Difference between revisions of "Did Joseph have lustful motives for practicing polygamy?"

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=Did Joseph Smith institute polygamy because he had a "voracious sexual appetite"?=
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==It is unjustifiable to argue that he and his associates were insincere or that they were practicing their religion only for power and to satisfy carnal desires==
  
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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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It is claimed by some critics of Mormonism that Joseph Smith (and/or other Church members) had a voracious sexual appetite, and that because of this, he instituted polygamy.
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{{parabreak}}
 
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{{epigraph|Now nothing can be more idle, nothing more frivolous, than to imagine that this polygamy had anything to do with personal licentiousness. If Joseph Smith had proposed to the Latter-day Saints that they should live licentious lives, they would have rushed on him and probably anticipated their pious neighbors who presently shot him.<br><br>&mdash;George Bernard Shaw, ''The Future of Political Science in America; an Address by Mr. Bernard Shaw to the Academy of Political Science, at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, on the 11th. April, 1933''}}
 
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{{parabreak}}
 
  
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== Can you summarize what we know about whether or not Joseph Smith fathered any children by his plural wives? ==
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One might reasonably hold the opinion that Joseph was wrong, but in the face of the documentary evidence it is unjustifiable to argue that he and his associates were insincere or that they were practicing their religion only for power and to satisfy carnal desires. Those who insist that "sex is the answer" likely reveal more about their own limited perspective than they do of the minds of the early Saints.
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=== The record is frustratingly incomplete regarding the question of which marriages were consummated, it is likewise spotty with regards to whether Joseph fathered children by his plural wives ===
 
  
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The record is frustratingly incomplete regarding the question of which marriages were consummated, it is likewise spotty with regards to whether Joseph fathered children by his plural wives. Fawn Brodie was the first to consider this question in any detail, though her standard of evidence was depressingly low.  Subsequent authors have returned to the problem, though unanimity has been elusive (see [[#Table_1|Table 1]]).  Ironically, Brodie did not even mention the case of Josephine Lyon, now considered the most likely potential child of Joseph.
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==Neutral observers have long understood that this attack on plural marriage is probably the weakest of them all==
  
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=== '''''Table 11‑1 Possible Children of Joseph Smith, Jr., by Plural Marriage''''' ===
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George Bernard Shaw, certainly no Mormon, declared:
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<!--Yellow box begins-->
 
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<div style="width: 80%; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 1.5em; border-style: solid; border-color: lightgrey grey grey lightgrey; border-width: 1px; padding: 1em; background-color: #fff0a0;"><font size = 1>'''''Key:'''''
 
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* NM = Brodie, ''No Man Knows My History'', 2nd edition (1971);
 
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* Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy" (1975);
 
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* VW=Van Wagoner, ''Mormon Polygamy'', 2nd edition (1989);
 
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* Fo = Foster, ''Religion and Sexuality'' (1984);
 
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* Co = Compton, ''In Sacred Loneliness'' (1997);
 
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* Be = Bergera, "Identifying the Earliest Mormon Polygamists," (2005);
 
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* Ha = Hales, ''Joseph Smith’s Polygamy'' (2013).
 
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'''''Notation''''':
 
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* Y – indicates the author considers the child a possible child of Joseph Smith, Jr.
 
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* N - indicates that author argues against this child being Joseph's child, or lists someone else as the father.
 
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* Ø  - indicates that author does not mention the possibility (pro or con) of this being Joseph's child.</font></div><!--Yellow box ends-->
 
  
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[[Image:Table1-ChildrenOfPluralMarriage.PNG]]
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<blockquote>
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Now nothing can be more idle, nothing more frivolous, than to imagine that this polygamy had anything to do with personal licentiousness. If Joseph Smith had proposed to the Latter-day Saints that they should live licentious lives, they would have rushed on him and probably anticipated their pious neighbors who presently shot him. <ref>George Bernard Shaw, ''The Future of Political Science in America; an Address by Mr. Bernard Shaw to the Academy of Political Science, at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, on the 11th. April, 1933'' (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1933) as cited in Richard Vetterli, ''Mormonism, Americanism and Politics'' (Salt Lake City: Ensign Publishing, 1961), 461–462.</ref>
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</blockquote>
  
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==== Endnote links for above table ====
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Brigham Young matches the explanation proposed by Shaw. When instructed to practice plural marriage by Joseph, Brigham recalled that it "was the first time in my life that I had desired the grave." <ref>{{JDfairwiki|author=Brigham Young|title=Plurality of Wives—The Free Agency of Man|vol=3|disc=39|start=266|date=14 July 1855}}</ref>
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<ref>{{CriticalWork:Van Wagoner:Mormon Polygamy|pages=43–44, and 43n43}}</ref>
 
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<ref>{{Book:Foster:Religion and Sexuality|pages=157–158}}. Foster notes that "there are a number of family traditions in Utah of children by plural wives of Joseph Smith, I have not been able to investigate them closely enough to determine their possible validity" (311n116).  Foster then cites Brodie for examples of such allegations.  Foster's work cannot be considered an independent examination of the evidence for or against the paternity of specific individuals.</ref>
 
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<ref>Bergera writes that four "may or may not" have been fathered by Joseph, citing {{Book:Compton:Brodie on JS Plural Wives|pages=xxx}} as the authority.  See Gary James Bergera, "Identifying the Earliest Mormon Polygamists, 1841–44," ''Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought'' 38/ 3 (Fall 2005): 49–50n115.  Interestingly, Compton's article lists only one of these four (Josephine Fisher) as a likely child of Joseph's—Bergera's reference does not support his claim.</ref>
 
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<ref>{{Book:Hales:JS Polygamy 1|pages=298&ndash;299}}</ref>
 
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<ref>{{CriticalWork:Brodie:No Man Knows|pages=345}}</ref>
 
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<ref>{{Book:Bachman:Thesis:1975|pages=140}}</ref>
 
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<ref>{{Book:Compton:Brodie on JS Plural Wives/Short|pages=172}}</ref>
 
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<ref>{{CriticalWork:Brodie:No Man Knows/Short|pages=301–302, 345–346, 470–471}}</ref>
 
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<ref>{{Book:Bachman:Thesis:1975/Short|pages=140}}</ref>
 
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<ref>{{Book:Compton:Brodie on JS Plural Wives/Short|pages=172}}</ref>
 
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<ref>{{Book:Compton:Brodie on JS Plural Wives/Short|pages=167–168}} gives the following data which argue for the 1840 birthdate: Prescinda's genealogy records, Essom's ''Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah'', "A Venerable Woman," ''Women's Exponent'', Prescinda's holographic autobiography.  Only Augusta Joyce Crocheron, ''Representative Women of Desere''t mentions the 1839 date, saying merely, "''About this time''' her son Oliver was born" (italics added).  Clearly the 1840 date has much better attestation.</ref>
 
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<ref>{{CriticalWork:Brodie:No Man Knows/Short|pages=301–302, 345, 460–462}}  Brodie was so convinced of Joseph's paternity, that she wrote "If Oliver Buell isn't a Smith them I'm no Brimhall [her mother's family]." - Fawn Brodie to Dale Morgan, Letter, 24 March 1945, Dale Morgan papers, Marriott Library, University of Utah; cited by {{Book:Compton:Brodie on JS Plural Wives/Short|pages=166}} Compton devastates Brodie's circumstantial case for Buell as a child of Joseph (166–173), and DNA has definitively vindicated his skepticism.</ref>
 
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<ref>{{Book:Bachman:Thesis:1975/Short|pages=137–138}}</ref> 
 
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<ref>{{Book:Compton:Brodie on JS Plural Wives/Short|pages=166–173}}</ref>
 
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<ref>{{Book:Bachman:Thesis:1975/Short|pages=139}} suggests that this child is more likely than Oliver to be Joseph's, but he remains skeptical.</ref>
 
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<ref>{{Book:Compton:Brodie on JS Plural Wives/Short|pages=167}}</ref>
 
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<ref>{{CriticalWork:Brodie:No Man Knows/Short|pages=345, 464}}</ref>
 
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<ref>{{Book:Bachman:Thesis:1975/Short|pages=139}}</ref> 
 
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<ref>{{Book:Compton:Brodie on JS Plural Wives/Short|pages=164}}</ref>
 
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<ref>{{CriticalWork:Brodie:No Man Knows/Short|pages=465}}</ref>
 
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<ref>{{Book:Compton:Brodie on JS Plural Wives/Short|pages=164}}</ref>
 
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<ref>{{CriticalWork:Brodie:No Man Knows/Short|pages=345, 467}}</ref>
 
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<ref>Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy", 140}}</ref>
 
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<ref>{{Book:Compton:Brodie on JS Plural Wives/Short|pages=165}}</ref>
 
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<ref>{{Book:Compton:Brodie on JS Plural Wives/Short|pages=165}}</ref>
 
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<ref>{{CriticalWork:Brodie:No Man Knows/Short|pages=345, 464}}</ref>
 
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<ref>{{Book:Bachman:Thesis:1975/Short|pages=139}}</ref> 
 
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<ref>Compton points out that "It is striking that Marinda had no children while Orson was on his mission to Jerusalem [15 April 1840–7 December 1842], then became pregnant soon after Orson returned home.  (He arrived in Nauvoo on December 7, 1842, and Marinda bore Orson Washington Hyde on November 9, 1843). – {{Book:Compton:Brodie on JS Plural Wives/Short|pages=165}}</ref>
 
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<ref>{{CriticalWork:Brodie:No Man Knows/Short|pages=345, 464}}</ref>
 
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<ref>{{Book:Bachman:Thesis:1975/Short|pages=139–140}}</ref> 
 
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<ref>{{Book:Compton:Brodie on JS Plural Wives/Short|pages=165}}</ref>
 
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<ref>{{Book:Bachman:Thesis:1975/Short|pages=140–141}}</ref> 
 
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<ref>{{Book:Compton:Brodie on JS Plural Wives/Short|pages=172}}</ref>
 
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<ref>{{CriticalWork:Brodie:No Man Knows/Short|pages=345, 464}}</ref>
 
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<ref>{{Book:Bachman:Thesis:1975/Short|pages=139–140}}</ref>
 
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<ref>{{Book:Compton:Brodie on JS Plural Wives/Short|pages=165}}</ref>
 
  
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== Did Joseph Smith father any children through polygamous marriages? ==
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John Taylor had similar opinions:
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=== Science has eliminated most of the possibilities that had long been rumored to be descendants of Joseph Smith. There are a couple for which DNA can tell us nothing either way and that rest on dubious historical reasoning. Thus critics cannot claim in honesty that Joseph had any children by his polygamous wives. ===
 
  
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It is claimed that Joseph Smith fathered children with some of his plural wives, and that he covered up the evidence of pregnancies. It is also claimed that Joseph Smith had intimate relations with other men’s wives to whom he had been sealed, and that children resulted from these unions.
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<blockquote>
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I had always entertained strict ideas of virtue and I felt as a married man that this was to me…an appalling thing to do…Nothing but a knowledge of God, and the revelations of God…could have induced me to embrace such a principle as this…We [the Twelve] seemed to put off, as far as we could, what might be termed the evil day. <ref>{{JDfairwiki|author=John Taylor|title=President John Taylor's Recent Trip To Bear Lake, Selections from his Discourses delivered in the Various Settlements|vol=24|disc=27|start=232|date=1883}}</ref>
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</blockquote>
  
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Critics of Joseph Smith have long had difficulty reconciling their concept of Joseph as a promiscuous womanizer with the fact that the only recorded children of the prophet are those that he had with Emma. Science is now shedding new light on this issue as DNA research has eliminated most of the possibilities that had long been rumored to be descendants of Joseph Smith. In the case of at least two, however, DNA cannot tell us either way. The historical reasoning for justifying that Joseph had children by these wives is dubious.
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Joseph knew these men intimately. He would have known their sensibilities. If it was "all about sex," why push his luck with them? Why up the ante and ask them to marry polygamously? It would have been easier for him to claim the "duty" singularly, as prophet, and not insist that they join him.
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As non-Mormon church historian Ernst Benz wrote:
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<blockquote>
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Mormon polygamy has nothing to do with sexual debauchery but is tied to a strict patriarchal system of family order and demonstrates in the relationship of the husband to his individual wives all the ethical traits of a Christian, monogamous marriage. It is completely focused on bearing children and rearing them in the bosom of the family and the Mormon community. Actually, it exhibits a very great measure of selflessness, a willingness to sacrifice, and a sense of duty. <ref>{{FR-17-1-10}}</ref>
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</blockquote>
  
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== Did Joseph Smith produce any children by his plural wives?: The case ''for'' children ==
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==Furthermore, Joseph Smith would not permit other members’ sexual misconduct==
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=== Josephine Fisher (Josephine Lyon) ===
 
  
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DNA analysis has determined that Josephine Fisher is not a descendant of Joseph Smith, Jr., <ref>R. Scott Lloyd, [http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865656112/Joseph-Smith-apparently-was-not-Josephine-Lyons-father-Mormon-History-Association-speaker-says.html?pg=all "Joseph Smith apparently was not Josephine Lyon's father, Mormon History Association speaker says,"] ''Deseret News'' (13 June 2016)</ref> but for many years she appeared to be the strongest possibility. The resolution of this question was difficult to resolve until the appropriate DNA analysis techniques became available. These findings have been replicated in non-Latter-day Saint, peer-reviewed, reputable journals.<ref> See Ugo A. Perego, Martin Bodner, Alessandro Raveane, Scott R. Woodward, Francesco Montinaro, Walther Parson, and Alessandro Achilli, "Resolving a 150-year-old Paternity Case in Mormon History Using DTC Autosomal DNA Testing of Distant Relatives," ''Forensic Science International: Genetics'', June 6, 2019. doi:10.1016/j.fsigen.2019.05.007.</ref>
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For example, he refused to countenance John C. Bennett’s serial infidelities. <ref>For an extensive discussion, see Danel W. Bachman, "A Study of the Mormon Practice of Polygamy Before the Death of Joseph Smith," (1975) (unpublished M.A. thesis, Purdue University).</ref> If Joseph was looking for easy access to sex, Bennett&mdash;mayor of Nauvoo, First Counselor in the First Presidency, and military leader&mdash;would have been the perfect confederate. Yet, Joseph publicly denounced Bennett’s actions, and severed him from the First Presidency and the Church. Bennett became a vocal opponent and critic, and all this could have been avoided if Joseph was willing to have him as a "partner in crime." The critic cannot argue that Joseph felt that only he was entitled to polygamous relationships, since he went to great efforts to teach the doctrine to Hyrum and the Twelve, who embraced it with much less zeal than Bennett would have. If this is all about lust, why did Joseph humiliate and alienate Bennett, who Joseph should have known he could trust to support him and help hide polygamy from critics, while risking the support of the Twelve by insisting they participate?
  
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The case of Josephine Fisher relied on a deathbed conversation:
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There were certainly easier ways to satisfy one’s libido, as one author noted:
  
 
<blockquote>
 
<blockquote>
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Just prior to my mothers death in 1882 she called me to her bedside and told me that her days were about numbered and before she passed away from mortality she desired to tell me something which she had kept as an entire secret from me and from all others but which she now desired to communicate to me. She then told me that I was the daughter of the Prophet Joseph Smith….<ref>Josephine R Fisher, affidavit, 24 February 1915, LDS Archives.</ref>
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Contrary to popular nineteenth-century notions about polygamy, the Mormon harem, dominated by lascivious males with hyperactive libidos, did not exist. The image of unlimited lust was largely the creation of travelers to Salt Lake City more interested in titillating audiences back home than in accurately portraying plural marriage. Newspaper representatives and public figures visited the city in droves seeking headlines for their eastern audiences. Mormon plural marriage, dedicated to propagating the species righteously and dispassionately, proved to be a rather drab lifestyle compared to the imaginative tales of polygamy, dripping with sensationalism, demanded by a scandal-hungry eastern media market. <ref>Richard Van Wagoner, ''Mormon Polygamy: A History'' (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1986), 89.</ref>
 
</blockquote>
 
</blockquote>
  
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Perhaps significantly, Josephine's name shares a clear link with Joseph's.  Whether this account proved that she was his biological daughter had long been debated:
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==Those who became Mormons were those who were least likely, culturally, to be thrilled at the prospect of polygamy==
  
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Douglas H. Parker wrote,
 
<blockquote>
 
<blockquote>
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Rex Cooper…has questioned the interpretation that Smith was Fisher's biological father.  He posits that because Fisher's mother was sealed to Smith, Fisher was his daughter only in a spiritual sense…More problematic is whether there is a discrepancy between what Fisher understood and what her mother meant.  That is, did Fisher interpret her mother's remarks to mean she was the biological daughter of Joseph Smith and thus state that with more certitude than was warranted, when in fact her mother meant only that in the hereafter Fisher would belong to Joseph Smith's family through Session's sealing to him?  Because Sessions was on her deathbed, when one's thoughts naturally turn to the hereafter, the latter is a reasonable explanation.<ref>{{Book:Daynes:More Wives Than One|pages=30}}; citing Rex Eugene Cooper, Promises Made to the Fathers: Mormon Covenant Organization (Publications in Mormon Studies), (University of Utah Press, 1990), 143n1}}</ref>
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Polygamy, when first announced to the Saints, was an offensive, disgusting doctrine, difficult to accept…The men and women who placed faith in the bona fides of the revelation were Victorian in their background and moral character. The hard test of accepting polygamy as a principle revealed and required by God selected out from the Church membership at large a basic corps of faithful members who, within the next few decades, were to be subjected to an Abraham-Isaac test administered by the federal government as God’s agent. <ref>Douglas H. Parker, "Victory in Defeat&mdash;Polygamy and the Mormon Legal Encounter with the Federal Government," ''Cardozo Law Review'' 12 (1991): 814.</ref>
 
</blockquote>
 
</blockquote>
  
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As Danel Bachman notes, however, there seems to be relatively little doubt that
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Perhaps the best argument against the "lascivious" charge is to look at the lives of the men and women who practiced it. Historian B. Carmon Hardy observed:
  
 
<blockquote>
 
<blockquote>
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[t]he desire for secrecy as well as the delicacy of the situation assure us that Mrs. Sessions was not merely explaining to her daughter that she was Smith's child by virtue of a temple sealing.  The plain inference arising from Jenson's curiosity in the matter and Mrs. Fisher's remarks is that she was, in fact, the offspring of Joseph Smith.<ref>{{Book:Bachman:Thesis:1975/Short|pages=142}}</ref>
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Joseph displayed an astonishingly principled commitment to the doctrine [of plural marriage]. He had to overcome opposition from his brother Hyrum and the reluctance of some of his disciples. Reflecting years later on the conflicts and dangers brought by plural marriage, some church leaders were struck with the courage Joseph displayed in persisting with it. And when one recalls a poignant encounter like that between [counselor in the First Presidency] William Law and Joseph in early 1844, it is difficult not to agree. Law, putting his arms around the prophet’s neck, tearfully pleaded that he throw the entire business of plurality over. Joseph, also crying, replied that he could not, that God had commanded it, and he had no choice but to obey. <ref>B. Carmon Hardy, ''Solemn Covenant: The Mormon Polygamous Passage'' (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 9; an account of this encounter between Joseph and William can be found in {{IE|author=Joseph W. McMurrin|article=An Interesting Testimony / Mr. Law’s Testimony|date=May 1903|start=507|end=510}}</ref>
 
</blockquote>
 
</blockquote>
  
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However, DNA evidence now disproves this theory. It is possible, then, that Fisher misunderstood her mother, but this seems unlikely. Any unreliability is more likely to arise because of a dying woman's confusion than from miscommunication. No evidence exists for such confusion, though we cannot rule it out. 
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One can read volumes of the early leaders’ public writings, extemporaneous sermons, and private journals. One can reflect on the hundreds or thousands of miles of travel on missionary journeys and Church business. If the writings of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, Heber C. Kimball, George Q. Cannon and many others cannot persuade someone that they were honest men (even if mistaken) then one should sincerely question whether such a person is capable of looking charitably upon any Mormon.
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Josephine's account is also noteworthy because her mother emphasizes that "…she [had] been sealed to the Prophet at the time that her husband Mr. Lyon was out of fellowship with the Church."<ref>Josephine R Fisher, affidavit, 24 February 1915, LDS Archives.</ref>  This may explain her reasoning for being sealed to Joseph at all—her husband was out of fellowship. Todd Compton opines that "[i]t seems unlikely that Sylvia would deny [her husband] cohabitation rights after he was excommunicated," but this conclusion seems based on little but a gut reaction.<ref>{{Book:Compton:ISL|pages=183}}</ref>  These women took their religion seriously; given Sylvia's deathbed remarks, this was a point she considered important enough to emphasize. She apparently believed it would provide an explanation for something that her daughter might have otherwise misunderstood.
 
  
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There is also clear evidence that at least some early members of the Church would have taken a similar attitude toward sexual relations with an unbelieving spouse.  My own third-great grandfather, Isaiah Moses Coombs, provides a striking illustration of this from the general membership of the Church.
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Paul Peterson’s comment about the diaries of Joseph Smith resonates well in this regard:
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Coombs had immigrated to Utah, but his non-member spouse refused to accompany him.  Heartsick, he consulted Brigham Young for advice.  Young "sat with one hand on my knee, looking at my face and listen[ing] attentively."  Then, Young took the new arrival "by the hand in his fatherly way," and said "[Y]ou had better take a mission to the States…to preach the gospel and visit your wife…visit your wife as often as you please; preach the gospel to her, and if she is worth having she will come with you when you return to the valley.  God bless and prosper you."<ref>Kate B. Carter, ed., Isaiah M[oses] Coombs from His Diary and Journal (Salt Lake City, Utah: published by Daughters of Utah Pioneers through Utah Printing Company, n.d.), 345}}</ref>
 
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Coombs did as instructed, but was not successful in persuading his wife.  His description of his thoughts is intriguing, and worth quoting at length:
 
  
 
<blockquote>
 
<blockquote>
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I may as well state here, however, that during all my stay in the States, [my wife and I] were nothing more to each other than friends. I never proposed or hinted for a closer intimacy only on condition of her baptism into the Church.  I felt that I could not take her as a wife on any other terms and stand guiltless in the sight of God or my own conscience…I could not yield to her wishes and she would not bend to mine. And so I merely visited her as a friend. This was a source of wonder to our mutual acquaintances; and well it might be for had not my faith been founded on the eternal rock of Truth, I never could have stood such a test, I never could have withstood the temptations that assailed me, but I should have yielded and have abandoned myself to the life of carnal pleasure that awaited me in the arms of my beautiful and adored wife. She was now indeed beautiful.  I had thought her lovely as a child—as a maiden she had seemed to me surpassing fair, but as a woman with a form well developed and all the charms of her persona matured, she far surpassed in womanly beauty anything I had ever dreamed of.<ref>Carter, ed., Isaiah M[oses] Coombs from His Diary and Journal, 350–351.</ref>
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I had not fully grasped certain aspects of the Prophet’s psyche and personality. After just a few pages into ''Personal Writings'', <ref>He here refers to Dean C. Jesse’s landmark volume ''Personal Writings of Joseph Smith'' (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1984).</ref> it became clear that Joseph possessed religious dimensions that I had not understood. For one thing, it was apparent I had underestimated the depth of his dependence upon Deity. The Joseph that emerges in Personal Writings is an intensely devout and God-fearing young man who at times seems almost helpless without divine support. And his sincerity about his prophetic calling is also apparent. If others were not persuaded of his claims, it could not be said that Joseph was unconvinced that God had both called and directed him. Detractors who claim that Joseph came to like the game of playing prophet would be discomfited if they read Personal Writings. Scholars may quibble with how true his theology is, but for anyone who reads Personal Writings, his earnestness and honesty are no longer debatable points. <ref>Paul H. Peterson, "Understanding Joseph: A Review of Published Documentary Sources," ''Joseph Smith: The Prophet, the Man'', edited by Susan Easton Black and Charles D. Tate, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1988), 109&ndash;110.</ref>
 
</blockquote>
 
</blockquote>
  
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Coombs' account is startlingly blunt and explicit for the age.  Yet, if this young twenty-two-year-old male refused marital intimacy with his wife (whom he married knowing their religious differences), Compton's confidence that Sylvia Sessions would not deny marital relations to her excommunicated husband seems misplaced.  Sessions may, like Coombs, have seen her faithfulness to the sealing ordinances sufficient to "eventually either in this life or that which is to come enable me to bind my [spouse] to me in bands that could not be broken."  Like him, she may have believed that "[My spouse] was blind then but the day would come when [he] would see."<ref>Carter, ed., Isaiah M[oses] Coombs from His Diary and Journal, 339.</ref>
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=Did Joseph Smith have a youthful struggle with unchastity?=
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==There is no evidence from Joseph's early writings that he struggled over much with immoral thoughts or behavior==
  
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More importantly, however, is Brian Hales’ more recent work, which demonstrates that Sylvia Sessions Lyon may well have not been married to her husband when sealed to Joseph Smith, contrary to Compton’s conclusion. Thus, rather than being a case of polyandry with sexual relations with two men (Joseph and her first husband) Lyons is instead a case of straight-forward plural marriage.<ref>See {{Paper:Hales:Sylvia Sessions 2008|pages=41&ndash;57}} and {{Book:Hales:JS Polygamy 1/Full title|pages=349&ndash;376}}</ref> Given that Joseph has been ruled out as Josephine's father, it may be that Sylvia's emphasis to Josephine about being Joseph's "daughter" referred to a spiritual or sealing sense, and she wished to explain to her daughter why Josephine was, then, sealed to Joseph Smith rather than her biological father.
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Some critics charge that Joseph Smith had youthful struggles with immoral actions.  They claim that these are what eventually led him to teach the doctrine of plural marriage. <ref>{{CriticalWork:Smith:Nauvoo Polygamy|pages=15&ndash;22}}; {{CriticalWork:Van Wagoner:Mormon Polygamy|pages=4&ndash;5}}</ref>
  
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==== Other possible children ====
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There is no evidence from Joseph's early writings that he struggled over much with immoral thoughts or behavior.  Such an interpretation results on twisting the text, ignoring alternate possibilities, and ignoring Joseph's direct explanation of what he meant by the words which the critics twist.  That they can produce nothing better strongly suggests that no evidence exists for their claim.
  
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Olive Gray Frost is mentioned in two sources as having a child by Joseph. Both she and the child died in Nauvoo, so no genetic evidence will ever be forthcoming.<ref>{{Book:Hales:JS Polygamy 1 |pages=293, 297–298}}</ref>
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G. D. Smith clearly follows the Brodie tradition in painting Joseph as motivated by sexual needs. He assures us that "an examination of Smith’s adolescence from his personal writings reveals some patterns and events that might be significant in understanding what precipitated his polygamous inclination" (pp. 15–16). The reader is advised to buckle her seatbelt and put on a Freud hat.
  
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== Did Joseph Smith produce any children by his plural wives? The case ''against'' children ==
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Joseph, we are told, claims that "he confronted some uncertain feelings he later termed ‘sinful’ [a]t a time when boys begin to experience puberty" (p. 17). <ref>G. D. Smith cites Joseph’s 1832 account from {{PJSVol1_1| start=1:1–6}}</ref>  G. D. Smith argues that this "leav[es] us to suspect that he was referring to the curious thoughts of an intense teenager" (p. 17). G. D. Smith presumes that Joseph’s later "cryptic words" describing how he "fell into transgression and sinned in many things" refer to sex.
  
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Angus M. Cannon seems to have been aware of Fisher's claim to be a child of Joseph Smith, though only second hand.  He told a sceptical Joseph Smith III of
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==The only evidence for a sexual component to Joseph’s sins is presumption and mind reading==
  
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<blockquote>
+
As Sigmund Freud demonstrated, any narrative can be sexualized. In this case, the only evidence for a sexual component to Joseph’s sins is G. D. Smith’s presumption and mind reading.  
−
one case where it was said by the girl's grandmother that your father has a daughter born of a plural wife. The girl's grandmother was Mother Sessions, who lived in Nauvoo and died here in the valley. Aunt Patty Sessions asserts that the girl was born within the time after your father was said to have taken the mother.<ref>Angus M. Cannon, Statement of an Interview with Joseph Smith, President of the ‘Reorganites,’ October 12, 1905," LDS Archives; cited by Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, 44n43}}</ref></blockquote>
 
  
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Clearly, Cannon has no independent knowledge of the case, but reports a story similar to Josephine's affidavit. Cannon's statement is more important because it illustrates how the LDS Church's insistence that Joseph Smith had practiced plural marriage led some of the RLDS Church :to ask why no children by these wives existed. Lucy Walker reported
+
He presumes that the Book of Mormon reflects Joseph’s mind and preoccupations, suggesting that "an elaboration might be found in the Book of Mormon expressions about ‘the will of the flesh and the evil which is therein’ (2 Nephi 2:29)" (p. 17). Or it might not. The Book of Mormon reference to "the will of the flesh" can hardly be restricted to sexual matters. Nephi1 notes that if he errs in what he writes, "even did they err of old; not that I would excuse myself because of other men, but because of the weakness which is in me, according to the flesh, I would excuse myself" (1 Nephi 19:6). Surely this does not imply that Nephi’s mistakes in record keeping stem from sexual sin. "By the law," we find in the chapter cited by Smith, "no flesh is justified . . . , no flesh . . . can dwell in presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah" (2 Nephi 2:4, 8). Clearly, "flesh" refers to unregenerate man, not specifically or merely to sexual sin.
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[the RLDS] seem surprised that there was no issue from asserted plural marriages with their father.  Could they but realize the hazardous life he lived, after that revelation was given, they would comprehend the reason.  He was harassed and hounded and lived in constant fear of being betrayed by those who ought to have been true to him.<ref>Lucy Walker Kimball, "Recollections," LDS Archives, 41; cited in {{Book:Bachman:Thesis:1975/Short|pages=139}}n165}} from Rodney W. Walker and Noel W. Stevenson, Ancestry and Descendants of John Walker [1794–1869] of Vermont and Utah, Descendants of Robert Walker, and Emigrant of 1632 from England to Boston, Mass. (Kaysville, Utah: Inland Printing Co., 1953), 35. Portions also cited by Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, 44n43</ref>
 
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Thus the absence of children was something of an embarrassment to the Utah Church, which members felt a need to explain.  It would have been greatly to their advantage to produce Joseph's offspring, but could not.<ref>This need remains to the present.  Despite the fact that most RLDS historians have accepted that Joseph Smith did teach and practice plural marriage, some members remain unconvinced.  Reorganization conservative and voice for many "fundamentalist" members of the Reorganization Richard Price continues to insist that "The truth [that Joseph did not teach plural marriage] is found in Joseph's denials, and the fact that he had no children by any woman but his wife Emma." – Richard  and Pamela Price, Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy—Vision Articles [from Vision Magazine, Vol. 32–46, 48–51, 53–56], vol. 2 (E-book: Price Publishing Company, n.d.)</ref>
 
  
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Anxious to demonstrate that Joseph's plural marriages were marriages in the fullest sense, Lucy M. Walker (wife of Joseph's cousin, George A. Smith) reported seeing Joseph washing blood from his hands in Nauvoo.  When asked about the blood, Joseph reportedly told her he had been helping Emma deliver one of his plural wives' children.<ref>{{Book:Bachman:Thesis:1975/Short|pages=140&ndash;141}}; citing Lucy M. Smith, written statement (18 May 1892), in Papers of George A. Smith family, Special Collections, Marriot Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City.  Bachman notes that a second, undated, signed statement exists which tells "essentially the same story" in the Wilford C. Wood Museum in Bountiful, Utah. (See {{Book:Bachman:Thesis:1975/Short|pages=140&ndash;141n175}})</ref> Yet, even this late account tells us little about the paternity of the children—Joseph was close to these women (and their husbands, in the case of polyandry), and given the Saints' belief in priesthood blessings, they may have well welcomed his involvement.
+
The King James Bible, which inspired Book of Mormon language, likewise describes a Christian’s rebirth as son of Christ as "not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:13). Clearly, the "will of the flesh" does not refer only to sexual desire, but to any carnality of the "natural man," who is an "enemy to God" (Mosiah 3:19; 16:5). Such usage has a venerable history in Christianity; it is difficult to imagine that G. D. Smith could be unaware of this.  
  
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=== George Algernon Lightner and Florentine M. Lightner ===
+
G. D. Smith notes that Joseph admitted to being guilty of "vices and follies" and concludes, after an exegesis from Webster’s American Dictionary, that this phrase implied "sins great and small, which conceivably involved sex but were not limited to it" (pp. 17–18). His treatment of Webster is less than forthright. He quotes Webster’s second definition of vice as "‘every act of intemperance, all falsehood, duplicity, deception, lewdness and the like’ as well as ‘the excessive indulgence of passions and appetites which in themselves are innocent’" (p. 17). The first definition, however, reads simply "a spot or defect; a fault; a blemish." <ref>{{Webster1828 |article=vice}} </ref>  Smith likewise characterizes folly as "an absurd act which is highly sinful; and conduct contrary to the laws of God or man; sin; scandalous crimes; that which violates moral precepts and dishonours the offender" (pp. 17–18). Yet, again, Smith has ignored an earlier definition in Webster, which describes vice as merely "a weak or absurd act not highly criminal; an act which is inconsistent with the dictates of reason, or with the ordinary rules of prudence. . . . Hence we speak of the follies of youth." <ref>{{Webster1828 |article=folly}}</ref>
  
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Even by the turn of the century, the LDS Church had no solid evidence of children by Joseph. "I knew he had three children," said Mary Elizabeth Lightner, "They told me.  I think two of them are living today but they are not known as his children as they go by other names."<ref>Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, "Remarks," given at BYU 14 April 1905, typescript, BYU.</ref>  Again, evidence for children is frustratingly vague—Lightner had only heard rumours, and could not provide any details. It would seem to me, however, that this remark of Lightner's rules out her children as possible offspring of Joseph.  Her audience was clearly interested in Joseph having children, and she was happy to assert that such children existed. If her own children qualified, why did she not mention them?
+
For G. D. Smith’s interpretation to be viable, we must accept that in his personal histories Joseph was admitting serious or gross moral lapses. Yet there are other contemporary definitions for the terms that Joseph used—especially as applied to youth—that connote only relatively minor imperfections. Nonetheless, this dubious argument is the "evidence" that G. D. Smith adduces from Joseph’s personal writings.
  
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=== Orson W. Hyde and Frank Henry Hyde ===
+
It is a pity that G. D. Smith did not go further in analyzing Joseph’s histories. The 1838 account makes the Prophet’s intent transparent:
  
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Two of Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde's children have been suggested as possible children.  The first, Orson, died in infancy, making DNA testing impossible.  Compton notes, however, that "Marinda had no children while Orson was on his mission to Jerusalem, then became pregnant soon after Orson returned home. (He arrived in Nauvoo on December 7, 1842, and Marinda bore Orson Washington Hyde on November 9, 1843),"<ref>{{Book:Compton:Brodie on JS Plural Wives/Short|pages=165}}</ref> putting the conception date around 16 February 1843. 
+
<blockquote>
 +
I frequently fell into many foolish errors, and displayed the weakness of youth, and the foibles of human nature; which, I am sorry to say, led me into divers temptations, offensive in the sight of God. In making this confession, ''no one need suppose me guilty of any great or malignant sins. A disposition to commit such was never in my nature''. But I was guilty of levity, and sometimes associated with jovial company, etc., not consistent with that character which ought to be maintained by one who was called of God as I had been. <ref>{{S||JS-H|1|28}} {{ea}}</ref>
 +
</blockquote>
  
−
Frank Hyde's birth date is unclear; he was born on 23 January in either 1845 or 1846.<ref>{{CriticalWork:Brodie:No Man Knows/Short|pages=345, 464}}  gives his birth as 1845, though there is no footnote indicating her source.  Frank's death certificate lists his birth in 1846}}  Compton follows the date of 1846, citing Howard H. Barron, Orson Hyde: Missionary-Apostle-Colonizer (Salt Lake City: Horizon, 1977), 134 and Ancestral File.</ref>  This would place his conception around 2 May, of either 1844 or 1845. In the former case, Frank was conceived less than two months prior to Joseph's martyrdom. Orson Hyde left for Washington, D.C., around 4 April 1844,<ref>{{Book:Smith:HC|pages=286|vol=6}} Times and Seasons 5 (15 September 1844): 651}}</ref> and did not return until 6 August 1844, making Joseph's paternity more likely than Orson's if the earlier birth date is correct.<ref>{{Book:Jenson:LDS Church Chronology|date=6 August 1844}}.</ref> The key source for this claim is Fawn Brodie, who includes no footnote or reference. Given Brodie's tendency to misread evidence on potential children, this claim should be approached with caution.
+
Joseph explicitly blocks the interpretation that G. D. Smith wishes to advance. Why ought we to accept Joseph’s 1832 witness—as warped by G. D. Smith’s interpretive lens—as useful evidence while ignoring an alternative explanation supported by Joseph’s other statements? G. D. Smith all but concedes this point two pages later, when he cites Joseph’s characterization of his "vices and folleys" as including "a light, and too often vain mind, exhibiting a foolish and trifling conversation" (p. 20). If this is so, why attempt to sexualize Joseph’s admitted imperfections? But within a few pages it has become for G. D. Smith an established fact that "another revelation, almost seeming to recall [Joseph] Smith’s teenage concerns about sinful thoughts and behavior, reiterated . . . ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery; and he that commiteth adultery, and repenteth not, shall be cast out’ (D&C 42:24)" (p. 49). But such an analysis depends entirely on what G. D. Smith has failed to do—establish that the teenage Joseph struggled with sexually sinful thoughts and behavior.
  
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Frank's death certificate lists Orson Hyde as the father, however, and places his birth in 1846, which would require conception nearly a year after Joseph's death.<ref>Frank H. Hyde, State of Utah&mdash;Death Certificate, State Board of Health File No. 967300}} Online at <http://wiki.hanksplace.net/index.php/Image:FrankHHyde.jpg></ref>  A child by Joseph would have brought prestige to the family and Church, and Orson and Nancy had divorced long before Frank Henry's death.<ref>{{Book:Compton:ISL/Short|pages=249}}</ref> It seems unlikely, therefore, that Orson would be credited with paternity over Joseph if any doubt existed. Without further data, Brodie's dating should probably be regarded as an error, ruling out Joseph as a possible father.
+
G. D. Smith’s other evidence from Joseph’s teen years consists in a brief reference to [[The Hurlbut affidavits|the Hurlbut-Howe affidavits]]. Here again Smith simply cites works from the Signature stable of writers, with no gesture to source criticism or acknowledgement of the problematic elements in these later, hostile accounts. <ref>G. D. Smith cites Rodger I. Anderson, ''Joseph Smith’s New York Reputation Reexamined'' (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1990); Richard S. Van Wagoner, ''Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess'' (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994); Dan Vogel, ed., ''Early Mormon Documents'', 5 vols. (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1996–2003); Dan Vogel, ''Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet'' (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2004); and Eber D. Howe, ''Mormonism Unvailed'' (Painesville [Ohio]; Ann Arbor, Michigan: printed and published by the author, 1834). There is no mention of or interaction with such critiques as Hugh W. Nibley, ''The Myth Makers'' (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1961); Nibley, ''Tinkling Cymbals and Sounding Brass''; Richard L. Anderson, "The Reliability of the Early History of Lucy and Joseph Smith," ''Dialogue'' 4 (Summer 1969): 15–16; Anderson, "Joseph Smith’s New York Reputation Reappraised," ''BYU Studies'' 10:3 (1970): 283–314; Anderson, "The Mature Joseph Smith and Treasure Searching," ''BYU Studies'' 24 (Fall 1984): 492–94; Anderson, review of ''Joseph Smith’s New York Reputation Reexamined'', by Rodger I. Anderson," ''FARMS Review of Books'' 3/1 (1991): 52–80; and Thomas G. Alexander, review of ''Early Mormon Documents'', Vol. 2, ed. Dan Vogel, ''Journal of Mormon History'' 26/2 (Fall 2000): 248–52.</ref>
  
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=== Ruled out by DNA Evidence: Oliver Buell, Mosiah Hancock, John Reed Hancock, Zebulon Jacobs, Moroni Llewllyn Pratt, and Orrison Smith ===
+
{{HalesSite
 +
|subject4=Joseph Smith’s Personal Polygamy
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|link4=http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/beginnings-mormon-polygamy/#AReluctantPolygamist
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|summary4=Many are quick to declare that Joseph's polygamy sprang from religious extremism and/or sexual desire. This article explores the difficulties that Joseph had with plural marriage, and evidence for what truly motivated his acts.}}
  
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Scientific ingenuity has also been applied to the question of Joseph's paternity.  Y-chromosome studies have conclusively eliminated Orrison Smith (son of Fanny Alger), Mosiah Hancock, Zebulon Jacobs, John Reed Hancock, Moroni Llewellyn Pratt, and Oliver Buell as Joseph's offspring.<ref>Ugo A. Perego and Scott R. Woodward, "Reconstructing the Y-Chromosome of Joseph Smith" (paper presented at the Mormon History Association Conference, 28 May 2005); see also Ugo A. Perego et al., "Reconstructing the Y-Chromosome of Joseph Smith Jr.: Genealogical Applications," Journal of Mormon History 32/ 2 (Summer 2005); Carrie A. Moore, "DNA Tests Rule out 2 as Smith Descendants," Deseret Morning News 10 November 2007):  Michael DeGroote, "DNA solves a Joseph Smith mystery," Deseret News (9 July 2011). Don Alonzo Smith was likewise ruled out; see letter from Perego to Hales on 6 December 2011 cited in {{Book:Hales:JS Polygamy 1|pages=296, note i}}</ref>
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{{Critical sources box:Joseph Smith and polygamy/Youthful struggle with unchastity?/CriticalSources}}{{blankline}}
  
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Two additional children—George Algernon Lightner and Orson W. Hyde—died in infancy, leaving no descendants to test, though as noted above Lightner can probably be excluded on the basis of his mother's testimony.
+
=Did Joseph Smith have a long history of "womanizing" before practicing plural marriage?=
 +
==There is no good evidence to support the charge that Joseph was adulterous or had other "woman problems"==
  
−
The testing of female descendants' DNA is much move involved, but work continues and may provide the only definitive means of ruling in or out potential children.
+
The charges are all late, at least second-hand, and typically gathered with hostile intent.  Those making the claims are often verifiably wrong on other facts.  The witnesses contradict each other, are sometimes ridiculous, and seem to be nothing but warmed-over gossip.  Those who could have confirmed the stories did not.  Many details bear the mark of outright fabrication.
  
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The case of Oliver Buell is an interesting one, since Fawn Brodie was insistent that he was Joseph's son.  She based part of this argument on a photograph of Buell, which revealed a face which she claimed was "overwhelmingly on the side of Joseph's paternity."<ref>{{CriticalWork:Brodie:No Man Knows/Short|pages=301}} Brodie includes the picture between 298–299}}</ref>  A conception on this date would make Oliver two to three weeks overdue at birth, which makes Brodie's theory less plausible.<ref>{{Book:Bachman:Thesis:1975/Short|pages=138}}</ref>
+
Even more significantly, there is no contemporary account of witnesses accusing Joseph of unchastity in the Church's early years, save a single, second-or-third hand charge that was neither substantiated by those with an opportunity to do so, or repeated.  Everything else is after-the-fact, often decades later.  Given how anxious Joseph's enemies were to condemn him, it would be astonishing if he was known to be immoral without them noticing and taking advantage.
  
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Furthermore, prior the DNA results, Bachman and Compton pointed out that Brodie's timeline poses serious problems for her theory—Oliver's conception would have had to occurred between 16 April 1839 (when Joseph was allowed to escape during a transfer from Liberty Jail)<ref>{{Book:Smith:HC|vol=3|pages=320&ndash;321}}</ref> and 18 April, when the Huntingtons left Far West.<ref>{{Book:Compton:Brodie on JS Plural Wives/Short|pages=168–171}}</ref>  Brodie would have Joseph travel west from his escape near Gallatin, Davies County, Missouri, to Far West in order to meet Lucinda, and then on to Illinois to the east.  This route would require Joseph and his companions to backtrack, while fleeing from custody in the face of an active state extermination order in force.<ref>See Clark V. Johnson, "Northern Missouri," in S. Kent Brown, Donald Q. Cannon, Richard H. Jackson (editors), Historical Atlas of Mormonism (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), 42}}</ref>  Travel to Far West would also require them to travel near the virulently anti-Mormon area of Haun's Mill, along Shoal Creek.<ref>{{Book:Compton:Brodie on JS Plural Wives/Short|pages=170}}</ref> Yet, by 22 April Joseph was in Illinois, having been slowed by travel "off from the main road as much as possible"<ref>{{Book:Smith:HC|pages=320–321|vol=3}}</ref> "both by night and by day."<ref>{{Book:Smith:HC|pages=327|vol=3}}</ref>  This seems an implausible time for Joseph to be meeting a woman, much less conceiving a child.  Furthermore, it is evident that Far West was evacuated by other Church leaders, "the committee on removal," and not under the prophet’s direction, who did not regain the Saints until reaching Quincy, Illinois.<ref>{{Book:Smith:HC|pages=315, 319, 322_323, 327|vol=3}}</ref>
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::…the sources are not the past but only the raw materials whence we form our conception of the past, and in using them we inherit the limitations that produced them… <ref>Dean C. Jessee, ed., The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book, 1984), xiv, italics in original.</ref>
 +
:::- Dean C. Jessee
  
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Brodie's inclusion of Oliver Buell is also inconsistent, since he was born prior to Joseph's sealing to Prescinda.  By including Oliver as a child, Brodie wishes to paint Joseph as an indiscriminate womanizer.  Yet, her theory of plural marriage argues that Joseph "had too much of the Puritan in him, and he could not rest until he had redefined the nature of sin and erected a stupendous theological edifice to support his new theories on marriage."<ref>{{CriticalWork:Brodie:No Man Knows/Short|pages=297}}</ref> Thus, Brodie argues that Joseph created plural marriage to justify his immorality—yet, she then has him conceiving a child with Prescinda before being sealed to her. By her own argument, the paternity must therefore be seen as doubtful.<ref>{{Book:Bachman:Thesis:1975/Short|pages=138 makes similar points}}</ref>
+
An early date for the first plural marriage revelation (see [[Initiation of the practice of plural marriage|here]]) makes it more difficult for critics to charge that Joseph invented the idea of plural marriage to justify his "adultery" with Fanny Alger (see [[Joseph Smith/Polygamy/Essays/Introduction of the eternal marriage|here]]). In response, some critics have charged that Joseph had a long history of adulterous scrapes predating 1831.
  
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Despite Brodie's enthusiasm, no other author has included Oliver on their list of possible children (see [[#Table_1|Table 1]]).  And, DNA evidence has conclusively ruled him out.  Oliver is an excellent example of Brodie's tendency to ignore and misread evidence which did not fit her preconceptions, and suggests that caution is warranted before one condemns Joseph for a pre-plural marriage "affair" or other improprieties.  Since Brodie was not interested in giving Joseph the benefit of the doubt, or avoiding a rush to judgment, her decision is not surprising.
+
They want Joseph to be seen as a rake and womanizer.  But was he?
  
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John Reed Hancock is another of Brodie's suggestions, though no other author has followed her.  The evidence for Joseph having married Clarissa Reed Hancock is scant,<ref>See {{Book:Compton:Brodie on JS Plural Wives/Short|pages=164–165}}</ref> and as with Oliver Buell it is unlikely (even under Brodie's jaded theory of plural marriage as justification for adultery) that Joseph would have conceived a child with a woman to whom he was not polygamously married.  DNA testing has since confirmed our justified scepticism of Brodie's claim.<ref>Michael DeGroote, "DNA solves a Joseph Smith mystery," Deseret News (9 July 2011).</ref
+
Joseph Smith faced intense opposition throughout his life.  Attacks on his moral character surfaced a few years after the Church's organization, though no such charges appeared before the organization of the Church.
  
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=== John Hyrum Buell, Son of Prescinda Huntington Buell ===
+
A key source for these claims was an apostate Mormon, Doctor Philastus Hurlbut.  Hurlbut joined the Church in 1833, but was excommunicated for immoral conduct while on a mission.  Hurlbut became Joseph's avowed enemy, and Joseph even brought a peace warrant (akin to our modern "restraining order") against him because of threats on Joseph's life.
  
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Bachman mentions a "seventh child" of Prescinda's, likely John Hyrum Buell, for whom the timeline would better accommodate conception by Joseph Smith.  There is no other evidence for Joseph's paternity, however, save Ettie V. Smith's account in the anti-Mormon Fifteen Years Among the Mormons (1859), which claimed that Prescinda said she did not know whether Joseph or her first husband was John Hyrum's father.<ref>{{CriticalWork:Green:Fifteen Years/Full title|pages=34-35}}</ref>  As Compton notes, such an admission is implausible, given the mores of the time.<ref>{{Book:Compton:Brodie on JS Plural Wives/Short|pages=166}}</ref>
+
Hurlbut returned to the New York area, and gathered a collection of affidavits about Joseph and the Smith family.  Hurlbut's reputation, however, was so notorious, that he gave the affidavits to Eber D. Howe of Painsville, Ohio.  Howe disliked the Mormons, doubtless partly because his wife and daughter had joined the Church.  Howe published the first anti-Mormon book using the affidavits: ''Mormonism Unvailed'' (1834).<ref>For discussion of the affidavits, see Hugh W. Nibley, The Myth Makers (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1961); Hugh W. Nibley, Tinkling Cymbals and Sounding Brass: The Art of Telling Tales About Joseph Smith and Brigham Young (Vol. 11 of the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley), edited by David J. Whittaker, (Salt Lake City, Utah : Deseret Book Company ; Provo, Utah : Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1991); Richard L. Anderson, "The Reliability of the Early History of Lucy and Joseph Smith," Dialogue 4 (Summer 1969): 15–16; Richard L. Anderson, "Joseph Smith's New York Reputation Reappraised," Brigham Young University Studies 10:3 (1970): 283–314; Richard Lloyd Anderson, "The Mature Joseph Smith and Treasure Searching," BYU Studies 24 (Fall 1984): 492-494.Richard Lloyd Anderson, "Review of Joseph Smith's New York Reputation Reexamined by Rodger I. Anderson," FARMS Review of Books 3/1 (1991): 52–80; Thomas G. Alexander, "Review of Dan Vogel (Editor) Early Mormon Documents, Vol. 2," Journal of Mormon History 26/2 (Fall 2000): 248–252.</ref>
  
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Besides being implausible, Ettie gets virtually every other detail wrong—she insists that William Law, Robert Foster, and Henry Jacobs had all been sent on missions, only to return and find their wives being courted by Joseph.  Ettie then has them establish the Expositor.<ref>{{CriticalWork:Green:Fifteen Years|pages=34-35}}</ref> While Law and Foster were involved with the Expositor, they were not sent on missions, and their wives did not charge that Joseph had propositioned them.  Jacobs had served missions, but was present during Joseph's sealing to his wife, and did not object (see Chapter 9).  Jacobs was a faithful Saint unconnected to the Expositor.
+
The [[The Hurlbut affidavits|Hurlbut-Howe affidavits]] have provided much anti-Mormon ammunition ever since. But, their value as historical documents is limited.  There is evidence that Hurlbut influenced those who gave affidavits, and since some who gave them were illiterate, they may have merely signed statements written by Hurlbut himself.  
−
 
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Even the anti-Mormon Fanny Stenhouse considered Ettie Smith to be a writer who "so mixed up fiction with what was true, that it was difficult to determine where one ended and the other began,"<ref>{{CriticalWork:Stenhouse:Tell It All/Full title|pages=618, the footnote confirms the identity of the author as Ettie V. Smith.}} </ref> and a good example of how "the autobiographies of supposed Mormon women were [as] unreliable"<ref>{{CriticalWork:Stenhouse:Tell It All|pages=x}}</ref> as other Gentile accounts, given her tendency to "mingl[e] facts and fiction" "in a startling and sensational manner."<ref>{{CriticalWork:Stenhouse:Tell It All|pages=xi-xii}}</ref>
 
  
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Brodie herself makes no mention of John Hyrum as a potential child (and carelessly misreads Ettie Smith's remarks as referring to Oliver, not John Hyrum).  No other historian has even mentioned this child, much less argued that Buell was not the father (see [[#Table_1|Table 1]]).
+
That said, these charges continue to surface, and are sometimes used as a type of "introduction" to plural marriage.  Critics seem to presume that because charges were made, those charges must be true to some extent—"where there's smoke, there must be at least a small fire." They then conclude that since these charges are true, they help explain Joseph's enthusiasm for plural marriage.  It is difficult to prove a negative, but a great deal of doubt can be cast on the affidavits themselves, without even considering the bias and hatred which motivated their collection and publication.
  
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=== Scant evidence: Sarah Elizabeth Holmes, Hannah Ann Dibble, Loren Walker Dibble, Joseph Albert Smith, and Carolyn Delight ==
+
==Eliza Winters==
  
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A few other possibilities should be mentioned, though the evidence surrounding them is tenuous. Sarah Elizabeth Holmes was born to Marietta Carter, though "No evidence links her with Joseph Smith."<ref>{{Book:Hales:JS Polygamy 1|pages=298}}</ref> The Dibble children suffer from chronology problems, and a lack of good evidence that Joseph and their mother was associated. Loren Dibble was, however, claimed by some Mormons as a child of Joseph’s when confronted with Joseph Smith III’s skepticism.<ref>{{Book:Hales:JS Polygamy 1|pages=298}} Hales cites Joseph Smith III to Bro. E.C. Brand, 26 January 1894, 65}}</ref
+
One affidavit was provided by Levi Lewis, Emma Hale Smith's cousin and son of the Reverend Nathaniel Lewis, a well-known Methodist minister in Harmony.<ref>A. Brant Merrill, "Joseph Smith's Methodism?" letter to the editor, Dialogue 16/1 (Spring 1983): 4–5.</ref>  Van Wagoner uses this affidavit to argue that:
  
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Joseph Albert Smith was born to Esther Dutcher, but the available evidence supports her polyandrous sealing to Joseph as for eternity only. Carolyn Delight has no evidence at all of a connection to Joseph—the only source is a claim to Ugo Perego, a modern DNA researcher.<ref>{{Book:Hales:JS Polygamy 1|pages=298}}</ref> No textual or documentary evidence is known for her at all.
+
<blockquote>
 +
[Joseph’s] abrupt 1830 departure with his wife, Emma, from Harmony, Pennsylvania, may have been precipitated in part by Levi and Hiel Lewis's accusations that Smith had acted improperly towards a local girl. Five years later Levi Lewis, Emma's cousin, repeated stories that Smith attempted to "seduce Eliza Winters &c.," and that both Smith and his friend Martin Harris had claimed "adultery was no crime."  <ref>Except where noted, I have taken the accusations of immorality against Joseph from Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History, 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1989), 4–5. Van Wagoner takes no time to analyze these charges—he simply drops them on the reader and moves on.  One reviewer criticized this tendency in both his volume on polygamy and Sidney Rigdon, writing, "He cites negative reports of early episodes but buries his suspicion for or rejection of the account in a note. But if it is not to be trusted, why cite it in the first place?" [David J. Whittaker, "Review of Richard Van Wagoner's Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess," Journal of Mormon History 23/1 (Spring 1997): 193.]</ref>
 +
</blockquote>
  
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=== Fanny Alger and Eliza R. Snow: Miscarriages? ===
+
Van Wagoner argues that this "may" have been why Joseph left.  But, we have no evidence of Levi and Hiel Lewis making the charge until the affidavits were gathered five years later.  (Hiel Lewis' inclusion adds nothing; he gave no affidavit in 1833, and in 1879 simply repeated third hand stories of how Joseph had attempted to "seduce" Eliza.<ref>Hiel Lewis, "Mormon History," Amboy Journal (6 August 1879); cited by Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery, Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith, 2nd ed. (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 64.</ref>  At best, he is repeating Levi's early tale.)
  
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We have elsewhere seen the tenuous basis for many conclusions about the Fanny Alger marriage (see [[Polygamy_book/Introduction_of_eternal_marriage|here]] and [[Joseph_Smith/Polygamy/Fanny_Alger_and_William_McLellin|here]]).  The first mention of a pregnancy for Fanny is in an 1886 anti-Mormon work, citing Chauncey Webb, with whom Fanny reportedly lived after leaving the Smith home.<ref>{{CriticalWork:Wyl:Mormon Portraits Volume First|pages=57}} {{CriticalWork:Young:Wife No. 19/Full title|pages=66–67}} Discussed in {{Book:Bachman:Thesis:1975/Short|pages=140}} Also in {{Book:Compton:ISL/Short|pages=34–35}}</ref> Webb claimed that Emma "drove" Fanny from the house because she "was unable to conceal the consequences of her celestial relation with the prophet."  If Fanny was pregnant, it is curious that no one else remarked upon it at the time, though it is possible that the close quarters of a nineteenth-century household provided Emma with clues.  If Fanny was pregnant by Joseph, the child never went to term, died young, or was raised under a different name
+
A look at Lewis' complete affidavit is instructive.  He claimed, among other things, that:
  
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A family tradition—repeated by anti-Mormon Wyl—holds that Eliza R. Snow was pregnant and shoved down the stairs by a jealous Emma before being required to leave the Smith home.<ref>{{Book:Compton:ISL/Short|pages=314–315}}</ref>  The tradition holds that Eliza, "heavy with child" subsequently miscarried.  While Eliza was required to leave the home and Emma was likely upset with her, no contemporary evidence points to a pregnancy.<ref>This bit of folklore is explored in Maureen Ursenbach Beecher et al., "Emma and Eliza and the Stairs," Brigham Young University Studies 22/ 1 (Fall 1982): 86–96}}  RLDS author Richard Price also argues that the physical layout of the Mansion House makes the story as reported by Charles C. Rich unlikely, in "Eliza Snow Was Not Pushed Down the Mansion House Stairs," in Richard Price. "Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy: How Men Nearest the Prophet Attached Polygamy to His Name in Order to Justify Their Own Polygamous Crimes." (n.p.: Price Publishing Company, 2001), chapter 9 <http://restorationbookstore.org/jsfp-index.htm >  Price's dogmatic insistence that Joseph never taught plural marriage, however, cannot be sustained by the evidence.</ref>  Eliza's diary says nothing about the loss of a child, which would be a strange omission given her love of children.<ref>See discussion in {{Book:Bachman:Thesis:1975/Short|pages=140n73}}</ref>  It seems unlikely that Eliza would have still been teaching school in an advanced state of pregnancy, especially given that her appearance as a pregnant "unwed mother" would have been scandalous in Nauvoo.  Emma's biographers note that "Eliza continued to teach school for a month after her abrupt departure from the Smith household.  Her own class attendance record shows that she did not miss a day during the months she taught the Smith children, which would be unlikely had she suffered a miscarriage."<ref>{{Book:Newell Avery:Mormon Engima 2|pages=136}}</ref>  Given Emma's treatment of the Partridge sisters, who were also required to leave the Smith household, Emma certainly needed no pregnancy to raise her ire against Joseph's plural wives.  
+
* he heard Joseph admit "God had deceived him" about the plates, and so did not show them to anyone.
 +
* he saw Joseph drunk three times while writing the Book of Mormon
 +
* he heard Joseph say "he…was as good as Jesus Christ…it was as bad to injure him as it was to injure Jesus Christ."
 +
* he heard Martin Harris and Joseph Smith claim "adultery was no crime."
 +
* he heard Martin say that Joseph attempted to "seduce Eliza Winters," and that he didn't blame him.
  
−
Eliza repeatedly testified to the physical nature of her relationship with Joseph Smith (see Chapter 9), and was not shy about criticizing Emma on the subject of plural marriage.<ref>See, for example, Eliza R. Snow, ''Woman's Exponent'' 8 (1 November 1879): 85: "So far as Sister Emma personally is concerned, I would gladly have been silent and let her memory rest in peace, had not her misguided son, through a sinister policy, branded her name with gross wickedness [by quoting her as denying plural marriage]."</ref> Yet, she never reported having been pregnant, or used her failed pregnancy as evidence for the reality of plural marriage.
+
There are serious problems with these claims.  It seems extraordinarily implausible that Joseph "admitted" that God had deceived him, and thus was not able to show the plates to anyone. Joseph insisted that he had shown the plates to people, and the Three and Eight Witnesses all published testimony to that effect.  Despite apostasy and alienation from Joseph Smith, none denied that witness.  
  
−
In the absence of further information, both of these reported pregnancies must be regarded as extremely speculative.
+
The claim to have seen Joseph drunk during the translation is entertaining.  If Joseph were drunk, this only makes the production of the Book of Mormon more impressive.  But, this sounds like little more than idle gossip, designed to bias readers against Joseph as a "drunkard."
  
−
== What did the husband of Sylvia Sessions know about her sealing to Joseph Smith for eternity? ==
+
A study of Joseph's letters and life from this period make it difficult to believe that Joseph would insist he was "as good as Jesus Christ."  Joseph's private letters reveal him to be devout, sincere, and almost painfully aware of his dependence on God.<ref>See remarks in this vein in Paul H. Peterson, "Understanding Joseph: A Review of Published Documentary Sources," in Joseph Smith: The Prophet, the Man, ed. Susan Easton Black and Charles D. Tate (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company, 1988), 110.</ref>
−
=== Sylvia was married to Windsor Lyon by Joseph Smith in Nauvoo, and was sealed to Joseph Smith at some point after she was married ===
 
  
−
Sylvia was married to Windsor Lyon by Joseph Smith in Nauvoo. She was sealed to Joseph Smith at some point after she was married. Brian Hales notes that , "This marriage triangle is unique among all of the Prophet’s plural marriages because there is strong evidence that Sylvia bore children to both men. She became pregnant by Windsor Lyon in October of 1838, September of 1840, and April of 1842. Then a year later became pregnant with a daughter (named Josephine—born February 8, 1844) that was purportedly fathered by the Prophet." Sylvia's daughter, who had the intriguing name "Josephine," made the following statement
+
Thus, three of the charges that are unmentioned by Van Wagoner are extraordinarily implausible.  They are clearly efforts to simply paint Joseph in a bad light: make him into a pretend prophet who thinks he's better than Jesus, who admits to being deceived, and who gets drunk. Such a portrayal would be welcome to skeptical ears.  This Joseph is ridiculous, not to be taken seriously.
  
−
<blockquote>
+
We can now consider the claim that Martin and Joseph claimed that adultery was no crime, and that Joseph attempted the seduction of Eliza Winters.  Recent work has also uncovered Eliza Winters' identity. She was a young woman at a meeting on 1 November 1832 in Springville Township, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania.  While on a preaching mission with his brother Emer, Martin Harris announced that Eliza "has had a bastard child."
−
Just prior to my mothers [Sylvia Sessions Lyon] death in 1882 she called me to her bedside and told me that her days on earth were about numbered and before she passed away from mortality she desired to tell me something which she had kept as an entire secret fro me and from others until no but which she now desired to communicate to me. She then told me that I was the daughter of the Prophet Joseph Smith, she having been sealed to the Prophet at the time that her husband Mr. Lyon had was out of fellowship with the Church.
 
−
</blockquote>
 
  
−
=== Daughter Josephine was proven not to be a daughter of Joseph Smith, Jr. through DNA analysis ===
+
Eliza sued Martin for slander, asking for $1000 for the damage done to her "good name, fame, behavior and character" because his words "render her infamous and scandalous among her neighbors."  Martin won the suit; Eliza could not prove libel, likely because she had no good character to sully.<ref>Mark B. Nelson and Steven C. Harper, "The Imprisonment of Martin Harris in 1833," Brigham Young University Studies 45/4 (2006). (My thanks to David Keller for bringing the article to my attention in this context.)</ref>
  
−
For many years, Josephine appeared to be the only viable candidate as a child of Joseph Smiths "polyandrous" sealings. However, DNA analysis ultimately disproved the paternity claim: Josephine was not a descendant of Joseph Smith, Jr.<ref>R. Scott Lloyd, "[http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865656112/Joseph-Smith-apparently-was-not-Josephine-Lyons-father-Mormon-History-Association-speaker-says.html?pg=all "Joseph Smith apparently was not Josephine Lyon's father, Mormon History Association speaker says,"] ''Deseret News'' (13 June 2016) </ref
+
This new information calls the Lewis affidavit into even greater question.  We are to believe that Martin, who risked and defended a libel suit for reproving Eliza for fornication, thinks that adultery is "no crime"?  Eliza clearly has no reason to like Joseph and the Mormons—why did she not provide Hurlbut with an affidavit regarding Joseph's scandalous behavior?  Around 1879, Eliza gave information to Frederick Mather for a book about early Mormonism.   Why did she not provide testimony of Joseph's attempt to seduce her?
  
−
=== Sylvia may have considered herself divorced from Windsor after he was excommunicated from the Church ===
+
It seems far more likely that Eliza was known for her low morals, and her name became associated with the Mormons in popular memory, since she had been publicly rebuked by a Mormon preacher and lost her court suit against him.  When Levi Lewis was approached by Hurlbut for material critical of Joseph Smith, he likely drew on this association.
  
−
It appears, however, that Sylvia may have considered herself divorced from Windsor after he was excommunicated from the Church and left Nauvoo. Hales points out that "Currently, no documentation of a legal divorce between Windsor and Sylvia after his excommunication has been found. However, in the mid-nineteenth century, religious laws often trumped legal proceedings. Stanley B. Kimball observed: 'Some church leaders at that time considered civil marriage by non-Mormon clergymen to be as unbinding as their baptisms. Some previous marriages . . . were annulled simply by ignoring them.'" <ref>Brian and Laura Hales, "Sylvia Sessions," josephsmithspolygamy.org {{link|url=http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/plural-wives-overview/sylvia-sessions/}}</ref> The sealing to Joseph occurred after Windor's excommunication. Andrew Jenson, in his historical record, referred to Sylvia as a "formerly the wife of Windsor Lyons." <ref>Andrew Jenson Papers, MS 17956, CHL, box 49, folder 16. </ref> There is no known evidence that Windsor lived with Sylvia after he returned to Nauvoo, but Sylvia did "rejoin" Windsor after he was rebaptised in 1846. Hales states, "No details are available to clarify what authority was used to reconfirm the marriage relationship between Sylvia and Windsor after their previous marital separation. Most likely the couple consulted with Brigham Young or Heber C. Kimball, who authorized their rejoining. Whether a private religious marriage ceremony for time was performed or the couple resumed observing their legal marriage is unknown. Importantly, even with the renewed conjugality between Windsor and Sylvia after Joseph Smith’s death, no evidence has been found to support her involvement in sexual polyandry at any time." <ref>Brian and Laura Hales, "Sylvia Sessions," Note 28 josephsmithspolygamy.org {{link|url=http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/plural-wives-overview/sylvia-sessions/#link_ajs-fn-id_28-5660}}</ref>
+
==Marinda Nancy Johnson==
  
−
{{HalesPluralWifeBiography|wife=Sylvia Sessions|link=http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/plural-wives-overview/sylvia-sessions/}}
+
Van Wagoner describes another charge against Joseph:
  
−
== Did Prescindia Buell (or Sarah Pratt, or Mrs. Hyde) not know who was the father of her son? ==
+
:One account related that on 24 March [1832] a mob of men pulled Smith from his bed, beat him, and then covered him with a coat of tar and feathers. Eli Johnson, who allegedly participated in the attack "because he suspected Joseph of being intimate with his sister, Nancy Marinda Johnson, … was screaming for Joseph's castration."
−
=== The source for this claim is a notoriously unreliable anti-Mormon work. It makes several errors of fact in the very paragraph in which the claim is made ===
 
  
−
It is claimed that Prescindia Lathrop Huntington Buell admitted that she did not know who was the father of her child&mdash;Joseph Smith or her first husband. Sometimes Sarah Pratt (wife of apostle Orson Pratt) is mistakenly identified as the woman in this story. <ref> This type of error is not new in later anti-Mormon documents. An 1884 document claiming to be by Sarah Pratt (who was by then antagonistic to the Church) describes her as the wife of "Orson Hyde," rather than "Orson Pratt." This error is corrected three times, but the error stands in three other cases. See discussion in {{Book:Hales:JS Polygamy 1/Full title|pages=577}} The document cited is [Anonymous], "Workings of Mormonism Related By Mrs. Orson Pratt," typescript of holograph, MS 4048, LDS Church History Library. Sarah Pratt's role, if any, in creating the document is not known. (See Hales, 2:462).</ref>  Others sometimes mention Orson ''Hyde's wife as the source of this rumor. <ref>{{CriticalWork:Brodie:No Man Knows|pages=298&ndash;299, 308, 345}}; {{CriticalWork:Green:Fifteen Years/Full title|pages=[http://books.google.ca/books?id=FT4qAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA34&lpg=PA35#v=onepage&q&f=false 34&ndash;35]}}; {{CriticalWork:Smith:Nauvoo Polygamy|pages=82}}</ref>
+
There is more to the story than this, however—much more. Van Wagoner even indicates that it is "unlikely" that "an incident between Smith and Nancy Johnson precipitated the mobbing."   Unfortunately, Van Wagoner tucks this information into an endnote, where the reader will be unaware of it unless he checks the sources carefully.
  
−
The source for this claim is a notoriously unreliable anti-Mormon work. It makes several errors of fact in the very paragraph in which the claim is made.
+
Todd Compton casts further doubt on this episode.  He notes that Van Wagoner's source is Fawn Brodie, and Brodie's source is from 1884—quite late.  Clark Braden, the source, also got his information second-hand, and is clearly antagonistic, since he is a member of the Church of Christ, the "Disciples," seeking to attack the Reorganized (RLDS) Church.<ref>Todd M. Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), 230–232: citations to other accounts derive from Compton's treatment, except where noted.</ref>  Brodie also gets the woman's name wrong—it is "Marinda Nancy," not "Nancy Marinda."  And, the account is further flawed because Marinda has no brother named Eli.<ref>Compton notes this, as does Van Wagoner's footnote.  Ronald V. Huggins, "Joseph Smith's 'Inspired Translation' of Romans 7," Dialogue 26/4 (Winter 1993): 180–181, footnote 59 relies on Van Wagoner, but argues that Joseph's own account (in William Mulder and A. Russell Mortensen, eds., Among the Mormons (New York: Knopf, 1969), 67) mentions an Eli being present at the attack.  While Smith, History of the Church, 1:260 mentions Eli Johnson, Johnson is not present in any of the scholarly versions of Joseph's diaries such as Jessee, ed., Personal Writings , Dean C. Jessee, ed., The Papers of Joseph Smith: Autobiographical and Historical Writings, vol. 1 (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Co., 1989), or Scott H. Faulring, ed., An American Prophet's Record : The Diaries and Journals of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, 1987).</ref>
  
−
It is implausible that the supposed admission upon which the claim is based would be made. There are major historical problems of geography and timeline for Joseph to have even been a ''potential'' father of Buell's child.
+
Compton notes further that there are two other late anti-Mormon sources that do not agree with the "Joseph as womanizer" version.  Symonds Ryder, the leader of the attack, said that the attack occurred because of "the horrid fact that a plot was laid to take their property from them and place it under the control of Smith." <ref>Symonds Ryder, "Letter to A. S. Hayden," 1 February 1868 in Amos S. Haydon, Early History of the Disciples in the Western Reserve (1876); cited by Van Wagoner, Sidney Rigdon, 114–115.  A second account is also cited by Compton: S.F. Whitney [brother of NK Whitney, a Reverend], in Arthur B. Demming (editor), Naked Truths About Mormonism 1 (January 1888): 3–4.</ref>  The Johnson boys are not portrayed as either leaders, or particularly hostile to Joseph.  It is also unlikely that the mob would attack Sidney Rigdon as well as Joseph if the issue was one of their sister's honor, yet as Rigdon's son told the story, Sidney was the first target who received much harsher treatment:
  
−
The claim cannot be substantiated.
+
:…the mob came and got Rigdon first. He was a man weighing about 225. As they draged him some distance over the frozen ground by his heels bumping the back of his head so that when they got him to the place where they were to put the tar and feathers on him he was insensible. They covered him with tar and feathers and pounded him till they thought he was dead and then went to get J. Smith… The mob covered him with tar and feathers and pounded him till they got tired and left them both on the ground. J. Smith soon after the mob left got up and went home not very badly hurt.
 +
Sidney was attacked until the mob thought he was dead; Joseph seems almost an after-thought in this version: someone they will pound until tired, while Sidney is beaten until thought dead.<ref>John M. Rigdon, "Lecture Written by John M. Rigdon on the Early History of the Mormon Church," 9; transcript from New Mormon Studies CD-ROM, Smith Research Associates, 1998 (emphasis added).</ref>
  
−
{{SeeAlso|Joseph_Smith/Polygamy/Plural_wives#Prescindia_Lathrop_Huntington_Buell|l1=Prescindia Buell's sealing to Joseph Smith|Joseph_Smith/Polygamy/Sent_husbands_on_missions_to_steal_wives|l2=Did Joseph send men on missions to steal their wives?|Joseph_Smith/Polygamy/Children_of_polygamous_marriages/Presendia_Buell|l3=Is there any evidence that Joseph fathered Presendia Buell's child?}}
+
Marinda Johnson had difficulties with plural marriage, but many years later would still testify, "Here I feel like bearing my testimony that during the whole year that Joseph was an inmate of my father’s house I never saw aught in his daily life or conversation to make me doubt his divine mission." <ref>Marinda Hyde, Interview, cited in Edward W. Tullidge, The Women of Mormondom (New York: 1877), 404.</ref>
  
−
=== Is the source reliable? ===
+
It is clear, then, that little remains of this episode to condemn Joseph—and Van Wagoner seems to think so too, though he caches this fact in the endnotes.
  
−
This book was written by Nelson Winch Green, who reported what estranged member Marry Ettie V. Coray Smith reportedly told him
+
==Benjamin Winchester: "Close friend" of Joseph?==
  
−
Even other anti-Mormon authors who had lived in Utah regarded it as nearly worthless. Fanny Stenhouse wrote:
+
Van Wagoner continues to outline Joseph's supposed pattern of problems with women:
  
 
<blockquote>
 
<blockquote>
−
Much has already been written on this subject much that is in accordance with facts, and much that is exaggerated and false. Hitherto, with but one exception [Mrs. Ettie V. Smith is noted in the footnote as the work referred to] that of a lady who wrote very many years ago, and who in her writings, so mixed up fiction with what was true, that it was difficult to determine where the one ended and the other began no woman who really was a Mormon and lived in Polygamy ever wrote the history of her own personal experience. Books have been published, and narratives have appeared in the magazines and journals, purporting to be written by Mormon wives; it is, however, perhaps, unnecessary for me to state that, notwithstanding such narratives may be imposed upon the Gentile world as genuine, that they were written by persons outside the Mormon faith would in a moment be detected by any intelligent Saint who took the trouble to peruse them. <ref>{{CriticalWork:Stenhouse:Tell It All|pages=618}}</ref
+
Benjamin F. Winchester,<ref>It should be noted that Van Wagoner incorrectly cites "Benjamin F. Winchester." It should be "Benjamin Winchester". See Brian C. Hales and Gregory L. Smith, [http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/a-response-to-grant-palmers-sexual-allegations-against-joseph-smith-and-the-beginnings-of-polygamy-in-nauvoo/#sdfootnote3sym "A Response to Grant Palmer’s 'Sexual Allegations against Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Polygamy in Nauvoo',"] ''Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture'' 12 (2014): 183-236 Note 3: "Van Wagoner likewise cites this source as "Benjamin F. Winchester." Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 4."</ref> Smith's close friend and leader of Philadelphia Mormons in the early 1840s, later recalled Kirtland accusations of scandal and "licentious conduct" hurled against Smith, "this more especially among the women. Joseph's name was connected with scandalous relations with two or three families."
 
</blockquote>
 
</blockquote>
  
−
So, we must remember that this work is not regarded as generally reliable today, and it was not regarded as reliable even by the Church's enemies in the 19th century.
+
There is again more to the story, and Van Wagoner again places it in the endnotes.  Far from being a "close friend" of Joseph when he made the statement, Winchester was excommunicated after the martyrdom. Winchester claims he was excommunicated for being "[a] deadly enemy of the spiritual wife system and for this opposition he had received all manner of abuse from all who believe in that hellish system."
  
−
=== The claim ===
+
So, we have a late reminiscence, by someone who is now definitely not a "close friend and leader of Philadelphia Mormons" as he was in 1844.  By his own admission, he was an excommunicate apostate and bitter opponent of plural marriage.  And, all he can tell us is about rumors of "scandal" in Kirtland, and isn't even sure with whom or how many families.
 +
 +
Van Wagoner's habit of putting important details in the endnotes should trouble us more than these vague charges against Joseph in Kirtland—a period by which he had begun to practice plural marriage.
  
−
The source for this claim is an anti-Mormon book. The relevant passage reads:
+
Winchester's other claims are not included by Van Wagoner.  As with Levi Lewis' charges, the other claims demonstrate how unreliable Winchester is. He wrote that the Kirtland Temple dedication "ended in a drunken frolic."  As one historian noted:
  
 
<blockquote>
 
<blockquote>
−
The Prophet had sent some time before this, three men, Law, Foster and Jacobs, on missions, and they had just returned, and found their wives blushing under the prospective honors of spiritual wifeism; and another woman, Mrs. Buel [sic], had left her husband, a Gentile, to grace the Prophet's retinue, on horseback, when he reviewed the Nauvoo Legion. I heard the latter woman say afterwards in Utah, that she did not know whether Mr. Buel [sic] or the Prophet was the father of her son. These men [Law, Foster and Jacobs] established a press in Nauvoo, to expose his alleged vicious teachings and practices, which a revelation from Joseph destroyed. <ref>{{CriticalWork:Green:Fifteen Years/Full title|pages=[http://books.google.ca/books?id=FT4qAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA34&lpg=PA35#v=onepage&q&f=false 34&ndash;35]}}</ref>
+
Such an accusation conflicts with many other contemporary accounts and is inconsistent with the Latter-day Saint attitude toward intemperance. If such behavior had been manifest, individuals would have undoubtedly recorded the information in their diaries or letters in 1836, but the negative reports emerged long after the events had transpired and among vindictive critics who had become enemies of the Church.  
 
</blockquote>
 
</blockquote>
  
−
=== Errors of fact ===
+
So, on issues which we can verify, Winchester is utterly unreliable. Why ought we to credit his vague, gossipy recall of early plural marriage?
−
As might be expected, then, there are many claims in this passage that are in error. We ''know'' that the following are false
 
  
−
* Ettie Smith claims that William Law, Robert D. Foster, and Henry Jacobs were on missions and that Joseph had proposed plural marriage to them. Law and Foster, in fact, never served missions. Henry Jacobs did serve a mission, but he [[Polygamy_book/Polyandry#Zina_Diantha_Huntington_Jacobs|was not gone on a mission]] when Joseph discussed plural marriage.
+
==Polly Beswick: The Two-Hundred Pound Domestic==
−
* Foster and Law did participate in publishing the ''[[Nauvoo Expositor]]'', but Henry Jacobs did not. He was and remained a faithful member of the Church.
 
−
* The destruction of the ''Nauvoo Expositor'' was undertaken by the Nauvoo city council. Some members of that council were not members of the Church&mdash;it seems implausible to think that they would bow to a "revelation" to Joseph requiring its destruction. The decision was made, instead, after 8 hours of discussion and after consulting legal references.
 
  
−
Thus, in the single paragraph we have several basic errors of fact. Why should we believe the gossip of what Mrs. Buell is claimed to have said?
+
The "best" sources on Joseph's early character have already been presented. The most creative, however, involves Polly Beswick, "a colorful two-hundred-pound Smith [servant who] told her friends" a tale better suited to a farce or bad situation comedy:
−
 
 
−
=== Such an admission would be out of character for a believing Utah woman of the 19th century ===
 
−
 
 
−
Furthermore, such an admission would be out of character for a believing Utah woman of the 19th century. As Todd Compton notes
 
  
 
<blockquote>
 
<blockquote>
−
Talk of sexuality was avoided by the Victorian, puritanical Mormons; in diaries, the word 'pregnant' or 'expecting' is never or rarely used. Women are merely 'sick' until they have a child. Polyandry was rarely discussed openly by Mormon women. <ref>{{Book:Compton:Brodie on JS Plural Wives|pages=166}}</ref>
+
"Jo Smith said he had a revelation to lie with Vienna Jacques, who lived in his family" and that Emma Smith told her "Joseph would get up in the night and go to Vienna's bed." Furthermore, she added, "Emma would get out of humor, fret and scold and flounce in the harness," then Smith would "shut himself up in a room and pray for a revalation … state it to her, and bring her around all right."
 
</blockquote>
 
</blockquote>
  
−
=== It is difficult for Joseph to have even had contact with her at the proper time to conceive a child ===
+
One hardly knows where to start with this account.  Van Wagoner notes that the story is second hand, but fails to mention that Polly is a known gossip.   There is also no reference for Polly's claims—it is impossible to verify them, or know in what context they were given.
−
 
 
−
Fawn Brodie painted a fanciful scenario in which Joseph would have been able to potentially father a Buell child. However, she misread the historical information, and it is difficult, as Todd Compton has demonstrated, for Joseph to have even had contact with her at the proper time to conceive a child. <ref>{{Book:Compton:ISL|pages=670&ndash;673}} {{Book:Compton:Brodie on JS Plural Wives/Short|pages=166&ndash;170}}</ref> This would suggest that there were no grounds for Mrs. Buell&mdash;or a modern reader&mdash;to conclude that Joseph might have been the father.
 
−
 
 
−
{{Main|Joseph_Smith/Polygamy/Children_of_polygamous_marriages/Presendia_Buell|l1=Joseph could not have fathered Presendia Buell's child}}
 
−
 
 
−
== Did Joseph Smith father children by polyandrous plural wife Prescindia Buell? ==
 
−
=== All those who have been definitively DNA tested so far—Oliver Buell, Mosiah Hancock, Zebulon Jacobs, Moroni Pratt, and Orrison Smith—have been excluded as children of Joseph Smith ===
 
−
 
 
−
''Nauvoo Polygamy'' author George D. Smith tells his readers that "until decisive DNA testing of possible [Joseph] Smith descendants—daughters as well as sons—from plural wives can be accomplished, ascertaining whether Smith fathered children with any of his plural wives remains hypothetical" (pp. 228–29, cf. p. 473). This is true, but G. D. Smith fails to tell us that all those who have been definitively tested so far—Oliver Buell, Mosiah Hancock, Zebulon Jacobs, Moroni Pratt, and Orrison Smith—have been excluded. Would he have neglected, I wonder, to mention a positive DNA test?
 
−
 
 
−
The consequences of George D. Smith's less-than-rigorous approach to sources becomes clear in the case of Oliver Buell, son of Presendia.<ref>Presendia’s name is also spelled ''Presenda'' or ''Prescindia'' in contemporary documents. We here use the spelling adopted by her autobiography, also followed by Compton and G. D. Smith.</ref> Huntington Buell, one of Joseph’s polyandrous plural wives. Fawn Brodie was the [[No Man Knows My History/Index#345|first to suggest that Oliver Buell was Joseph’s son]], and she was so convinced (based on photographic evidence)<ref>{{CriticalWork:Brodie:No Man Knows|pages=301. Brodie includes the picture between 298–99}}  that she wrote, "If Oliver Buell isn’t a Smith then I’m no Brimhall," which was her mother’s name.</ref>Fawn Brodie to Dale Morgan, Letter, 24 March 1945, Dale Morgan papers, Marriott Library, University of Utah; cited by {{Book:Compton:Brodie on JS Plural Wives|pages=166}}</ref>  In a footnote, G. D. Smith notes that Todd Compton "considers it improbable that Joseph and Presendia would have found time together during the brief window of opportunity after his release from prison in Missouri" (p. 80 n. 63).<ref>Citing {{Book:Compton:ISL|pages=670, 673}}</ref>
 
−
 
 
−
=== The geography ===
 
−
 
 
−
This slight nod toward an opposite point of view is inadequate, however. G. D. Smith does not mention and hence does not confront the strongest evidence. Compton’s argument against Joseph’s paternity does not rest just on a "narrow window" of opportunity but on the fact that Brodie seriously misread the geography required by that window. It is not merely a question of dates. Brodie would have Joseph travel west from his escape near Gallatin, Davies County, Missouri, to Far West in order to meet Lucinda, and then on to Illinois toward the east. This route would require Joseph and his companions to backtrack while fleeing from custody in the face of an active state extermination order.<ref>See Clark V. Johnson, "Northern Missouri," in ''Historical Atlas of Mormonism'', ed. S. Kent Brown, Donald Q. Cannon, and Richard H. Jackson (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), 42.</ref> Travel to Far West would also require them to travel near the virulently anti-Mormon area of Haun’s Mill, along Shoal Creek.<ref>{{Book:Compton:Brodie on JS Plural Wives/Short|pages=170}}</ref>  Yet by April 22 Joseph was in Illinois, having been slowed by traveling "off from the main road as much as possible"<ref name="hc">{{HoC1|vol=3}}</ref>{{Rp|320-321}}  "both by night and by day."<ref name="hc"></ref>{{Rp|327}}  This seems an implausible time for Joseph to be conceiving a child. Furthermore, it is evident that Far West was evacuated by other church leaders, "the committee on removal," and not under the Prophet’s direction. Joseph did not regain the Saints until reaching Quincy, Illinois, contrary to Brodie’s misreading.<ref name="hc"></ref>{{Rp|315, 319, 322-23, 327}}  Timing is the least of the problems with G. D. Smith’s theory
 
−
 
 
−
Despite Brodie’s enthusiasm, few other authors have included Oliver on their list of possible children.<ref>The following all fail to include Oliver Buell as a potential child of Joseph’s: Danel Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy," 137–38; Van Wagoner, ''Mormon Polygamy'', 43–44 and 43 n. 43; Lawrence Foster, ''Religion and Sexuality'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 157–58; Gary James Bergera, "Identifying the Earliest Mormon Polygamists, 1841–44," ''Dialogue'' 38/3 (Fall 2005): 49–50 n. 115. </ref>  With so many authors ranged against him, G. D. Smith ought not to act as if Compton’s analysis is merely about dates.
 
−
 
 
−
=== The DNA ===
 
−
 
 
−
G. D. Smith also soft-pedals the most vital evidence—the DNA.<ref>Carrie A. Moore, "DNA tests rule out 2 as Smith descendants," ''Deseret Morning News'', (10 November 2007), {{link|url=http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695226318,695226300.html}} (accessed 2 December 2008); Ugo A. Perego et al., "Resolving the Paternities of Oliver N. Buell and Mosiah L. Hancock through DNA," ''The John Whitmer Historical Association Journal'' 28 (2008): 128–36. For background information, see Ugo A. Perego and Scott R. Woodward, "Reconstructing the Y-Chromosome of Joseph Smith" (paper presented at the Mormon History Association Conference, 28 May 2005); Ugo A. Perego et al., "Reconstructing the Y-Chromosome of Joseph Smith Jr.: Genealogical Applications," ''Journal of Mormon History'' 32/2 (Summer 2005): 70–88.</ref> He makes no mention in the main text that Oliver’s paternity has been [[Joseph Smith and polygamy/Children of polygamous marriages#Buell|definitively ruled out by DNA testing]]. This admission is confined to a footnote, and its impact is minimized by its placement. After noting Compton’s disagreement with the main text’s suggestion that Oliver might be Joseph’s son, G. D. Smith writes, "There is no DNA connection," and cites a ''Deseret News'' article. He immediately follows this obtuse phrasing with a return to Compton, who finds it "‘unlikely, though not impossible, that Joseph Smith was the actual father of another Buell child,’ John Hiram, Presendia’s seventh child during her marriage to Buell and born in November 1843" (p. 80 n. 63). Thus the most salient fact—that Joseph is certainly not Oliver's father—is sandwiched between a vicarious discussion with Compton about whether Oliver or John could be Joseph’s sons. Since G. D. Smith knows there is definitive evidence against Joseph’s paternity in Oliver’s case, why mention the debate at all only to hide the answer in the midst of a long endnote? That Brodie is so resoundingly rebutted on textual, historical, and genetic grounds provides a cautionary lesson in presuming that her certainty counts for much.<ref>Elsewhere G. D. Smith actually uses an appeal to the fact that Brodie was persuaded by a tale as evidence! (p. 131).</ref
 
−
 
 
−
=== Maybe another Buell child? ===
 
−
 
 
−
Two pages later, G. D. Smith again tells us of a Buell child being sealed to a proxy for Joseph with "wording [that] hints that it might have been Smith’s child." "It is not clear," he tells us, "which of her children it might have been" (p. 82). In fact, what is clear is that he has not assimilated the implications of the DNA data. John Hiram, the seventh child about whom Compton is skeptical, is the only other option. Yet the only evidence for this child belonging to Joseph is Ettie V. Smith’s account in the anti-Mormon Fifteen Years among the Mormons (1859), which claimed that Presendia said she did not know whether Joseph or her first husband was John Hiram’s father.<ref>{{CriticalWork:Green:Fifteen Years|pages=34-35}}</ref> As Compton notes, such an admission is implausible, given the mores of the time.<ref>Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith’s Plural Wives," 166.</ref>
 
−
 
 
−
Besides being implausible, Ettie’s account gets virtually every other detail wrong—insisting that William Law, Robert Foster, and Henry Jacobs had all been sent on missions only to return to find Joseph preaching plural marriage. Ettie then has them establish the ''Expositor''.<ref>Green, ''Fifteen Years'', 34–35.</ref>  While Law and Foster were involved with the Expositor, they were not sent on missions. Jacobs had served missions but was a faithful Saint unconnected to the ''Expositor''. He was also, contrary to Ettie’s claims, present when Joseph was sealed polyandrously to his (Jacobs’s) wife.
 
−
 
 
−
Even the anti-Mormon Fanny Stenhouse considered Ettie Smith to be a writer who "so mixed up fiction with what was true, that it was difficult to determine where one ended and the other began,"<ref name="tell it">{{CriticalWork:Stenhouse:Tell It All/Full title|pages=The footnote confirms the identity of the author as Ettie V. Smith}}</ref>{{Rp|618}}  and a good example of how "the autobiographies of supposed Mormon women were [as] unreliable"<ref name="tell it"></ref>{{Rp|x}}  as other Gentile accounts, given her tendency to "mingl[e] facts and fiction" "in a startling and sensational manner."<ref name="tell it"></ref>{{Rp|xi-xii}}
 
−
 
 
−
Brodie herself makes no mention of John Hiram as a potential child, going so far as to carelessly misread Ettie Smith’s remarks as referring to Oliver, not John Hiram. No other historian has argued that Buell was not the father.<ref>See Bachman, "Plural marriage," 139; Van Wagoner, ''Mormon Polygamy'', 43–44 and 43 n. 43; Lawrence Foster, ''Religion and Sexuality: The Shakers, the Mormons, and the Oneida Community'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 157–58; Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith’s Plural Wives," 167; Gary James Bergera, "Identifying the Earliest Mormon Polygamists, 1841–44," ''Dialogue'' 38/3 (Fall 2005): 49–50 n. 115.</ref> There is no good evidence whatever that any of Presendia’s children were Joseph’s. It is not clear why G. D. Smith clings to the idea.
 
−
 
 
−
== What is the current state of the evidence for proving or disproving that Joseph Smith had children by his plural wives? ==
 
−
=== As always, we are left where we began—with more suspicions and possibilities than certitudes ===
 
−
 
 
−
Few authors agree on which children should even be considered as Joseph's potential children. Candidates which some find overwhelmingly likely are dismissed—or even left unmentioned—by others.  Recent scholars have included between one to four potential children as options.  Of these, Josephine Lyon was the most persuasive, until her relationship to Joseph Smith was ultimately disproven through DNA testing.  Orson W. Hyde died in infancy, and so can never be definitively excluded as a possible child, though the dates of conception argue against Joseph's paternity. Oliver Gray Frost is mentioned in two sources as having a child by Joseph. Both she and the child died in Nauvoo, so no genetic evidence will ever be forthcoming.<ref>{{Book:Hales:JS Polygamy 1/Full title|pages=298}}</ref>
 
−
 
 
−
==== Table 2 ====
 
−
=== '''''Table 11‑2 Possible Children of Joseph Smith, Jr., by Plural Marriage''''' ===
 
−
 
 
−
This table is in the same order as [[Question:_Can_you_summarize_what_we_know_about_whether_or_not_Joseph_Smith_fathered_any_children_by_his_plural_wives%3F#Table_11.E2.80.911_Possible_Children_of_Joseph_Smith.2C_Jr..2C_by_Plural_Marriage|Table 1]].
 
−
 
 
−
<!--Yellow box begins-->
 
−
<div style="width: 80%; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 1.5em; border-style: solid; border-color: lightgrey grey grey lightgrey; border-width: 1px; padding: 1em; background-color: #fff0a0;"><font size = 1>'''''Key:'''''
 
−
* NM = Brodie, ''No Man Knows My History'', 2nd edition (1971);
 
−
* Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy" (1975);
 
−
* VW=Van Wagoner, ''Mormon Polygamy'', 2nd edition (1989);
 
−
* Fo = Foster, ''Religion and Sexuality'' (1984);
 
−
* Co = Compton, ''In Sacred Loneliness'' (1997);
 
−
* Be = Bergera, "Identifying the Earliest Mormon Polygamists," (2005);
 
−
* Ha = Hales, ''Joseph Smith’s Polygamy'' (2013).
 
−
'''''Notation''''':
 
−
* Y – indicates the author considers the child a possible child of Joseph Smith, Jr.
 
−
* N - indicates that author argues against this child being Joseph's child, or lists someone else as the father.
 
−
* Ø  - indicates that author does not mention the possibility (pro or con) of this being Joseph's child.</font></div><!--Yellow box ends-->
 
  
−
[[File:Table2-ChildrenOfPluralMarriage.png]]
+
The description, however, seems totally implausible.  No doubt, Emma Smith was challenged by plural marriage (see [[Emma_Smith%27s_reaction_to_Joseph_Smith%27s_plural_marriages|here]]).  But, the image of Emma being petulant and then settling down once Joseph produces a "revalation" is totally out of character and quite different from how she behaved when Joseph did provide a revelation.  I find this evidence utterly unconvincing and unreliable.
  
−
==== Endnote links for above table ====
+
==Martin Harris: Again?==
−
Brodie;<ref>{{CriticalWork:Brodie:No Man Knows/Short|pages=345, 464}}</ref> Bachman;<ref>{{Book:Bachman:Thesis:1975/Short|pages=139}}</ref>; and Compton.<ref>Compton points out that "It is striking that Marinda had no children while Orson was on his mission to Jerusalem [15 April 1840–7 December 1842], then became pregnant soon after Orson returned home.  (He arrived in Nauvoo on December 7, 1842, and Marinda bore Orson Washington Hyde on November 9, 1843}}) – {{Book:Compton:Brodie on JS Plural Wives/Short|pages=165}}</ref>
 
  
−
=== Conclusions ===
+
The final source provided by Van Wagoner quotes Martin Harris from an interview purportedly given in 1873:
−
As always, we are left where we began—with more suspicions and possibilities than certitudes.  One's attitude toward Joseph and the Saints will influence, more than anything else, how these conflicting data are interpreted.
 
−
 
 
−
The uncertainty surrounding Joseph's offspring is even more astonishing when we appreciate how much such a child would have been valued.  The Utah Church of the 19th century was anxious to prove that Joseph had practiced full plural marriage, and that their plural families merely continued what he started.  Any child of Joseph's would have been treasured, and the family honoured.  There was a firm expectation that even Joseph's sons by Emma would have an exalted place in the LDS hierarchy if they were to repent and return to the Church.<ref>See, for example, Brigham Young, "I have a Few Times in My Life Undertaken to Preach to a Traveling Congregation, but My Sermons have been Very Short, and Far Between," (7 October 1866) from Brigham Young Addresses, 1865–1869, A Chronological Compilation of Known Addresses of the Prophet Brigham Young, edited by Elden J. Watson (Salt Lake City), Vol. 5; cited in The Essential Brigham Young, 187–191; Brigham Young, "Increase of the Saints Since Joseph Smith's Death, &c.," (24 August 1872) reported by David W. Evans, Journal of Discourses Vol. 15 (London: Latter-day Saint's Book Depot, 1873), 136}}</ref>  As Alma Allred noted, "Susa Young Gates indicated that [Brigham Young] wasn’t aware of such a child when she wrote that her father and the other apostles were especially grieved that Joseph did not have any issue in the Church."<ref>{{Paper:Allred:Review of ISL}}</ref>
 
−
 
 
−
In 1884, George Q. Cannon bemoaned this lack of Joseph's posterity:
 
  
 
<blockquote>
 
<blockquote>
−
There may be faithful men who will have unfaithful sons, who may not be as faithful as they might be; but faithful posterity will come, just as I believe it will be the case with the Prophet Joseph's seed. To-day he has not a soul descended from him personally, in this Church. There is not a man bearing the Holy Priesthood, to stand before our God in the Church that Joseph was the means in the hands of God, of founding—not a man to-day of his own blood,—that is, by descent,—to stand before the Lord, and represent him among these Latter-day Saints.<ref>{{JDmini|author=George Q. Cannon|vol=25|pages=369|date=19 Oct 1884}}</ref>
+
Martin Harris, Book of Mormon benefactor and close friend of Smith, recalled another such incident from the early Kirtland period. "In or about the year 1833," Harris remembered, Joseph Smith's "servant girl" claimed that the prophet had made "improper proposals to her, which created quite a talk amongst the people." When Smith came to him for advice, Harris, supposing that there was nothing to the story, told him to "take no notice of the girl, that she was full of the devil, and wanted to destroy the prophet of god." But according to Harris, Smith "acknowledged that there was more truth than poetry in what the girl said." Harris then said he would have nothing to do with the matter; Smith could get out of the trouble "the best way he knew how" <ref>Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, 4–5; citing Anthony Metcalf, Ten Years Before the Mast (N.p.: n.p., n.d.), 72 [published 1888].</ref>
 
</blockquote>
 
</blockquote>
  
−
Brigham and Cannon, a member of the First Presidency, would have known of Joseph's offspring if any of the LDS leadership did.  Yet, despite the religious and public relations value which such a child would have provided, they knew of none.  It is possible that Joseph had children by his plural wives, but by no means certain.  The data are surprisingly ephemeral.
+
We should not be surprised by now that this charge has many weaknesses.  To begin with, Martin Harris was not in Kirtland at the time.  The interview with Martin Harris supposedly occurred in 1873; it was not published until 1888.  The reader's patience is also strained when we realize that Harris had returned to the Church by 1870, and died 10 June 1875 before the interview was published.  Why would Harris give a "tell-all" interview about Joseph Smith three years after being rebaptized and endowed?  He was safely dead before it was published, so the author had no need to worry about Harris' reaction.
  
−
== Was the only purpose of polygamy to "multiply and replenish the earth" and "bear the souls of men"? ==
+
Furthermore, in this account Martin Harris is portrayed as someone who definitely did not approve of adulterous conduct.  This is in direct contradiction with the Levi Lewis affidavit, which has Harris claiming that adultery is no crime.
−
=== Doctrine and Covenants states that polygamy is for the purpose of multiplying and replenishing the earth ===
+
 
−
Doctrine and Covenants {{sv||D&C|132|63}} states,
+
==Other witnesses in Joseph's behalf==
−
<blockquote>
 
−
But if one or either of the ten virgins, after she is espoused, shall be with another man, she has committed adultery, and shall be destroyed; for they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfil the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified.
 
−
</blockquote>
 
  
−
=== The institution of the practice of polygamy was part of the "restoration of all things" ===
+
Though there are no contemporary witnesses of Joseph's bad behavior, there are witnesses to his good character.  We have already seen how Marinda Nancy Johnson also testified of Joseph's good conduct, but there are other more contemporary witnesses.
  
−
Polygamy was not permitted ''only'' for the purpose of procreation. Joseph established the practice of plural marriage as part of the "restoration of all things," (D&C 132: 40, 45) and introduced it to a number of others within the Church. This alone may have been the purpose of Joseph's initiation of the practice. The establishment of the practice ultimately ''did'' have the effect of "raising up seed"...just not through Joseph Smith.
+
Two of Josiah Stowell's daughters (probably Miriam and Rhoda) were called during a June 1830 court case against Joseph:
  
−
As Brian Hales writes:
 
 
<blockquote>
 
<blockquote>
−
Joseph Smith dictated what is now Doctrine and Covenant section 132 on July 12, 1843. This revelation, along with his other statements, provide several reasons why he believed plural marriage could be introduced among the Latter-day Saints.
+
the court was detained for a time, in order that two young women (daughters to Mr. Stoal) with whom I had at times kept company; might be sent for, in order, if possible to elicit something from them which might be made a pretext against me. The young ladies arrived and were severally examined, touching my character, and conduct in general but particularly as to my behavior towards them both in public and private, when they both bore such testimony in my favor, as left my enemies without a pretext on their account.<ref>"History of Joseph Smith Continued," Times and Seasons 4/3 (28 October 1842): 41; see also Smith, History of the Church, 1:90.</ref>
−
The earliest justification mentioned by the Prophet was as a part of the "restitution of all things" prophesied in Acts 3:19–21. Old Testament prophets practiced polygamy, so it could be a part of the restoration of "all things" (see D&C 132:40, 45).
 
−
 
 
−
Several members who knew Joseph Smith left accounts of him referring to a connection between the two during the Kirtland period.
 
−
 
 
−
Benjamin F. Johnson recalled in 1903: "In 1835 at Kirtland I learned from my Sisters Husband, Lyman R. Shirman,<ref>Sherman was a close friend and devout follower of Joseph Smith. He was called as an apostle but died before learning of the appointment. See Lyndon W. Cook, "Lyman Sherman—Man of God, Would-Be Apostle," 121–24. </ref> who was close to the Prophet, and Received it from him. That the ancient order of plural marriage was again to be practiced by the Church."<ref>Dean R. Zimmerman, I Knew the Prophets: An Analysis of the Letter of Benjamin F. Johnson to George F. Gibbs (Bountiful, Utah: Horizon, 1976), 37–38.</ref>
 
−
 
 
−
A few years later in 1841, Joseph Smith attempted to broach the topic publicly. Helen Mar Kimball remembered: "He [Joseph] astonished his hearers by preaching on the restoration of all things, and said that as it was anciently with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, so it would be again, etc."<ref>Helen Mar Whitney, Plural Marriage as Taught by the Prophet Joseph: A Reply to Joseph Smith [III], Editor of the Lamoni Iowa "Herald," (Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1882), 11; see also Jeni Broberg Holzapfel and Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, eds., A Woman’s View: Helen Mar Whitney’s Reminiscences of Early Church History (Provo, Utah: Bookcraft, 1992), 142–43. See also Joseph A. Kelting, "Affidavit," March 1, 1894, images 11–16a; see also Kelting, "Statement," Juvenile Instructor 29 (May 1, 1894): 289–90. </ref> Joseph Smith was a prophet-restorer, which helps to explain why the command to practice plural marriage has been labeled a "restoration," even though it is not a salvific ordinance.<ref>Brian Hales, "Plural Marriage Teachings" <http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/theology/joseph-smiths-teachings/#back_ajs-fn-id_4-56> (accessed 18 December 2018)</ref>
 
 
</blockquote>
 
</blockquote>
  
−
=== The institution of the practice of polygamy made available the blessings of eternal marriage to everyone ===
+
{{Critical sources box:Joseph Smith/Polygamy/Essays/Early womanizer/CriticalSources}}{{blankline}}
−
Brian Hales addresses one aspect of D&C 132 that may be overlooked in casual readings:
 
  
−
<blockquote>
+
{{To learn more box:Joseph Smith: character}}{{blankline}}
−
The fourth reason Joseph Smith gave for the practice of plural marriage dwarfs the other three explanations in significance because it deals with eternity. The message of D&C 132:16–17 states that men and women who are not sealed in eternal marriages during this life (or vicariously later) "remain separately and singly, without exaltation, in their saved condition, to all eternity."
 
−
In other words, "exaltation," the highest salvation, requires eternal marriage. No unmarried person can be exalted according to Joseph Smith’s teachings.
 
−
Doctrine and Covenants section 132 seems to anticipate more worthy women than men as it approves a plurality of wives<ref>See vv. 34, 37–39, 52, 55, 61–65.</ref>
 
−
and disallows a plurality of husbands.<ref>See vv. 41–42, 61–63.</ref>
 
−
Verse 63 states that a plurality of wives is "for their [the wives] exaltation in the eternal worlds."
 
−
Section 132 supports that eternity was the primary focus of the Joseph’s marriage theology rather than plurality or sexuality. Eternal, rather than plural, marriage was his zenith doctrine. It appears that the crucial objective of polygamy on earth was to allow all worthy women to be eternally sealed to a husband and thus obtain all the ordinances needed for exaltation.
 
−
According to these teachings, a plurality of wives in some form may be practiced in eternity, but not by all worthy men and women. We know that polygamy on earth is unequal and difficult, but we know nothing about how eternal marriage or eternal plural marriage might feel in eternity.
 
−
Brigham Young acknowledged that eternal marriage (not plural marriage) is "the thread which runs from the beginning to the end" in God’s plan for His children:
 
  
 +
=Stephen H. Webb: "Evidence That Demands Our Amazement... Joseph Smith was a remarkable person"=
 +
Non-LDS Christian Stephen H. Webb wrote:<ref name="webbID">"Webb is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana. He is a graduate of Wabash College and earned his PhD at the University of Chicago before returning to his alma mater to teach.  Born in 1961 he grew up at Englewood Christian Church, an evangelical church.  He joined the Disciples of Christ during  He was briefly a Lutheran, and on Easter Sunday, 2007, he officially came into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church."</ref>
 
<blockquote>
 
<blockquote>
−
The whole subject of the marriage [not plural marriage] relation is not in my reach, nor in any other man’s reach on this earth. It is without beginning of days or end of years; it is a hard matter to reach. We can tell some things with regard to it; it lays the foundation for worlds, for angels, and for the Gods; for intelligent beings to be crowned with glory, immortality, and eternal lives. In fact, it is the thread which runs from the beginning to the end of the holy Gospel of salvation—of the Gospel of the Son of God; it is from eternity to eternity.<ref>Brigham Young, October 6, 1854 Journal of Discourses, 2:90. Important in Brigham Young’s comments is his observation that the "marriage relation," referring to eternal marriage, not exclusively plural marriage, comprises the "foundation for worlds … and for Gods."</ref><ref>Brian Hales, "Plural Marriage Teachings" <http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/theology/joseph-smiths-teachings/#link_ajs-fn-id_16-56> (accessed 17 December 2018)</ref>
+
By any measurement, Joseph Smith was a remarkable person. His combination of organizational acumen with spiritual originality and '''personal decorum and modesty is rare in the history of religion'''. He was so steadfast in his ability to inspire men and women through times of great hardship that none of those who knew him could claim to fully understand him. He knew more about theology and philosophy than it was reasonable for anyone in his position to know, as if he were dipping into the deep, collective unconsciousness of Christianity with a very long pen. He read the Bible in ways so novel that he can be considered a theological innocent—he expanded and revised the biblical narrative without questioning its authority—yet he brusquely overturned ancient and impregnable metaphysical assumptions with the aplomb of an assistant professor. For someone so charismatic, '''he was exceptionally humble''', even ordinary, and he delegated authority with the wisdom of a man looking far into the future for the well-being of his followers. It would be tempting to compare him to Mohammed—who also combined pragmatic political skill and a genius for religious innovation—if he were not so deeply Christian. [Title is Webb's.]<ref name="webbBook">{{BYUS|author=Stephen H. Webb|article=[http://byustudies.byu.edu/PDFLibrary/50.3WebbGodbodied-a31ea084-327e-467b-bedc-4fa6c6f7d0c4.pdf Godbodied: The Matter of the Latter-day Saints] (reprint from his book ''Jesus Christ, Eternal God: Heavenly Flesh and the Metaphysics of Matter'' (Oxford University Press, 2012)|vol=50|num=3|date=2011}} {{ea}}</ref>{{Rp|95}}</blockquote>
−
</blockquote></blockquote>
 
−
 
 
−
=== Can this be included in the interpretation of D&C 132: 63? ===
 
−
Another author commenting on this verse made a compelling case for this theology being put into D&C 132: 63:
 
−
 
 
−
<blockquote>
 
−
Here is the text in its entirety, from verse 62: "for they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, <b>and</b> to fulfil the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, <b>and</b> for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men." [Emphasis added.]
 
−
You want to get legalistic? Let’s get legalistic. Just for fun, let’s parse the living snot out of this.This clause begins with multiplying and replenishing as a primary justification. Then we get the word "and" thrown in there. You’re reading this as if it says "they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, in order to fulfil the promise…"
 
−
But that’s not what it says.
 
−
 
 
−
"And" suggests we’re about to get a second reason, not a clarification of the first. In fact, a tight, strict-constructionist reading of this verse reveals three different and distinct reasons for plural marriage, not "only" the replenishment of the earth, [. . .]So let’s review the three reasons:<br>
 
−
 
 
−
1. Multiply and replenish the earth. 
 
−
<br>
 
−
[. . .] D&C 132 is unequivocal on this point, just as it is unequivocal on the two points that follow.<br>
 
−
 
 
−
2. Fulfil [sic] "the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world."<br>
 
−
 
 
−
What promise? This seems to have reference to the "restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began." (Acts 3:21) Joseph cited the need to restore ancient practices to prepare for the Second Coming as a justification for polygamy, and this verse provides a credible scriptural context for him to do so. So just relying on this phrase – plural marriage is acceptable because it fulfills God’s promises – would be justification enough for the practice, at least according to D&C 132.
 
−
<br>
 
−
3. For "their exaltation in the eternal worlds, <b>that</b> they may bear the souls of men."
 
−
<br>
 
−
 
 
−
Oh, this one’s my favorite. Notice the emphasis I added on the "that." The word appears there to create a conditional clause. You claim the bearing of souls is the same thing as multiplying and replenishing the earth, but the actual text insists that the bearing of the souls of men will only be made possible by "exaltation in the eternal worlds." This is a promise of eternal increase, of bearing souls after the earth is no longer around to be replenished. Big, big difference.<br>
 
−
And right here, with Reason #3, we have a clear rationale and justification for Joseph being sealed to women with whom he made no attempts to multiply and replenish the earth – i.e. no sex.<ref>Jim Bennett "A Faithful Reply to the CES Letter from a former CES Employee" <https://canonizer.com/files/reply.pdf> (accessed 30 December 2018)</ref>
 
−
</blockquote>
 
−
 
 
−
{{HalesSite
 
−
|subject1=Common Inaccurate Explanations for Joseph Smith’s Polygamy
 
−
|link1=http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/theology/explanation_for_mormon_polygamy/
 
−
|summary1=Both modern and 19th century members of the Church have proposed a variety of explanations for the practice of plural marriage. Not all of these suggestions can be supported by the available data.
 
−
|subject2=Doctrinal summary
 
−
|link2=http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/theology-2/doctrinal-summary/
 
−
|summary2=Joseph identified four reasons for the restoration of plural marriage.
 
−
|subject4=Joseph Smith’s Personal Polygamy
 
−
|link4=http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/beginnings-mormon-polygamy/
 
−
|summary4=Many are quick to declare that Joseph's polygamy sprang from religious extremism and/or sexual desire. This article explores the difficulties that Joseph had with plural marriage, and evidence for what truly motivated his acts.
 
−
|subject5=The Faith of the Nauvoo Polygamists
 
−
|link5=http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/stories-faith-polygamists/
 
−
|summary5=Why did early members of the Church practice polygamy? Were they all dupes? Easily manipulated? Religious fanatics who believed Joseph could do no wrong? This article explores the initial reactions and eventual decisions made by the first generation of polygamists in Nauvoo.}}
 
−
 
 
−
{{HalesSite
 
−
|subject1=Joseph Smith’s Personal Polygamy
 
−
|link1=http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/beginnings-mormon-polygamy/#AReluctantPolygamist
 
−
|summary1=Many are quick to declare that Joseph's polygamy sprang from religious extremism and/or sexual desire. This article explores the difficulties that Joseph had with plural marriage, and evidence for what truly motivated his acts.}}
 
−
 
 
−
{{Critical sources box:Did Joseph have lustful motives for practicing polygamy?/CriticalSources}}{{blankline}}
 
−
 
 
−
{{endnotes sources}}
 
  
 +
{{Endnotes sources}}
 
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[[Category:Letter to a CES Director]]
 
 
[[Category:MormonThink]]
 
[[Category:MormonThink]]
−
[[Category:Nauvoo Polygamy]]
 
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[[Category:No Man Knows My History]]
 
 
[[Category:Questions]]
 
[[Category:Questions]]
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[[de:Frage: Hat Joseph Smith irgendwelche Kinder durch polygame Ehen hervorgebracht?]]
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[[de:Frage: Gab es schon eine lange Gesichte über Joseph Smith als Frauenheld?]]
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[[de:Joseph Smith/Polygamie/Sexueller Gier]]
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[[de:Frage: Hat Joseph Smith die Polygamie ins Leben gerufen, weil er einen "unersättlichen sexuellen Appetit" hatte?]]
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[[es:José Smith/Poligamia/Motivos lujuriosos]]
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[[de:Joseph Smith und Polygamie/Jugendliches Ringen mit Unkeuschheit]]
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[[es:Pregunta: ¿Cuál es la condición actual de la evidencia para probar o refutar que Joseph Smith tuvo hijos de sus esposas plurales?]]
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[[es:Libro de la poligamia/Mujeriego temprano]]
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[[es:Pregunta: ¿Fue el único propósito de la poligamia a "multiplicarse y henchir la tierra" y "llevar las almas de los hombres?]]
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[[es:Pregunta: ¿José Smith instituyó la poligamia porque tenía un "apetito sexual voraz"?]]
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[[es:Pregunta: ¿José Smith produjo hijos a través de matrimonios polígamos?]]
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[[es:Pregunta: ¿José Smith tenía una historia de "mujeriego" antes de practicar el matrimonio plural?]]
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[[es:Pregunta: ¿José Smith produjo hijos por la esposa plurianual plural Prescindia Buell?]]
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[[es:Pregunta: ¿José Smith tuvo una lucha juvenil con la falta de castidad?]]
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[[es:Pregunta: ¿José Smith produjo hijos por sus esposas plurales ?: El caso a favor de los niños]]
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[[pt:Pergunta: Joseph Smith instituiu poligamia porque ele tinha um "apetite sexual voraz"?]]
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[[es:Pregunta: ¿José Smith produjo hijos por sus esposas plurales ?: El caso contra los niños]]
 
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[[es:Pregunta: ¿Prescindia Buell (o Sarah Pratt, o la señora Hyde) no sabía quién era el padre de su hijo?]]
 
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[[es:Pregunta: ¿Qué dijo el esposo de Sylvia Sesiones sabe acerca de su sellado a José Smith para la eternidad?]]
 
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[[es:Pregunta: ¿Qué sabemos si Joseph Smith engendró hijos de sus esposas plurales?]]
 
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[[fi:Joseph Smith/Moniavioisuus/Ruumiillinen himo]]
 
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[[pt:Joseph Smith/Poligamia/Motivos luxuriosos]]
 
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[[pt:Pergunta: Joseph Smith produziu alguma criança através de casamentos polígamos?]]
 
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[[pt:Pergunta: O que o marido de Sylvia Sessões sabia sobre seu selamento para a eternidade com Joseph Smith?]]
 
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[[pt:Pergunta: É verdade que o o único propósito da poligamia era "multiplicar e encher a terra" e "gerar as almas dos homens"?]]
 

Latest revision as of 01:16, 19 May 2024
Articles about Plural marriage
Doctrinal foundation of plural marriage
Introduction of plural marriage
Plural marriage in Utah
End of plural marriage

Did Joseph Smith institute polygamy because he had a "voracious sexual appetite"?

It is unjustifiable to argue that he and his associates were insincere or that they were practicing their religion only for power and to satisfy carnal desires

It is claimed by some critics of Mormonism that Joseph Smith (and/or other Church members) had a voracious sexual appetite, and that because of this, he instituted polygamy.

One might reasonably hold the opinion that Joseph was wrong, but in the face of the documentary evidence it is unjustifiable to argue that he and his associates were insincere or that they were practicing their religion only for power and to satisfy carnal desires. Those who insist that "sex is the answer" likely reveal more about their own limited perspective than they do of the minds of the early Saints.

Neutral observers have long understood that this attack on plural marriage is probably the weakest of them all

George Bernard Shaw, certainly no Mormon, declared:

Now nothing can be more idle, nothing more frivolous, than to imagine that this polygamy had anything to do with personal licentiousness. If Joseph Smith had proposed to the Latter-day Saints that they should live licentious lives, they would have rushed on him and probably anticipated their pious neighbors who presently shot him. [1]

Brigham Young matches the explanation proposed by Shaw. When instructed to practice plural marriage by Joseph, Brigham recalled that it "was the first time in my life that I had desired the grave." [2]

John Taylor had similar opinions:

I had always entertained strict ideas of virtue and I felt as a married man that this was to me…an appalling thing to do…Nothing but a knowledge of God, and the revelations of God…could have induced me to embrace such a principle as this…We [the Twelve] seemed to put off, as far as we could, what might be termed the evil day. [3]

Joseph knew these men intimately. He would have known their sensibilities. If it was "all about sex," why push his luck with them? Why up the ante and ask them to marry polygamously? It would have been easier for him to claim the "duty" singularly, as prophet, and not insist that they join him.

As non-Mormon church historian Ernst Benz wrote:

Mormon polygamy has nothing to do with sexual debauchery but is tied to a strict patriarchal system of family order and demonstrates in the relationship of the husband to his individual wives all the ethical traits of a Christian, monogamous marriage. It is completely focused on bearing children and rearing them in the bosom of the family and the Mormon community. Actually, it exhibits a very great measure of selflessness, a willingness to sacrifice, and a sense of duty. [4]

Furthermore, Joseph Smith would not permit other members’ sexual misconduct

For example, he refused to countenance John C. Bennett’s serial infidelities. [5] If Joseph was looking for easy access to sex, Bennett—mayor of Nauvoo, First Counselor in the First Presidency, and military leader—would have been the perfect confederate. Yet, Joseph publicly denounced Bennett’s actions, and severed him from the First Presidency and the Church. Bennett became a vocal opponent and critic, and all this could have been avoided if Joseph was willing to have him as a "partner in crime." The critic cannot argue that Joseph felt that only he was entitled to polygamous relationships, since he went to great efforts to teach the doctrine to Hyrum and the Twelve, who embraced it with much less zeal than Bennett would have. If this is all about lust, why did Joseph humiliate and alienate Bennett, who Joseph should have known he could trust to support him and help hide polygamy from critics, while risking the support of the Twelve by insisting they participate?

There were certainly easier ways to satisfy one’s libido, as one author noted:

Contrary to popular nineteenth-century notions about polygamy, the Mormon harem, dominated by lascivious males with hyperactive libidos, did not exist. The image of unlimited lust was largely the creation of travelers to Salt Lake City more interested in titillating audiences back home than in accurately portraying plural marriage. Newspaper representatives and public figures visited the city in droves seeking headlines for their eastern audiences. Mormon plural marriage, dedicated to propagating the species righteously and dispassionately, proved to be a rather drab lifestyle compared to the imaginative tales of polygamy, dripping with sensationalism, demanded by a scandal-hungry eastern media market. [6]

Those who became Mormons were those who were least likely, culturally, to be thrilled at the prospect of polygamy

Douglas H. Parker wrote,

Polygamy, when first announced to the Saints, was an offensive, disgusting doctrine, difficult to accept…The men and women who placed faith in the bona fides of the revelation were Victorian in their background and moral character. The hard test of accepting polygamy as a principle revealed and required by God selected out from the Church membership at large a basic corps of faithful members who, within the next few decades, were to be subjected to an Abraham-Isaac test administered by the federal government as God’s agent. [7]

Perhaps the best argument against the "lascivious" charge is to look at the lives of the men and women who practiced it. Historian B. Carmon Hardy observed:

Joseph displayed an astonishingly principled commitment to the doctrine [of plural marriage]. He had to overcome opposition from his brother Hyrum and the reluctance of some of his disciples. Reflecting years later on the conflicts and dangers brought by plural marriage, some church leaders were struck with the courage Joseph displayed in persisting with it. And when one recalls a poignant encounter like that between [counselor in the First Presidency] William Law and Joseph in early 1844, it is difficult not to agree. Law, putting his arms around the prophet’s neck, tearfully pleaded that he throw the entire business of plurality over. Joseph, also crying, replied that he could not, that God had commanded it, and he had no choice but to obey. [8]

One can read volumes of the early leaders’ public writings, extemporaneous sermons, and private journals. One can reflect on the hundreds or thousands of miles of travel on missionary journeys and Church business. If the writings of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, Heber C. Kimball, George Q. Cannon and many others cannot persuade someone that they were honest men (even if mistaken) then one should sincerely question whether such a person is capable of looking charitably upon any Mormon.

Paul Peterson’s comment about the diaries of Joseph Smith resonates well in this regard:

I had not fully grasped certain aspects of the Prophet’s psyche and personality. After just a few pages into Personal Writings, [9] it became clear that Joseph possessed religious dimensions that I had not understood. For one thing, it was apparent I had underestimated the depth of his dependence upon Deity. The Joseph that emerges in Personal Writings is an intensely devout and God-fearing young man who at times seems almost helpless without divine support. And his sincerity about his prophetic calling is also apparent. If others were not persuaded of his claims, it could not be said that Joseph was unconvinced that God had both called and directed him. Detractors who claim that Joseph came to like the game of playing prophet would be discomfited if they read Personal Writings. Scholars may quibble with how true his theology is, but for anyone who reads Personal Writings, his earnestness and honesty are no longer debatable points. [10]

Did Joseph Smith have a youthful struggle with unchastity?

There is no evidence from Joseph's early writings that he struggled over much with immoral thoughts or behavior

Some critics charge that Joseph Smith had youthful struggles with immoral actions. They claim that these are what eventually led him to teach the doctrine of plural marriage. [11]

There is no evidence from Joseph's early writings that he struggled over much with immoral thoughts or behavior. Such an interpretation results on twisting the text, ignoring alternate possibilities, and ignoring Joseph's direct explanation of what he meant by the words which the critics twist. That they can produce nothing better strongly suggests that no evidence exists for their claim.

G. D. Smith clearly follows the Brodie tradition in painting Joseph as motivated by sexual needs. He assures us that "an examination of Smith’s adolescence from his personal writings reveals some patterns and events that might be significant in understanding what precipitated his polygamous inclination" (pp. 15–16). The reader is advised to buckle her seatbelt and put on a Freud hat.

Joseph, we are told, claims that "he confronted some uncertain feelings he later termed ‘sinful’ [a]t a time when boys begin to experience puberty" (p. 17). [12] G. D. Smith argues that this "leav[es] us to suspect that he was referring to the curious thoughts of an intense teenager" (p. 17). G. D. Smith presumes that Joseph’s later "cryptic words" describing how he "fell into transgression and sinned in many things" refer to sex.

The only evidence for a sexual component to Joseph’s sins is presumption and mind reading

As Sigmund Freud demonstrated, any narrative can be sexualized. In this case, the only evidence for a sexual component to Joseph’s sins is G. D. Smith’s presumption and mind reading.

He presumes that the Book of Mormon reflects Joseph’s mind and preoccupations, suggesting that "an elaboration might be found in the Book of Mormon expressions about ‘the will of the flesh and the evil which is therein’ (2 Nephi 2:29)" (p. 17). Or it might not. The Book of Mormon reference to "the will of the flesh" can hardly be restricted to sexual matters. Nephi1 notes that if he errs in what he writes, "even did they err of old; not that I would excuse myself because of other men, but because of the weakness which is in me, according to the flesh, I would excuse myself" (1 Nephi 19:6). Surely this does not imply that Nephi’s mistakes in record keeping stem from sexual sin. "By the law," we find in the chapter cited by Smith, "no flesh is justified . . . , no flesh . . . can dwell in presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah" (2 Nephi 2:4, 8). Clearly, "flesh" refers to unregenerate man, not specifically or merely to sexual sin.

The King James Bible, which inspired Book of Mormon language, likewise describes a Christian’s rebirth as son of Christ as "not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:13). Clearly, the "will of the flesh" does not refer only to sexual desire, but to any carnality of the "natural man," who is an "enemy to God" (Mosiah 3:19; 16:5). Such usage has a venerable history in Christianity; it is difficult to imagine that G. D. Smith could be unaware of this.

G. D. Smith notes that Joseph admitted to being guilty of "vices and follies" and concludes, after an exegesis from Webster’s American Dictionary, that this phrase implied "sins great and small, which conceivably involved sex but were not limited to it" (pp. 17–18). His treatment of Webster is less than forthright. He quotes Webster’s second definition of vice as "‘every act of intemperance, all falsehood, duplicity, deception, lewdness and the like’ as well as ‘the excessive indulgence of passions and appetites which in themselves are innocent’" (p. 17). The first definition, however, reads simply "a spot or defect; a fault; a blemish." [13] Smith likewise characterizes folly as "an absurd act which is highly sinful; and conduct contrary to the laws of God or man; sin; scandalous crimes; that which violates moral precepts and dishonours the offender" (pp. 17–18). Yet, again, Smith has ignored an earlier definition in Webster, which describes vice as merely "a weak or absurd act not highly criminal; an act which is inconsistent with the dictates of reason, or with the ordinary rules of prudence. . . . Hence we speak of the follies of youth." [14]

For G. D. Smith’s interpretation to be viable, we must accept that in his personal histories Joseph was admitting serious or gross moral lapses. Yet there are other contemporary definitions for the terms that Joseph used—especially as applied to youth—that connote only relatively minor imperfections. Nonetheless, this dubious argument is the "evidence" that G. D. Smith adduces from Joseph’s personal writings.

It is a pity that G. D. Smith did not go further in analyzing Joseph’s histories. The 1838 account makes the Prophet’s intent transparent:

I frequently fell into many foolish errors, and displayed the weakness of youth, and the foibles of human nature; which, I am sorry to say, led me into divers temptations, offensive in the sight of God. In making this confession, no one need suppose me guilty of any great or malignant sins. A disposition to commit such was never in my nature. But I was guilty of levity, and sometimes associated with jovial company, etc., not consistent with that character which ought to be maintained by one who was called of God as I had been. [15]

Joseph explicitly blocks the interpretation that G. D. Smith wishes to advance. Why ought we to accept Joseph’s 1832 witness—as warped by G. D. Smith’s interpretive lens—as useful evidence while ignoring an alternative explanation supported by Joseph’s other statements? G. D. Smith all but concedes this point two pages later, when he cites Joseph’s characterization of his "vices and folleys" as including "a light, and too often vain mind, exhibiting a foolish and trifling conversation" (p. 20). If this is so, why attempt to sexualize Joseph’s admitted imperfections? But within a few pages it has become for G. D. Smith an established fact that "another revelation, almost seeming to recall [Joseph] Smith’s teenage concerns about sinful thoughts and behavior, reiterated . . . ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery; and he that commiteth adultery, and repenteth not, shall be cast out’ (D&C 42:24)" (p. 49). But such an analysis depends entirely on what G. D. Smith has failed to do—establish that the teenage Joseph struggled with sexually sinful thoughts and behavior.

G. D. Smith’s other evidence from Joseph’s teen years consists in a brief reference to the Hurlbut-Howe affidavits. Here again Smith simply cites works from the Signature stable of writers, with no gesture to source criticism or acknowledgement of the problematic elements in these later, hostile accounts. [16]

See also Brian Hales' discussion
Many are quick to declare that Joseph's polygamy sprang from religious extremism and/or sexual desire. This article explores the difficulties that Joseph had with plural marriage, and evidence for what truly motivated his acts.
Source(s) of the criticism
Critical sources

Did Joseph Smith have a long history of "womanizing" before practicing plural marriage?

There is no good evidence to support the charge that Joseph was adulterous or had other "woman problems"

The charges are all late, at least second-hand, and typically gathered with hostile intent. Those making the claims are often verifiably wrong on other facts. The witnesses contradict each other, are sometimes ridiculous, and seem to be nothing but warmed-over gossip. Those who could have confirmed the stories did not. Many details bear the mark of outright fabrication.

Even more significantly, there is no contemporary account of witnesses accusing Joseph of unchastity in the Church's early years, save a single, second-or-third hand charge that was neither substantiated by those with an opportunity to do so, or repeated. Everything else is after-the-fact, often decades later. Given how anxious Joseph's enemies were to condemn him, it would be astonishing if he was known to be immoral without them noticing and taking advantage.

…the sources are not the past but only the raw materials whence we form our conception of the past, and in using them we inherit the limitations that produced them… [17]
- Dean C. Jessee

An early date for the first plural marriage revelation (see here) makes it more difficult for critics to charge that Joseph invented the idea of plural marriage to justify his "adultery" with Fanny Alger (see here). In response, some critics have charged that Joseph had a long history of adulterous scrapes predating 1831.

They want Joseph to be seen as a rake and womanizer. But was he?

Joseph Smith faced intense opposition throughout his life. Attacks on his moral character surfaced a few years after the Church's organization, though no such charges appeared before the organization of the Church.

A key source for these claims was an apostate Mormon, Doctor Philastus Hurlbut. Hurlbut joined the Church in 1833, but was excommunicated for immoral conduct while on a mission. Hurlbut became Joseph's avowed enemy, and Joseph even brought a peace warrant (akin to our modern "restraining order") against him because of threats on Joseph's life.

Hurlbut returned to the New York area, and gathered a collection of affidavits about Joseph and the Smith family. Hurlbut's reputation, however, was so notorious, that he gave the affidavits to Eber D. Howe of Painsville, Ohio. Howe disliked the Mormons, doubtless partly because his wife and daughter had joined the Church. Howe published the first anti-Mormon book using the affidavits: Mormonism Unvailed (1834).[18]

The Hurlbut-Howe affidavits have provided much anti-Mormon ammunition ever since. But, their value as historical documents is limited. There is evidence that Hurlbut influenced those who gave affidavits, and since some who gave them were illiterate, they may have merely signed statements written by Hurlbut himself.

That said, these charges continue to surface, and are sometimes used as a type of "introduction" to plural marriage. Critics seem to presume that because charges were made, those charges must be true to some extent—"where there's smoke, there must be at least a small fire." They then conclude that since these charges are true, they help explain Joseph's enthusiasm for plural marriage. It is difficult to prove a negative, but a great deal of doubt can be cast on the affidavits themselves, without even considering the bias and hatred which motivated their collection and publication.

Eliza Winters

One affidavit was provided by Levi Lewis, Emma Hale Smith's cousin and son of the Reverend Nathaniel Lewis, a well-known Methodist minister in Harmony.[19] Van Wagoner uses this affidavit to argue that:

[Joseph’s] abrupt 1830 departure with his wife, Emma, from Harmony, Pennsylvania, may have been precipitated in part by Levi and Hiel Lewis's accusations that Smith had acted improperly towards a local girl. Five years later Levi Lewis, Emma's cousin, repeated stories that Smith attempted to "seduce Eliza Winters &c.," and that both Smith and his friend Martin Harris had claimed "adultery was no crime." [20]

Van Wagoner argues that this "may" have been why Joseph left. But, we have no evidence of Levi and Hiel Lewis making the charge until the affidavits were gathered five years later. (Hiel Lewis' inclusion adds nothing; he gave no affidavit in 1833, and in 1879 simply repeated third hand stories of how Joseph had attempted to "seduce" Eliza.[21] At best, he is repeating Levi's early tale.)

A look at Lewis' complete affidavit is instructive. He claimed, among other things, that:

  • he heard Joseph admit "God had deceived him" about the plates, and so did not show them to anyone.
  • he saw Joseph drunk three times while writing the Book of Mormon
  • he heard Joseph say "he…was as good as Jesus Christ…it was as bad to injure him as it was to injure Jesus Christ."
  • he heard Martin Harris and Joseph Smith claim "adultery was no crime."
  • he heard Martin say that Joseph attempted to "seduce Eliza Winters," and that he didn't blame him.

There are serious problems with these claims. It seems extraordinarily implausible that Joseph "admitted" that God had deceived him, and thus was not able to show the plates to anyone. Joseph insisted that he had shown the plates to people, and the Three and Eight Witnesses all published testimony to that effect. Despite apostasy and alienation from Joseph Smith, none denied that witness.

The claim to have seen Joseph drunk during the translation is entertaining. If Joseph were drunk, this only makes the production of the Book of Mormon more impressive. But, this sounds like little more than idle gossip, designed to bias readers against Joseph as a "drunkard."

A study of Joseph's letters and life from this period make it difficult to believe that Joseph would insist he was "as good as Jesus Christ." Joseph's private letters reveal him to be devout, sincere, and almost painfully aware of his dependence on God.[22]

Thus, three of the charges that are unmentioned by Van Wagoner are extraordinarily implausible. They are clearly efforts to simply paint Joseph in a bad light: make him into a pretend prophet who thinks he's better than Jesus, who admits to being deceived, and who gets drunk. Such a portrayal would be welcome to skeptical ears. This Joseph is ridiculous, not to be taken seriously.

We can now consider the claim that Martin and Joseph claimed that adultery was no crime, and that Joseph attempted the seduction of Eliza Winters. Recent work has also uncovered Eliza Winters' identity. She was a young woman at a meeting on 1 November 1832 in Springville Township, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. While on a preaching mission with his brother Emer, Martin Harris announced that Eliza "has had a bastard child."

Eliza sued Martin for slander, asking for $1000 for the damage done to her "good name, fame, behavior and character" because his words "render her infamous and scandalous among her neighbors." Martin won the suit; Eliza could not prove libel, likely because she had no good character to sully.[23]

This new information calls the Lewis affidavit into even greater question. We are to believe that Martin, who risked and defended a libel suit for reproving Eliza for fornication, thinks that adultery is "no crime"? Eliza clearly has no reason to like Joseph and the Mormons—why did she not provide Hurlbut with an affidavit regarding Joseph's scandalous behavior? Around 1879, Eliza gave information to Frederick Mather for a book about early Mormonism. Why did she not provide testimony of Joseph's attempt to seduce her?

It seems far more likely that Eliza was known for her low morals, and her name became associated with the Mormons in popular memory, since she had been publicly rebuked by a Mormon preacher and lost her court suit against him. When Levi Lewis was approached by Hurlbut for material critical of Joseph Smith, he likely drew on this association.

Marinda Nancy Johnson

Van Wagoner describes another charge against Joseph:

One account related that on 24 March [1832] a mob of men pulled Smith from his bed, beat him, and then covered him with a coat of tar and feathers. Eli Johnson, who allegedly participated in the attack "because he suspected Joseph of being intimate with his sister, Nancy Marinda Johnson, … was screaming for Joseph's castration."

There is more to the story than this, however—much more. Van Wagoner even indicates that it is "unlikely" that "an incident between Smith and Nancy Johnson precipitated the mobbing." Unfortunately, Van Wagoner tucks this information into an endnote, where the reader will be unaware of it unless he checks the sources carefully.

Todd Compton casts further doubt on this episode. He notes that Van Wagoner's source is Fawn Brodie, and Brodie's source is from 1884—quite late. Clark Braden, the source, also got his information second-hand, and is clearly antagonistic, since he is a member of the Church of Christ, the "Disciples," seeking to attack the Reorganized (RLDS) Church.[24] Brodie also gets the woman's name wrong—it is "Marinda Nancy," not "Nancy Marinda." And, the account is further flawed because Marinda has no brother named Eli.[25]

Compton notes further that there are two other late anti-Mormon sources that do not agree with the "Joseph as womanizer" version. Symonds Ryder, the leader of the attack, said that the attack occurred because of "the horrid fact that a plot was laid to take their property from them and place it under the control of Smith." [26] The Johnson boys are not portrayed as either leaders, or particularly hostile to Joseph. It is also unlikely that the mob would attack Sidney Rigdon as well as Joseph if the issue was one of their sister's honor, yet as Rigdon's son told the story, Sidney was the first target who received much harsher treatment:

…the mob came and got Rigdon first. He was a man weighing about 225. As they draged him some distance over the frozen ground by his heels bumping the back of his head so that when they got him to the place where they were to put the tar and feathers on him he was insensible. They covered him with tar and feathers and pounded him till they thought he was dead and then went to get J. Smith… The mob covered him with tar and feathers and pounded him till they got tired and left them both on the ground. J. Smith soon after the mob left got up and went home not very badly hurt.

Sidney was attacked until the mob thought he was dead; Joseph seems almost an after-thought in this version: someone they will pound until tired, while Sidney is beaten until thought dead.[27]

Marinda Johnson had difficulties with plural marriage, but many years later would still testify, "Here I feel like bearing my testimony that during the whole year that Joseph was an inmate of my father’s house I never saw aught in his daily life or conversation to make me doubt his divine mission." [28]

It is clear, then, that little remains of this episode to condemn Joseph—and Van Wagoner seems to think so too, though he caches this fact in the endnotes.

Benjamin Winchester: "Close friend" of Joseph?

Van Wagoner continues to outline Joseph's supposed pattern of problems with women:

Benjamin F. Winchester,[29] Smith's close friend and leader of Philadelphia Mormons in the early 1840s, later recalled Kirtland accusations of scandal and "licentious conduct" hurled against Smith, "this more especially among the women. Joseph's name was connected with scandalous relations with two or three families."

There is again more to the story, and Van Wagoner again places it in the endnotes. Far from being a "close friend" of Joseph when he made the statement, Winchester was excommunicated after the martyrdom. Winchester claims he was excommunicated for being "[a] deadly enemy of the spiritual wife system and for this opposition he had received all manner of abuse from all who believe in that hellish system."

So, we have a late reminiscence, by someone who is now definitely not a "close friend and leader of Philadelphia Mormons" as he was in 1844. By his own admission, he was an excommunicate apostate and bitter opponent of plural marriage. And, all he can tell us is about rumors of "scandal" in Kirtland, and isn't even sure with whom or how many families.

Van Wagoner's habit of putting important details in the endnotes should trouble us more than these vague charges against Joseph in Kirtland—a period by which he had begun to practice plural marriage.

Winchester's other claims are not included by Van Wagoner. As with Levi Lewis' charges, the other claims demonstrate how unreliable Winchester is. He wrote that the Kirtland Temple dedication "ended in a drunken frolic." As one historian noted:

Such an accusation conflicts with many other contemporary accounts and is inconsistent with the Latter-day Saint attitude toward intemperance. If such behavior had been manifest, individuals would have undoubtedly recorded the information in their diaries or letters in 1836, but the negative reports emerged long after the events had transpired and among vindictive critics who had become enemies of the Church.

So, on issues which we can verify, Winchester is utterly unreliable. Why ought we to credit his vague, gossipy recall of early plural marriage?

Polly Beswick: The Two-Hundred Pound Domestic

The "best" sources on Joseph's early character have already been presented. The most creative, however, involves Polly Beswick, "a colorful two-hundred-pound Smith [servant who] told her friends" a tale better suited to a farce or bad situation comedy:

"Jo Smith said he had a revelation to lie with Vienna Jacques, who lived in his family" and that Emma Smith told her "Joseph would get up in the night and go to Vienna's bed." Furthermore, she added, "Emma would get out of humor, fret and scold and flounce in the harness," then Smith would "shut himself up in a room and pray for a revalation … state it to her, and bring her around all right."

One hardly knows where to start with this account. Van Wagoner notes that the story is second hand, but fails to mention that Polly is a known gossip. There is also no reference for Polly's claims—it is impossible to verify them, or know in what context they were given.

The description, however, seems totally implausible. No doubt, Emma Smith was challenged by plural marriage (see here). But, the image of Emma being petulant and then settling down once Joseph produces a "revalation" is totally out of character and quite different from how she behaved when Joseph did provide a revelation. I find this evidence utterly unconvincing and unreliable.

Martin Harris: Again?

The final source provided by Van Wagoner quotes Martin Harris from an interview purportedly given in 1873:

Martin Harris, Book of Mormon benefactor and close friend of Smith, recalled another such incident from the early Kirtland period. "In or about the year 1833," Harris remembered, Joseph Smith's "servant girl" claimed that the prophet had made "improper proposals to her, which created quite a talk amongst the people." When Smith came to him for advice, Harris, supposing that there was nothing to the story, told him to "take no notice of the girl, that she was full of the devil, and wanted to destroy the prophet of god." But according to Harris, Smith "acknowledged that there was more truth than poetry in what the girl said." Harris then said he would have nothing to do with the matter; Smith could get out of the trouble "the best way he knew how" [30]

We should not be surprised by now that this charge has many weaknesses. To begin with, Martin Harris was not in Kirtland at the time. The interview with Martin Harris supposedly occurred in 1873; it was not published until 1888. The reader's patience is also strained when we realize that Harris had returned to the Church by 1870, and died 10 June 1875 before the interview was published. Why would Harris give a "tell-all" interview about Joseph Smith three years after being rebaptized and endowed? He was safely dead before it was published, so the author had no need to worry about Harris' reaction.

Furthermore, in this account Martin Harris is portrayed as someone who definitely did not approve of adulterous conduct. This is in direct contradiction with the Levi Lewis affidavit, which has Harris claiming that adultery is no crime.

Other witnesses in Joseph's behalf

Though there are no contemporary witnesses of Joseph's bad behavior, there are witnesses to his good character. We have already seen how Marinda Nancy Johnson also testified of Joseph's good conduct, but there are other more contemporary witnesses.

Two of Josiah Stowell's daughters (probably Miriam and Rhoda) were called during a June 1830 court case against Joseph:

the court was detained for a time, in order that two young women (daughters to Mr. Stoal) with whom I had at times kept company; might be sent for, in order, if possible to elicit something from them which might be made a pretext against me. The young ladies arrived and were severally examined, touching my character, and conduct in general but particularly as to my behavior towards them both in public and private, when they both bore such testimony in my favor, as left my enemies without a pretext on their account.[31]

Source(s) of the criticism
Critical sources

Learn more about Joseph Smith: character
Wiki links
FAIR links
  • Don Bradley, "Knowing Brother Joseph: How the Historical Record Demonstrates the Prophet’s Religious Sincerity," Proceedings of the 2023 FAIR Conference (August 2023). link
  • Gregory Smith, "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Plural Marriage* (*but were afraid to ask)," Proceedings of the 2009 FAIR Conference (August 2009). link
Online
  • Brian C. Hales and Gregory L. Smith, "A Response to Grant Palmer's 'Sexual Allegations against Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Polygamy in Nauvoo'," Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 12/8 (10 October 2014). [183–236] link
Video
  • "Joseph Smith and fraud allegations," BH Roberts Foundation print-link.
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Stephen H. Webb: "Evidence That Demands Our Amazement... Joseph Smith was a remarkable person"

Non-LDS Christian Stephen H. Webb wrote:[32]

By any measurement, Joseph Smith was a remarkable person. His combination of organizational acumen with spiritual originality and personal decorum and modesty is rare in the history of religion. He was so steadfast in his ability to inspire men and women through times of great hardship that none of those who knew him could claim to fully understand him. He knew more about theology and philosophy than it was reasonable for anyone in his position to know, as if he were dipping into the deep, collective unconsciousness of Christianity with a very long pen. He read the Bible in ways so novel that he can be considered a theological innocent—he expanded and revised the biblical narrative without questioning its authority—yet he brusquely overturned ancient and impregnable metaphysical assumptions with the aplomb of an assistant professor. For someone so charismatic, he was exceptionally humble, even ordinary, and he delegated authority with the wisdom of a man looking far into the future for the well-being of his followers. It would be tempting to compare him to Mohammed—who also combined pragmatic political skill and a genius for religious innovation—if he were not so deeply Christian. [Title is Webb's.][33]:95


Notes

  1. ↑ George Bernard Shaw, The Future of Political Science in America; an Address by Mr. Bernard Shaw to the Academy of Political Science, at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, on the 11th. April, 1933 (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1933) as cited in Richard Vetterli, Mormonism, Americanism and Politics (Salt Lake City: Ensign Publishing, 1961), 461–462.
  2. ↑ Brigham Young, "Plurality of Wives—The Free Agency of Man," (14 July 1855) Journal of Discourses 3:266.
  3. ↑ John Taylor, "President John Taylor's Recent Trip To Bear Lake, Selections from his Discourses delivered in the Various Settlements," (1883) Journal of Discourses 24:232.
  4. ↑ Ernst Benz, "Imago dei: Man as the Image of God," FARMS Review 17/1 (2005): 223–254. off-site
  5. ↑ For an extensive discussion, see Danel W. Bachman, "A Study of the Mormon Practice of Polygamy Before the Death of Joseph Smith," (1975) (unpublished M.A. thesis, Purdue University).
  6. ↑ Richard Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1986), 89.
  7. ↑ Douglas H. Parker, "Victory in Defeat—Polygamy and the Mormon Legal Encounter with the Federal Government," Cardozo Law Review 12 (1991): 814.
  8. ↑ B. Carmon Hardy, Solemn Covenant: The Mormon Polygamous Passage (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 9; an account of this encounter between Joseph and William can be found in Joseph W. McMurrin, "An Interesting Testimony / Mr. Law’s Testimony," Improvement Era (May 1903), 507–510.
  9. ↑ He here refers to Dean C. Jesse’s landmark volume Personal Writings of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1984).
  10. ↑ Paul H. Peterson, "Understanding Joseph: A Review of Published Documentary Sources," Joseph Smith: The Prophet, the Man, edited by Susan Easton Black and Charles D. Tate, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1988), 109–110.
  11. ↑ George D. Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy: "...but we called it celestial marriage" (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2008), 15–22. ( Index of claims , (Detailed book review)); Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 4–5.
  12. ↑ G. D. Smith cites Joseph’s 1832 account from Dean C. Jessee (editor), The Papers of Joseph Smith: Autobiographical and Historical Writings (Vol. 1 of 2) (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company, 1989), 1:1–6. ISBN 0875791999
  13. ↑ Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (New York: S. Converse, 1828), s.v. "vice."
  14. ↑ Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (New York: S. Converse, 1828), s.v. "folly."
  15. ↑ JS-H 1꞉28 (emphasis added)
  16. ↑ G. D. Smith cites Rodger I. Anderson, Joseph Smith’s New York Reputation Reexamined (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1990); Richard S. Van Wagoner, Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994); Dan Vogel, ed., Early Mormon Documents, 5 vols. (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1996–2003); Dan Vogel, Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2004); and Eber D. Howe, Mormonism Unvailed (Painesville [Ohio]; Ann Arbor, Michigan: printed and published by the author, 1834). There is no mention of or interaction with such critiques as Hugh W. Nibley, The Myth Makers (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1961); Nibley, Tinkling Cymbals and Sounding Brass; Richard L. Anderson, "The Reliability of the Early History of Lucy and Joseph Smith," Dialogue 4 (Summer 1969): 15–16; Anderson, "Joseph Smith’s New York Reputation Reappraised," BYU Studies 10:3 (1970): 283–314; Anderson, "The Mature Joseph Smith and Treasure Searching," BYU Studies 24 (Fall 1984): 492–94; Anderson, review of Joseph Smith’s New York Reputation Reexamined, by Rodger I. Anderson," FARMS Review of Books 3/1 (1991): 52–80; and Thomas G. Alexander, review of Early Mormon Documents, Vol. 2, ed. Dan Vogel, Journal of Mormon History 26/2 (Fall 2000): 248–52.
  17. ↑ Dean C. Jessee, ed., The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book, 1984), xiv, italics in original.
  18. ↑ For discussion of the affidavits, see Hugh W. Nibley, The Myth Makers (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1961); Hugh W. Nibley, Tinkling Cymbals and Sounding Brass: The Art of Telling Tales About Joseph Smith and Brigham Young (Vol. 11 of the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley), edited by David J. Whittaker, (Salt Lake City, Utah : Deseret Book Company ; Provo, Utah : Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1991); Richard L. Anderson, "The Reliability of the Early History of Lucy and Joseph Smith," Dialogue 4 (Summer 1969): 15–16; Richard L. Anderson, "Joseph Smith's New York Reputation Reappraised," Brigham Young University Studies 10:3 (1970): 283–314; Richard Lloyd Anderson, "The Mature Joseph Smith and Treasure Searching," BYU Studies 24 (Fall 1984): 492-494.Richard Lloyd Anderson, "Review of Joseph Smith's New York Reputation Reexamined by Rodger I. Anderson," FARMS Review of Books 3/1 (1991): 52–80; Thomas G. Alexander, "Review of Dan Vogel (Editor) Early Mormon Documents, Vol. 2," Journal of Mormon History 26/2 (Fall 2000): 248–252.
  19. ↑ A. Brant Merrill, "Joseph Smith's Methodism?" letter to the editor, Dialogue 16/1 (Spring 1983): 4–5.
  20. ↑ Except where noted, I have taken the accusations of immorality against Joseph from Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History, 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1989), 4–5. Van Wagoner takes no time to analyze these charges—he simply drops them on the reader and moves on. One reviewer criticized this tendency in both his volume on polygamy and Sidney Rigdon, writing, "He cites negative reports of early episodes but buries his suspicion for or rejection of the account in a note. But if it is not to be trusted, why cite it in the first place?" [David J. Whittaker, "Review of Richard Van Wagoner's Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess," Journal of Mormon History 23/1 (Spring 1997): 193.]
  21. ↑ Hiel Lewis, "Mormon History," Amboy Journal (6 August 1879); cited by Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery, Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith, 2nd ed. (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 64.
  22. ↑ See remarks in this vein in Paul H. Peterson, "Understanding Joseph: A Review of Published Documentary Sources," in Joseph Smith: The Prophet, the Man, ed. Susan Easton Black and Charles D. Tate (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company, 1988), 110.
  23. ↑ Mark B. Nelson and Steven C. Harper, "The Imprisonment of Martin Harris in 1833," Brigham Young University Studies 45/4 (2006). (My thanks to David Keller for bringing the article to my attention in this context.)
  24. ↑ Todd M. Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), 230–232: citations to other accounts derive from Compton's treatment, except where noted.
  25. ↑ Compton notes this, as does Van Wagoner's footnote. Ronald V. Huggins, "Joseph Smith's 'Inspired Translation' of Romans 7," Dialogue 26/4 (Winter 1993): 180–181, footnote 59 relies on Van Wagoner, but argues that Joseph's own account (in William Mulder and A. Russell Mortensen, eds., Among the Mormons (New York: Knopf, 1969), 67) mentions an Eli being present at the attack. While Smith, History of the Church, 1:260 mentions Eli Johnson, Johnson is not present in any of the scholarly versions of Joseph's diaries such as Jessee, ed., Personal Writings , Dean C. Jessee, ed., The Papers of Joseph Smith: Autobiographical and Historical Writings, vol. 1 (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Co., 1989), or Scott H. Faulring, ed., An American Prophet's Record : The Diaries and Journals of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, 1987).
  26. ↑ Symonds Ryder, "Letter to A. S. Hayden," 1 February 1868 in Amos S. Haydon, Early History of the Disciples in the Western Reserve (1876); cited by Van Wagoner, Sidney Rigdon, 114–115. A second account is also cited by Compton: S.F. Whitney [brother of NK Whitney, a Reverend], in Arthur B. Demming (editor), Naked Truths About Mormonism 1 (January 1888): 3–4.
  27. ↑ John M. Rigdon, "Lecture Written by John M. Rigdon on the Early History of the Mormon Church," 9; transcript from New Mormon Studies CD-ROM, Smith Research Associates, 1998 (emphasis added).
  28. ↑ Marinda Hyde, Interview, cited in Edward W. Tullidge, The Women of Mormondom (New York: 1877), 404.
  29. ↑ It should be noted that Van Wagoner incorrectly cites "Benjamin F. Winchester." It should be "Benjamin Winchester". See Brian C. Hales and Gregory L. Smith, "A Response to Grant Palmer’s 'Sexual Allegations against Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Polygamy in Nauvoo'," Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 12 (2014): 183-236 Note 3: "Van Wagoner likewise cites this source as "Benjamin F. Winchester." Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 4."
  30. ↑ Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, 4–5; citing Anthony Metcalf, Ten Years Before the Mast (N.p.: n.p., n.d.), 72 [published 1888].
  31. ↑ "History of Joseph Smith Continued," Times and Seasons 4/3 (28 October 1842): 41; see also Smith, History of the Church, 1:90.
  32. ↑ "Webb is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana. He is a graduate of Wabash College and earned his PhD at the University of Chicago before returning to his alma mater to teach. Born in 1961 he grew up at Englewood Christian Church, an evangelical church. He joined the Disciples of Christ during He was briefly a Lutheran, and on Easter Sunday, 2007, he officially came into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church."
  33. ↑ Stephen H. Webb, "Godbodied: The Matter of the Latter-day Saints (reprint from his book Jesus Christ, Eternal God: Heavenly Flesh and the Metaphysics of Matter (Oxford University Press, 2012)," Brigham Young University Studies 50 no. 3 (2011). (emphasis added)
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