Scott Woodward:
Did you know that Joseph Smith’s first attempt to obey the Lord’s command to him to practice plural marriage ended quite badly and ended up straining his relationships, both with his first wife, Emma, and with his close friend Oliver Cowdery? And have you ever heard that Joseph was sealed to several women who already had living husbands? Was this a scandalous practice or was something else going on? And have you heard that Joseph was also sealed to Helen Kimball, who was only 14 years old at the time? You might be both surprised and relieved to learn the reasons behind this. And have you ever wondered if Joseph had any children with any of his other 35 wives besides Emma? On today’s episode of Church History Matters, we do a deep dive into all of these topics and more as we trace Joseph Smith’s creative, trial-and-error approach to personally living the practice of plural marriage, including some innovative uses of the sealing power, to accomplish God’s will the best he understood it. I’m Scott Woodward, a managing director at Scripture Central, and my co-host is Casey Griffiths, also a managing director at Scripture Central. And today, Casey and I dive into our second episode in this series dealing with plural marriage. Now, let’s get into it.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Welcome to the Doctrine and Covenants Central Podcast. I’m Casey Griffiths, joined once again by the inestimable Scott Woodward. Scott, say hi.

Scott Woodward:
Hello, everybody.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And this is part two of our discussion on plural marriage in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Now, in case you haven’t had a chance to listen to our first episode, which you should go back and listen to if you haven’t, here’s just a quick recap of some of the things we discussed in the first episode of what’s going to be several on the subject of plural marriage. First, Joseph Smith appears to have first learned the principles of plural marriage in 1831 as part of his project to translate the Bible. This is obviously difficult for Joseph Smith and for the people closest to him, and he wrestles with it, especially in light of the culture. So this is difficult for everybody involved, but in particular, Joseph Smith struggles with it.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The main document that we have, and this is what we spent the majority of our time on discussion about in our first episode, is section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants, which comes relatively late, in 1843, 12 years after the principles were first revealed, but it’s our best place to kind of articulate the whys behind plural marriages.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The whys given there, Scott, you want to tackle a couple of those?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, so there were four reasons, right? The four official kind of canonized reasons. The first was a test of faithfulness couched in the Abrahamic sacrifice motif. You know, we talked about how even though this practice has been discontinued for over a hundred years now, plural marriage still acts as a test for many members of the church today, right? Pulling at our heartstrings. It’s as repugnant today as it ever was for many of us.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
The second is that it was a part of the restitution of all things. The third reason given was to multiply and replenish the earth, the one that we most quickly think of.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And then the fourth is to provide a path for the exaltation of all faithful women. Section 132 articulates this idea that everyone needs to be sealed in an eternal marriage in order to be a candidate for the highest heaven. And for those women who are unable to do so monogamously, for whatever reason, plural marriage would help them in an obtaining a celestial marriage.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
So monogamous or plural, doesn’t matter. As long as you are sealed in the new and everlasting covenant of marriage, that would be sufficient to help your exaltation. So that was reason number four.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Now, believe it or not, that was the easy part of the discussion. When we’re dealing with the whys, we’re dealing with canonized scripture where we can point and say, “Hey, a revelation says this is the reason why.”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
From here on, the discussion’s going to be a little bit more focused around the “what.”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And this means that we’re going to be dealing with some places where we have gaps in our historical record where there’s some things that we don’t know that we wish we did.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And rather than offering, like, a strict interpretation about, “Hey, here’s what happened,” I think our approach is going to be to basically say, “Here’s what we know, and here’s what we don’t know,” and we’re not necessarily going to try and manage the gaps.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
For instance, a big gap is there’s not a lot of material from Emma Smith about her perspective on plural marriage. And so rather than speculating what Emma might have been feeling or anything like that, we’re going to kind of just tell you what we know and what we don’t know, and then let you make up your own mind as you go forward.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So today we’re talking about and providing a timeline of how plural marriage was initiated, and then practiced in the church.

Scott Woodward:
Yes.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
We’re going to start again in 1831 and work our way through the known sources. Is that fair to say, Scott?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, I think that’s fair to say. We’re just going to piece together the best we can, using the best research and available sources, and knowing that it’s going to be imperfect, as all historical reconstruction is. But this one is particularly challenging.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And another thing to keep in mind here is these are Victorian people, that they don’t want to talk about their intimate lives, and very few of them do. And so some of those questions that are most pressing about plural marriage are things that it’s difficult to find sources to answer just because at this point in time, people didn’t often open up about their intimate lives.

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So we’re actually going to go all the way back to 1831 again and start from there with the sources we know and how plural marriage was developed. It’s clear that Joseph Smith knows he’s supposed to practice plural marriage, but isn’t necessarily given a how it’s supposed to be performed. And so, Scott, why don’t you take us through the sources so we know a little bit about what happened here.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, it seems clear that from what happens and how the story unfolds as we understand it, that Joseph was not given an instruction manual on precisely how to live the practice himself or on exactly how to implement it among his people. He’s gotta figure it out. And this seems to be the way the Lord deals with some of his best students is he gives them the general principles and then he lets them figure it out.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And anytime you’ve got to figure it out and your agency’s involved, that leaves room for some stumbling and bumbling. And so we’re going to see that a little bit, I think, in this, at least as far as we have sources to help us reconstruct this, so.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
We can assume pretty safely, I think, that Joseph has basically got the principles of D&C 132 in his mind, and that’s about it, as far as we know. He doesn’t begin until sometime between 1834 and 1836. This will be in Kirtland, Ohio, and this will be his first attempt at plural marriage. Why doesn’t he start this—if he knows about it in 1831 why does he not attempt to enter in until 1834 to 1836? I think that’s a pretty good question.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
We have a little bit from one of his wives, Mary Elizabeth Rollins. She later recollects that an angel came to Joseph three times. Here’s the direct quote. She said that Joseph told her, “The angel came to me three times between the years of 1834 and 1842, and said I was to obey that principle or he would slay me.”¹ She also said that “Joseph the Seer … said [that] God gave him a commandment in 1834, to take other wives besides Emma.”² So 1834 seems to be the year when we know that the Lord, through the angel, is now urging Joseph to begin the practice. And so it’s Mary Elizabeth Rollins’ account that gives us that 1834 mark.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And then we know when this got broken up. His first plural marriage attempt got broken up in 1836. We know that because of Eliza R. Snow. So it had to be somewhere in that 1834-1836 timeframe.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Let me interject here a little bit about the source.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, sometimes she’s called, is giving this at a speech at BYU in the early 20th century, right?[³ So we’re several decades removed.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Now, she is a close friend of Joseph Smith, and she’s just about our only source on this 1834 date, right?

Scott Woodward:
That’s right. She says it twice. Yeah, she’s the source saying that the angels started urging in 1834 and then another time, and then he comes the last time in 1842, according to her. So we’ll kind of use that recollection as a timeline spine that I think helps to make sense of many of the facts as we’ll go through the story today.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
OK. So 1834-36 is the time frame we’re dealing with here.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And who is Joseph Smith’s first plural wife?

Scott Woodward:
Her name is Fanny Alger. She was 19 or 20 years old, depending on when in that timeframe he marries her. She was the help in Joseph and Emma’s home, so she helped Emma keep the home. She lived there with them, and Joseph apparently proposed through her uncle Levi Hancock. We have a late recollection of Levi’s son, Mosiah Hancock. And he tells the story that Joseph proposes to Fanny through Levi Hancock, her uncle.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
Levi went to her father, Solomon, and he said, “That’s fine by me. You need to ask my wife.” So he asks, that would’ve been Levi’s sister, I think Clarissa is her name. He asked Clarissa, she said, “That’s fine by me. You need to ask Fanny.” And so then Levi goes to Fanny, and Fanny accepts the proposal. And then, according to this account, Mosiah Hancock’s account, Joseph told Levi Hancock what to say in the ceremony, and then he repeated it back. So Joseph is telling him the words, Levi’s saying the words, and by the time he’s done, the ceremony has been performed, and they are now husband and wife.⁴

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
So that’s as far as we know the details of—we have that late recollection of that happening.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
OK.

Scott Woodward:
Then, in 1836, Eliza R. Snow is going to move into the Smith Home, and it’s going to be the spring of 1836, a few weeks after the Kirtland Temple is dedicated in April.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
Where Fanny Alger is going to be abruptly kicked out of the house. And this is the time period when Emma discovers what has happened. Apparently Joseph—again, we have to infer some things here by her reaction. It doesn’t seem like Joseph told her about this. There’s some late accounts; they’re kind of antagonistic sources. William E. McLellin‘s got one. He was at this time an apostate, a former member of the Quorum of the Twelve, so we’re not sure if he’s doing some innuendo and shenanigans and remembering things wrong, but he says that Emma discovered Joseph and Fanny in the barn.⁵ She saw them getting married through a crack in the barn, so we don’t know what to make of McLellin’s account.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, the William McLellin letter, which everybody points to on Fanny Alger, is highly suspect. McLellin brings up a couple other instances in that letter that just did not happen, and it seems like he was trying to stir the pot a little bit when he did that.

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so I would say I’d handle that source with real care. The other sources that we have here are Mosiah Hancock, who’s very late. This is an account from the 1890s, and then surprisingly, the reason why Fanny even enters into the conversation is Eliza R. Snow.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Andrew Jenson, the church historian, is trying to compile a list of Joseph Smith’s plural wives. And Eliza, who was roommates with Fanny in Kirtland, is the one that tells him he needs to include her, too. That Fanny was the first plural wife.⁶

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. She said “I was there.” I saw that—I knew that Fanny was because I was there, yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, I was there. I saw it.

Scott Woodward:
That’s right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But on the one hand, I mean, there’s nothing from Emma.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so everybody’s take on how Emma reacted to Fanny Alger is from William McLellin’s letter, which is really suspect.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And I’m not saying Emma was thrilled about it, because the marriage [between Joseph Smith and Fanny Alger] ends in separation, but at the same time, too, we’re being a little unfair to her and Joseph if we take a source that’s as questionable as that as far as people sometimes do.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, McLellin, another major problem with that source is that he says that Emma told him that.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
The odds of Emma Smith opening up to William E. McLellin about a matter that intimate is so astronomically small as to be laughable. I mean, that is just, yeah, that’s the number one flag there.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
What we do know is that Fanny was expelled from the home in 1836.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Eliza R. Snow is clear about that.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Something occurred where Emma is infuriated and kicks Fanny out of the house and is obviously not approving of this marriage. In fact, it got so bad that Joseph calls his friend Oliver Cowdery to come kind of help him out. But that even goes worse because Oliver sides with Emma. And so Emma does not think this is a legitimate union, and she thinks this is adulterous, from everything we can tell. In fact, later on, Oliver Cowdery is going to say that he believes that this was an adulterous affair.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. So Scott, when it comes to Oliver’s accusations with Joseph Smith, or what causes this kind of confrontation between them, there’s some sources, like there’s a letter written in January of 1838. Tell us a little bit about that. Who’s the letter to? What does it say?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, so we have a letter from Oliver to his brother, Warren Cowdery, where he says, “I never confessed [or] intimated or admitted that I ever willfully lied about him,” meaning Joseph Smith.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
“When he was here, 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 scrape.” And then “scrape” is crossed out and “affair” is overwritten in Warren F. Cowdery’s handwriting, which is Warren Cowdery’s son, so Oliver Cowdery’s nephew.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
So let me read that again. “I did not fail to affirm that [which] I had said was strictly true A dirty, nasty, filthy scrape [crossed out] affair of his and Fanny Algers (sic) was talked over in which I strictly declared that I had never deviated from the truth on the matter, … as I supposed was admitted by himself.”⁷ So we’re not sure what’s the context he’s talking about here, because his church trial hadn’t happened yet. That’ll happen in April, but he is talking to his brother here, Warren Cowdery, or writing to his brother, that he continues to affirm that some dirty, nasty, filthy affair/scrape between Joseph and Fanny Alger had been talked about and that he had affirmed the truthfulness of it and that—he says, I suppose, was admitted by Joseph. So that’s going to be a point of contention. Did Joseph really admit that he had had some dirty, nasty, filthy affair?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Later on, actually, at the minutes of Oliver Cowdery’s church trial in April, April 12, David W. Patten testified that when he went to Oliver Cowdery to inquire of him if a certain story was true respecting Joseph Smith’s committing adultery with a certain girl, Oliver “turned on his heel and insinuated as though he was guilty. He then went on and gave a history of some circumstances respecting the adultery scrape, stating that no doubt it was true. He also said that Joseph told him that he had confessed to Emma.” Thomas B. Marsh then tells the story that when David Patten asked Oliver Cowdery if Joseph had actually confessed to his wife that he was guilty of adultery, that Oliver “cocked up his eye very knowingly and hesitated to answer the question, saying he did not know as he was bound to answer the question, yet he conveyed the idea that it was true. Last fall,” Thomas. B. Marsh continues, “He heard a conversation take place between Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery” when Joseph confronts Oliver. “[Joseph] asked [Oliver] if he had ever confessed to him that he was guilty of adultery, when after considerable winking [&c.] he said no. Joseph … asked him if he ever told him that he confessed to any body, when he answered no.”⁸ That’s the end of that quote. And we know from the trial minutes of Oliver Cowdery’s excommunication trial, there were nine accusations, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And the second accusation was his insinuation that Joseph Smith had committed adultery. And so what I just read were some of the witnesses kind of brought to the stand here to explain what they had heard Oliver say and what they had overheard Joseph say to Oliver confronting him about this.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
So it’s a little unclear why Oliver wouldn’t just state the facts, but he’s got lots of insinuation, cocking his eye up, knowingly winking… I don’t know. What do you make of all this, Casey?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Interestingly, Oliver doesn’t attend the trial himself. He writes a letter, basically signaling that he’s going to resign his membership in the church. They excommunicate him before they accept his resignation. It’s kind of a, “You can’t quit, you’re fired” kind of situation.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But Oliver never addresses the charges that he was accusing Joseph of adultery. Oliver doesn’t respond when he’s given the chance. And in all these cases, even though they’re making it look like Oliver’s being kind of cagey, he never says [on the record] that Joseph Smith confessed to him that he was guilty of adultery. Oliver’s reason that he gave for leaving the church was that the church was trying to force him to sell his property in Jackson County and that this was an infringement on his rights as an American citizen and things like that.

Scott Woodward:
Hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So Oliver isn’t directly on the public record accusing Joseph Smith of adultery, and so it’s more complicated than that.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But I just think it’s curious that when Oliver has the chance to put it into the public record, he doesn’t even bring it up or address it.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And if it had been a significant factor in Oliver wanting to resign from the church or being excommunicated, I think he would’ve addressed it. I mean, if you’re getting kicked out of the church, it feels like this is your chance to, you know, burn the whole building down, too.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And he just doesn’t even address it, which is curious in my mind.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. It’s also curious the response of the council. At the end of the minutes of that meeting on April 12 Joseph Smith, Jr. himself testified about this, and here’s what the minutes say. It’s a little bit cryptic, I guess, or at least unsatisfying as I read it, but here’s what it says. “Joseph Smith, Jr. testifies that Oliver Cowdery had been his bosom friend, therefore he entrusted him with many things.” And then it says, “Joseph then gave a history respecting the girl business.” And that’s the end of the matter. So whatever Joseph said about “the girl business,” this is him responding to the accusation. The counsel concluded based on what they heard, that there was no adultery, that that accusation was not true.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. I want to point out one thing. In the minutes, which you can find on the Joseph Smith Papers site, the JSP historians that have looked at this, when Joseph makes that line where he had entrusted Oliver with many things, there’s a footnote there where the JSP historians write, “It is unclear precisely what information [Joseph Smith] entrusted to Cowdery regarding [his] relationship with Fanny Alger. Later accounts variously claim that Cowdery performed a marriage ceremony between [Joseph Smith] and Alger, was called upon by [Joseph Smith] to mediate between [him] and Emma Smith after the relationship was discovered, or had been taught the doctrine of plural marriage privately and took a plural wife contrary to [Joseph’s] instructions.”⁹ And they’re drawing from two articles. One’s by Don Bradley on the relationship of Joseph Smith, and Fanny Alger, one’s by Brian Hales on accusations of adultery and polygamy made against Oliver Cowdery. So, I mean, we’re speculating to say as to what Joseph Smith entrusted him with. It could be that he told Oliver Cowdery about plural marriage and explained the doctrines and the sealing keys behind it.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So if we’re looking at the historical records, strictly speaking, Oliver doesn’t provide an answer to that question. He doesn’t comment on it any further. Joseph Smith, when he takes the stand, does say that he had had conversations with Oliver about this.

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And the fact that Oliver doesn’t respond or make further accusations or charges in his response seems to suggest that maybe there was some sort of détente that was reached there, that they reconciled a little bit on it. I don’t know if that’s the case, but to me it’s telling that when Oliver states his reasons for resigning his membership to the church, he doesn’t mention Fanny Alger or the affair or anything like that at all.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
When it seems like if Oliver’s interested in reforming the church, he would’ve brought that up. He would’ve been confrontational at it.

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But one of the reasons he directly states in the historical record is not anything to do with Fanny Alger. It’s all stuff that has to do with finance and what he saw as the church exerting unfair control over his finances.

Scott Woodward:
Well, that’s good. So it strained the relationship between him and Joseph, we could say, but we don’t know how much, and it certainly was not the only factor. That’s what I’m hearing you say.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. I would say the sources indicate that it definitely strained their relationship, but it’s not in Oliver’s directly stated reasons for leaving the church.

Scott Woodward:
And that’s the only point I really wanted to bring up was just that this marriage, the sealing with Fanny Alger is going to strain that bosom friendship that Joseph spoke of with him and Oliver, and so that’s just one of the fallouts of the Fanny Alger experience, in addition to the strain that it put on Joseph’s marriage with Emma.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. I would agree with you that it’s clear that this first, early venture into plural marriage just seems like it doesn’t end well.

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I mean, for obvious reasons, the marriage ends in separation. Fanny stays behind in Ohio. Joseph moves on to Missouri and then Nauvoo, and it’s several years until he makes another attempt. The next plural wife that we have record of is April 1841. That’s Louisa Beaman.

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And you mentioned earlier that, according to Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, this is also around the time that the angel visits Joseph Smith again and issues the same instruction, to enter into plural marriage.

Scott Woodward:
So yeah, that would be about a five-year gap between when the Fanny Alger or Alger marriage occurred, or ended, let’s say, and when he starts again. So that five-year gap has caused some head scratching. I don’t think it’s too head scratching to wonder, “Why would Joseph not rush into another plural marriage after the Fanny Alger incident?” I mean, that was such a painful first attempt is what it seems like. There was no rush to get into that again. It’s going to take the angel coming a second time, it seems like, to say, “All right, it’s time to begin again.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It fits the idea that Joseph Smith is hesitant. He’s struggling with this.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
By this point he’s seen a toll on his personal relationships, but there’s still a compelling reason for him to practice it, and he does get back to it eventually in Nauvoo and then eventually starts introducing it to other people as well.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, that’s right. Sorry, can I say one more thing about Emma and Kirtland?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Yeah, please.

Scott Woodward:
If, and again we’re going on such thin historical record, but what we do know is that after Fanny leaves, and that marriage is for all intents and purposes no longer, that, Emma, if she felt like this was an adulterous situation, she forgave Joseph.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
She stays with Joseph and continues to be by his side and to suffer with the Saints and to come to Nauvoo, and she’s amazing.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
If she felt like this was adulterous and she sticks with Joseph and forgave him, that’s a remarkable thing. I just want to point that out, that that’s amazing. Even if Joseph’s like, “This is not adulterous. The angel required it. God wanted me to do this,” and if Emma didn’t believe that and continued to forgive, I mean, that’s remarkable.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. The most frustrating part of this journey is how little source material we have from conversations between Joseph and Emma.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Other than section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants, almost everything is thirdhand.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And those discussions that they must have been having would be a major part of this story that could really contribute to it. Because, for instance, when he starts over in Nauvoo, it’s interesting that there are different types of sealings that happened in Nauvoo.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
For instance, when we think of the word “sealing” nowadays, it’s synonymous with marriage in the church. It means you’re married to someone, “I was sealed to this person.” In Nauvoo they had various types of sealings, including eternity-only sealings, which were a little bit different than the way we think of sealings today. Do you want to explain a little bit about eternity-only sealings?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, so there’s a few instances where we know for sure there were eternity-only sealings, and then there are others that come by inference.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
OK.

Scott Woodward:
So we know that after Louisa Beaman, Louisa Beaman was unmarried, and so this was a time-and-eternity marriage that he enters into in Nauvoo, 1841.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
So that’s his second known plural wife. But after that, he begins this string of curious eternity-only marriages. In fact, eight of his next nine proposals are to women who are already married.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And this, you know, when you first learn about this, this is quite the head scratcher. Why would he propose to women who are already married?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
It appears that there’s at least three possible reasons, maybe a mixture of all three. Or maybe there’s more that we don’t know about. But there seems to be a few reasons. One of them would be a doctrinal reason. Again, back to D&C 132, the fourth reason, that marriage in the new and everlasting covenant is essential for exaltation.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
So some of these women who were married to other men were faithful, active women in the church, but their spouses were non-members, or they were inactive, or they were faithless in some way. And so being sealed to Joseph as a plural wife for eternity only would help meet that eternal sealing need, right? It would allow those worthy women to be sealed to an eternal husband for her exaltation in the eternal worlds, in spite of their living husband’s faithlessness.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And so that’s a big doctrinal reason why this would’ve occurred. In fact—

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner is our sterling example of this, right?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
We’ve been calling her Mary Elizabeth Rollins because of her ties of the Rollins family, but her married name was Mary Elizabeth Lightner. Her husband is Adam Lightner, who—I have seen his grave. It’s right next to Mary’s grave in my mom’s hometown in Minersville.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Adam is a great guy by all accounts, but he’s not a member of the church, and he never joins. And so Mary Elizabeth was one of Joseph’s plural wives, probably for the exact doctrinal reason that you’re explaining here, that her husband wasn’t a church member. She was sealed to Joseph Smith in order to enter into this “new and everlasting order of the priesthood,” as section 131 describes it.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, in fact, that leads us to the second potential reason that he did this. And sometimes it was just situational. It’s related to the first. Sometimes the women would prefer Joseph to be their eternal husband. One great example of this is one of Joseph’s plural wives named Ruth Vose Sayers. She’s the legal wife of a Mr. Sayers in the record.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
In Andrew Jenson’s biographical sketch of Ruth Vose Sayers, he says, Mr. Sayers, her husband, “not attaching much importance to the theory of a future life, insisted that his wife Ruth should be sealed to the prophet for eternity, [as] he himself should only claim her in this life.” And so “she was accordingly [the] (sic) sealed to the Prophet in Emma Smith’s presence and thus [were] (sic) became numbered among the Prophet’s plural wives.” So in this instance, we have a husband, we don’t know—again, a private conversation between Ruth and her husband. I don’t know if she was nagging him or what was happening, but at some point he says, “Let’s just get you sealed to Joseph. He can have you in eternity, and I’ll have you for now. How about that?” And she, she says, “That’s a great idea.”¹⁰ So that’s a situational reason. What would be the second? Just kind of, this is what husbands and wives had kind of worked out amongst themselves, and Joseph allowed it, and so that’s an interesting story.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Let me just cite one other example. Nancy Marinda Hyde is the wife of Orson Hyde. She’s sealed to Joseph Smith. Later on, in the Utah period, Orson is practicing plural marriage at this point, too. But she actually approaches him and sort of, I guess as gently as possible, tells him that she considers Joseph Smith to be her husband in the eternities, and they end their marriage relationship in this life with the anticipation that she’d be with Joseph in the eternities, too. So there’s a lot of complexity going on here.

Scott Woodward:
Totally.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And when we’re talking about sealing, we really need to sometimes use this perspective that it doesn’t seem like in most of these marriages, there was marriage in the sense we think of it.

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It was like they were connecting together, they were creating familial relationships that would go into the eternities.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. And I think that’s a key thing, and that bleeds into the third reason, which we could just call an emotional reason why eternity-only sealings would be appealing to Joseph Smith, is because they didn’t live together as husband and wife. In fact, when they already have a husband, that would prevent any sexual relationship, right? And I think Joseph maybe preferred this approach because it allowed him to be technically obedient to the commandment while essentially guaranteeing that there would be no sexuality in the relationship, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And so the absence of sexuality in an eternity-only sealing would provide that layer of emotional protection for Joseph and Emma Smith’s relationship.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And the Gospel Topics essay on Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo says as much. Let me quote from it. It says, “These eternity-only sealings may also be explained by Joseph’s reluctance to enter plural marriage because of the sorrow it would bring to his wife, Emma. He may have believed that sealings to married women would comply with the Lord’s command without requiring him to have normal marriage relationships.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And looking at this from all the angles, I think that’s got to be close to the truth, if not dead on.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
The experience with Fanny Alger was just scarring, I believe, with Joseph and Emma’s relationship. And so when the angel comes again, and now he’s married Louisa Beaman, and that’s reopened up all the scar tissue from Kirtland. I think Joseph probably preferred this eternity-only approach because of that advantage.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
This may have been a way of reaching compromise between Joseph and Emma to obey the Lord’s commandment but insulate her from some of the emotional consequences of Joseph having other wives.

Scott Woodward:
That’s right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Now, obviously eternity-only sealings aren’t practiced today.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Why does it end? What are the sources on that?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, that’s a good question. So in 1842, according to Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, that third time the angel comes, this time with a sword, right? Brandishing the sword to make his point that “No, Joseph, we’re not talking about eternity only.” At least, that’s the inference, right? The inference would be eternity-only sealings are not fully what the Lord has in mind.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Hmm.

Scott Woodward:
So in 1842, we see Joseph’s practice suddenly switch from eternity-only sealings to now marrying women who did not have husbands. So these would be time and eternity marriages.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
In fact, between 1842 and 1843, Joseph will marry 20 more women during that time, all of whom do not have husbands.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And that would fit, again, with the timeline of Mary Elizabeth Rollins, where she’s saying, 1842, angel comes a third time. Suddenly Joseph’s marriage practice switches to marrying single women. And so I think we can infer from that that that eternity-only approach was not fully satisfying to the Lord.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
Do you think that’s a fair inference?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I think it’s a fair inference. Again, we have limited sources to tell us what was going on here, right? I mean, it’s complicated, right?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It’s clear that some of these marriages are eternity only in which they’re husband and wife in eternity, but not acting as husband and wife in this life. But now I’m going to raise the question that comes up in my classes. Was Joseph husband and wife in the full sense with any of these women? And as a follow-up question, did he have children with any of these plural wives?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. You know, so we have about 35 well-documented wives of Joseph Smith. Nine of them there is sexuality that is documented.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
Like you said, they’re kind of in a Victorian time period where that’s not something that you normally would divulge.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
But the stakes were raised later on in the temple lot case—

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
where—Casey, you might have a better grasp on the details of the temple lot. Could you sketch that?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, let me provide some background. This case came up when the reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had kind of come into its own, and for a while there were several legal squabbles over the Kirtland Temple and over the temple lot in Independence, as to which church was the legitimate church, which church was the church that traces itself back to Joseph Smith.

Scott Woodward:
The RLDS church, is it the Temple Lot Church? Is it The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. There’s all these schisms kind of running around, and one of the major things that the RLDS were arguing during this time, they don’t argue this anymore, but they did at the time, was that Joseph Smith never practiced plural marriage, that Brigham Young initiated it and that Joseph Smith was never involved. And so, in response to this, several of Joseph’s plural wives were asked to testify.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And again, these are chaste people. They don’t like to talk about their sex lives.

Scott Woodward:
“Did you have carnal relations?” I remember that question. “Did you have carnal relations?” That’s such a direct question.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Oh my gosh. I can’t imagine how invasive that is for a 19th century person who’s deeply religious.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But credit these women for their bravery. They did tell the truth when they were on the stand.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. “Yes. Yes, we did.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Now a complicating factor is, as far as we know, Joseph Smith doesn’t have any children with anybody besides Emma Smith.

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
A friend of ours, mutual friend Ugo Perego—

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—who’s a genetic researcher, actually tracked down a couple people, I think Josephine Lyon is the most prominent one, who said that they were the children of Joseph Smith. Ugo took DNA samples from descendants of Joseph Smith, from his children with Emma and from Josephine Lyon, who claimed she was the daughter of Joseph Smith, and the results came back negative.¹¹ We can’t find or identify any children that were born of these unions. Joseph Smith only had children with Emma.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, there’s about 20 claims of children, eight of which are pretty solid, and yeah, all of those have been DNA tested and have come back negative.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Josephine Lyon, apparently when her mom was dying, Sylvia Sessions Lyon, when she was dying, she said to Josephine, “You are the daughter of Joseph Smith.” And so Josephine believed it, and her posterity believed it. But yeah, Ugo Perego has looked into that, and there’s no DNA evidence that that’s the case.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And so that has raised some questions. If one of the four reasons given in scripture was to multiply and replenish, how come Joseph didn’t multiply and replenish with anyone but Emma?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And there are a few sources, like Mary Elizabeth Lightner, again, she said “I don’t know about his having children, but I heard of three. I heard of three that he was the father of,” she said, so a little hearsay there. Another one, George Reynolds, who’s a secretary to Wilford Woodruff, he said in 1892 that one of his plural wives did become pregnant but miscarried, he said.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
We’ve got Lucy Walker Smith, one of Joseph’s wives. This is when some of the sons of Joseph and Emma from the RLDS church have come to Utah and are interviewing these wives of Joseph, or these purported wives. Right? They’re still trying to decide how they come down on that, whether they’re going to believe that Joseph started this or Brigham Young.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And so Lucy Walker Smith says to Joseph’s sons, she later wrote about that experience, that “they seem surprised that there was no issue,” or no children from asserted plural marriages with their father. And then she says, “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.” So one of his wives‘ perspectives was, “We didn’t really have a lot of time together,” right? That he was harassed and hounded and lived in constant fear.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
They’re not having a lot of opportunity for intimacy, it sounds like.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
If they had had children together, I don’t think that would change the equation in the least. I mean, some of these women, Louisa Beaman, for instance, married Brigham Young after Joseph’s death and had several children through him, and the whole time plural marriage was practiced in the church it was common practice for plural wives and their husbands to have children.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Since you brought up Lucy Walker, can I circle back to her? Is that OK?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, sure. Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
One problem we sometimes have in introducing plural marriage is just trying to capture perspective and how it must have felt to have this marriage practice introduced to you.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So you mentioned Lucy Walker Smith. She’s one of Joseph Smith’s plural wives. This is a quote from her autobiography. You can find this at the Church History Library. I think it’s digitized. You can go and look it up. She said, “Every feeling of my soul revolted against it. Said I, ‘˜The same God who sent this message is the being I have worshipped from my early childhood, and and he must manifest his will to me.’ He walked across the room.” This is Joseph Smith, “returned, and stood before me with the most beautiful expression of countenance and said, ‘God Almighty bless you. You shall have a manifestation of the will of God concerning you, a testimony that you can never deny. I will tell you what it shall be. It shall be that joy in peace that you never knew.’” So he tells her, “Go and get your own manifestation. Pray about it. Get a revelation from the Lord.” And this is what she writes as her experience: “Oh, how earnestly I prayed for those words to be fulfilled. It was near dawn after another sleepless night when my room was lighted up by heavenly influence. To me it was, in comparison, like the brilliant sun bursting through the darkest cloud. The words of the prophet were indeed fulfilled. My soul was filled with a calm, sweet peace that I never knew.”

Scott Woodward:
Hm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
“Supreme happiness took possession of me, and I received a powerful and irresistible testimony of the truth of plural marriage, which has been like an anchor to the soul through all trials of life. I felt that I must go out in the morning air and give vent to the joy and gratitude that filled my soul. As I descended the stairs, President Smith opened the door below, took me by the hand and said, ‘Thank God you have the testimony. I, too, have prayed.’ He led me to a chair, he placed his hands on my head, and blessed me with every blessing my heart could possibly desire.”

Scott Woodward:
Hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so in discussing the numbers and sort of the more sensational questions surrounding plural marriage, like, “Were they intimate with each other?“ ”Did they have children together?”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
We shouldn’t overlook the fact that the men and women who entered into this practice saw it as a deeply spiritual practice.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Doesn’t seem like Lucy Walker had an easy time with it, and the Lord granted her a reprieve from her struggle by giving her a manifestation that this was the right thing. I think it’s important to tell that because it doesn’t seem like there was coercion that happened here.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It was a “Go and find your own testimony,” and there were several instances of people who had the principles explained to them and then decided not to enter into it, too. It was very carefully introduced.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, sometimes it—there’s this antagonistic strain of people who want to make it out to be that Joseph was abusing his ecclesiastical position and putting all kinds of pressure on these women, even threatening them with loss of salvation or something like that if they didn’t marry him, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
But there is no historical evidence that bears that out. In fact, the opposite is true, like the accounts of Lucy Walker that you just gave. There’s multiple accounts from his other wives talking about spiritual manifestations. Mary Elizabeth Rollins, she said she actually saw an angel and was freaked out and, like, covered her head under her sheets, right? And she didn’t know what to say to the angel. And Joseph was a little disappointed that she didn’t let him talk to her. She just hid under his sheets. But she got her witness that this was a true principle.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And Joseph never, as far as we have any historical record, put any sort of salvation on the line, or there was no coercion, no force. In fact, one of the things I love about Joseph Smith’s approach on this that helps me know that he is upright and he is as good as we often talk about him being, is that he would propose to most of his wives through their dad or through their brother. Yeah. It was never coercion. It was always either “You get your own witness,” or he’s proposing through the very protectors of their chastity. Is that the kind of shenanigans that a fraudulent man who’s just trying to abuse his ecclesiastical position so he can gratify his lustful desires, is he going to go to the guardian of the chastity and virtue of the woman and propose through them? Would he propose through the dad or the brother if he was just trying to take advantage of these women? I propose that he would not.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Here’s a great case in point: Benjamin F. Johnson‘s a close friend of Joseph Smith, and—this is firsthand, Benjamin F. Johnson telling this story. He said “On … Sunday April second, President Smith took me by the arm for a walk, leading the way to a secluded spot within the adjacent grove, where to my … surprise, he commenced to offer [correction: open up] to me the principle of plural or celestial marriage, but I was more astonished by his asking me for my sister Almera to be his wife.” So he is going through the brother here. Now, watch. He says, “I sincerely believed him to be a prophet of God, and I loved him as such, and also for the many evidences of his kindness to me, yet such was the force of my education, and the scorn that I felt … unvirtuous, that under the first impulse of my feelings, I looked him calmly, but firmly in the face and told him that ‘I had always believed [you] to be a good man, [Joseph,] and wished to believe it still, and would try to;’— and that, ‘I would take for him a message to my sister, and if the doctrine was true, all would be well, but if I should afterwards learn that it was offered to insult or prostitute my sister I would take his life.” That’s awesome. “If you’re lying to me, Joseph, you’re trying to take advantage of my sister, I will kill you.” This is one of Joseph’s very close friends. That’s the point, isn’t it? That’s the point.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And he goes on. He said that Joseph responded with a smile, “Benjamin, you will never see that day, but you shall live to know that it is true, and rejoice in it.”¹² So, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I ask you, do Joseph’s actions here strike you as the actions of a man looking to take advantage of women? I submit that approaching the guardians of these women’s virtue to propose marriage is not the action of a lust-hungry man.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Another prominent example, the same thing you’re arguing here, Scott, is Sarah Ann Whitney.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The marriage ceremony that they used, which was actually performed in 1842, was published as part of the Joseph Smith Papers recently, and Sarah Ann Whitney is the daughter of Newell K. Whitney and his wife. Her name—is it Elizabeth Whitney? It’s escaping me right now.

Scott Woodward:
Yep. Elizabeth. Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Who, according to the same pattern you set up here, they were approached by Joseph to ask if he could be sealed to Sarah Ann. In fact, a close family friend records this: “Bishop Whitney was not a man that readily accepted of every doctrine and would question the prophet very closely upon principles, if not made clear to his understanding. When Joseph saw that he was doubtful concerning the righteousness of the celestial order, he told them to go and inquire of the Lord concerning it, and they should receive a testimony for himself. The bishop with his wife, who had for years been called Mother Whitney, retired together and unitedly besought the Lord for a testimony whether or not this principle was from him. As they ever after bore testimony, they received a manifestation and that it was so powerful they could not mistake it.”¹³

Scott Woodward:
Hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So he’s not just asking the women that he’s being sealed to to get a manifestation. In this case, he asked their parents to get a manifestation, and the ceremony is performed by Sarah’s father in this instance. That, again, doesn’t fit the pattern of an adulterous, sneaking-around-behind-the-back kind of relationship.

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It was creating this connection, and that’s maybe another angle to look at is—you phrased it so well in our outline today: creating dynastic connections.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Connecting families. In fact, some of Joseph’s more controversial sealings, like Helen Marr Kimball, can maybe be explained by this feeling of “let’s connect families together.” Can you explain a little bit about that?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Remember when Jesus was talking to Peter in Matthew 16:19 and he said that he would give unto him the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and then he used this as his word. He says, “Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth will be bound in heaven.” I think the word “whatsoever” when it comes to the sealing power was interpreted by Joseph Smith with some leeway, some wiggle room, to be able to use the sealing power in different ways to try to help save people. You know, that’s the ultimate goal.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And if eternal marriage is one of those things we need to do to be saved, sealing power is there to help make that happen. But there’s this other idea that is brought up in Nauvoo of connecting families sort of horizontally and not just connecting a husband and a wife, but connecting families that wanted to be together in the network of heaven, the priesthood network of heaven, where you would want to connect with people that you loved. And so one of the ways plural marriage came into play here is if someone had a daughter, they could have the daughter sealed to Joseph, and that would then create a connection with the Joseph Smith family in this kind of dynasties, right? Like, kind of ancient kingdoms where the prince of this kingdom would marry the princess of that kingdom and connect the two dynasties. That’s kind of where the word “dynastic connection” comes in.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
Which made sense when Joseph’s talking about the Kingdom of God and establishing kingdoms and kings and queens and priests and priestesses in the Nauvoo theology as it develops.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Concrete example is Heber C. Kimball and his wife, Vilate, offered to Joseph Smith their daughter Helen Kimball. At the time, she was 14 years old, and so this is one of those controversial ones, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
It was her parents’ idea. Heber C. Kimball was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and they had a desire to be connected to the Smiths. In fact, let’s just actually let Helen speak for herself here. I have a quote from her. She says this, that later on she’s going to actually write one or two books. Did she write two books about plural marriage?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
She writes a couple defending plural marriage, yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, she was a staunch defender of plural marriage, and so her first introduction to it was her dad talking about it with her gently and giving her some time to think about that and then actually making the proposal. So here’s her own account, she said “He,” meaning her father, Heber C․ Kimball, “taught me the principle of celestial marriage, and having a great desire to be connected with the prophet Joseph, he offered me to him.” And so that’s Helen’s understanding is this would be a way to connect the two families.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
Now, Joseph Smith is never with Helen sexually. This appears to be an eternity-only sealing by all accounts. So if the Kimball and Smith families are bound through this daughter, Helen, on earth, then these families would be bound together in heaven. And so that’s a third kind of innovative way Joseph is using sealing power, and plural marriage in this case was the way to make that happen.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Another expression here, again, expanding our use of the word “sealing,” is that after Joseph is gone, Brigham Young expands the concept of sealing.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I like to shock my classes by saying, “Hey, my great, great, great granduncle was sealed to Brigham Young.” And everybody goes, *gasp*

Scott Woodward:
Dun dun.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But he was sealed as his son.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
There’s even some indications that sealing as an adoptive practice was something that happened in Nauvoo.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. They start even calling it adoptions, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
They say this is adoption practice, yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Let me point to a source I found a couple of months ago.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
This is Jane Manning James¹⁴, who’s kind of the patron saint of African American women in the church. She’s an African American convert, shows up in Nauvoo. In her autobiography, she wrote, “Sister Emma asked me one day if I would like to be adopted to them as their child. I did not answer her, and she said, ‘I will wait a while and let you consider it.’ She waited two weeks before she asked me again, and when she did, I told her, ‘No, ma’am,’ because I did not understand or know what it meant. They were always good and kind to me, but I did not know my own mind. I did not comprehend.”

Scott Woodward:
Hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Now it’s possible that what she’s making reference to was Emma proposing an adoptive sealing.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That raises all kinds of questions, but also fits the M. O. that Emma believed in these principles, but was extremely cautious with the way that they were used. She doesn’t put any pressure on her. She doesn’t coerce her. She introduces the idea. When there’s resistance encountered, Emma backs off.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And this practice of adoptive sealing actually continues for a while after Nauvoo. I think it’s Wilford Woodruff that ends it, isn’t it?

Scott Woodward:
That’s right. 1894, he gets a revelation. He announces it in General Conference to all temple sealers, all presidents of temples, to no longer allow for adoptive sealings. It kind of came to be that you’d want to be sealed into the family of Brigham Young or Heber C. Kimball or Erastus Snow, popular Apostles. You know, my great, great grandma is sealed to Erastus Snow. I think it was after Erastus Snow died, she got sealed to him.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
That was what they did. The idea was that you would kind of want to be sealed to someone who you were pretty sure was going to go to heaven or going to be in the celestial kingdom.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
You’re hedging your bets there, huh?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, right? Kind of hitch your wagon to theirs and kind of where they’re going to go, I’m going to go. So we kind of started building these, like, eternal dynastic family clusters. So Joseph Smith, we don’t have any evidence that he did it other than by way of marriage. That Jane Manning James story is interesting that that was proposed, but we don’t have any evidence that actually anything ever came about other than by marriage with Joseph. But then Brigham Young, he’ll use it as adopting children.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Hmm.

Scott Woodward:
You know, President Packer once mentioned this in one of his books, called The Things of the Soul, page 214-216. He said, “In the early days of the church, the Saints didn’t know how to use this sealing power in behalf of the dead.” That’s how he puts it. “Similarly, it took time for the Saints to understand the matter of sealings. They knew there was a sealing, yet they didn’t know quite what it was. So they began by getting themselves sealed to living prophets.” And he describes this practice, and then he says, “In April 1894, this changed. In General Conference President Woodruff explained these changes, and that’s when we got the lineage straightened out and we knew what this sealing of families was all about.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Hmm.

Scott Woodward:
In that general conference, I’ve gone back and read that talk. Wilford Woodruff, he says, as he was pondering on “our sealing and adoptive practices, the Spirit said to me, ‘Have you not a father?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ And he said, ‘Then why not be sealed to him? And then seal him to his father all the way back as far as you can go.’”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And he said, “Yes, that’s right.” And this is where the picture became clear. This is how we do it today, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right.

Scott Woodward:
We go to the temple, we get sealed to our ancestors, and we try to seal them back as far as we can find ancestors to seal them back to. And so that current modern practice that we do, that’s a 1894 onward in terms of being kind of the standard practice of how we do sealings. So before that it was kind of they’re figuring it out, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
As President Packer’s saying, they’re kind of figuring it out.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It goes to your idea that they weren’t given an instruction manual.

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
They were given the sealing keys, and then they had to stumble around a little bit. You could see how something that started out with a good desire to connect families together, to say, “Hey, you’re not just my friend. I want you to be part of my family for eternity.” But then that idea of a dynasty could eventually be taken so far that you’re going to your, you know, grandpa and saying, “Hey, buddy, you’re great and all, but I think I’ve got a better shot at eternity with Erastus Snow” or something like that.

Scott Woodward:
Right. Totally.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Today what we do exudes a fair amount of faith in our ancestors. You know, my grandpa wasn’t active in the church, but I went to the temple when he died, and my grandma and he were sealed together, and now I’m sealed back to him with this hopeful expression that maybe with a different perspective, he changed in the next life, he had the opportunity to accept things. And I really got the feeling that he did when I was there in the temple. Maybe that’s wishful thinking, but I don’t think it is.

Scott Woodward:
Wow. That’s awesome. Can I just, can I say one more thing? I think this context really helps with that 14-year-old marriage, right? Because that one’s a shocker.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
But it’s important to know that she was an eternity-only wife, meant to connect the Kimball-Smith families. There was no sexual relationship. In fact, the age of consent in Illinois, this is wild. The age of consent for a girl to be married was 10 years old in Illinois at that time. That’s not very common, even 14 was young, but it wasn’t unheard of, and it wasn’t also unheard of for that age gap between husband and wife.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. In Newell Bringhurst’s book, they actually went back to try and study, “Hey, what were the ranges people were getting married at in America in the 1840s? And 14 was relatively young, but it was in the ballpark.”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, it’s in the ballpark.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It was a little bit different back then, so that changed things.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Maybe, this is a final thought I’ll give, and then you can kind of wrap all this up, but there’s an analogy I like to use with my students, and that is a fact stripped of its context can be like an electrical wire stripped of its protective rubber sheath. It’s quite shocking when you come in contact with it, and the critics of the church know this. Everything we’ve talked about today can easily be used as shock factor.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
If you don’t have the context, if you just drop this line, if you just say to somebody, “Hey, did you know Joseph Smith married a 14-year-old girl?” So there’s the fact. That’s actually a true fact.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
But it’s stripped of its context of eternity-only, it was parent-encouraged, dynastic sealings, it’s within the ballpark of the age of acceptability during that time.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right.

Scott Woodward:
Or you could say this without any context: “Did you know that Joseph Smith married other men’s wives? Yeah. Crazy, right?” You can just make it sound as scandalous as you possibly can. Keep the fact outside of its context.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right?

Scott Woodward:
But if you say, “Well, actually, in context, this is primarily to help those who are not in eternal sealings to have an opportunity to be sealed. And it guaranteed that there would be no sexual relationship.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Hmm.

Scott Woodward:
So before we push the scandal button, right? And just start crying, “Scandal! Scandal! Scandal!” We gotta keep a context in mind. Gotta keep that rubber sheath around the wire.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right.

Scott Woodward:
It’s important, by the way, to know about those women who were already married to men who then married Joseph Smith for eternity, that none of them ever complained, that none of their husbands ever complained or left any grievances against Joseph Smith, that none of the witnesses or officiators made any protest at what was happening, that none of the apostates in Nauvoo ever brought anything up about this in their anti-Mormon attacks. Maybe we’ll talk more about John C. Bennett next time. There’s no evidence of any criticism by anyone.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Hmm.

Scott Woodward:
But now? Like, this is one of the top criticisms of Joseph Smith’s polygamy, right? It’s, like, kind of the—one of the silver bullets, that and the 14-year-old girl. “Did you know about that?” It’s blowing holes in people’s testimonies. When you get the fact without the context, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right.

Scott Woodward:
They make it all about sex, sex, sex, scandal, scandal, scandal. And without the proper doctrinal and historical context here, no wonder people are being shocked by this stuff. So I just think we would do well to postpone our criticisms or trying to draw any decisive conclusions until you get the kind of perspective that those who were involved had.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
It’d be well to pause when you come across some shocking fact, like “Joseph married a 14-year-old girl,” and actually go look at what the 14-year-old girl herself said and look at what the 14-year-old girl herself said and look at the historical facts. I think that’s just a generally smart rule anytime we’re doing history is you just want to make sure you always get your facts in context. That’s just kind of basic historical approach, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right. And afford people a little bit of complexity.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I remember early on in my career wrestling with plural marriage and going to a female teacher who I admired, who definitely knew more than I did, and she was also very feminist, very forward-thinking, just a great example. I sat down with her and said, “How do you deal with this?” And she honestly said, “I sat down, and I read the accounts of the women that entered into plural marriage.”

Scott Woodward:
Hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
“I listened to their story. Rather than having it be filtered through people that were trying to shock and awe me, I embraced the complexity by seeing them not as cardboard cutouts, but as real people that were grappling with really difficult issues. Was it hard for them? Yes, it was extremely difficult. Yeah. Did they have to wrestle with it for a while? They did. Did some of them turn it down? Yeah.”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The ones that accepted it and entered into plural marriage, though, regarded it as one of the most sacred experiences of their lives.” And because of that, we need to be cautious in not using this to shock people and not allow ourselves to be shocked, to continue with your analogy.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
To contextualize and do the work, which is a little bit harder, to really understand what the situation was, what they were feeling, and how the practices were carried out.

Scott Woodward:
Amen. In conclusion, I’ll just say that while some of the things we talked about today may come across as pretty odd to our modern experience, I can say in studying Joseph Smith’s plural marriages and the wives and the people that were involved, I could say with high level of confidence that there are no shenanigans going on. Can I say it like that? That Joseph never does anything that would disqualify him from actually being a true prophet of God or from deserving our trust.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
I mean, we’ve talked about quite the spectrum today, and a lot of issues that we’ve discussed are troubling to people. But we’ve tried to contextualize them in such a way as to, I think, show that Joseph Smith, he was honorable. He’s a reluctant polygamist who’s trying to do his best to obey a pretty difficult commandment, you know?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
When everything shakes out, as I read the history, I think he does a pretty darn good job.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Amen.

Scott Woodward:
Thank you for listening to this episode of Church History Matters. Next week we continue this series by exploring the major difficulties Joseph Smith encountered in his private efforts to live plural marriage in Nauvoo due to the opposition he received from the scoundrel John C. Bennett, and, more surprisingly, from his own brother Hyrum, and especially his first wife, Emma. We will chronicle his modest triumphs over these difficulties as well as some of the recurring troubles they entailed. Today’s episode was produced by Zander Sturgill, edited by Scott Woodward and Nick Galieti, with show notes and transcript by Gabe Davis. Church History Matters is a podcast of Scripture Central, a nonprofit which exists to help build enduring faith in Jesus Christ by making Latter-day Saint scripture and church history accessible, comprehensible, and defensible to people everywhere. For more resources to enhance your gospel study, go to scripturecentral.org, where everything is available for free because of the generous donations of people like you. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us.

1. Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner Smith, “Remarks” at Brigham Young University, April 14. 1905, Vault MSS 363, fd. 6, 2-3. See also Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner Smith, “Statement” February 8, 1902, Vesta Crawford Papers, University of Utah, Marriott Library, MS 125, Box 1, fd. 11; original owned by Mrs. Nell Osborne; see also Juanita Brooks Papers, Utah State Historical Society, MS B103, Box 16, fd. 13; Mary E. Lightner, Letter to A. M. Chase, April 20, 1904, quoted in J. D. Stead, Doctrines and Dogmas of Brighamism Exposed ([Lamoni, Iowa]: RLDS Church, 1911), 218–19; Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, Letter to Emmeline B. Wells, Summer 1905, MS 282; copy of holograph in Linda King Newell Collection, MS 447, Box 9, fd. 2. See this quote and others at this webpage.

2. Mary E. Lightner to A. M. Chase, April 20, 1904, quoted in J. D. Stead, Doctrines and Dogmas of Brighamism Exposed, [Lamoni, Iowa]:RLDS Church, 1911, 218-19.

3. Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner Smith, “Remarks” at Brigham Young University, April 14. 1905, Vault MSS 363, fd. 6, 2-3.

4. Levi Ward Hancock, “Autobiography with Additions in 1896 by Mosiah Hancock,” 63, MS 570, Church History Library. See quoted portion of the text at this webpage.

5. William McLellin, Letter to Joseph Smith III, July 1872, Community of Christ Archives.

6. For more information, including documents, see “Joseph Smith and Fanny Alger” at josephsmithspolygamy.org.

7. Oliver Cowdery, Letter to Warren A. Cowdery (Oliver’s brother), January 21, 1838.

8. “High Council Minutes, 12 April 1838,” in Minute Book 2, 123–24, josephsmithpapers.org.

9. See the footnote at josephsmithpapers.org

10. Andrew Jenson Papers [ca. 1871–1942], Archives. See the quoted portion of the text at this webpage.

11. Perego, Ugo A., 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 42, p. 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fsigen.2019.05.007.

12. Benjamin F. Johnson, “Testimony of Benjamin F. Johnson,” Joseph F. Smith Affidavit Books, 2:3–6. See the quoted text at this webpage.

13. Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, “Scenes in Nauvoo After the Martyrdom of the Prophet and Patriarch,” Woman’s Exponent 11 (March 1, 1883): 146. See the quoted portion of the text at this webpage.

14. See also Goldberg, James and Victoria Anderson, “Autobiography of Jane Elizabeth Manning James,” BYU Studies Quarterly 57.4, p. 149.