to manifest themselves in significant numbers.

Thanks for the info. Great podcast. And good insight on how an essay can be spun. Thanks to Lindsay, J, and Joe…etc for using their time to dissect this essay and bring the many issues surrounding this history to light.

Some error on playback. Can’t even download it.

Doug – Try again. Those problems should be fixed.

This is one of the best commentaries (podcasts) I have heard to date on the topic of polygamy. Lindsay is by far the first person that I have heard that articulates my own feelings about polygamy (from a woman’s perspective). The church essays are a great admission (along with even Brian Hale’s work) by the church about some of the prior practices of polygamy (despite the double-speak), but they do not deal with the root of the issue for many of us. Lindsay explains exceptionally well what the problem with polygamy is for most women. I really appreciated the push back that she gave concerning the fact that some women express being just “fine” with the idea of polygamy and why that doesn’t resolve the issues of marginalization, inequality, and devaluation of women that polygamy creates, she gave voice to so many of us, please keep it up!

I’m curious to know if Lindsay or other women here have watched “Sister Wives” on TLC…and what their reaction is to the seemingly positive portrait that the Brown’s project about polygyny?

Rio, perception is everything isn’t it? I don’t see a positive portrait after watching any of the episodes I’ve seen, actually my response is pit-in-the stomach, horrid feelings. You can conclude whatever you want, regardless, my views about what polygny does to women (devaluation, etc) doesn’t change because of “sister wives.”

Also, do you truly believe that “reality” TV is reality? Just curious on that.

My question wasn’t to challenge anything you or Lyndsay said, but rather to simply ask what your perceptions of the show were.

Thank you for your response.

I apologize Rio if I came across as abrupt, I suppose that it’s in part that I find it frustrating that the argument that some women are “fine” with this form of oppression, that I (or other women) should be as well, I suppose I’m a little defensive about it, so I am sorry if I was a little rude in my response.

I do not have a high opinion of reality tv in general and “sister wives” is no exception, I have not watched most episodes, but what I did watch left me feeling as I stated above.

I spoke to a my sister today who regularly watches the show, she likewise doesn’t have positive feelings about polygyny and said she likes to watch the show to see the “person” she likes “win” whatever conflict is going on (gawking at their lives)…so anyways there is another opinion.

From what I have watched with Sister Wives it does not seem like they are very happy and admit jealousy and they even complain about not getting enough time with their husband, etc. They seem to take solace in each other’s company somewhat but that is surely not the ideal for women.

But even if some women say they like polygamy that does not mean it is a righteous way to live. Many or most women for the last 6000 years have just gone along with and some have even liked being abused, controlled and demeaned by men in so many ways, in the home, society or church.

Just look how most women in the Church don’t seem to have a problem with being demeaned & disrespected by Church leaders and not allowed the Priesthood, when it is said to be the greatest thing there is. And how they just go along with the false idea of ‘obeying their husband’ and letting him be the leader and decision maker in the family.

Such things are not right and are unrighteous dominion, but most women since the Church began have accepted it and many even thought it was right and good.

When God/Christ actually teach the opposite & expect men to honor & respect women and their equal position, power, Priesthood & voice in all things, in the home, church and society. Neither spouse or gender presides over the other, both have all the same right & gifts & powers as the other in God’s eyes. Yet women have been taught, by men, that they don’t & most believe it.

Another enlightening discussion. My great-grandfather took two sisters as plural wives marrying the oldest sister around 1880 and then taking the younger one, which was my great-grandmother, as his second wife a few years later. My grandmother was born in 1899 and grew up living in a house just down the street from where her father lived with his first wife, her mothers’ older sister, and their children. She was not allowed to tell anyone that he was really her Dad, she and her siblings called him uncle whenever they were in public. These two sisters gave birth to 25 children which has astounded me ever since I first learned about it. My grandmother told us of the many difficulties, rivalries, resentments and disappointments that came from living in such a huge family with one side forced to pretend their father was simply an uncle. After her father died she told me she used to pray that her mother could die before her aunt died, “So that Mama could have Daddy all to herself for a while”, as she put it. To her disappointment the aunt went before her mother. My grandmother remained a devout and active member of the church her entire life but she was forever grateful polygamy had been abolished before she was ever expected to participate.

Listening to these discussions about how plural marriage was presented and practiced and how especially unfair it was to the women and children has really heightened the empathy I hold for the many feelings and emotions my grandmother would express about her experience growing up with it. Thanks for the education.

Amazing post!!

Thanks so much – glad to know these essays are incomplete to a lot of other people. I look forward to reading the books in the footnotes as suggested.

Kathleen Flake’s THE POLITICS OF AMERICAN RELIGIOUS IDENTITY deserves more attention. I’m surprised, in fact, that it never came up in the conversation. Not that the point was to acknowledge every scholar who has contributed to our understanding of polygamy, but her study is important as it underscores the centrality of polygamy and early Mormon identity and how Mormonism reinvented itself during the early 20th century. It is referenced in the footnote of “The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage” essay, but I generally don’t think it comes up enough. I highly recommend it and look forward to Flake’s forthcoming book on polygamy, which will also be published by North Carolina Press. I would love to hear her on Mormon Stories!

A round of applause for all of you–each one contributed to my understanding of the essays. I appreciate learning about the instances where the footnotes seem to contradict statements in the body. Lindsay, thank you.

I do have a correction for Joe, though. Towards the end you said that Charles Penrose was a dyed-in-the-wool monogamist. I think you might have been thinking of someone else, because Penrose was definitely a polygamist. He had three wives and continued to live with all of them post-Manifesto. He was indicted for unlawful cohabitation in February 1885 and spent the next few years hiding on the Mormon Underground while continuing in his job as editor of the Deseret News. He was my great-grandfather.

Thank you for listening. Yes, I have no idea what I was thinking! I will chalk it to brain freeze or dementia. :-)

I did know about Romania Bunnell Pratt, his secret wife, but I didn’t know about Louise Elizabeth Lusty, his second wife. So thank you for your website about Penrose’s life. It was fun to go though the dates.

Susan, has anyone transcribed his missionary diaries. The quote I read about his recruiting a woman to be a wife for the man in Utah, is the only entry from this period I have. I would love to get the other entries from this mission.

This was an excellent discussion. There is however, one aspect of Mormon polygamy that I have not heard discussed. There are divorced men in the LDS church today who are sealed to more than one living woman. If you are a divorced female who is still sealed to her former husband and that man chooses to be sealed to his current wife, you receive a form letter from his bishop. The letter asks two things; does the ex-spouse owe you money and do you know of any reason he would not be worthy to be sealed to his current wife. Your permission is not requested, nor is it required. You are essentially being informed that you will soon have an eternal sister wife and your thoughts on the matter are of no concern.

Thankfully, when I received such a letter, it arrived nine months after my resignation from the LDS Church, and I had been divorced for sixteen years. Even so, the cold legalese wording of the letter made me angry. I couldn’t help wondering how such a letter would be received by a woman who had been divorced for a much shorter time. It also occurred to me that in some cases the ex-husband could be requesting a sealing to the woman with whom he had cheated.

I agree with Lindsay that polygamy is a painful subject for Mormon women. I don’t think that the church has addressed that pain, in fact, the wording of the letter I received leads me to believe that the church leadership doesn’t even know that the pain exists.

Great podcast. I am a product of polygamy via Orson Pratt and his 10th wife.

Growing up Mormon in semi-rural northern Utah, i.e., somewhere between SLC and Ogden, we never had in-depth discussions of polygamy. Instead, the practice was the source of a family tale about my great great grandfather. In the retelling, he was asked to take another wife and consulted the lone extant spouse. She, wisely, said she would consent if she could pick the woman, and then proceeded to select her best friend. This arrangement seemed to work fine for a while, until great great grandfather came home with a teenage bride he had consulted neither wife about. When he was told to flee to Mexico because the feds were coming shortly thereafter, the two older wives told him to have a safe trip. Apocryphal? Perhaps, but entertaining, nonetheless. Regardless, this was the one story we told, and we treated polygamy as an aberration necessitated by the unbalanced gender ratio and the need for the women folk to be taken care of. I never heard one person make the “raise up seed” rational, which takes me a bit by surprise. Minus the polygamy, this is the proliferation strategy of Palestinians or Albanians in Kosovo.

So, if women did not have more children in polygamous relationships, and some men were unable to find brides (per the anecdote Joe shared) because many younger women were already married to older church leaders, and marrying and having sex with women doesn’t really qualify as “taking care of them,” one is left with very unsettling assumptions about the real motivation for polygamy.

After listening, the issue I have is this: Would God’s one and only true church try to destroy people’s lives (Mike Quinn, Fawn Brodie, etc.) for writing factual information? I cannot resolve this. I’ve read David Grant’s account of how he came to know, which includes excerpts from Clayton Christensen’s explanation of his own process. I respect their experiences, but I really believe at this point that, if this is God’s church, I’ll take the Telestial and be fine with it, thank you very much.

By their works ye shall know them, indeed. Mormons are nice people, and the church donates millions to charity (paltry compared with Catholic Relief Services), but what happens to those who don’t tow the line is frightening. Is there room for dissent with a discussion of truth? I think there has to be.

Apologies for the ramble. Thanks to all four of you for a very enlightening conversation.

Thank you for pointing out that it is not necessary to marry and have sex with someone in order to take care of them. We successfully take care of children and the elderly all the time in this society without doing so. This argument has always bothered me.

How confident are we in the information number given in the podcast regarding the quantity of Joseph Smith’s polygamous descendants? I think one of the guests said the number was somewhere around 1100.

I ask this because my understanding was that it has been difficult to prove that Joseph had married all the women that claim to have married him and that in some cases DNA testing has disproven claims of descent from Smith (and no where proven it).

Combined with the fact that Emma denied Smith was a polygamist (as well as the entire RLDS church) it makes me wonder as to the veracity of all the claims. Let’s not forget that the Utah church had a vested interest in proving Joseph’s polygamous ways to justify their own practices.

I am NOT trying to defend Joseph (whom I believe was a con man of sorts), but I have even less trust of the Utah Mormon leadership. The very fact that having proof of Joseph’s polygamy is in the interest of the LDS church makes such claims suspect in my view. If Smith had not actually been a polygamist then the entire polygamist foundation of the Utah church (which exists to this day in theological terms) is dust.

If the Church was true and the leaders were honest & righteous they would admit that there is no proof whatsoever that Joseph ever preached or practiced polygamy and that there was only a lot of vile hearsay against him, from mostly those who had every reason to lie. And they would admit that there is tons of proof that Joseph preached, fought and warned against polygamy his whole life. They would also admit that Christ taught that ‘true prophets can’t lie’, and that either Joseph or Brigham did lie.

Righteous people, especially true prophets, assume someone is innocence until proven guilty. Thus they would assume Joseph was innocent of polygamy and not believe vile hearsay, no matter how much.

But they can’t admit that cause they know most people would leave the Church if they knew the whole truth about it’s history and leaders.

Thus, it seems to me that all the LDS leaders, (like those in Brigham Young’s day), really like & desire polygamy and don’t care that it is against Christ’s teachings or that it is abusive to women. When did they ever truly respect women’s divine equality & rights anyway?

I believe that the Church worded this last essay in a way that leaves it open to bring polygamy back, probably just as soon as it becomes legal nationally and enough of the membership will go along with it, which it seems most members already are ok with polygamy, or they would have left the Church long ago, for it’s easy to find out and see that Christ (and Joseph Smith even) was totally against polygamy and called it adultery.

So those who would believe in men who claim to be ‘prophets’ and who would treat women that way, must want the perk of polygamy themselves or they wouldn’t have anything to do with such men or teachings, they would listen to Christ instead, (who clearly taught that married men can’t marry another wife or it’s adultery).

I think that within 10 years the church will be living polygamy again and also accept same sex marriage, given their history of changing doctrine to whatever the majority of society or members want, even if the Church once totally preached against it.

The Church seems more concerned about keeping members then about keep the commandments of Christ.

“… there is no proof whatsoever that Joseph ever preached or practiced polygamy and that there was only a lot of vile hearsay against him …” I’m not sure how you can say this, Lilli, despite the fact you rarely pass up an opportunity to say it. Is all of Todd Compton’s work based on lies and third-hand information? On what are you basing your long-winded assertions, other than personal conviction?

@David – I would love to hear more about the evidence behind Joseph’s polygamous marriages. In particular, how much evidence is there that comes from non Utah Mormons?

It is hard for me to give much weight to the statements of Utah Mormons since they had such a vested interest in justifying the continuing LDS practice of polygamy.

Of course, all such questions could finally be put to rest for good if we could find just one polygamous descendant of Joseph that can be verified with DNA testing.

I have studied this a lot and I have never seen or read any of any proof that Joseph preached or practiced polygamy. But we have tons of proven and published proof from him while he was alive that he was totally against it.

It would not even have made sense for him to lie and live it secretly, for he would have known that as soon as people found out they would lose all confidence in him. Joseph warned the Saints that they would be damned if they ever fell for anyone, even a prophet who preached or practiced polygamy, even if he himself taught it.

If he thought the people would have to accept it someday he would have never said that and other things and set himself and the BoM up to be rejected. For he totally denounced polygamy in the BoM too, leaving no room for it in any circumstance. Joseph also set the people up to later reject Brigham, (for it appears Joseph was about to excommunicate Brigham but died before he could do so), and thus many or most Saints did not follow Brigham, for Joseph had taught them that polygamy was and always will be a whoredom, just like Christ did.

If the Church had any proof I believe they would have waved it around long ago, like in the Temple Lot Case when they tried using their best evidence, but couldn’t prove that Joseph lived polygamy. They only have hearsay from other people, things said or wrote by people after Joseph was gone and couldn’t defend himself anymore.

One sided testimony is not proof, no matter how much.

Do you have any references to proven & published accounts of Joseph preaching or admitting to polygamy that he published while he was alive? He always denounced any accusations that he was practicing polygamy. Do you think he lied? Do you believe he was a true prophet? Christ said that was impossible, that true prophets have to keep his commandments in order to be such, including “Thou shalt not bear false witness”.

So whether Joseph lied or Brigham lied, the Church has no foundation and either ended with Joseph or was never started by true prophets in the 1st place.

Though it appears Joseph may not have lied about polygamy and was truly innocent, it appears he lied about most everything else.

I believe Joseph was a false prophet who wrote the Book of Mormon, with help & many sources, including his own father’s dream of the Tree of Life that he accredited to Lehi and then never seemed to mention that his father had the same dream. Kind of front page news that the Church never mentions. Why? Because people would start putting 2 & 2 together. Joseph was a gifted story teller & I believe others helped him write the BoM, which teaches many things contrary to Christ, which again, true prophets would not have written.

The Church is not founded on Christ’s teachings, for polygamy is completely contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ on so many levels. Not to mention all the other things the Church preaches and practices past and present that are contrary to the commandments of Christ.

You’re absolutely right about one thing Lilli, LDS doctrine isn’t based on the teachings of Christ. That’s because it was conceived of and founded by a devious young treasure seeker who had no problem lying through his teeth to protect his own skin and separate folks from their women and money. Then again the Church of Christ has the same problem with their founder.

Great job on this episode! Many thanks to all involved. Does anyone have some sources for further reading about information on immigrant young girls coming to Utah, getting married off to church leaders, and having babies a year later? This is new to me and I would like to read into it a little further. Thanks in advance.

Josh – I’d start by reading this: https://www.solomonspalding.com/docs/exposit1.htm

Thanks John.

Thank you very much for this discussion.

A couple of points. First, if my wife and I were having issues involving trust, and the other were to respond with half-truths; “double-speak”, technically true but (seemingly intentionally) misleading statement, meaningless facts which (seemingly intentionally) divert the issues and all of the other problems raised by the panel, there really wouldn’t be any therapist who would recommend forgiving and letting go. The same for employees, friends and politicians. Why should an institution which not only claims to represent God, but also asserts moral authority and calls on its members to “chose the right” be held to a lower standard?

I understand the (admittedly guarded) optimism expressed, but at some level isn’t this like an abusive husband who only beats is wife once that week, so we should be happy?

I do hope there is a third episode and if so, the panel discusses the conflicts between the LDS Church which releases an essay pointing to polygamy as starting in the 1840s and specifically between one man and multiple women and the LDS Church which releases an essay stating that it started sometime in the 1830s and at one point had more polyandrous marriages.

Another question is what is the game plan for the church? Or is there? This may be too hot of an issue for this site, because it would undoubtedly be seen as undermining the leadership by speculating, but from a now outsider’s view, what is the point? Is it baby steps to address it? People guess that it’s inoculation, but it’s opened such a can of worms that simply saving future generations doesn’t seem likely.

I know women who have voted with their feet over this issue, so is this such a major item that they decided to move forward a bit? There are rumors that Monson is not completely mentally fit, so are there battles behind the scenes?

Can someone PLEASE teach/tell Lindsay Hansen Park how to stop her ‘baby talk’. It undermines the valid research she has done on this important topic. Lindsay, you are smart, strong, competent women. Please stop being coy and ‘cute’ in the way you speak. And please, for the love of god, stop narrating what you are saying—as you are saying it. Or giving disclaimers before you speak. Just say what you have to say. (e.g., “I know I’m probably going to be controversial here – giggle, giggle– but…..”) JUST SAY IT, DON’T NARRATE ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO SAY. It is more than annoying and belies the usually smart insight that you have to share. I know nothing about you, but I would guess you grew up in Utah and have been socialized to second-guess yourself or at least speak like you do. Please read Deborah Tannen’s “Speaking 9-5” and reflect a bit on your speaking style. You are not a little girl. You are a grown woman doing an important work. Please talk like it. The cutesy, coy, cadence you use (which is the verbal equivalent of ‘batting your eyelashes’ is obnoxious and ridiculous. Speak with authority, with confidence, and get rid of that ‘general conference’ infantilized way of speaking. Tough love needed and given. With this said, thank you for your Year of Polygamy podcasts and contribution.

Sloan, that was harsh! I think Lindsay navigates the mine field of female podcasting very well. She knows her audience. She is speaking to both believers and non-believers, and yes she lives in Utah where the “B” label is easily acquired. You accused Lindsay of ‘general conference’ speaking and I have to disagree. I don’t think her delivery is at all like that of the ‘sistern’. This is a case of ‘walk a mile’; Lindsay can’t be expected to sound one way on line and another in her real life. She is functioning well in the society in which she lives. Let the woman be who she is.

Wow and ouch! This is just how I speak. It’s not an act and I don’t plan on changing it. I’m not an elitist, I don’t care to sound like one, and it doesn’t bother me if it distracts from the privileged messaging you are used to hearing.

Aside from your condescending “tough love,” don’t tell me how to better change and communicate my feelings so it’s more palatable to you.

Well put Lindsay. Sloans’ so called “tough love” is nothing more than an attack on the messenger from someone too weak minded to discuss the message. BTW, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the way you deliver the message! Thanks for all the work.

Can someone PLEASE teach/tell Sloan McCae how to stop his/her ‘telling people what to do all the time’. It undermines the semi-valid comment s/he has made on MormonStories.org. Sloan, you are smart, strong, competent commenter. Please stop being authoritative and ‘helpful’ in the way you type. And please, for the love of god, stop telling strong, smart, competent woman what to do all of the time. Or giving disclaimers about how much you like a person before you type something utterly assholish. Just don’t say completely condescending and rude things when you feel you have to say them. (e.g., “You are not a little girl.”) JUST DON’T SAY IT, TURN OFF THE PODCAST IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT. It is more than annoying when you feel you have to share a stupid, rude opinion that no one wants to hear. I know nothing about you, but I would guess that you’re a brown-haired anglo of East-English and Dutch descent, and have been socialized to think that you can open your fat mouth about anything you want to, and that someone would actually like to hear your opinion. Please read Michael Staver’s “Do You Know How To Shut Up? and 51 other life lessons that will make you uncomfortable″ and reflect a bit on your life. You are not sharing an opinion that anyone wants to hear. You are a listener to a free podcast. Please act like it. The belittling, unkind comment you left (which is the verbal equivalent of ‘being a douchecanoe’ is obnoxious and ridiculous. Enjoy the silence of your stupid opinion with authority, with confidence, and get rid of that ‘general conference’ patriarchal, paternalist, patronizing way of typing. Tough love needed and given. With this said, thank you for nothing.

You said that extremely well myrrrrnaloy.

Sloan, please reread your comment and tell me you can see how incredibly condescending, sexist, and elitist it sounds.

Lindsay is an incredible expert at what she does. She does not need you to “teach” her anything. She is unearthing this incredibly vital history, using an approach and format that has never been done before, highlighting women’s voices that have been completely left out of history, and you want to micro manage her “speaking style?”

The way you made that comment was annoying, so I’m going to send you a list of 5 books on proper communication to improve your style. You are a big, strong, smart man, and you can totally do better!!! I know you’ll appreciate my little bit of tough love!

actually, lindsay’s style is to mormon studies what buffy is to superheroes.

“what, you don’t think someone like me fits the typical mold? Let’s see if I give a damn while I am busy slaying hell beasts/the misogyny monster of mormonism’s past present and future.”

Typical feminist hysteria. Sloane was merely providing unsolicited, valuable feedback about how offensively female Ms Hansen Park comes across. S/He isn’t saying anything all of us haven’t thought ourselves: narrative driven, female centered programming would be better if it had 100% more penis. That’s all. Maybe invest in a prosthetic? I understand the fMh podcast has begun fundraising. I hope they spring for a top of the line prosthetic penis for Ms Hansen Park. It is a small thing to ask for from a FEMINIST podcast: be more like a dude. Not just any dude- an academic dude, the very best kind of dude that there is.The world needs more of them.

Oh you Western women are funny. So sensitive and reactionary. And for the record, I am a woman as well, although gender is irrelevant for this discussion (amusing however that you all speculated that I am a man). In fact, I am an active, main stream, professional LDS women who would like to see Lindsay ‘up her game’ a bit. (Insert clip of Eliza Doolittle here please). lol. Speaking with authority, without apologizing for your comments, in a confident, straightforward way is neither male or female. It simply lends credibility and yes is more pleasing to the ear. It is neither ‘privileged’ (one of Lindsay’s favorite words) or elitist, or male. You ladies need to all grow up. We are talking about Feminism here, after all. So take it from a true Feminist who has successfully lived and worked in a man’s world for 25 years. One who has successfully functioned in a male-dominated Church, and a male-oriented Gospel. You can do better is all I’m saying. Apologies if the feedback wasn’t kind and gentle enough for your taste. Maybe the dude’s are better at this than we are. They simply take this kind of feedback—for what it’s worth—shrug and move on. Grow a thicker skin ladies and keep up the great FMH PodCast Lindsay. I really am a fan and admire what you’re doing. Otherwise I wouldn’t waste my time trying to make you better at your craft.

Sloan, you are exactly what I guessed you were, which makes your criticism worse. You could have made your point in a much kinder way, or you could have kept your opinion to yourself. It is disappointing when women criticize other women for superficial things. If Lindsay had been on video, you probably would have criticized her appearance (for her own good, or course). If women must be judged, they should be judged for what they say, not how they say it. Criticizing Lindsay’s delivery, is like criticizing Kate Kelly’s tone. Your comments were rude and you owe Lindsay a sincere apology.

Wrong on all counts Cynderella. Let me make my point with an analogy: I give training to women MBA’s who are entering the workforce and I tell them: Dress for the job you want, not the job you have. In other words, don’t dress like a receptionist if you want to be the CFO. How you dress is going to give cues to others about how to treat you, indicate what you think of yourself, how seriously you take yourself, etc. If you want to be seen as and treated like a secretary, dress like one. If you want to be seen as an executive, dress and speak like one. Same principle applies here. If Lindsay wants to become more credible and be taken seriously, she need to improve her delivery. It is a simple suggestion. I am not attacking her worth as a person or the work she is doing. I would tell John Dehlin the same thing. He is too wordy, talks too much and talks over his guests in an attempt to lead them to the answer he wants to hear. (Does that make you feel better that I have no problem dolling out the advice to both men and women equally?) lol. I would never criticize Lindsay’s appearance btw, because it IS irrelevant in this context. So, I can see that I’ve struck a nerve with all you girls (which is what you’re acting like). But perhaps you would all do well to calm down a bit, put your emotions in check and say the hardest thing of all “Maybe the suggestion is valid and maybe this is some food for thought.” You don’t have to agree with me or take the suggestion, but this emotional over reaction is hilarious. And who are you to decide that we have to be ‘nice’ or keep quiet? Sounds very Relief Society to me…..I haven’t read those rules anywhere. So ladies, put on your big girl pants and grow up and ‘up your game a bit’. Hugs and kisses. And lot’s ‘o love, Sloan. LOL.

Just two points, Sloan. First, you didn’t criticize John and second, Lindsay didn’t sign up for your class. Your criticism was unsolicited. Keep the hugs and kisses, but have a nice day, Cyn.

When you train women with MBA’s, do you charge extra for the condescension? JW.

This is called thread High-jacking, the theme and intent of this thread is not about anyone’s delivery style or getting training for an interview… You have proving how disparate you are to stoop low enough in high-jacking a thread. Very disrespectful and self centered you might consider getting some training yourself!

Are you aware that inserting an apostrophe after “MBA” is incorrect? In doing so, you indicate that you are speaking of the MBA in the possessive, not the plural. The correct way to write the acronym in this case would be simply, MBAs.

As a feminist with a master’s degree myself, I am surprised that you were unaware. Actually, I’ve seen you make this mistake more than once and this “western woman” would like you to know that it’s annoying! :-/

Please brush up on your grammar. Also, please strip yourself of all femininity and make yourself more like a man because if you are going to work in a male-dominated world, the last thing you should be doing is celebrating your diversity as a female. It’s much better to strap on a fake penis and blend in.

You’re a feminist? Really?

So you want to “see Lindsay ‘up her game’. . .? That’s funny Sloan. I certainly hope she doesn’t stoop to your level. You imagine you are perceived as authoritative when in fact you simply come across as self righteous and petty. And nothing I’ve seen you post here would be interpreted as “pleasing to the ear.” Hysterical stuff Sloan!

Oh God, Sloan. You are so annoying and condescending.

Where can I read more about polygamist marriages from hand cart companies? It sounded like he said Connor Donovan” but I can’t find any author by that name.

It sounds like someone started this project, to tell the truth, and someone else said not to much.

Hopefully there will be a follow up that will be completely honest. and will include that it was not gospel but culture again.

Even the race and priesthood one didn’t come out clearly and say this was purely culture, no Gospel, and was always wrong.

There seems to be plausibly deniability built.

We still can’t be completely honest.

https://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2014/12/16/uptalk_is_okay_young_women_shouldn_t_have_to_talk_like_men_to_be_taken_seriously.html

John: my dad is sealed to three women, consecutively married and divorced, and interestingly enough, before my mother passed away, there were times when #1 (my mother) and #3, together with us kids, attended functions together, or all spent the night in the same house, and we all got along well! So, maybe that portends well for our potential Celestial Kingdom situation.

There have always been a lot of women who have put up with or even liked polygamy, especially ‘serial polygamy (by divorce & remarriage). But it still doesn’t make it right.

For Christ condemned all polygamy, even serial polygamy.

No matter what leader or lady may condone or like any type of polygamy, they don’t trump Christ.

I’m not trying to justify it. I’m also not too worried about what Christ said about it. Just pointing out our rather interesting family situation.

I am always able to figure out who you are regardless of the blog on which you are commenting. “For Christ condemned all polygamy.” Many of your sentences begin with “for.” It is unmistakeable.

I do wonder though, if maybe you are misinterpreting things? I do not mean to be rude, I mean to have a real conversation about this. Do you sincerely believe that a loving Christ, who atoned for our sins and descended below all – having felt all pain, all sadness… do you REALLY think he would condemn the woman who divorced her abusive husband, found real love and then remarried? I am not sure exactly what the Bible states because frankly, I think it has been so tainted by evil people that I don’t read it as much as I should but really, I think we need to give our Lord more credit than that.

Sorry, I do not consider remarriage to be polygamy in any form. It is common sense and if we really believe in our Savior, I think we need to realize that He is a reasonable being. Why would he do what he did if he wasn’t?

I would have liked to hear more from female perspectives than male in this particular podcast.

My husband served his mission in West Africa, and they were actually not even allowed to teach polygamists because they didn’t want to break up families. Thanks for the great podcast! Polygamy is so interesting!

John asked a good question about the ‘lost boys’ phenomenon and while I can’t find the source, after looking for quite a while, there is an account, I read years ago, of an inquiry by Brigham Young about what he considered an serious problem of increasing masturbation among young men in the early Utah territory and the reports coming back to him that blamed polygamy, since there were simply not enough women left to marry, as the polygamists were getting all of them. So the question would be:

1. Would the leaders see this as an excuse for the sin/problem with polygamy, or would they more likely… 2. See the sin of masturbation as the reason why these young men didn’t deserve to have wives in the first place?

as Thomas More observed concerning crime and poverty:

“For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.” ― Utopia

This I suspect is the base of the Church’s predisposition toward capitalism and its priority of power over people, and wants of the powerful over needs of the many.

There has also been a curious thing to note here about the panel’s reaction to the essays (Lindsay’s reaction being the most perfect example) – the Church can’t win here.

On the one hand, the leaders attempt to leave polygamy (our people’s Paris Hilton Sex Tape and ‘booster’ to fame and notoriety) behind, and there is a part of us, that rightfully feels it is wrong and cheating to fail to acknowledge it and/or hide it. Then whenever there is even the slightest move toward seeing it as a positive – as in the current doctrine of eternal polygamy through Earthly remarriage, we are still mad/angry/pissed. This is the problem of building something on evil. You can add as much fresh milk as you want to that vat of sour, it is just a matter of time before it is all bad again.

In our case, much like America in general, we are built on exploitation and greed, and nothing can fix that, short of reinvention. Has there been much good in the Church and its roots – for sure. But just as the Salt Lake Temple was completed by the subversion/misappropriation of the tithing system (out people’s ‘sale of indulgences’ moment – funny how these big buildings always undercut actual Christian charity), the tangible support structure for all we have is fundamentally corrupt. The ends do not justify the means.

It is one thing have bad branches in an otherwise good tree as they can be pruned, but a bad trunk means that all the good branches are always in jeopardy.

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