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Plural marriage |
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Joseph Smith era:
Post-Joseph Smith:
Post-Manifesto–present |
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Did Joseph Smith offer to trade Jane Law for Emma Smith in a wife swap with William Law?
To see citations to the critical sources for these claims, [[../CriticalSources|click here]]
This claim rests on a single, unreliable hostile source. Other hostile sources (including William Law) deny the tale.
This question arises because of a somewhat opaque verse in the Doctrine and Covenants section on plural marriage. (The revelation was written down at Hyrum Smith's request, who believed that he could persuade Emma Smith of the doctrine's provenance from God.) The verses in question read:
No one is certain as to what this refers. William Clayton, Joseph's scribe and secretary, wrote in his contemporaneous journal:
Some have seen this as Emma claiming she would practice plural marriage (a strange idea, given how she felt about it), and these readers have then extended the reading to include a belief that she was threatening to marry William Law. Others have seen these verses (perhaps more plausibly) as Emma simply threatening divorce if Joseph didn't cease plural marriage. In this reading, Joseph would have agreed to a divorce--both were probably speaking somewhat in the heat of the moment—and the Lord in D&C 132 makes it clear that he does not endorse Joseph's offer of (or agreement to) a divorce.
The idea of Joseph offering William Law to Emma springs out of an anti-Mormon work. As D. Carmon Hardy noted:
It becomes clear how shaky the evidence is when one drills down to the ultimate source of the idea. The source of this charge seems to be a book by Joseph H. Jackson. Jackson claimed to have insinuated himself into Joseph's counsels, and claimed Joseph had told him that he was going to attempt to "get Mrs. William Law for a spiritual wife…for the purpose of affecting his object [Joseph] got up a revelation that Law was to be sealed up to Emma, and that Law's wife was to be his; in other words there was to be a spiritual swop [sic]…[Joseph] had never before suffered his passion for any woman to carry him so far as to be willing to sacrifice Emma for its gratification."[3]
Jackson made numerous assertions, claiming insider knowledge. that Joseph Smith would not have granted a "rotten hearted" individual. he presents no evidence that he was a confidante of the Prophet. Without additional evidence of his privileged status in Joseph Smith's circle of friends, any report or claim reflecting insider knowledge must be evaluated skeptically. |
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Precisely what transpired between the Laws and Joseph Smith is impossible to accurately discern. Historical evidences can be quoted to support at least five different interactions. The allegations that Joseph Smith tried to seduce Jane Law is flatly contradicted by her son's account. |
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