General

[This post is part of a series on Joseph Smith’s Polygamy. To read from the beginning or link to previously published posts, go to A Faithful Joseph.]

Prior to the fall of 1841, an angel reportedly appeared to Joseph twice, commanding him to establish the principle of celestial marriage. But in the fall of 1841, the angel would return with sword in hand. Joseph had to establish the principle, or his position and very life were forfeit.

Something had changed. God could no longer permit Joseph to take his own sweet time establishing celestial marriage among members of the Church. In the final days of 1841 Joseph enlisted the aid of Dimick Huntington. Like Joseph Bates Noble, Dimick would remain true to Joseph beyond death.^[1]

The four women Joseph would marry in response to the angel’s threat were women who were married to other men.^[2] I believe Joseph did this because he had already contracted one marriage that did not involve sex. Perhaps he was already aware of how unhappy lack of intimacy had made Louisa Beaman. It would be unreasonable to expect other single women to be satisfied with a marriage that didn’t involve physical intimacy. But these married women would be relieved if the celestial marriage were purely ceremonial.
Continue reading The Angel, the Sword, and the Heron Seduction

1. ^[1]Dimick and his brother, William, were among the four men Emma would entrust with the secret reburial of Joseph’s remains in February, 1845. The other two trusted men were Jonathan Harriman Holmes and Gilbert Goldsmith, son of Elizabeth Durfee.↩
2. ^[2]In one case, Agnes Coolbrith Smith, the husband had died.↩

[This post is part of a series about Joseph Smith’s Polygamy. To read from the beginning and see a list of published and planned posts in this series, go to A Faithful Joseph]

Dr. John Cook Bennett apparently came to Nauvoo in August 1840. By October 1840 he had been baptized. Less than six months after arriving in Nauvoo, he had been elected Mayor of the city. By the summer of 1842, Bennett and Joseph Smith were each alleging the other had participated in gross misconduct.

There are two prominent views of John Cook Bennett.

Those who revere Joseph Smith tend to believe Bennett was a devilish scoundrel who told vicious lies about Joseph Smith.

Those who don’t much care about Joseph Smith tend to believe Bennett was a colorful individual who possibly told the truth about Joseph Smith.

The great quandary for those who paint Bennett as an irredeemable scoundrel is the question of how Joseph Smith could have allowed Bennett to ascend to such heights.

However real people are not all good or all evil. I think of Bennett as someone who secured freedom for his adopted people and could have been one of the greatest leaders of the Mormon movement. Allow me to explain how a believing and honorable Bennett could have fallen. Continue reading Fall of the Doctor

[This post is part of a series on Joseph Smith’s Polygamy. To read from the beginning and see the list of published and planned posts, go to A Faithful Joseph.]

September 1840 marks the beginning of a new period of plural marriage, a time where we see Joseph Smith begin to urgently discuss plural marriage with individuals who will document their first-hand interactions on the subject. Joseph’s attempts to get folks to embrace plural marriage during this winter are unsuccessful, it must be noted. Joseph Smith would not be able to convince anyone to participate in plural marriage until April 1841.

September 1840 also marks the arrival of Dr. John Cook Bennett in the Mormon community. During this same winter, while Joseph searched in vain to find anyone willing to say “yes,” the allegedly single Bennett rose to the pinnacle of Nauvoo’s power structure. However Joseph would lose confidence in Bennett around the end of March 1841.

Is it coincidence that Joseph would only contract a plural marriage after confirming that Bennett was unfit to be entrusted with the secret of the New and Everlasting Covenant? Continue reading Winter of the Reluctant Virgins

[This post is seventh in a series. To read from the beginning, go to A Faithful Joseph.]

When discussing Joseph Smith’s plural marriages, many have simply presumed that Joseph initiated marriages whenever there was a plausible opportunity for Joseph to be in the same town or house or room as a putative wife. This seems to be the rationale behind Compton’s assertion that Joseph married Lucinda Pendleton in 1838 or the belief that Joseph fathered children with Hannah Dubois in the early 1830s.

I propose that instead of looking for possible trysts, we look at the deaths the ripped Joseph’s cautious soul enough to open a path for the restoration of eternal marriage, including plural marriage. The deaths of which I speak are in the historical record, though largely unknown. There may be more than the six I enumerate here: brother, son, friend, wife & mother, daughter, and father. But I believe these six were sufficient to open Joseph’s mind and heart to the meaning of God’s promise to the fathers and children stated in Malachi and quoted by the Angel Moroni.

Continue reading Six Funerals and a Blessing

[This post is sixth in a series about Joseph Smith and polygamy. To read the series from the beginning, go to A Faithful Joseph]

We all have excuses for avoiding an overwhelming task. Despite my mind being full of trivia supporting the possibility of a faithful Joseph, I found myself dreading laying out his decade of delay. Add arctic chill, snowfall, illness, the five jobs I have at work, and my several volunteer positions. I began to be anxious indeed. In my desire to have it all go away, I sensed the merest whisper of the dread I imagine Joseph felt–faced with an impossible commandment he honestly didn’t want to obey.
Continue reading The Decade of Delay

[This is the fifth post in a series. To read the series from the beginning, go to A Faithful Joseph.]

Before we discuss the details of the women and men who interacted with Joseph on the subject of marriage, let us remember that Joseph Smith primarily taught his followers doctrines of faith, repentance, and baptism that are familiar throughout the Christian world.

Of those doctrines the rest of Christianity find controversial, the vast majority are teachings Mormons cherish: mankind’s relationship to God, the responsibility of individuals to their children, and our duty to our ancestors. We cherish the power the marriage bond offers us in Mormon theology.

The crucible that gave birth to modern Mormon marriage practices, however, is the mis-understood, never-talked about *thing* that causes so many to question the simple faith they had as children, converts, or young missionaries. But Joseph’s struggle has a pattern to it that most of us have failed to see. Before I started telling you the stories of these women, I wanted to explain my conceptual framework for understanding these ladies and the milieu in which the concepts associated with modern Mormon marriage emerged.

Continue reading Of Wives and Handmaids