1. Back­ground: The LDS Church pub­lished an essay, Plur­al Mar­riage in Kirt­land and Nau­voo, on Octo­ber 22, 2014, dis­cussing its polyg­a­mist past. The essay admit­ted the fol­low­ing, which will be dis­cussed in fur­ther depth dur­ing the remain­der of this sec­tion: (1) Joseph mar­ried girls as young as 14; (2) Joseph mar­ried women who were mar­ried to oth­er men, includ­ing active LDS men; (3) Joseph lied about polygamy to Church mem­bers, includ­ing his wife, Emma; (4) Joseph had sex with at least some of his plur­al wives; (5) Joseph failed to prac­tice polygamy in accor­dance with Doc­trine and Covenants 132.

2. Joseph Smith Prac­ticed Polygamy: Joseph Smith was mar­ried to at least 34 women dur­ing his life­time (and the Church’s essay states he may have been mar­ried to as many as 40 women). LDS his­to­ri­an, Todd Comp­ton, has writ­ten an exten­sive biog­ra­phy on each of Joseph’s 34 doc­u­ment­ed wives in In Sacred Lone­li­ness: the Plur­al Wives of Joseph Smith. Comp­ton ana­lyzed the lives of the women list­ed here, and many of the women list­ed here. Many of Joseph’s wives can be ver­i­fied through Fam​il​y​Search​.org. Biogra­phies of each wife can be found here.

As demon­strat­ed above, of Joseph’s 34 wives, sev­en of were teenage girls as young as 14-years-old. Joseph was 37-years-old when he mar­ried 14-year-old Helen Mar Kim­ball, mean­ing she was 23-years younger than Joseph. Sev­er­al of these women were Joseph’s fos­ter daugh­ters (Lawrence sis­ters, Par­tridge sis­ters, Fan­ny Alger, Lucy Walker).

3. Polyandry: The Church’s polygamy essay acknowl­edges that “Joseph Smith was sealed to a num­ber of women who were already mar­ried,” esti­mat­ing the num­ber of these seal­ings at 12–14. Comp­ton con­ser­v­a­tive­ly esti­mates that Joseph engaged in at least 11 polyan­drous rela­tion­ships. Thus, of Joseph Smith’s 34 wives, at least 11 of were mar­ried to oth­er liv­ing men at the time they mar­ried Joseph. Of those 11 mar­ried women, at least eight were mar­ried to active LDS men. On sev­er­al occa­sions, Joseph called these men on mis­sions short­ly before or short­ly after mar­ry­ing their wives (some­times in secret). For exam­ple, Joseph called Apos­tle Orson Hyde on a mis­sion to ded­i­cate Israel and, while Hyde was away, Joseph secret­ly mar­ried his wife, Marin­da Hyde, with­out Orson’s knowledge.

4. The fol­low­ing page con­tains anoth­er chart that cat­e­go­rizes each of Joseph’s 34 doc­u­ment­ed wives:

5. Evi­dence of Joseph’s Adul­tery: There is sub­stan­tial evi­dence that Joseph engaged in numer­ous adul­ter­ous rela­tion­ships. In fact, Grant Palmer wrote a cred­i­ble, well-sourced arti­cle on the sex­u­al alle­ga­tions against Joseph Smith. How­ev­er, the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing Joseph’s first plur­al wife, Fan­ny Alger, is espe­cial­ly trou­ble­some. Fan­ny was a ser­vant in the Smith home and became very close to the Smiths (par­tic­u­lar­ly Emma). Some­time after Fan­ny turned 16, rumors began cir­cu­lat­ing that Joseph was engag­ing in an affair with her. War­ren Par­rish, Joseph’s sec­re­tary for a time, told Ben­jamin John­son that he and Oliv­er Cow­dery knew the report of an affair between Joseph and Fan­ny “to be true,” for they “were spied upon and found togeth­er.” (Let­ter from Ben­jamin John­son to George Gibbs, 1903; Joseph Smith the Mor­mon Prophet, pp. 103–104.)

William E. McLellin, who once served as an apos­tle, told Joseph Smith III: “Again, I told her [Emma] I heard that one night she missed Joseph and Fan­ny Alger. She went to the barn and saw him and Fan­ny in the barn togeth­er alone. She looked through a crack and saw the trans­ac­tion! She told me this sto­ry too was true.” (William E. McLellin to Joseph Smith III, 10 Jan. 1861; Library-Archives, Com­mu­ni­ty of Christ.) Oliv­er Cow­dery said he learned of this inci­dent direct­ly from Joseph and that Joseph had con­fid­ed to him that “he had con­fessed to Emma” of the affair while seek­ing her for­give­ness. (Don­ald Q. Can­non and Lyn­don W. Cook, eds., Far West Record: Min­utes of the Church of Jesus Christ of Lat­ter-day Saints, 1830–1844 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1983), 167.) When Emma found out that Joseph was hav­ing sex with Fan­ny, Emma threw her out of the house. Fan­ny and her fam­i­ly left Kirt­land in Sep­tem­ber 1836 and moved to Dublin, Indi­ana, where she mar­ried non-Mor­mon Solomon Custer Novem­ber 16, 1836.

Cow­dery was prob­a­bly the first to open­ly speak of the Alger affair. In Novem­ber 1837, he “insinuate[d] that Joseph Smith Jr. was guilty of adul­tery” in a con­ver­sa­tion with George W. Har­ris and again with Apos­tle David W. Pat­ten. (Can­non and Cook, Far West Record, 167.) In his cor­re­spon­dence with his broth­er, War­ren Cow­dery, Oliv­er was more direct. In a let­ter dat­ed Jan­u­ary 21, 1838, Oliv­er wrote: “When he [Joseph Smith] was there we had some con­ver­sa­tion in which in every instance I did not fail to affirm that what I had said was strict­ly true. A dirty, nasty, filthy affair of his and Fan­ny Alger’s was talked over in which I strict­ly declared that I had nev­er devi­at­ed from the truth in the mat­ter, and as I sup­posed was admit­ted by him­self.” (Let­ter writ­ten by Oliv­er Cow­dery and record­ed by his broth­er War­ren Cow­dery; see pho­to­graph in The Mor­mon King­dom, vol. 1, page 27.)

On April 12, 1838, Oliv­er was excom­mu­ni­cat­ed, in part, for “seek­ing to destroy the char­ac­ter of Pres­i­dent Joseph Smith Jr. by false­ly insin­u­at­ing that he was guilty of adul­tery.” (Can­non and Cook, Far West Record, 162–63.)

6. Polygamy Prac­ticed Long Before Alleged Rev­e­la­tion: Long before the offi­cial record­ing of D&C 132, Joseph Smith had already mar­ried mul­ti­ple wives. His first plur­al wife was Fan­ny Alger, whom he mar­ried dur­ing the time when the Church was in Kirt­land. Some his­to­ri­ans record the date of Joseph’s first mar­riage as ear­ly as 1833, while oth­ers believe it was 1835. “Since Fan­ny moved out of the Smith home soon after the mar­riage, it evi­dent­ly took place around 1835, the year when Fan­ny turned nine­teen.” (The Prophet Joseph Smith and His Plur­al Wives, Richard Lloyd Ander­son & Scott H. Faulring, FARMS, 1998.) Only after Cow­dery dis­cov­ered Joseph’s rela­tion­ship with Fan­ny did Joseph first begin to secret­ly insti­tute the “doc­trine” of plur­al mar­riage. Nonethe­less, there is no evi­dence that Joseph dis­cussed plur­al mar­riage with a sin­gle indi­vid­ual until after his rela­tion­ship with Fan­ny Alger was dis­cov­ered. The fact that Joseph only began dis­cussing plur­al mar­riage after his rela­tion­ship with Fan­ny was exposed sug­gests that the sub­se­quent “rev­e­la­tion” was an attempt to jus­ti­fy his adultery.

7. Ear­ly Unions were Not Sanc­tioned under God’s Laws: Whether Joseph’s mar­riage to Fan­ny Alger occurred in 1833 or 1835, it was ille­gal both under the laws of the land^[2] and under any the­o­ry of divine author­i­ty. With respect to divine author­i­ty, plur­al mar­riages are root­ed in the notion of “seal­ing” for both time and eter­ni­ty. The “seal­ing” pow­er was not restored under LDS belief until April 1836 when Eli­jah appeared to Joseph and con­ferred the seal­ing keys upon him. There is no dis­pute among Lat­ter-day Saints that, pri­or to 1836, the seal­ing pow­er had not been on the earth since the time the Lord had removed it dur­ing the Great Apos­ta­sy. Thus, Joseph’s “mar­riage” to Fan­ny Alger could not have been per­formed by any­one with the “seal­ing pow­er.” No one on earth had author­i­ty either under the laws of man or under the laws of God as under­stood and taught by the LDS Church to “mar­ry” Joseph and Fan­ny. As a result, his mar­riage to her was a nul­li­ty from the begin­ning both in time and eter­ni­ty, and any sex­u­al rela­tion­ship he may have had with her (and to which Cow­dery attest­ed) can only be described as adulterous.

8. Polygamy Con­demned by Rev­e­la­tion: The first edi­tion of the Doc­trine and Covenants (1835) includ­ed a sec­tion deny­ing any prac­tice of polygamy:

“Inas­much as this Church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of for­ni­ca­tion and polygamy, we declare that we believe that one man should have one wife, and one woman but one hus­band, except in the case of death, when either is at lib­er­ty to mar­ry again.” (His­to­ry of the Church, Vol. 2, p. 247)

It is inter­est­ing to note that the fore­go­ing pro­vi­sion was con­tained in every edi­tion of the Doc­trine and Covenants until 1876, when the Doc­trine and Covenants was revised to include Sec­tion 132, which autho­rizes plur­al mar­riage. Obvi­ous­ly, it would have been too con­tra­dic­to­ry to have one sec­tion con­demn­ing polygamy and anoth­er approv­ing of it in the same book. There­fore, the sec­tion con­demn­ing polygamy was removed from the Doc­trine and Covenants.

Sig­nif­i­cant­ly, Joseph Smith was already a polyg­a­mist at the time the 1835 edi­tion of the Doc­trine and Covenants was pub­lished (which specif­i­cal­ly for­bade polygamy). More­over, Joseph pub­licly taught monogamy. Joseph, how­ev­er, con­tin­ued to secret­ly mar­ry women as the above ref­er­enced rev­e­la­tion remained in force.

9. Joseph Was Coer­cive in his Mar­riage Pro­pos­als: Mul­ti­ple women tes­ti­fied that Joseph’s mar­riage pro­pos­als includ­ed a promise that, if they agreed to mar­ry Joseph, their entire fam­i­ly would receive exal­ta­tion. More dis­turbing­ly, Joseph told at least three women (Zina Hunt­ing­ton, Almera Woodard John­son, Mary Light­ner) that he would be slain by an angel with a drawn sword if they did not agree to mar­ry him.

10. Helen Mar Kim­ball (Joseph Smith’s 14-Year-Old Wife): Study­ing the actu­al prac­tice of polygamy is per­haps even more dis­turb­ing when each mar­riage is specif­i­cal­ly ana­lyzed. For exam­ple, Joseph seemed to engage in coer­cive tac­tics in mar­ry­ing at least some of his wives, includ­ing 14-year-old Helen Mar Kim­ball. The fol­low­ing is an excerpt from her journal:

“With­out any pre­lim­i­nar­ies, my father asked me if I would believe him if he told me that it was right for mar­ried men to take oth­er wives.
“The first impulse was anger… My sen­si­bil­i­ties were painful­ly touched. I felt such a sense of per­son­al injury and dis­plea­sure; for to men­tion such a thing to me I thought alto­geth­er unwor­thy of my father, and as quick he spoke, I replied to him, short and emphat­i­cal­ly, NO I WOULDN’T! This is the first time that I ever open­ly man­i­fest­ed anger towards him.
…
“Hav­ing a great desire to be con­nect­ed with the Prophet, Joseph, he (my father) offered me to him; this I after­wards learned from the Prophet’s own mouth. My father had but one Ewe Lamb, but will­ing­ly laid her upon the altar: how cru­el this seemed to my moth­er whose heart­strings were already stretched until they were ready to snap asun­der, for she had already tak­en Sarah Noon to wife [after Heber began prac­tic­ing polygamy] and she thought she had made suf­fi­cient sac­ri­fice but the Lord required more.”

Although Helen was ini­tial­ly repulsed by the thought of mar­ry­ing Joseph Smith, a much old­er and mar­ried man, she reluc­tant­ly agreed when Joseph the prophet offered her and her entire fam­i­ly eter­nal sal­va­tion and exal­ta­tion if she would become one of his wives.

“[The next morn­ing, Joseph Smith vis­it­ed Helen and explained] the prin­ci­ple of Celes­tial mar­riage… After which he said to me, ‘If you will take this step, it will ensure your eter­nal sal­va­tion & exal­ta­tion and that of your father’s house­hold & all of your kin­dred.[‘] This promise was so great that I will­ing­ly gave myself to pur­chase so glo­ri­ous a reward. None but God & his angels could see my mother’s bleed­ing heart-when Joseph asked her if she was will­ing… She had wit­nessed the suf­fer­ings of oth­ers, who were old­er & who bet­ter under­stood the step they were tak­ing, & to see her child, who had scarce­ly seen her fif­teenth sum­mer, fol­low­ing in the same thorny path, in her mind she saw the mis­ery which was as sure to come … ; but it was all hid­den from me.” (Helen Mar Whit­ney Jour­nal, Helen Mar Auto­bi­og­ra­phy, Wom­an’s Expo­nent, 1880 and recent­ly reprint­ed in A Wom­an’s View).

After mar­ry­ing Joseph Smith, Helen indi­cat­ed that she was deceived as to what the polyg­a­mous rela­tion­ship would entail. Helen con­fid­ed to a close friend in Nau­voo: “I would nev­er have been sealed to Joseph had I known it was any­thing more than cer­e­mo­ny. I was young, and they deceived me, by say­ing the sal­va­tion of our whole fam­i­ly depend­ed on it.” (Mor­mon Polygamy: A His­to­ry by LDS mem­ber Richard S. Van Wag­oner, p. 53.)

11. Sex: The Church’s polygamy essay acknowl­edges that Joseph like­ly had sex with his polyg­a­mist wives. In fact, the essay states that the pri­ma­ry pur­pose of plur­al mar­riage was “to raise up seed unto God,” which obvi­ous­ly requires sex­u­al inter­course. Some church his­to­ri­ans, like Richard Bush­man, and FAIR, an LDS apolo­getic orga­ni­za­tion, admit that Joseph’s mar­riages includ­ed mar­i­tal rela­tions. Con­sid­er the fol­low­ing state­ments from Joseph’s polyg­a­mist wives and oth­er Church leaders:

• Sylvia Ses­sions (Lyon): Sylvia Ses­sions (Lyon), on her deathbed, told her daugh­ter, Josephine, that she (Josephine) was the daugh­ter of Joseph Smith. Josephine tes­ti­fied: “She (Sylvia) 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 was out of fel­low­ship with the Church.” (Affi­davit to Church His­to­ri­an Andrew Jen­son, 24 Feb. 1915)

• Mary Eliz­a­beth Rollins Light­ner: In her tes­ti­mo­ny giv­en at a BYU devo­tion­al, Mary Eliz­a­beth Rollins Light­ner (and wife of Joseph Smith) stat­ed that she knew of chil­dren born to Smith’s plur­al wives: “I know he [Joseph Smith] had six wives and I have known some of them from child­hood up. I know he had three chil­dren. They told me. I think two are liv­ing today but they are not known as his chil­dren as they go by oth­er names.”

• Pre­scindia D. Hunt­ing­ton: Pre­scindia D. Hunt­ing­ton, who was Nor­mal Buel­l’s wife and simul­ta­ne­ous­ly a “plur­al wife” to Joseph Smith, said that she did not know whether her hus­band Nor­man “or the Prophet was the father of her son, Oliv­er.” (Mary Ettie V. Smith, Fif­teen Years Among the Mor­mons, page 34.)

• Melis­sa Lott: Melis­sa Lott (Smith Willes) tes­ti­fied that she had been Joseph’s wife ‘in very deed.’ (Affi­davit of Melis­sa Willes, 3 Aug. 1893, Tem­ple Lot case, 98, 105; Fos­ter, Reli­gion and Sex­u­al­i­ty, p. 156.)

• Louisa Bea­man: In a court affi­davit, faith­ful Mor­mon Joseph Noble wrote that Joseph told him he had spent the night with Louisa Bea­man. (Tem­ple Lot Case, p. 427)

• Emi­ly D. Par­tridge: Emi­ly D. Par­tridge (Smith Young) said she ‘roomed’ with Joseph the night fol­low­ing her mar­riage to him and said that she had ‘car­nal inter­course’ with him. (Tem­ple Lot case, (com­plete tran­script), pp. 364, 367, 384; see Fos­ter, ‘Reli­gion and Sex­u­al­i­ty,’ p. 15.)

• Eliza Par­tridge: William Clay­ton, Joseph Smith’s per­son­al sec­re­tary, record­ed that on May 22, 1843, Emma found Joseph and Eliza Par­tridge seclud­ed in an upstairs bed­room at the Smith home. Accord­ing to the account, Emma was dev­as­tat­ed. (William Clay­ton’s jour­nal entry May 23, 1843; see Smith, pp. 105–106.)

• Almera John­son: William Clay­ton also record­ed one of Joseph’s vis­its to Almera John­son on May 16, 1843: “Prest. Joseph and I went to B[enjamin] F. John­son’s to sleep.” John­son him­self lat­er not­ed that on this vis­it Joseph stayed with Almera “as man and wife” and “occu­pied the same room and bed with my sis­ter, that the pre­vi­ous month he had occu­pied with the daugh­ter of the late Bish­op Par­tridge as his wife.” Almera John­son also con­firmed her secret mar­riage to Joseph Smith: “I lived with the prophet Joseph as his wife and he vis­it­ed me at the home of my broth­er Ben­jamin F.” (Zim­mer­man, I Knew the Prophets, p. 44; see also The Ori­gin of Plur­al Mar­riage, Joseph F. Smith, Jr., Deseret News Press, pp. 70–71.)

• Ben­jamin Win­ches­ter: “It was a sub­ject of com­mon talk among many good peo­ple in Nau­voo that many of the elders were sent off on mis­sions mere­ly to get them out of the way, and that Joseph Smith, John C. Ben­nett and oth­er promi­nent Church lights had illic­it inter­course with the wives of a num­ber of the mis­sion­ar­ies, and that the rev­e­la­tion on spir­i­tu­al mar­riage, i.e. polygamy, was got­ten up to pro­tect them­selves from scan­dal.” (Ben­jamin Win­ches­ter, Stake Pres­i­dent of the ear­ly church in the 1830s and 1840s.)

• Poten­tial Chil­dren: LDS apol­o­gist Bri­an Hales, who is cit­ed to in the foot­notes of the Church’s polygamy essay, acknowl­edges that Joseph Smith fathered two to three chil­dren with his plur­al wives. He stat­ed that it is high­ly prob­a­ble that Josephine Lyon (b. Feb. 8, 1844) was Joseph Smith’s child with Sylvia Lyon, and that Joseph like­ly fathered a child with Olive Gray Frost.

12. Joseph Repeat­ed­ly Lied About Polygamy: The Church’s polygamy essay acknowl­edges that Joseph Smith and sub­se­quent lead­ers lied about polygamy, both to Church mem­bers and to out­siders. Smith first began lying to his first wife, Emma. Church lead­ers report­ed­ly believed that the lying was jus­ti­fied because they were “lying for the Lord.” There are scores of doc­u­ments that sup­port this – from inter­views, Church news­pa­per arti­cles, prophets’ let­ters, ser­mons, etc. For example:

• In 1844, Joseph preached a ser­mon and said, “I had not been mar­ried scarce­ly five min­utes and made one procla­ma­tion of the gospel before it was report­ed that I had sev­en wives. What a thing it is for a man to be accused of com­mit­ting adul­tery and hav­ing sev­en wives when I can only find one.” (Joseph Smith, His­to­ry of the Church, Vol. 6, Chap­ter 19, p. 410–11.) At the time he made this state­ment, Joseph had over 30 polyg­a­mous wives.

• In the July 1838 edi­tion of the Elder’s Jour­nal (“Edit­ed by Joseph Smith”), which was pub­lished three-to-five years after he began prac­tic­ing polygamy, Joseph answered ques­tions includ­ing the following:
  “Ques­tion 7^th: Do the Mor­mons believe in hav­ing more wives than one?
  “Answer: No, not at the same time.…” (Elders Jour­nal, Vol 1, No. 3, p. 43; reprint­ed in His­to­ry of the Church Vol 3, p. 38.)

• On Decem­ber 16, 1838, Joseph Smith wrote a let­ter to the Church from Lib­er­ty Jail, which stat­ed: “We have heard that it is report­ed by some, that some of us should have said, that we not only ded­i­cat­ed our prop­er­ty, but our fam­i­lies also to the Lord; and Satan, tak­ing advan­tage of this, has per­vert­ed it into licen­tious­ness, such as a com­mu­ni­ty of wives, which is an abom­i­na­tion in the sight of God.” (His­to­ry of the Church, Vol. 3, p. 23.)

• On Feb­ru­ary 21, 1843, in a speech before the Ladies’ Relief Soci­ety – where­in many of his “plur­al wives” were in atten­dance – Joseph denounced the prac­tice of polygamy.

• In an attempt to abate rumors of his secret polygamy, Joseph con­vinced 31 indi­vid­u­als to sign an affi­davit pub­lished in the Octo­ber 1, 1842 Times and Sea­sons stat­ing that Joseph did not prac­tice polygamy. These indi­vid­u­als claimed the fol­low­ing: “[W]e know of no oth­er rule or sys­tem of mar­riage than the one pub­lished in the Book of Doc­trine and Covenants” (which, at the time, for­bade polygamy). The prob­lem with this affi­davit is that it was signed by sev­er­al peo­ple who were secret polyg­a­mists and/or who knew that Joseph was a polyg­a­mist at the time they signed the affi­davit. In fact, Eliza R. Snow, one of the sign­ers of this affi­davit, was one of Joseph Smith’s plur­al wives. Joseph and Eliza were mar­ried three months ear­li­er on June 29, 1842. Two Apos­tles and future prophets, John Tay­lor and Wil­ford Woodruff, were aware of Joseph’s polygamy behind the scenes when they signed the affi­davit. Anoth­er sign­er, Bish­op Whit­ney, had per­son­al­ly mar­ried his daugh­ter Sarah Ann Whit­ney to Joseph as a plur­al wife a few months ear­li­er on July 27, 1842; Whitney’s wife and Sarah’s moth­er Eliz­a­beth (also a sign­er) wit­nessed the ceremony.

What does it say about Joseph Smith and his char­ac­ter that he con­vinced a plur­al wife and numer­ous friends (who knew about his secret polygamy/polyandry) to lie and per­jure them­selves in a sworn pub­lic affidavit?

The secre­cy of the mar­riages and Joseph’s pri­vate and pub­lic denials are not con­gru­ent with hon­est behav­ior. Emma was unaware of most of these mar­riages. Most church mem­bers did not know what was going on behind the scenes as polygamy did not become com­mon knowl­edge until 1852 when Brigham Young revealed it in Utah. Joseph Smith did every­thing he could to keep the prac­tice in the dark. In fact, Joseph’s desire to keep this part of his life a secret is what ulti­mate­ly con­tributed to his death when he ordered the destruc­tion of the print­ing press (Nau­voo Expos­i­tor) that exposed his behav­ior in June 1844. This event ini­ti­at­ed a chain of events that led to Carthage.

13. Joseph Mar­ried Many Women with­out Emma’s Knowl­edge: D&C 132: 61 (the rev­e­la­tion on polygamy) states that men engag­ing in polygamy should obtain the con­sent of their first wife. Joseph Smith, how­ev­er, did not fol­low the rules of his own rev­e­la­tion, as he took plur­al wives with­out seek­ing con­sent. Emi­ly Dow Par­tridge, for instance, tes­ti­fied that she and her sis­ter were mar­ried to Joseph with­out Emma’s consent:

“[T]he Prophet Joseph and his wife Emma offered us a home in their fam­i­ly, … We had been there about a year when the prin­ci­ple of plur­al mar­riage was made known to us, and I was mar­ried to Joseph Smith on the 4^th of March 1843, Elder Heber C. Kim­ball per­form­ing the cer­e­mo­ny. My sis­ter Eliza was also mar­ried to Joseph a few days lat­er. This was done with­out the knowl­edge of Emma Smith. Two months after­ward she con­sent­ed to give her hus­band two wives, pro­vid­ing he would give her the priv­i­lege of choos­ing them. She accord­ing­ly chose my sis­ter Eliza and myself, and to save fam­i­ly trou­ble Broth­er Joseph thought it best to have anoth­er cer­e­mo­ny per­formed. Accord­ing­ly on the 11^th of May, 1843, we were sealed to Joseph Smith a sec­ond time, in Emma’s pres­ence, … From that very hour, how­ev­er, Emma was our bit­ter ene­my. We remained in the fam­i­ly sev­er­al months after this, but things went from bad to worse until we were oblig­at­ed to leave the house and find anoth­er home.” (His­tor­i­cal Record, vol. 6, page 240)

Notice how Joseph sought to cov­er up the fact that he was already mar­ried to Eliza and Emi­ly Par­tridge. Joseph had a sec­ond, sham mar­riage per­formed to the Par­tridge sis­ters after his first wife, Emma, agreed that he could mar­ry two women if she got to pick them (and she hap­pened to pick two women that were already mar­ried to Joseph).

14. Bogus Jus­ti­fi­ca­tions: One com­mon jus­ti­fi­ca­tion that many Church mem­bers offer for polygamy was that there was a short­age of men at the time polygamy was prac­ticed, and the women need­ed hus­bands in the harsh West to sur­vive. Eco­nom­ic pres­sures on women, how­ev­er, did not dri­ve polygamy. Pop­u­la­tion sta­tis­tics for Utah show that there were actu­al­ly more men than women.

LDS Apos­tle John A. Wid­stoe denied that polygamy had any­thing to do with a “short­age of men.”

“The implied assump­tion in this the­o­ry, that there have been more female than male mem­bers in the Church is not sup­port­ed by exist­ing evi­dence. On the con­trary, there seems always to have been more males than females in the Church… The Unit­ed States cen­sus records from 1850 to 1940, and all avail­able Church records, uni­form­ly show a pre­pon­der­ance of males in Utah… This the­o­ry is not defen­si­ble since there was no sur­plus of women.” (Evi­dences and Rec­on­cil­i­a­tions, 1960, pages 390–392.)

The Church’s 2014 polygamy essay states that the pri­ma­ry pur­pose of plur­al mar­riage was “to raise up seed unto God.” This seems to be a strange, if not inde­fen­si­ble, expla­na­tion. A woman can pre­sum­ably have far more chil­dren (to say noth­ing of emo­tion­al sup­port) if she is mar­ried to one hus­band rather than shar­ing her hus­band with many women. Brigham Young, for exam­ple, had at least 55 chil­dren by 29 wives; had those wives not all shared Brigham Young as a hus­band they like­ly would have pro­duced far more than 55 chil­dren. The only con­ceiv­able way polygamy could pro­duce more chil­dren than through a tra­di­tion­al mar­riage would be if there was a short­age of men. How­ev­er, cen­sus records show that there were always more men than women in both Kirt­land and Utah dur­ing the rel­e­vant time periods.

Addi­tion­al­ly, the Church’s 2014 essay sug­gests that plur­al mar­riage was com­mand­ed by God in Old Tes­ta­ment times and that Joseph’s intro­duc­tion of polygamy was a “restora­tion of the bib­li­cal prac­tice.” The only scrip­tur­al ref­er­ence pro­vid­ed in the essay in sup­port of this asser­tion is Gen­e­sis 16: 1–3. The cit­ed pas­sage, how­ev­er, nev­er states or even implies that God com­mand­ed Abra­ham (or any­one else for that mat­ter) to prac­tice polygamy. Rather, the scrip­ture states that because Sarah could not bear chil­dren, Sarah told Abra­ham to take her hand­maid­en, Hagar, so that Hagar would bear him chil­dren. Sim­ply stat­ed, there is no bib­li­cal evi­dence sug­gest­ing that God has ever com­mand­ed or sanc­tioned polyg­a­mist unions.

15. Joseph Vio­lat­ed Revealed Rules Gov­ern­ing Polygamy: Doc­trine & Covenants 132 sets forth a num­ber of rules and details gov­ern­ing the prac­tice of polygamy. For exam­ple, the D&C 132 only allows polygamy under the fol­low­ing cir­cum­stances: plur­al wives must be vir­gins at the time of the union and the man must give his first wife the oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­sent to the union. If the first wife does not con­sent, she will be “destroyed.” Also, the new wife (who must be a vir­gin) must be com­plete­ly monog­a­mous after the mar­riage or she will be destroyed (D&C 132: 41 & 63). Joseph did not fol­low these rules, as evi­denced by the fol­low­ing summary:

• Joseph mar­ried 11 women who were already mar­ried to oth­er men. Clear­ly, they were not vir­gins as required by the Doc­trine and Covenants. D&C 132:63 clear­ly states that the only pur­pose of polygamy is to “mul­ti­ply and replen­ish the earth” and “bear the souls of men.” Why did Joseph mar­ry women who were already mar­ried? These women were obvi­ous­ly not vir­gins, which vio­lat­ed D&C 132. Zina Hunt­ing­ton had been mar­ried sev­en-and-a-half months and was six months preg­nant with her first husband’s baby at the time she mar­ried Joseph; clear­ly she didn’t need any more help to “bear the souls of men.”

• Joseph’s polyg­a­mist wives con­tin­ued to live as hus­band and wife with their pri­or hus­band after mar­ry­ing Joseph, demon­strat­ing they were not monog­a­mous with Joseph. How­ev­er, D&C 132:63 states that if the new wives are with anoth­er man after the polyg­a­mous mar­riage, they will be destroyed. Eleven of Joseph’s wives lived with their pri­or hus­bands after mar­ry­ing Joseph Smith. Why weren’t they “destroyed”?

• Joseph did not ask for Emma’s con­sent pri­or to tak­ing most of his plur­al wives as required by Doc­trine and Covenants.

In sum­ma­ry, Joseph’s polygamy included:

• Unions with teenagers as young as 14

• Unions with­out Emma’s knowl­edge or consent;

• Unions with­out the knowl­edge or con­sent of the hus­band (in cas­es of polyandry);

• A union with Apos­tle Orson Hyde’s wife while he was on a mis­sion (Marin­da Hyde);

• A union with a new­ly­wed and preg­nant woman (Zina Huntingon);

• Promis­es of sal­va­tion for the woman’s entire family;

• Threats that Joseph would be slain by an angel with a drawn sword if the woman did not mar­ry him (Zina Hunt­ing­ton, Almera Woodard John­son, Mary Lightner);

• Threats of loss of sal­va­tion if the woman did not agree to mar­ry him;

• Dis­hon­esty in pub­lic ser­mons, denials by Joseph that he was a polyg­a­mist, Joseph’s destruc­tion of the Nau­voo Expos­i­tor that exposed his polygamy;

• Mar­riages to young women liv­ing in Joseph’s home as fos­ter daugh­ters (Lawrence sis­ters, Par­tridge sis­ters, Fan­ny Alger, Lucy Walker);

• Joseph’s mar­riage to Fan­ny Alger was described by his cousin, Oliv­er Cow­dery, as a “dirty, nasty, filthy affair” (Richard Bush­man, Rough Stone Rolling, p.323);

• Joseph prac­ticed polygamy before the seal­ing author­i­ty was giv­en. LDS his­to­ri­an, Richard Bush­man, said “There is evi­dence that Joseph was a polyg­a­mist by 1835.” (Rough Stone Rolling, p.323.)

16. Evi­dence of Joseph’s Immoral Pro­pos­al to Jane Law: Grant Palmer pub­lished an essay in 2012 detail­ing the rea­sons William and Jane Law left the Church in 1844. At the time of their defec­tion, William Law was sec­ond coun­selor in the First Pres­i­den­cy. The fol­low­ing is a mod­i­fied and revised excerpt of the arti­cle, which depicts a cor­rob­o­rat­ed account of at least one of Joseph Smith’s immoral pro­pos­als. Here is a link to the unmod­i­fied, ful­ly-sourced arti­cle.

Excerpt: It is well doc­u­ment­ed that Joseph Smith took at least 33 plur­al wives. By 1843. Emma Smith was not hap­py in her mar­riage with Joseph. William Clay­ton, Smith’s per­son­al sec­re­tary, record­ed a con­ver­sa­tion in his jour­nal on this date that Joseph Smith had with his wife: “[Joseph Smith] knew [Emma] was dis­posed to be revenged on him for some things. She thought that if he would indulge him­self she would too.” Joseph Jack­son sup­port­ed William Clay­ton’s account. Jack­son said that Joseph told him: “Emma want­ed [William] Law for a spir­i­tu­al hus­band, and she urged as a rea­son that as he had so many spir­i­tu­al wives, she thought it but fair that she should at least have one man … and that she want­ed Law, because he was such a ‘sweet lit­tle man.’ ”

Between June 23 and July 11, 1843, Joseph Smith received a … rev­e­la­tion: “A com­mand­ment I give unto my hand­maid­en, Emma Smith … which I com­mand­ed you [Joseph] to offer unto her” (D&C 132: 51). William Law, Smith’s coun­selor in the first pres­i­den­cy, described the con­tent of this “offer”-revelation that Smith used to appease Emma. Law wrote: “Joseph offered to fur­nish his wife, Emma, with a sub­sti­tute for him, by way of com­pen­sa­tion for his neglect of her, on con­di­tion that she would for­ev­er stop her oppo­si­tion to polygamy and per­mit him to enjoy his young wives in peace and keep some of them in her [man­sion] house and to be well treat­ed, etc.”

While Joseph and Emma Smith agreed to this sex­u­al offer, William and Jane Law did not. Jack­son, con­tin­u­ing with his nar­ra­tive said that “He [Joseph] and Emma had both tried to per­suade her [Jane Law] of the cor­rect­ness of the doc­trine, but that she would not believe it to be of God.” With the Laws hav­ing reject­ed the offer, Joseph Smith received D&C 132, on July 12, 1843. Vers­es 51–52, 54, now instruct Emma:

That she stay her­self and par­take not of that which I com­mand­ed you to offer unto her; for I did it, saith the Lord, to prove you all, as I did Abra­ham .… Let my hand­maid, Emma Smith, receive all those that have been giv­en unto my ser­vant Joseph .… I com­mand mine hand­maid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my ser­vant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this com­mand­ment, she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her.

William Law record­ed Joseph and Emma’s com­ments on these vers­es: “[Joseph] thought the rev­e­la­tion would cause [Emma] to sub­mit peace­ful­ly, as it threat­ened her removal if she did not.” Emma con­fid­ed to Law that the rev­e­la­tion, which she did not believe, was a “threat against her life,” if she did not com­ply. Law said that Emma, “Spoke repeat­ed­ly about that pre­tend­ed rev­e­la­tion … [and] says[,] ‘I must sub­mit or be destroyed. Well, I guess I have to sub­mit.’ ” Emma sub­mit­ted to Joseph’s instruc­tion, but Joseph con­tin­ued his pro­pos­als to sin­gle and mar­ried women until Decem­ber of 1843, includ­ing Jane Law.

Sev­er­al months lat­er, prob­a­bly dur­ing Novem­ber-Decem­ber, Joseph made a play for the “attrac­tive” 30-year-old Jane Law. William wrote in his diary on May 13, 1844, that, “He [Smith] had late­ly endeav­ored to seduce my wife, and had found her a vir­tu­ous woman.” Alexan­der Neibaur, a close friend of Joseph Smith, record­ed: “When Mr[.] Law came home [one evening,] he Inquired who had been in his Absence. She said no one but Br Joseph. He then demand­ed what had pass[ed.] Mrs[.] L[aw] then told [him] that Joseph want­ed her to be Mar­ried to him.”

Joseph Jack­son said much the same when he wrote: “Short­ly after the … (15^th of Jan, 1844) that Jo[s]e[ph] informed me in con­ver­sa­tion, that he had been endeav­or­ing for some two months, to get Mrs. William Law for a spir­i­tu­al [polyg­a­mist] wife. He said that he had used every argu­ment in his pow­er to con­vince her of the cor­rect­ness of his doc­trine, but could not suc­ceed.” Smith shared this infor­ma­tion, accord­ing to Jack­son, because Smith want­ed Law “removed.” Jack­son said that short­ly after Jan­u­ary 15^th:

One Sun­day morn­ing, Jo[s]e[ph] and I had a long talk con­cern­ing Law, in which he avowed, not for the first time, how­ev­er, his deter­mi­na­tion to put Law out of the way, for he had become dan­ger­ous to the church of Jesus Christ of Lat­ter Day Saints, and that it was the will of God that he should be removed. He, how­ev­er, wished to pro­ceed in such a man­ner that he would be able to get Law’s wife.

By Jan­u­ary 1, 1844, it is clear from William’s diary that the Laws have reject­ed Smith’s pro­pos­al. On Jan­u­ary 8^th, Law is dropped as a coun­selor in the First Pres­i­den­cy and on April 18^th, the Laws were excom­mu­ni­cat­ed from the church.

2. All Polyg­a­mist Unions were Ille­gal: Polygamy was ille­gal in the Unit­ed States at all times when the Church engaged in the prac­tice. The Illi­nois anti-bigamy law, enact­ed Feb­ru­ary 12, 1833, clear­ly stat­ed that polygamy was ille­gal. Polygamy was also ille­gal in Ohio and Mis­souri when Joseph took some of his plur­al wives. Polygamy was also ille­gal in Utah dur­ing the peri­od at issue. Final­ly, polygamy was ille­gal under fed­er­al law. Believ­ing that the rev­e­la­tions of God took prece­dence over the laws of men, Mor­mons ignored fed­er­al and state laws. These men includ­ing First Pres­i­den­cy coun­selor, George Q. Can­non, were impris­oned for prac­tic­ing polygamy. In fact, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment pub­lished and dis­sem­i­nat­ed want­ed posters and offered an $800 reward to any­one who would arrest the Pres­i­dent of the Church, John Tay­lor, and his first coun­selor, George Q. Can­non. ↑