View source for Helen Mar Kimball

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{{H2
|L=Helen Mar Kimball
|H=Helen Mar Kimball
|S=Helen was nearly fifteen when her father urged her to be sealed to Joseph Smith
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{{SummaryItem
|link=Joseph_Smith's_marriages_to_young_women
|subject=The age of Joseph Smith's wives.
|summary=How old were Joseph Smith's plural wives? As discussed below, this sealing was likely unconsummated.
}}

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{{Epigraph|The Prophet said...that it [plural marriage] would damn more than it would have because \so many/ unprincipled men would take advantage of it, but that did not prove that it was not a pure principle. If Joseph had had any impure desires he could have gratified them in the style of the world with less danger of his life or his character, than to do as he did. The Lord commanded him to teach & to practice that principle.<br><br>&mdash;Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, Letter to Mary Bond, n.d., 3-9 quoted in Brian Hales, ''Joseph Smith's Polygamy: History'', Vol. 1, 26-27. {{link|url=http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Smiths-Polygamy-Volume-1a-ebook/dp/B00BI4J2Y2}}
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{{Epigraph|Presentism, at its worst, encourages a kind of moral complacency and self-congratulation. Interpreting the past in terms of present concerns usually leads us to find ourselves morally superior…Our forbears constantly fail to measure up to our present-day standards.<ref>Lynn Hunt, "Against Presentism," (President's Column) ''Perspectives'' 40/5 (May 2002).</ref><br>&mdash;Lynn Hunt, President of American Historical Association}}
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=What were the circumstances surrounding the sealing of Helen Mar Kimball to Joseph Smith?=
==Helen’s father, Heber C. Kimball, had the most active part in bringing Helen and Joseph together==
Some points regarding the circumstances surrounding the sealing of Helen Mar Kimball to Joseph Smith<ref>This material was provided courtesy of Brian and Laura Hales.</ref>:

*Helen never describes in her journal or later writings being alone with the Prophet even once without a chaperone. <ref>See 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); ''Why We Practice Plural Marriage'' (Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1840). Helen also kept a detailed journal throughout much of her life. See Charles M.Hatch and Todd M. Compton, eds., ''A Widow’s Tale: The 1884-1896 Diary of Helen Mar Kimball Whitney'' (Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2003).</ref> References to intimate relations would not be expected. Yet, if the two spent time together as husband and wife, Helen might have made a passing reference to the interactions, but none are found.
*Helen’s father, Heber C. Kimball, had the most active part in bringing Helen and Joseph together. Helen wrote: "He [her father—Heber C. Kimball] taught me the principle of Celestial marriage and having a great desire to be connected with the Prophet, Joseph, he offered me to him." <ref>Typescript and copy of holograph reproduced in Jeni Broberg Holzapfel and Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, eds., ''A Woman’s View: Helen Mar Whitney’s Reminiscences of Early Church History'' (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1997), 482–87.</ref> Richard Anderson explained: "Helen says several times that her father took the initiative to arrange the marriage and very possibly he did so with a view to committing her to the Prophet before her budding social life produced a choice or a proposal" from someone else. <ref>Richard L. Anderson to Dawn Comfort, May 9–15, 1998, copy of letter in Scott H. Faulring Papers, box 93, fds 1–3, (accn 2316), Marriott Library.</ref>
*Joseph’s role was not completely passive because he was willing to teach Helen Mar and marry her after Heber introduced the idea. So this is a point where Joseph may be criticized. But it seems to be about the only one.

==Brigham Young instructed polygamous men to wait to consummate their sealings to younger brides until they were at least eighteen==

*Helen’s sealing was presumably for both time and eternity, so this would eventually have become an actual marriage that included sexual relations. In Utah, Brigham Young instructed polygamous men to wait to consummate their sealings to younger brides until they were at least eighteen.<ref>See discussion in Eugene E. Campbell, ''Establishing Zion: The Mormon Church in the American West 1847-1869'' (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1988), 198n5.</ref> While it is impossible to document, it appears this policy began in Nauvoo with Joseph Smith.
*Michael Marquardt surmised: "Helen Kimball’s sealing to Joseph Smith was a spiritual one unlike other wives who had sexual relations with the prophet."<ref>Michael Marquardt, ''The Rise of Mormonism: 1816–1844'' (Longwood, FL: Xulon Press, 2005), 609.</ref>
*After her sealing, Helen wrote:
<blockquote>
During the winter of 1843, there were plenty of parties and balls. … Some of the young gentlemen got up a series of dancing parties, to be held at the Mansion once a week. … I had to stay home, as my father had been warned by the Prophet to keep his daughter away from there, because of the blacklegs and certain ones of questionable character who attended there. … I felt quite sore over it, and thought it a very unkind act in father to allow [my brother] to go and enjoy the dance unrestrained with others of my companions, and fetter me down, for no girl loved dancing better than I did, and I really felt that it was too much to bear. It made the dull school still more dull, and like a wild bird I longer for the freedom that was denied me; and thought myself a much abused child, and that it was pardonable if I did murmur.<ref>''Woman’s Exponent'' 11, no. 12, November 15, 1882, 90; see Holzapfel and Holzapfel, eds., ''A Woman’s View'', 224.</ref>
</blockquote>

==Helen was not called to testify in the Temple Lot case, in which the Church was attempting to prove that Joseph had normal marital relations with some of his plural wives, even though she was available==

Brian Hales observes:

<blockquote>In 1892, the RLDS Church led by Joseph Smith III sued the Church of Christ (Temple Lot),<ref>Known colloquially as “Hedrickites” after Granville Hedrick, who was ordained the church’s first leader in 1863. They prefer the title of “Church of Christ (Temple Lot).”</ref> disputing its claim to own the temple lot in Independence, Missouri. The Church of Christ (Temple Lot) held physical possession, and the RLDS Church took the official position that since it was the true successor of the church originally founded by Joseph Smith, it owned the property outright.<ref>S. Patrick Baggette II, “The Temple Lot Case: Fraud in God’s Vineyard,” 136.</ref>
<br>
Although the LDS Church was not a party to the suit, it provided support to the Church of Christ (Temple Lot). The issue was parsed this way: If the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) could prove that plural marriage was part of the original Church, then the RLDS Church was obviously not the true successor since it failed to practice such a key doctrine.<ref>The Church of Christ (Temple Lot) were staunchly opposed to plural marriage and seemed to have pursued polygamy as a line of inquiry only for strategic purposes. See R. Jean Addams, “The Church of Christ (Temple Lot) and the Reorganized Church of Latter Day Saints: 130 Years of Crossroads and Controversies,” ''Journal of Mormon History'' 36, no. 2 (2010): 29–53.</ref>

During the proceedings, three plural wives of Joseph Smith (Lucy Walker, Emily Partridge, and Malissa Lott) were deposed.<ref>The Temple Lot case transcript, as it is popularly known, comprises more than 1,700 pages. It can be accessed at https://archive.org/details/TempleLotCaseTranscript.</ref>

Why was Helen Kimball Whitney not also called to testify in the Temple Lot trial regarding her marriage relations with Joseph Smith? She lived in Salt Lake City, geographically much closer than two of the three witnesses: Malissa Lott live thirty miles south in Lehi, and Lucy Walker lived eighty-two miles north in Logan.

A likely reason is that Helen could not provide the needed testimony. All three of Joseph Smith’s wives who did testify affirmed that sexual relations were part of their plural marriages to the Prophet.<ref>Malissa Lott, Deposition, Temple Lot Transcript, Respondent’s Testimony, part 3, page 105, question 227; Lucy Walker, Deposition, Temple Lot Transcript, Respondent’s Testimony, part 3, pages 450–51, 468, 473, questions 29–30, 463–74, 586.</ref> Testifying of either an unconsummated time-and-eternity sealing or an eternity-only marriage would have hurt the Temple Lot case. Such marriages would have been easily dismissed as unimportant.

If Helen’s plural union did not include conjugality, her testimony would not have been helpful. If it did, the reason for not inviting her to testify is not obvious. Not only was Helen passed over, but Mary Elizabeth Lightner, Zina Huntington, and Patty Sessions, who were sealed to Joseph in eternity-only marriages, were similarly not deposed.

The lack of evidence does not prove the lack of sexual relations, but these observations are consistent with an unconsummated union.</blockquote>

==Helen became an advocate of plural marriage and vigorously defended it==

*Helen wrote more about plural marriage than any other female author in the nineteenth century, defending it and Joseph Smith. Included were two books, ''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) and her second, ''Why We Practice Plural Marriage'' (Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1840).
*People may claim Helen was a victim of Joseph Smith and/or polygamy, but it is a claim she never made for herself. In 1881 Helen penned her feelings toward her sealing to the Prophet:
:<blockquote>I am thankful that He [Heavenly Father] has brought me through the furnace of affliction and that He has condescended to show me that the promises made to me the morning that I was sealed to the Prophet of God will not fail and I would not have the chain broken for I have had a view of the principle of eternal salvation and the perfect union which this sealing power will bring to the human family and with the help of our Heavenly Father I am determined to so live that I can claim those promises.<ref>Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, "Autobiography, 30 March 1881," MS 744, CHL. Typescript and copy of holograph reproduced in Holzapfel and Holzapfel, ''A Woman’s View'', 482–87.</ref></blockquote>

==Helen wrote a poem entitled "Reminiscences," which is often cited by critics==

Later in life, Helen wrote a poem entitled "Reminiscences." It is often cited for the critics' claims:

: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.

:To my guileless heart all free from worldly care
:And full of blissful hopes—and youthful visions rare
:The world seamed bright the thret'ning clouds were kept
:From sight, and all looked fair but pitying angels wept.
:They saw my youthful friends grow shy and cold.
:And poisonous darts from sland'rous tongues were hurled,
:Untutor'd heart in thy gen'rous sacrafise,
:Thou dids't not weigh the cost nor know the bitter price;
:Thy happy dreems all o'er thou'rt doom'd alas to be
:Bar'd out from social scenes by this thy destiny,
:And o'er thy sad'nd mem'ries of sweet departed joys
:Thy sicken'd heart will brood and imagine future woes,
:And like a fetter'd bird with wild and longing heart,
:Thou'lt dayly pine for freedom and murmor at thy lot;

:But could'st thou see the future & view that glorious crown,
:Awaiting you in Heaven you would not weep nor mourn. [p. 2]
:Pure and exalted was thy father's aim, he saw
:A glory in obeying this high celestial law,
:For to thousands who've died without the light
:I will bring eternal joy & make thy crown more bright.
:I'd been taught to reveire the Prophet of God
:And receive every word as the word of the Lord. 
:But had ''this'' not come through my dear father's mouth,
:I should ne'r have received it as God's sacred truth.<ref>"Helen Mar Kimball Whitney 1881 Autobiography," Appendix I in Helen Mar Whitney, A Woman's View: Helen Mar Whitney's Reminiscences of Early Church History, ed. Jeni Broberg Holzapfel and Richard Neitzel Holzapfel (Provo, Utah / Salt Lake City, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center, distributed by Bookcraft, 1997), 486.</ref>

The first portion of the poem expresses the youthful Helen's attitude.  She is distressed mostly because of the loss of socialization and youthful ideas about romance.  But, as Helen was later to explain more clearly in prose, she would soon realize that her youthful pout was uncalled for&mdash;she saw that her plural marriage had, in fact, protected her.  "I have long since learned to leave all with Him, who knoweth better than ourselves what will make us happy," she noted after the poem.<ref>Helen Mar Whitney, A Woman's View: Helen Mar Whitney's Reminiscences of Early Church History, ed. Jeni Broberg Holzapfel and Richard Neitzel Holzapfel (Provo, Utah / Salt Lake City, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center, distributed by Bookcraft, 1997), 486&ndash;487.</ref>

==Helen was disappointed that she was not permitted to attend a party or a dance==

Thus, she would later write of her youthful disappointment in not being permitted to attend a party or dance:

<blockquote>
During the winter of 1843, there were plenty of parties and balls. … Some of the young gentlemen got up a series of dancing parties, to be held at the Mansion once a week. … I had to stay home, as my father had been warned by the Prophet to keep his daughter away from there, because of the blacklegs and certain ones of questionable character who attended there. … I felt quite sore over it, and thought it a very unkind act in father to allow [my brother] to go and enjoy the dance unrestrained with others of my companions, and fetter me down, for no girl loved dancing better than I did, and I really felt that it was too much to bear. It made the dull school still more dull, and like a wild bird I longed for the freedom that was denied me; and thought myself a much abused child, and that it was pardonable if I did murmur.

I ''imagined'' that my happiness was all over and brooded over the sad memories of sweet departed joys and all manner of future woes, which (by the by) were of short duration, my bump of hope being too large to admit of my remaining long under the clouds. Besides my father was very kind and indulgent in other ways, and always took me with him when mother could not go, and ''it was not a very long time before I became satisfied that I was blessed in being under the control of so good and wise a parent who had taken counsel and thus saved me from evils'', which some others in their youth and inexperience were exposed to though they thought no evil. Yet the busy tongue of scandal did not spare them. A moral may be drawn from this truthful story. "Children obey thy parents," etc. And also, "Have regard to thy name, for that shall continue with you above a thousand great treasures of gold." "A good life hath but few days; but a good name endureth forever.<ref> Helen Mar Whitney, Scenes and Incidents, 90. {{ia}}</ref>
</blockquote>

So, despite her youthful reaction, Helen uses this as an illustration of how she was being a bit immature and upset, and how she ought to have trusted her parents, and that she was actually protected from problems that arose from the parties she missed.

=Did Helen Mar Kimball "confess" to having marital relations with Joseph?=
==Helen allegedly said "I would never have been sealed to Joseph had I known it was anything more than ceremony"==
Critics of the Church provide a supposed "confession" from Helen, in which she reportedly said:

<blockquote>
I would never have been sealed to Joseph had I known it was anything more than ceremony. I was young, and they deceived me, by saying the salvation of our whole family depended on it.<ref>Catherine Lewis, ''Narrative of Some of the Proceedings of the Mormons'' (Lynn, MA: n.p., 1848), 19.</ref>
</blockquote>

==The source of the statement is "suspect"==
Author Todd Compton properly characterizes this source, noting that it is an anti-Mormon work, and calls its extreme language "suspect."<ref>{{CriticalWork:Compton:Sacred Loneliness|pages=195}}</ref>

Author George D. Smith tells his readers only that this is Helen "confiding," while doing nothing to reveal the statement's provenance from a hostile source.<ref>{{CriticalWork:Smith:Nauvoo Polygamy|pages=202}}</ref>  Newell and Avery tell us nothing of the nature of this source and call it only a "statement" in the Stanley Ivins Collection;<ref>{{CriticalWork:Newell Avery:Mormon Enigma|pages=147}}</ref> Van Wagoner mirrors G. D. Smith by disingenuously writing that "Helen confided [this information] to a close Nauvoo friend," without revealing its anti-Mormon origins.<ref>{{CriticalWork:Van Wagoner:Sidney Rigdon|pages=293}}</ref>

==In order for this story to be true, Helen would be telling a story at variance with all other things that she wrote==

To credit this story at face value, one must also admit that Helen told others in Nauvoo about the marriage (something she repeatedly emphasized she was not to do) and that she told a story at variance with all the others from her pen during a lifetime of staunch defense of plural marriage.<ref>On Helen’s authentic statements, see Helen Mar Whitney, A Woman’s View: Helen Mar Whitney’s Reminiscences of Early Church History, ed. Jeni Broberg Holzapfel and Richard Neitzel Holzapfel (Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1997), ix–xliii.</ref>

==If we accept the statement as valid, we may interpret it in other ways than conjugality.==
As Brian Hales writes:

<blockquote>It is clear that Helen’s sealing to Joseph Smith prevented her from socializing as an unmarried lady. The primary document referring to the relationship is an 1881 poem penned by Helen that has been interpreted in different ways ...

After leaving the church, dissenter Catherine Lewis reported Helen saying: "I would never have been sealed to Joseph had I known it was anything more than a ceremony."

Assuming this statement was accurate, which is not certain, the question arises regarding her meaning of "more than a ceremony"? While sexuality is a possibility, a more likely interpretation is that the ceremony prevented her from associating with her friends as an unmarried teenager, causing her dramatic distress after the sealing.<ref>See "Helen Mar Kimball" at http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/plural-wives-overview/helen-mar-kimball/</ref></blockquote>

=Was Helen Mar Kimball's marriage to Joseph Smith ever consummated?=
==Critics generally do not reveal that their sources have concluded that Helen's marriage to Joseph Smith was never consummated==
Critics generally do not reveal that their sources have concluded that Helen's marriage to Joseph Smith was unconsummated, preferring instead to point out that mere fact of the marriage of a 14-year-old girl to a 37-year-old man ought to be evidence enough to imply sexual relations and "pedophilia." For example, George D. Smith quotes Compton without disclosing his view,<ref>George D. Smith, ''Nauvoo Polygamy''</ref> cites Compton, but ignores that Compton argues that " there is absolutely no evidence that there was any sexuality in the marriage, and I suggest that, following later practice in Utah, there may have been no sexuality. All the evidence points to this marriage as a primarily dynastic marriage." <ref>Todd M. Compton, "Response to Tanners," post to LDS Bookshelf mailing list (no date), http://www.lds-mormon.com/compton.shtml (accessed 2 December 2008). Compare with Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy, 198–202, 302, 362 and Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 14.)</ref> and Stanley Kimball without disclosing that he believed the marriage to be "unconsummated." <ref>Stanley B. Kimball, ''Heber C. Kimball: Mormon Patriarch and Pioneer'' (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981), 98.  See also Stanley B. Kimball, "Heber C. Kimball and Family, the Nauvoo Years," ''Brigham Young University Studies'' 15/4 (Summer 1975): 465.</ref>

{{Critical sources box:Joseph Smith/Polygamy/Plural wives/Helen Mar Kimball/Circumstances of her plural marriage/CriticalSources}}{{blankline}}

=What were Helen Mar Kimball's views on plural marriage?=
==Helen disliked plural marriage because of the difficulties it placed on her mother==

Helen made clear what she disliked about plural marriage in Nauvoo, and it was not physical relations with an older man:

<blockquote>
I had, in hours of temptation, ''when seeing the trials of my mother'', felt to rebel. I hated polygamy in my heart, I had loved my baby more than my God, and mourned for it unreasonably….<ref>Augusta Joyce Crocheron (author and complier), Representative Women of Deseret, a book of biographical sketches to accompany the picture bearing the same title (Salt Lake City: J. C. Graham & Co., 1884).</ref>
</blockquote>

Helen is describing a period during the westward migration when (married monogamously) her first child died.  Helen was upset by polygamy only because she saw the difficulties it placed on her mother.  She is not complaining about her own experience with it.

{{main|Divine_manifestations_to_plural_wives_and_families#Heber_and_Vilate_Kimball|l1=Divine manifestations of plural marriage: Heber and Vilate Kimball}}

=Helen Mar Kimball: "I have encouraged and sustained my husband in the celestial order of marriage because I knew it was right"=
Helen Mar Kimball:
<blockquote>
All my sins and shortcomings were magnified before my eyes till I believed I had sinned beyond redemption. Some may call it the fruits of a diseased brain. There is nothing without a cause, be that as it may, it was a keen reality to me. During that season I lost my speech, forgot the names of everybody and everything, and was living in another sphere, learning lessons that would serve me in future times to keep me in the narrow way. I was left a poor wreck of what I had been, but the Devil with all his cunning, little thought that he was fitting and preparing my heart to fulfill its destiny…. 

[A]fter spending one of the happiest days of my life I was moved upon to talk to my mother. I knew her heart was weighed down in sorrow and I was full of the holy Ghost. I talked as I never did before, I was too weak to talk with such a voice (of my own strength), beside, I never before spoke with such eloquence, and she knew that it was not myself. She was so affected that she sobbed till I ceased. I assured her that father loved her, but he had a work to do, she must rise above her feelings and seek for the Holy Comforter, and though it rent her heart she must uphold him, for he in taking other wives had done it only in obedience to a holy principle. Much more I said, and when I ceased, she wiped her eyes and told me to rest. I had not felt tired till she said this, but commenced then to feel myself sinking away. I silently prayed to be renewed, when my strength returned that instant… 

I have encouraged and sustained my husband in the celestial order of marriage because I knew it was right. At various times I have been healed by the washing and annointing, administered by the mothers in Israel. I am still spared to testify to the truth and Godliness of this work; and though my happiness once consisted in laboring for those I love, the Lord has seen fit to deprive me of bodily strength, and taught me to 'cast my bread upon the waters' and after many days my longing spirit was cheered with the knowledge that He had a work for me to do, and with Him, I know that all things are possible…<ref>Augusta Joyce Crocheron (author and complier), ''Representative Women of Deseret'', a book of biographical sketches to accompany the picture bearing the same title (Salt Lake City: J. C. Graham & Co., 1884).</ref>
</blockquote>

=Why would Joseph marry a young woman in her teens?=

==What is Presentism?==

Imagine a school-child who asks why French knights didn't resist the English during the Battle of Agincourt (in 1415) using Sherman battle tanks.  We might gently reply that there were no such tanks available. The child, a precocious sort, retorts that the French generals must have been incompetent, because everyone knows that tanks are necessary.  The child has fallen into the trap of presentism—he has presumed that situations and circumstances in the past are always the same as the present.  Clearly, there were no Sherman tanks available in 1415; we cannot in fairness criticize the French for not using something which was unavailable and unimagined.

Spotting such anachronistic examples of presentism is relatively simple.  The more difficult problems involve issues of culture, behavior, and attitude.  For example, it seems perfectly obvious to most twenty-first century North Americans that discrimination on the basis of race is wrong.  We might judge a modern, racist politician quite harshly.  We risk presentism, however, if we presume that all past politicians and citizens should have recognized racism, and fought it.  In fact, for the vast majority of history, racism has almost always been present.  Virtually all historical figures are, by modern standards, racists.  To identify George Washington or Thomas Jefferson as racists, and to judge them as moral failures, is to be guilty of presentism.

A caution against presentism is not to claim that no moral judgments are possible about historical events, or that it does not matter whether we are racists or not.  Washington and Jefferson were born into a culture where society, law, and practice had institutionalized racism.  For them even to perceive racism as a problem would have required that they lift themselves out of their historical time and place.  Like fish surrounded by water, racism was so prevalent and pervasive that to even imagine a world without it would have been extraordinarily difficult.  We will not properly understand Washington and Jefferson, and their choices, if we simply condemn them for violating modern standards of which no one in their era was aware.

==A textbook example of presentist history is the claim that Joseph engaged in "statuatory rape"==

Condemning Joseph Smith for "statutory rape" is a textbook example of presentist history.  "Rape," of course, is a crime in which the victim is forced into sexual behavior against her (or his) will.  Such behavior has been widely condemned in ancient and modern societies.  Like murder or theft, it arguably violates the moral conscience of any normal individual.  It was certainly a crime in Joseph Smith's day, and if Joseph was guilty of forced sexual intercourse, it would be appropriate to condemn him.

(Despite what some claim, not all marriages or sealings were consummated, as in Helen's case [[#What were the circumstances surrounding the sealing of Helen Mar Kimball to Joseph Smith?|discussed above]].)

"Statutory rape," however, is a completely different matter.  Statutory rape is sexual intercourse with a victim that is deemed too young to provide legal consent--it is rape under the "statute," or criminal laws of the nation.  Thus, a twenty-year-old woman who chooses to have sex has not been raped.  Our society has concluded, however, that a ten-year-old child does not have the physical, sexual, or emotional maturity to truly understand the decision to become sexually active.  Even if a ten-year-old agrees to sexual intercourse with a twenty-year-old male, the male is guilty of "statutory rape."  The child's consent does not excuse the adult's behavior, because the adult should have known that sex with a minor child is illegal.

Even in the modern United States, statutory rape laws vary by state.  A twenty-year-old who has consensual sex with a sixteen-year-old in Alabama would have nothing to fear; moving to California would make him guilty of statutory rape even if his partner was seventeen.

By analogy, Joseph Smith likely owned a firearm for which he did not have a license--this is hardly surprising, since no law required guns to be registered on the frontier in 1840.  It would be ridiculous for Hitchens to complain that Joseph "carried an unregistered firearm." While it is certainly true that Joseph's gun was unregistered, this tells us very little about whether Joseph was a good or bad man.  The key question, then, is not "Would Joseph Smith's actions be illegal today?"  Only a bigot would condemn someone for violating a law that had not been made.

Rather, the question should be, "Did Joseph violate the laws of the society in which he lived?"  If Joseph did not break the law, then we might go on to ask, "Did his behavior, despite not being illegal, violate the common norms of conscience or humanity?"  For example, even if murder was not illegal in Illinois, if Joseph repeatedly murdered, we might well question his morality.

==Does the case of Helen mean Joseph was a "pedophile"?==

"Pedophilia" applies to children; Helen was regarded as a mature young woman

Helen specifically mentioned that she was regarded as mature.<ref>{{nc}}</ref> 'Pedophilia' is an inflammatory charge that refers to a sexual attraction to pre-pubertal children. It simply does not apply in the present case, even if the relationship had been consummated.

===It is claimed by critics that the average age of menarche in 1840 was 16.4 years and that therefore Helen Mar Kimball was prepubescent when she was sealed to Joseph Smith at age 14===

Critics of Mormonism claim that Helen Mar Kimball was prepubescent at the time that she was sealed to Joseph Smith, and that this is therefore evidence that Joseph was a pedophile. Pedophila describes a sexual attraction to prepubescent children. However, there is no evidence that Helen ever cohabited with or had sexual relations with Joseph. In fact, she continued to live with her parents after the sealing. 

The use of the term "pedophilia" by critics in this situation is intended to generate a negative emotional response in the reader. Pedophiles don't advertise their obsession and they certainly don't discuss marriages with the parents of their intended victims. It was Heber C. Kimball that ''requested'' that this sealing be performed, not Joseph. There is no evidence that Joseph was a pedophile.

===The age of menarche in America in 1840 has a normal distribution close to a mean of 15.2 years and a standard deviation of 1.85===

<blockquote>
European data indicates a long term linear drop, while US data is much more sparse. Using post-1910 data, Wyshak (1983) determined that the average age at menarche was dropping linearly at 3.2 month/decade with a value of 13.1 in 1920. This trend projects to 15.2 in 1840 and 16.3 in 1800. The onset of menarche follows a normal distribution that had a larger spread in the 19th century (σ≈1.7 to 2.0) in Brown (1966) and Laslett (1977).<ref>Craig L. Foster, David Keller, and Gregory L. Smith, “The Age of Joseph Smith’s Plural Wives in Social and Demographic Context,” in ''The Persistence of Polygamy'', eds. Newell G. Bringhurst and Craig L. Foster (Independence, MO: John Whitmer Books, 2010), 152–83. The authors cite Grace Wyshak "Secular changes in age at menarche in a sample of US women," ''Annals of Human Biology'' 10:1 (1983): 75&ndash;77; P. E.  Brown, “The Age at Menarche,” ''British Journal of Preventive and Social Medicine'' 20 (1966): 9&ndash;14; and Peter Laslett, ''Family life and Illicit Love in Earlier Generations'' (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977).</ref>
</blockquote>

Helen Mar Kimball was [http://juvenileinstructor.org/from-the-archives-helen-mar-kimball-blessing-and-the-dating-of-her-marriage-to-joseph-smith likely married near the end of the month of May in 1843] and was thus approximately 14.8 years old when she was sealed to Joseph Smith. With only the statistics cited above we can conclude that 40% of the young women her age would have already matured and thus in their society be considered marriage eligible. If 40% is taken as an ''a priori'' probability, additional information puts maturity at her first marriage beyond a reasonable doubt using Bayesian methodology.

===Helen and her contemporaries considered her mature for her age===

Helen remembered transitioning from childhood to adulthood over a year before her first marriage as she attended social functions with older teens. Here is quote on the abruptness of this transition in the past from a graduate course's textbook on child development:

<blockquote>
In industrial societies, as we have mentioned, the concept of adolescence as a period of development is quite recent. Until the early twentieth century, young people were considered children until they left school (often well before age 13), married or got a job, and entered the adult world. By the 1920s, with the establishment of comprehensive high schools to meet the needs of a growing economy and with more families able to support extended formal education for their children, the teenage years had become a distinct period of development (Keller, 1999). In some preindustrial societies, the concept of adolescence still does not exist. The Chippewa, for example, have only two periods of childhood: from birth until the child walks, and from walking to puberty. What we call adolescence is, for them, part of adulthood (Broude, 1995), as was true in societies before industrialization.<ref>Diane Papalia, Gabriela Martorell, and R. Feldman, ''In A Child's World: Infancy through Adolescence'', 13th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill Education, 2014).</ref>
</blockquote>

Helen recalls that by March 1842, she "had grown up very fast and my father often took me out with him and for this reason was taken to be older than I was." At these social gatherings, she developed a crush on her future husband Horace Whitney. She later  married him after Joseph Smith's martyrdom and her 16th birthday and had 12 children with him. 

According to Helen:
<blockquote>
Sarah Ann's brother, Horace, who was twenty months her senior, made one of the party but had never dreamed of such a thing as matrimony with me, whom he only remembered in the earliest school days in Kirtland as occupying one of the lowest seats. He becoming enough advanced, soon left the one taught in the red schoolhouse on the flat and attended a higher one on the hill, and through our moving to Missouri and Illinois we lost sight of each other. After the party was over I stopped the rest of the night with Sarah, and as her room and his were adjoining, being only separated by a partition, our talk seemed to disturb him, and he was impolite enough to tell us of it, and request us to stop and let him go to sleep, which was proof enough that he had never thought of me only as the green school girl that I was, or he would certainly have submitted gracefully (as lovers always should) to be made a martyr of.<ref>Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, 1828-1896, Autobiography (c. 1839-1846), "Life Incidents," ''Woman's Exponent'' 9-10 (1880-1882) and "Scenes and Incidents in Nauvoo," ''Woman's Exponent'' 11 (1882-83)) {{link|url=http://www.boap.org/LDS/Early-Saints/HWhitney.html}}</ref>
</blockquote>

===Evidence supports that Mormon teens did not marry until they had reached maturity.===

Scholars that study fertility often divide large samples into cohorts which are 5 years wide based on birth year or marriage age . In contrast to what some critics claim, the marriage cohort of 15-19 year olds has been shown at times to be more fertile than the 20-24 cohort. The authors of one study found that "Unlike most other reported natural-fertility populations, period fertility rates for married Mormon women aged 15-19 are higher between 1870 and 1894 than those for married women in their 20s. Women aged 15-19 in 1870-74 would have been born in the 1850s when 55.8 percent were married before their 20th birthday; thus, this cannot be treated as an insignificant group." And also "In addition, the median interval between marriage and birth of the first child is consistently about one year for all age-at-marriage groups."<ref>Mineau, G. P., L. L. Bean, and M. Skolnick 1979 “Mormon demographic history, II: The family life cycle and natural fertility,” ''Population Studies'' 33, 3:429–46.</ref> Another study disproved that younger marital age (15-19) resulted in a higher infant mortality rate due to the mother not being fully mature (termed the "biological-insufficiency hypothesis.").<ref>L. Bean, G. Mineau, and D. Anderton, "High-Risk Childbearing: Fertility and Infant Mortality on the American Frontier," ''Social Science History'' 16, no. 3 (1992): 337&ndash;63.</ref>

===Helen continued to live with her parents after the sealing, and then married someone else and had children with them after Joseph's death===

Helen continued to live with her parents after the sealing. After Joseph's death, Helen was married and had children.

Unlike today, it was acceptable to be sealed to one person for eternity while being married for time to another person. It is not known if this was the case with Helen, however.

==Four Key Questions==

We must, then, address four questions:

# What were the ages of Joseph's wives?
# Did Joseph have sexual intercourse with these women?  If not, then the issue of statutory rape is moot.  If so, we have not proven statutory rape, but can move on to the next question.
# What were the statutory rape laws of the time, and did Joseph violate them?
# If Joseph was not guilty of statutory rape, did he nevertheless violate common norms of conscience or society?

===1.  The Age of Joseph's Wives===

Even LDS authors are not immune from presentist fallacies: Todd Compton, convinced that plural marriage was a tragic mistake, "strongly disapprove[s] of polygamous marriages involving teenage women." <ref>Todd M. Compton, Response to Tanners, post to LDS Bookshelf mailing list, no date. <!-- <www.lds-mormon.com/compton.shtml>  -->(15 May 2005).</ref>  This would include, presumably, those marriages which Joseph insisted were commanded by God.  Compton notes, with some disapproval, that a third of Joseph's wives were under twenty years of age.  The modern reader may be shocked.  We must beware, however, of presentism—is it that unusual that a third of Joseph's wives would have been teenagers?  

When we study others in Joseph's environment, we find that it was not.  A sample of 201 Nauvoo-era civil marriages found that 33.3% were under twenty, with one bride as young as twelve. <ref>Susan Easton Black, "Marriages in the Nauvoo Region 1839-1845," on-line database, using sources:  Lyndon W. Cook, ''Civil Marriages in Nauvoo and some outlying areas (1839-1845)'' (Liberty Publishing Co., 1980); with additional data from ''Times and Seasons, The Wasp, Nauvoo Neighbor, '' and "A Record of Marriages in the City of Nauvoo," located at the Historical Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. <http://www.worldvitalrecords.com/indexinfo.aspx?ix=usa_il_nauvoo_marriages>   I am indebted to David Keller, who performed the initial data extraction, and saved me hours of work by sharing his raw data files.</ref>  Another sample of 127 Kirtland marriages found that nearly half (49.6%) were under twenty. <ref>Kirtland marriage data from Milton V. Backman, Jr. with Keith Perkins and Susan Easton, "A profile of Latter-day Saints of Kirtland, Ohio and members of Zion's Camp 1830–1839 : vital statistics and sources," complied in cooperation with the Department of Church History and Doctrine, Brigham Young University, in Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.  The indefatigable David Keller also provided me with this data.</ref>  And, a computer-aided study of LDS marriages found that from 1835–1845, 42.3% of women were married before age twenty. <ref>M. Skolnick, L. Bean, D. May, V. Arbon, K. De Nevers and P. Cartwright, "Mormon Demographic History I. Nuptiality and Fertility of Once-Married Couples," ''Populations Studies'' 32 (1978): 14, table 3. {{link|url=http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0032-4728%28197803%2932%3A1%3C5%3AMDHINA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-D}}  I appreciate John Gee bringing this reference to my attention.</ref>  The only surprising thing about Joseph's one third is that more of his marriage partners were not younger.

Furthermore, this pattern does not seem to be confined to the Mormons (see Chart 12 1).  A 1% sample from the 1850 U.S. census found 989 men and 962 who had been married in the last year.  Teens made up 36.0% of married women, and only 2.3% of men; the average age of marriage was 22.5 for women and 27.8 for men. <ref>Data from Steven Ruggles, Matthew Sobek, Trent Alexander, Catherine A. Fitch, Ronald Goeken, Patricia Kelly Hall, Miriam King, and Chad Ronnander, ''Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 3.0'' [Machine-readable database]. Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota Population Center [producer and distributor] (2004), accessed 14 July 2007. <http://usa.ipums.org/usa/>  I'm grateful to David Keller for sharing the raw data with me.</ref>  Even when the men in Joseph's age range (34–38 years) in the U.S. Census are extracted, Joseph still has a lower percentage of younger wives and more older wives than non-members half a decade later. <ref> The U.S. Census data included marriages within the last year since the census, so some marriages could have occurred prior to the wife's recorded birthday.  Presumably this effect would be equally distributed throughout the year—to adjust for this, the data was convolved via a moving average.  This did not materially affect the data plots; see Appendix 1 for both versions of the Nauvoo data plotted.  My thanks to David Keller for discussions and help with the statistics.</ref>

<center>Chart 12-1
[[Image:Chart 12-1.png]]</center>

I suspect that Compton goes out of his way to inflate the number of young wives, since he lumps everyone between "14 to 20 years old" together. <ref>{{Sacredloneliness1|start=11}}</ref>   It is not clear why this age range should be chosen—women eighteen or older are adults even by modern standards.

A more useful breakdown by age is found in Table 12-1.  Rather than lumping all wives younger than twenty-one together (a third of all the wives), our analysis shows that only a fifth of the wives would be under eighteen.  These are the only women at risk of statutory rape issues even in the modern era.

<center> Table 12-1: Ages of Joseph's Wives <ref>Despite debates about whether all these wives should be included, I have simply used the data from {{Sacredloneliness|start=4|end=7}}  If a marriage date is uncertain, I have used the earliest possible age.</ref></center>
{| valign="top" border="1" style="width:100%"
!Age range!!Percent (n=33)
|-
| style="width:50%" valign="top"| 14-17 ||21.2%
|-
| 18-19 ||9.1%
|-
| 20-29|| 27.3%
|-
| 30-39 ||27.3%
|-
| 40-49 ||3.0%
|-
| 50-59|| 12.1%
|}

===2.  Were there marital relations?===

As shown elsewhere, the data for sexual relations in Joseph's plural marriages are quite scant (see Chapter 10—not online).  For the purposes of evaluating "statutory rape" charges, only a few relationships are relevant.

The most prominent is, of course, Helen Mar Kimball, who was the prophet's youngest wife, married three months prior to her 15th birthday. <ref>B. Carmon Hardy, ''Works of Abraham'', 48; Compton, ''In Sacred Loneliness'', 6.</ref>  As we have seen, Todd Compton's treatment is somewhat confused, but he clarifies his stance and writes that "[a]ll the evidence points to this marriage as a primarily dynastic marriage." <ref>Todd M. Compton, Response to Tanners, post to LDS Bookshelf mailing list, no date. (Accessed 15 May 2005).</ref> Other historians have also concluded that Helen's marriage to Joseph was unconsummated. <ref>See Stanley B. Kimball, "Heber C. Kimball and Family, the Nauvoo Years," ''Brigham Young University Studies'' 15/4 (Summer 1975): 465; see also Richard Lloyd Anderson and Scott H. Faulring, "The Prophet Joseph Smith and His Plural Wives (Review of ''In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith'')," ''FARMS Review of Books'' 10/2 (1998): 67–104; citing Stanley B. Kimball, ''Heber C. Kimball: Mormon Patriarch and Pioneer'' (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981), 98.</ref>

Nancy M. Winchester was married at age fourteen or fifteen, but we know nothing else of her relationship with Joseph. <ref>Compton, ''In Sacred Loneliness'', 606.</ref>

Flora Ann Woodruff was also sixteen at her marriage, and "[a]n important motivation" seems to have been "the creation of a bond between" Flora's family and Joseph. <ref>Compton, ''In Sacred Loneliness'', 390.</ref>  We know nothing of the presence or absence of marital intimacy.

Fanny Alger would have been sixteen if Compton's date for the marriage is accepted.  Given that I favor a later date for her marriage, this would make her eighteen.  In either case, we have already seen how little reliable information is available for this marriage (see Chapter 4—not online), though on balance it was probably consummated.

Sarah Ann Whitney, Lucy Walker, and Sarah Lawrence were each seventeen at the time of their marriage.  Here at last we have reliable evidence of intimacy, since Lucy Walker suggested that the Lawrence sisters had consummated their marriage with Joseph.  Intimacy in Joseph's marriages may have been more rare than many have assumed—Walker's testimony suggested marital relations with the Partridge and Lawrence sisters, but said nothing about intimacy in her own marriage (see Chapter 10—not online).  

Sarah Ann Whitney's marriage had heavy dynastic overtones, binding Joseph to faithful Bishop Orson F. Whitney.  We know nothing of a sexual dimension, though Compton presumes that one is implied by references to the couple's "posterity" and "rights" of marriage in the sealing ceremony. <ref>Compton, ''In Sacred Loneliness'', 347–349.</ref> This is certainly plausible, though the doctrine of adoption and Joseph's possible desire to establish a pattern for all marriages/sealings might caution us against assuming too much.

Of Joseph's seven under-eighteen wives, then, only one (Lawrence) has even second-hand evidence of intimacy.  Fanny Alger has third-hand hostile accounts of intimacy, and we know nothing about most of the others.  Lucy Walker and Helen Mar Kimball seem unlikely candidates for consummation.

The evidence simply does not support Christopher Hitchens' wild claim, since there is scant evidence for sexuality in the majority of Joseph's marriages.  Many presume that Joseph practiced polygamy to satisfy sexual longings, and with a leer suggest that of course Joseph would have consummated these relationships, since that was the whole point.  Such reasoning is circular, and condemns Joseph's motives and actions before the evidence is heard.

Even were we to conclude that Joseph consummated each of his marriages—a claim nowhere sustained by the evidence—this would not prove that he acted improperly, or was guilty of "statutory rape."  This requires an examination into the legal climate of his era.

===3.  Statutory Rape and the Law===

The very concept of a fifteen- or seventeen-year-old suffering statutory rape in the 1840s is flagrant presentism.  The age of consent under English common law was ten. American law did not raise the age of consent until the late nineteenth century, and in Joseph Smith's day only a few states had raised it to twelve.  Delaware, meanwhile, lowered the age of consent to seven.  <ref>Melina McTigue, "Statutory Rape Law Reform in Nineteenth Century Maryland: An Analysis of Theory and Practical Change," (2002), (accessed 5 Feb 2005). < http://www.law.georgetown.edu/glh/mctigue.htm></ref>

In our time, legal minors can often be married before the age of consent with parental approval.  Joseph certainly sought and received the approval of parents or male guardians for his marriages to Fanny Alger, Sarah Ann Whitney, Lucy Walker, and Helen Kimball. <ref>Compton, ''In Sacred Loneliness'', 31–33, 347–349, 464, 497–502.</ref>  His habit of approaching male relatives on this issue might suggest that permission was gained for other marriages about which we know less.

Clearly, then, Hitchens' attack is hopelessly presentist.  None of Joseph's brides was near ten or twelve.  And even if his wives' ages had presented legal risks, he often had parental sanction for the match.

===4.  Did Joseph violate societal norms?===

There can be no doubt that the practice of polygamy was deeply offensive to monogamous, Victorian America.  As everything from the ''Nauvoo Expositor'' to the latest anti-Mormon tract shows, the Saints were continually attacked for their plural marriages.

If we set aside the issue of plurality, however, the only issue which remains is whether it would have been considered bizarre, improper, or scandalous for a man in his mid-thirties to marry a woman in her mid- to late-teens.  Clearly, Joseph's marriage to teen-age women was entirely normal for Mormons of his era.  The sole remaining question is, were all these teen-age women marrying men their own age, or was marriage to older husbands also considered proper?

To my knowledge, the issue of age disparity was not a charge raised by critics in Joseph's day.  It is difficult to prove a negative, but the absence of much comment on this point is probably best explained by the fact that plural marriage was scandalous, but marriages with teenage women were, if not the norm, at least not uncommon enough to occasion comment.  For example, to disguise the practice of plural marriage, Joseph had eighteen-year-old Sarah Whitney pretend to marry Joseph Kingsbury, who was days away from thirty-one. <ref>Kingsbury was born 2 May 1812, and "married" Sarah Whitney on 29 April 1843.</ref>  If this age gap would have occasioned comment, Joseph Smith would not have used Kingsbury as a decoy.

One hundred and eighty Nauvoo-era civil marriages have husbands and wives with known ages and marriage dates. <ref>Of 883 married individuals, there were 219 men and 201 women with exact birth and marriage dates.  Of these, 180 marriages were identified in which the husband and wife's birth date was known.  I matched these couples for data analysis.  Since it is not clear how many of these marriages were ''first'' marriages, these data represents a conservative estimate of teen-age marriage in Nauvoo in the early 1840s.  If second marriages were excluded, there would likely be an even greater percentage of teen marriages.  The data is again from Susan Easton Black, "Marriages in the Nauvoo Region 1839–1845," ''op. cit.'' as originally extracted by David Keller.</ref>  Chart 12 2 demonstrates that these marriages follow the general pattern of wives being younger than husbands.

<center>Chart 12-2
[[Image:Chart 12-2.png]]
</center>
When the age of husband is plotted against the age of each wife, it becomes clear that almost all brides younger than twenty married men between five and twenty years older (see Chart 12-3).

<center>Chart 12-3
[[Image:Chart 12-3.png]]
</center>
This same pattern appears in 879 marriages from the 1850 U.S. Census (see Chart 12 4).  Non-Mormon age differences easily exceeded Joseph's except for age fourteen.  We should not make too much of this, since the sample size is very small (one or two cases for Joseph; three for the census) and dynastic motives likely played a large role in Joseph's choice, as discussed above.
<center>
Chart 12-4
[[Image:Chart 12-4.png]]
</center>
In short, Mormon civil marriage patterns likely mimicked those of their gentile neighbors.  Neither Mormons or their critics would have found broad age differences to be an impediment to conjugal marriage.  In fact, the age difference between wives and their husbands was greatest in the teen years, and decreased steadily until around Joseph's age, between 30–40 years, when the spread between spouses' ages was narrowest (note the bright pink bars in Chart 12-5).

<center>Chart 12-5
[[Image:Chart 12-5.png]]
</center>

As Thomas Hine, a non-LDS scholar of adolescence noted:

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

:The important thing, though, was that the maturity of each young person was judged individually. <ref>{{Book:Hine:Rise and Fall of the American Teenager|pages=16}}</ref>

==Why the modern world is different==

Why did pre-modern peoples see nothing wrong with teen marriages?  Part of the explanation likely lies in the fact that life-expectancy was greatly reduced compared to our time (see Table 12 2).

<center>Table 12-2&mdash;Life Expectancy in the United States</center>
 
{| valign="top" border="1" style="width:100%"
!Group!!Life Expect in 1850 (years) <ref>These data are from Massachusetts only; U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, on-line at < http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html> (accessed 10 December 2007).</ref>!!Life Expect in 1901 (years) <ref>James W. Glover, United States Life Tables: 1890, 1901, 1910, and 1901–1910 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1921), 56, 60, tables 3, 5; on-line at <http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/lifetables/life1890-1910.pdf > (accessed 10 December 2007).</ref>!! Life Expect in 2004 (years) <ref>U.S. Center for Disease Control, National Vital Statistics Reports 55/19 (21 August 2007): 25–26, tables 7–8,  < http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr55/nvsr55_19.pdf> (accessed 10 December 2007).  The figures used are for whites.</ref>
|-
| Males at birth||38.3||47.9||75.7
|-
| Males at age 20||60.1||62.0||76.6
|-
| Females at birth||40.5||50.7||80.8
|-
| Females at age 20||60.2||63.6||81.5
|}
The modern era has also seen the "extension" of childhood, as many more years are spent in schooling and preparation for adult work.  In the 1840s, these issues simply weren't in play for women—men needed to be able to provide for their future family, and often had the duties of apprenticeship which prevented early marriage.  Virtually everything a woman needed to know about housekeeping and childrearing, however, was taught in the home.  It is not surprising, then, that parents in the 1840s considered their teens capable of functioning as married adults, while parents in 2007 know that marriages for young teens will usually founder on issues of immaturity, under-employment, and lack of education.

{{SeeAlso|Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner#Was Joseph trying to prey on a young twelve-year-old girl?|l1=Joseph met a young Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner but they were sealed several years later.}}

{{To learn more box:polygamy: young women}}{{blankline}}

{{endnotes sources}}
<!-- PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE -->
[[Category:Letter to a CES Director]]
[[Category:Questions]]
[[Category:The Changing World of Mormonism]]
[[es:Fuente:Helen Mar Kimball:Las mujeres representativas de Deseret:He alentado y sostenido mi marido en el orden celestial de matrimonio]]
[[es:Pregunta: ¿Cuáles eran las ideas de Helen Mar Kimball sobre el matrimonio plural?]]
[[es:Pregunta: ¿Cuáles fueron las circunstancias que rodearon el sellado de Helen Mar Kimball a Joseph Smith?]]
[[es:Pregunta: ¿Fue Joseph Smith un "practicante serio de violación legal?"]]
[[es:Pregunta: ¿Fue el matrimonio de Helen Mar Kimball a José Smith nunca consumado?]]
[[es:Pregunta: ¿Hizo Helen Mar Kimball "confesar" a tener relaciones maritales con José?]]
[[pt:Fonte:Helen Mar Kimball:Representative Women of Deseret:Tenho encorajado e apoiado meu marido na Ordem Celestial do Casamento]]
[[pt:Pergunta: "Confessou" Helen Mar Kimball ter existido relações maritais com Joseph?]]
[[pt:Pergunta: Foi o casamento de Helen Mar Kimball com Joseph Smith consumado?]]
[[pt:Pergunta: Qual era a visão de Helen Mar Kimball sobre o casamento plural?]]
[[es:José Smith/Poligamia/Esposas plurales/Helen Mar Kimball/Las circunstancias de su matrimonio plural]]
[[pt:Joseph Smith/Poligamia/Esposas plurais/Helen Mar Kimball/As circunstâncias de seu casamento plural]]
[[es:Pregunta: ¿El matrimonio de Joseph Smith a 14 años de edad, Helen Mar Kimball era indicativo de "pedofilia"?]]
[[pt:Pergunta: Era o casamento de Joseph Smith com a moça de 14 anos Helen Mar Kimball uma indicação de "pedofilia"?]]