Joseph Smith/Poligamia/Poliandria/Por que Joseph Smith ser selado para esposas de outros homens

Índice

Why would Joseph Smith be sealed to other men's wives?

  NEEDS TRANSLATION  

Perguntas

Joseph Smith was sealed to 11 women who were married to men who were still living. Some of these men were even active members of the Church.

• Why would Joseph be sealed to other men's wives?
• What was the nature of these marriages? Were they consummated?
• Why did these 11 women continue to live with and have children with their husbands even after being sealed to Joseph Smith?
• One critic of the church notes, "Joseph Smith would frequently approach other men’s wives about being his own plural wives..."

"Nauvoo Journals, December 1841–April 1843," The Joseph Smith Papers

Several later documents suggest that several women who were already married to other men were, like Marinda Hyde, married or sealed to Joseph Smith. Available evidence indicates that some of these apparent polygynous/polyandrous marriages took place during the years covered by this journal. At least three of the women reportedly involved in these marriages—Patty Bartlett Sessions, Ruth Vose Sayers, and Sylvia Porter Lyon—are mentioned in the journal, though in contexts very much removed from plural marriage. Even fewer sources are extant for these complex relationships than are available for Smith’s marriages to unmarried women, and Smith’s revelations are silent on them. Having surveyed the available sources, historian Richard L. Bushman concludes that these polyandrous marriages—and perhaps other plural marriages of Joseph Smith—were primarily a means of binding other families to his for the spiritual benefit and mutual salvation of all involved.

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Conclusão

Among Joseph's plural marriages and/or sealings, between eight to eleven of them were to women who were already married. Of the eight well-documented cases, five of the husbands were Latter-day Saints, and the other three were either not active in or not associated with the Church. In all cases, these women continued to live with their husbands, most of them doing so until their husbands died. These eternal marriages appear to have had little effect upon the lives of the women involved, with the exception that they would be sealed to Joseph in the afterlife rather than to their earthly husbands.

Of all the aspects of Joseph Smith's marital theology, this is the most difficult area to understand, because very little primary evidence exists. As one scholar noted:

Perhaps nothing is less understood than Joseph Smith's sealings to women already married, because the evidence supports conflicting interpretations.

One of the most well-known of these "polyandrous" marriages was to Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs.

At the time that celestial marriage was introduced, it was possible to be married for time to one person and sealed for eternity to another. These marriages appear to have been performed for the purpose of forming dynastic bonds in the afterlife, as there is no evidence that Joseph ever cohabited or had intimate relations with any of these women. No children from these marriages have ever been identified. These were sealings which would only affect Joseph's association with these women in the afterlife.

Perguntas e respostas detalhadas

Question: What is "Polyandry?"
Answer: Polyandry is one woman married to more than one husband at the same time.

The term "polyandry" is derived from the Greek roots "poly" ("many") and "andros" ("men") to describe marriages in which one woman is married to more than one man. The term does not account for the concept of marriage after this life. Therefore, describing some of Joseph Smith's marriages as "polyandrous" implies that he was married to these women in this life, with all that is involved in such a relationship. Evidence does not bear this out, however. In fact, the existing evidence indicates that these women continued to associate with their current husbands. Therefore, by stating that Joseph "married" other men's wives without making the distinction that these sealings applied only to the next life, critics can draw many lascivious conclusions from Joseph's actions. The faithful member may feel uneasy because he has no ready "alibi" for the polyandry material which the gleeful critic insists is a "smoking gun" for Joseph's base motives.

Question: What was the nature of these "polyandrous" marriages?
Answer: Evidence indicates that Joseph was sealed for eternity to eight to eleven women who were married to other men.

The fact that these women continue to live with their earthly husbands and even have children by them indicates that the sealings to Joseph Smith were not marriages in the normal sense.

Question: What relationship did these women have with their husbands after being sealed to Joseph Smith?
Answer: It doesn't appear to have changed anything in their daily lives

The relationship between these women and their husbands appear to have not changed even after they were sealed to Joseph Smith. Of the eight well-documented cases, five of the husbands were Latter-day Saints, and the other three were either not active in or not associated with the Church. In all cases, these women continued to live with their husbands, most of them doing so until their husbands died. These eternal marriages appear to have had little effect upon the lives of the women involved, with the exception that they would be sealed to Joseph in the afterlife rather than to their earthly husbands.

Question: Did Joseph Smith consummate any of these marriages with married women?
Answer: There is no evidence to indicate this, with one possible exception for a woman who considered herself divorced

The available evidence also does not support the claim that Joseph had intimate relations with these married women. Fawn Brodie, who repeatedly stated her belief that Joseph had intimate relations with many of his plural wives, identified several individuals that she thought “might” be children of Joseph Smith, Jr. Yet, even Brodie noted that “it is astonishing that evidence of other children than these has never come to light.” Brodie postulated, in spite of a complete lack of evidence, that Joseph must have been able to successfully practice some sort of primitive birth control, or that abortions must have been routinely employed.To date, DNA analysis has ruled out Joseph Smith as the father of any of the children of the women to whom he was sealed who were married to other men.

Josephine Lyon: In 1915, Sylvia Sessions Lyon's daughter, Josephine, signed a statement that in 1882 Sylvia "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 was out of fellowship with the Church." It is not known whether Sylvia was referring to her daughter as being a literal descendant of Joseph Smith, or if she was referring to the fact that she had been sealed to the prophet. In an article published in Mormon Historical Studies, Brian C. Hales demonstrates that Sylvia considered herself divorced prior to marrying Joseph polygamously.

Mother	Brodie’s claim	Modern evidence
Buell	Brodie claims that “the physiognomy revealed in a rare photograph of Oliver Buell seems to weight the balance overwhelmingly on the side of Joseph’s paternity.”	Oliver Buell is not the son of Joseph Smith, Jr. DNA research in 2007 confirmed Presendia Huntington Buell’s son Oliver, born sometime in 1838-1839, was the son of Norman Buell. "Only 9 of the 23 genetic markers match when comparing the inferred Oliver Buell haplotype to that of Joseph Smith. Such a low degree of correlation between the two haplotypes provides strong evidence that they belong to two unrelated paternal lineages, thus excluding with high likelihood Joseph Smith Jr. as the biological father of Oliver N. Buell. Further weight is given to this observation by the close match of the inferred haplotype of Owen F. Buell to the independent Buell record in the SMGF data base, which genetic relationship dates back prior to Joseph Smith's era. Additionally, the two genetic profiles were run through a haplogroup predictor algorithm that assigned the Smith haplotypes to a cluster known as R1b and the cluster for the Buell's haplotypes to I1b2a, two deeply divergent clades that separated anciently, thus providing further evidence that the Oliver Buell and Joseph Smith lineages are not closely related"
Alger	Brodie states that “[t]here is some evidence that Fannie Alger bore Joseph a child in Kirtland.”	DNA research in 2005 confirmed Fanny Alger’s son Orrison Smith is not the son of Joseph Smith, Jr.
Hancock	”Legend among the descendants of Levi W. Hancock points to another son of the prophet. If the legend is true, the child was probably John Reed Hancock, born April 19, 1841.”	Nothing is yet known regarding the patrilineage John Reed Hancock. John Reed's brother Mosiah is not the son of Joseph Smith, Jr. DNA research in 2007 confirmed Clarissa Hancock's son Mosiah, born 9 April 1834, was the son of Levi Hancock. "A 12-marker haplotype was already available for a paternal descendant of Mosiah Hancock, generated by an independent commercial laboratory. A comparison of the 12 markers to the shortened Joseph Smith haplotype showed only 5 matches, indicating a low likelihood of a biological relationship between Mosiah and Joseph. Additionally, we queried the SMGF database with the 12 Ycs Hancock markers. Six independent records returned matching all 12 markers, all having the surname Hancock with documented connections to Mosiah's grandfather Thomas Hancock III."
Lightner	The son of Mary Rollins Lightner “may as easily have been the prophet’s son as that of Adam Lightner.”	George Algernon Lightner, born March 22, 1842, died as an infant and therefore had no descendants. DNA testing cannot help determine paternity.
Hyde	Mrs. Orson Hyde’s sons Orson and Frank “could have been Joseph’s sons.”	Orson Washington Hyde, born November 9, 1843, died as an infant and therefore had no descendants. DNA testing cannot help determine paternity.
Pratt	Mrs. Parley P. Pratt’s son Moroni “might also be added to this list.”	Moroni Llewellyn Pratt is not the son of Joseph Smith, Jr. DNA research in 2005 confirmed Mary Ann Frost Pratt's son Moroni, born 7 December 1844, was the son of Parley P. Pratt.
Snow	”According to tradition,” Emma beat Eliza Snow and caused her to abort Joseph’s child.	Both LDS and non-LDS reviewers have found several flaws in the story about Eliza. 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."
Jacobs	Zina was “about seven months pregnant with Jacobs' child at the time of her marriage to the prophet.” John D. Lee and William Hall stated that Zina had been “pregnant by Smith.”	Zebulon Jacobs is not the son of Joseph Smith, Jr. DNA research in 2005 confirmed Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs's son Zebulon was the son of Henry Bailey Jacobs.

Brian C. Hales, "Joseph Smith’s Sexual Polyandry and the Emperor’s New Clothes: On Closer Inspection, What Do We Find?," Proceedings of the 2012 FAIR Conference (August 2012)

My research supports that fourteen of Joseph Smith’s plural wives had legal husbands. It could be that in Joseph Smith’s history, polygamy is the most difficult thing to understand. Within polygamy, Joseph Smith’s sealings to legally married women, is the most difficult. So we’re talking about a pretty tough subject today. And I can tell you already, that if it were easy, someone would have already explained it decades ago. But I think we’ve got it figured out.

Now there are two questions: “Why did he do it”, and “Did the women really have two husbands?” Answering the question of why he did it requires us to introduce some new topics. Joseph taught that marriage can be eternal and that everyone must be sealed to be exalted. These are not new to us, we’ve all heard these. But outside of Mormondom, these are kind of new ideas. Emmanuel Swedenborg had talked about eternal marriage and he died in 1772. But really, nobody talked about eternal marriage. The idea that you had to be married to get the highest salvation, that’s still a really new and somewhat different teaching.

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