Review of Todd Compton’s
In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith
(ix) Lists of JS wives:
Andrew Jenson’s 27
Stanley S. Ivins (1950s) unpublished 84
Fawn Brodie (1945)
(xiii) “Day-to-day practical polygamous living, for many women, was less than monogamous marriage – it was a social system that simply did not work in nineteenth-century America. Polygamous wives often experiences what was essentially acute neglect. Despite the husband’s sincere efforts, he could only give a specific wife a fraction of his time and means.”
(xiv) “The more women a man married, the greater the danger for serious problems in the family, for the husband’s time and resources became more and more divided.”
(1) “Historians Fawn Brodie, D. Michael Quinn, and George D. Smith list forty-eight, forty-six, and forty-three, respectfully… AssistantChurch Historian Andrew Jenson’s 1887 list of twenty seven wives, based on interviews and affidavits, is also a basic resource.”
(3) “Some of [Joseph Smith’s] marriages were polyandrous, which incurred the danger of jealous husbands.”
Quote from 635 implies that “celestial marriage” is synonymous with plural marriage. Here’s the actual quote from George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton, p.559:
"After the revelation on celestial marriage was written Joseph continued his instructions, privately, on the doctrine to myself and others and during the last year of his life we were scarcely ever together, alone, but he was talking on the subject, and explaining that doctrine and principles connected with it. He appeared to enjoy great liberty and freedom in his teachings, and also to find great relief in having a few to whom he could unbosom his feelings on that great and glorious subject.”
(10) One may wonder why Smith married so many women when two or three wives would have complied with the reported divine command to enter polygamy. However, the church president apparently believed that complete salvation (in Mormon terminology, exaltation, including the concept of deification) depended on the extent of a man’s family sealed to him in this life. Benjamin Johnson, a brother of Smith’s plural wife Almera, wrote: “The First Command was to 'Multiply' and the Prophet taught us that Dominion & powr in the great Future would be Comensurate with the no [number] of 'Wives Childin & Friends' that we inheres here and that our great mission to earth was to Organize a Neculi [nucleus] of Heaven to take with us. To the increace of which there would be no end.”[1]
Questions
Why did women enter into PM?
1. Coercion - parents or leaders
- women were helpless, mindless victims?
2. Divine (spiritual) witness
3. For security
4. For love
Todd Compton “A Trajectory of Plurality: An Overview of Joseph Smith’s Thirty-Three Plural Wives,” Dialogue, Vol.29, No.2, p.12
“By this doctrine, exaltation depended on having a numerous family sealed to one in this life. The emphasis on increase echoes the Abrahamic promise, in which God promised Abraham that his posterity would be as plentiful as the dust of the earth (Gen. 13:16; 16:10; 17:6; 18:18; 22:17).”
(10) “Smith apparently interpreted this to mean that one had to create one’s ‘extended family,’ one’s kingdom, by marriage while on earth. Orson Pratt, in a discourse given in 1859, taught this explicitly.” Reference on page 636 is JD 6:358-359:
Journal of Discourses, Vol.6, p.359 - p.360, Orson Pratt, July 24, 1859
I am speaking of those ancient Patriarchs, and Prophets, and holy men that understood the law of God, and practised it, and prepared themselves here to receive an exceeding weight of glory hereafter. Do you not understand that such men arise above angels?--that they have kingdoms, while angels have none?--that they are crowned kings and princes over their own descendants, which will become as numerous as the sands on the sea shore, while the angels have neither wives, sons, nor daughters to be crowned over? Shall a young, moral, virtuous woman, because she does not find a young man that is suitable to her nature, or worthy of her,--shall she be deprived of this exaltation in the eternal world, because of the Gentile laws of modern Christendom? No. That Latter-day Saints believe otherwise. We believe that woman is just as good as man if she does as well. If a good man if entitled to a kingdom of glory--to a reward and crown, and has the privilege of swaying a sceptre in the eternal world, a good woman is entitled to the same, and should be placed by his side, and have the privilege of enjoying all the glory, honour, and blessings that are bestowed upon her lord and husband. If she cannot get any lord or husband through whom she can trust herself for exaltation to that glory, who can blame her for going into a family where she thinks she will be secure?
[OP taught the need for eternal marriage not polygamy]
(11) “The importance of the size of one’s eternal family, and the necessity of building it up on this earth, is shown by the custom of adoption practiced in the late Nauvoo period by Brigham Young and other Mormon leaders who would have grown men sealed to them as ‘sons.’”
(11) “Thus in Smith’s Nauvoo ideology, a fullness of salvation depended on the quantity of family members sealed to a person in this life.” [italics in original]
(11) “These data suggest that sexual attraction was an important part of the motivation of Smith’s polygamy.” [or that age group was more available]
(12) On may ask why the Mormon leader married any older women at all. Two reasons can be offered. First, two of these women, Fanny Young Murray and Rhoda Richards, were sisters of favored apostles, so the marriages were dynastic… Second, older women served as teachers and messengers to introduce and convert younger women to the practice in Nauvoo.” [What about eternal benefits of being an eternal wife of the JS? What about their own attraction to JS?]
SEXUALITY
(12) Quoting Lucy Smith (wife of apostle George A. Smith): “He related to me the circumstance of his calling on Joseph late one evening and he was just taking a wash and Joseph told him that one of his wives had just been confined and Emma was the Midwife and he had been assisting her. He [George A. Smith] told me [Lucy Smith] this to prove to me that the women were married for time [as well as for eternity], as Emma had told me that Joseph never taught any such thing.”[2]
(12) “Utah Mormons (including Smith’s wives) affirmed repeatedly that he had physical sexual relations with them – despite the Victorian conventions in nineteenth-century American culture which ordinarily would have prevented any mention of sexuality.” [evidence in 10 of 33 only?]
(12) For instance, Mary Elizabeth Rollins (Lightner Smith Young) stated that she knew of three children born to Joseph's plural wives. "I know he had six wives and I have known some of them from childhood up. I know he had three children. They told me. I think two are living today but they are not known as his children as they go by other names."[3] Melissa Lott (Smith Willes) testified that she had been Joseph's wife "in very deed."[4] Emily D. Partridge (Smith Young) said she "roomed" with Joseph the night following her marriage to him and said that she had "carnal intercourse" with him.[5]
(14) “There are no known instances of marriages for ‘eternity only’ in the nineteenth century.”
(15) “Though it is possible that Joseph had some marriages in which there were no sexual relations, there is no explicitly or convincing evidence for this (except perhaps, in the cases of the older wives, judging from later Mormon polygamy). And in a significant number [10/33]of marriages, there is evidence for sexual relations.”
(17) “Joseph regarded marriages performed without Mormon priesthood authority as invalid, just as he regarded baptisms performed without Mormon priesthood authority as invalid. Thus all couples in Nauvoo who accepted Mormonism were suddenly unmarried, granted Joseph's absolutist, exclusivist claims to divine authority. John D. Lee wrote:
About the same time the doctrine of "sealing" for an eternal state was introduced, and the Saints were given to understand that their marriage relations with each other were not valid. That those who had solemnized the rites of matrimony had no authority of God to do so. That the true priesthood was taken from the earth with the death of the Apostles . . . They were married to each other only by their own covenants, and that if their marriage relations had not been productive of blessings and peace, and they felt it oppressive to remain together, they were at liberty to make their own choice, as much as if they had not been married. That it was a sin for people to live together, and raise or beget children in alienation from each other. There should be an affinity between each other, not a lustful one, as that can never cement that love and affection that should exist between a man and his wife.[6]
This is a radical, almost utopian rejection of civil, secular, sectarian, non-Mormon marriage. Such ‘lower’ marriage was even a ‘sin’ unless a higher ‘affinity’ cemented the partners together.”
(19) “Thus heavenly marriages in the pre-existence require earthly polyandry here. Certain spirits were ‘kindred,’ matched in heaven, were born into this life, and , because of unauthorized marriages performed without priesthood sealing power, became linked ‘illegally’ to the wrong partners.”
(20) “There we no divorces as a result of his polyandrous marriages. But the first husband probably recognized that he and the wife were married only until death.”
(20) “Two ‘first husbands,’ George W. Harris and Jonathan Holmes, stood proxy for the prophet as their wives were sealed to him for eternity. Another ‘first husband,’ Henry Jacobs, stood as witness when his wife, Zina, was sealed eternally to Smith… Afterwhich… Zina bore a second son to Jacobs.”
(20) “This kind of marriage was not viewed as eternal polyandry… The distinction between civil and spiritual marriage produced what might be called practical polyandry – i.e., on earth there were clearly two co-existent marriages, but they were of different types.
(21) “Some historians have proposed the interpretation that Joseph either had no marital relations with his ‘polyandrous’ wives… Such a theoretical relationship has been called ‘pseudo-polyandry.’ However, the Josephine Lyon Fisher affidavit argues against this.”
(21) “There is no good evidence that Joseph Smith did not have sexual relations with any wife, previously single or polyandrous… One wonders why these ‘first husbands’ apparently acquiesced to their wives’ marriages to Smith. One possibility would be that they were promised spiritual rewards as a result of the marriages.”
(22) “The husbands may have been promised that Smith’s marriage to their wives would contribute to their own higher exaltation after this life.”
(22) “A husband giving his wife to Joseph may not have understood fully what the marriage would entail.”
(22-23) “There is a clearly discernible outline of ideology in the historical record that explains the development and rationale for the practice of Smith’s polyandry. ‘Gentile’ (i.e. non-Mormon) marriages were ‘illegal,’ of no eternal value or even earthly validity; marriages authorized by Mormon priesthood and prophets took precedence. Sometimes these sacred marriages were felt to fulfill pre-mortal linkings and so justified a sacred marriage superimposed over a secular one. Mormonism’s intensely hierarchical nature allowed a man with the highest earthly authority – a Joseph Smith or Brigham Young – to request the wives of men holding lesser Mormon priesthood, or no priesthood. The authority of the prophet would allow him to promise higher exaltation to those involved in the triangle, both the wife and her first husband.”
(23) “But with polyandry, as with the better-known polygyny, despite the elaborate doctrinal justifications, despite the reverence for a modern prophet and the unquestioning devotion to a restored biblical religion, the emotional challenges of this new marriage system must have been tremendous. In the cases of most of the polyandrous wives, the human dimensions of polyandry are not recorded; it is not even openly acknowledged. However, the wives and husbands must have felt conflicted.” [No “elaborate doctrinal justification” of polyandry exists – no “doctrinal justification” is found anywhere. No “tremendous emotional challenges” are found in polyandry.]
(638) “Brigham Young told Horace Greeley, ‘I have some aged women sealed to me upon the principle of sealing which I no more think of making a wife of than I would my Grand Mother,’ Clerk’s report of interview, July 13, 1859, Lee Library, as cited in Johnson, DDW 57-70, 58.”
(639) “A relevant factor that must be considered is that husbands were legally entitled to custody of the children in a divorce… However, ‘first husbands’ were generally so loyal to Joseph Smith that this was probably not a factor, except in the cases of the non-Mormons or disaffected Mormons.”
(639) “Mormon polyandry was never systematized and was always secret.”
(639) “There was a fraternal dimension to Mormon ecclesiastical fellowship, and…0 one’s relationship with Joseph Smith was crucial for one’s earthly and eternal welfare.”
(642) “There is no good evidence supporting the position (found in Brodie, NM 119, 462) THAT Joseph Smith was married to Marinda Johnson (later the first wife of Orson Hyde), or had an affair with her, in 1831, and was mobbed by ‘her brother Eli’ and others as a result.”
(642) George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton, p.559
“From him I learned that the doctrine of plural and celestial marriage is the most holy and important doctrine ever revealed to man on the earth, and that without obedience to that principle no man can ever attain to the ruiness of exaltation in celestial glory.”
(28) Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, p.10 “Confusion over the exact nature and extent of Joseph Smith's involvement with Fanny Alger has remained to this day. That there was a sexual relationship seems probable. But was Smith's association with his house servant adulterous, as Cowdery charged? Or was she Smith's first plural wife? Apostle Heber C Kimball, many years later, introduced Fanny's brother John Alger in the Saint George Temple as "brother of the Prophet Josephs first Plural Wife" (Zimmerman 1976, 45). And in 1899 church leaders performed a proxy marriage for the couple. "The sealings of those named," a temple recorder noted of Alger and the ten other women listed, "were performed during the life of the Prophet Joseph but there is no record thereof. President Lorenzo Snow decided that they be repeated in order that a record might exist; and that this explanation be made" (Tinney 1973, 41).”
(33) “Levi Hancock received his reward. Smith sanctioned his marriage to Clarissa Reed, which took place on March 29, 1833. Mosiah’s narrative suggests that the Smith-Alger marriage occurred first, so Joseph probably married Fanny in February or March 1833, when she was sixteen and he was twenty-seven.”
(645) “Evidence of a plural marriage for Cowdery in Kirtland is not persuasive. Opposing this view are Brigham Young, quoted in Charles Walker Journal, July 26, 1872 (1:359). Joseph F. Smith, July 7, 1878, in JD 20:29; [G.Q. Cannon], “History of the Church,” Juvenile Instructor 16 (Sept. 15, 1881): 206; Stenhouse, Rocky Mountain Saints 193. Compare Parkin, Conflict at Kirtland 169-72, esp 172 n. 100; Quinn MHOP 544.
(35) “As noted, Joseph apparently married Fanny in February or March 1833. From this point on, dates become fluid, the next firm even being the Alger Family’s departure from Kirtland in September 1836, three and a half years later.”
(36) “Historian Richard Van Wagoner presents the following attractive scenario, which suggests an August 1835 departure date for Fanny. He has Cowdery recommending that Joseph leave Kirtland for a time after the flare-up with Emma. Smith took a trip to Michigan with Frederick Williams in August, and on the 17th the ‘Article on Marriage,’ which denied polygamy, was presented to and accepted by the church in Smith’s absence. Clearly the statement represented an effort to counteract scandal and perhaps to defuse rumors of Fanny Alger’s marriage, possible pregnancy, and expulsion. Smith returned to Kirtland on August 23.”
(25) “The clerk recorded: ‘Dublin November 16th, 1836 This day married by me Levi Eastridge a Justice of the Peace for Wayne County and State of Indiana Mr Solomon Custer and Miss Fanny Alger both of this town.”
(40) “Fanny disappears entirely from the Latter-day Saint historical record. The rest of the Alger family moved to Nauvoo in the fall of 1845, and in May 1846 left Nauvoo for the west… [Fanny’s] mother and father died in 1870 and 1874 in southern Utah.”
LUCINDA PENDLETON
(43) “Antagonistic Sarah Pratt reported that while in Nauvoo Lucinda had admitted a long-standing relationship with Smith. It is well-documented that he stayed with the Harrises in 1838, and the Pratt reference concurs with this date. These data, along with the early Nauvoo temple proxy sealing to Smith and other corroborating details lead to the conclusion that Lucinda in fact married Smith, possibly in 1838. It is certain that is would have been a polyandrous arrangement, as she married George Washington Harris in 1830 and continued to live with him until approximately 1853. Harris was a typical ‘first husband’: far from faithless, he was an active prominent Mormon, a high council or in Missouri, Illinois, and Nebraska.”