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The Reality of Joseph Smith Practicing Plural Marriage
Polygamy > Joseph Smith's Introduction and Practice of Plural Marriage > The Reality of Joseph Smith Practicing Plural Marriage
The Reality of Joseph Smith Practicing Plural Marriage
Summary: Some question whether Joseph Smith ever practiced polygamy. The overwhelming consensus of historians is that Joseph Smith indeed practiced plural marriage. This page answers common questions and criticisms surrounding the reality of Joseph Smith's practice of polygamy.
Did Joseph Smith actually teach and practice polygamy?
Did Joseph Smith actually teach and practice polygamy?
Some splinter groups of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have claimed that Joseph Smith did not practice polygamy. Instead, these groups argue, polygamy was the later invention of a libidinous and greedy Brigham Young. Since, on these groups’ view, plural marriage was a man-made invention instead of a commandment from the divine, this is evidence that the modern Church is in apostasy and that we must seek the true authority elsewhere. A related charge is that the Church hasn’t taught that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy openly and frequently.
There is contemporaneous, reliable documentation to establish that Joseph Smith received the revelation on plural marriage and there is ample documentation that he and many of his colleagues practiced plural marriage.
Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, "Joseph Smith: Monogamist or Polygamist?"
Brian C. Hales, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, (2017)In the past decades much of the debate regarding Joseph Smith and plural marriage has focused on his motivation — whether libido or divine inspiration drove the process. Throughout these debates, a small group of observers and participants have maintained that Joseph did not practice polygamy at any time or that his polygamous sealings were nonsexual spiritual marriages. Rather than simply provide supportive evidence for Joseph Smith’s active involvement with plural marriage, this article examines the primary arguments advanced by monogamist proponents to show that important weaknesses exist in each line of reasoning.
Click here to view the complete article
The charts below, prepared by Brian Hales, outline all the evidence available for a polygamist Joseph in an easy-to-read way.
Video by The Interpreter Foundation.
Did Joseph Smith ever publicly attempt to teach the doctrine of plural marriage?
Joseph initiated the practice of polygamy and hid it from the general Church membership during his lifetime
It is true that Joseph did not always tell others about plural marriage. One critic of the Church claims, "Joseph Smith publicly lied about his practice of polygamy, and lied to his own wife (Emma) about the practice." [1]
Joseph made at least one attempt to teach the doctrine, but it was rejected
Joseph did, however, make an attempt to teach the doctrine to the Saints. When Joseph tried to teach the doctrine, it was rejected by many Saints, including Emma, his wife. Joseph then began to teach the doctrine privately to those who would obey. A contemporary journal describes the reaction to Joseph's attempt to teach this doctrine:
When the prophet "went to his dinner," [Joseph Lee] Robinson wrote, "as it might be expected several of the first women of the church collected at the Prophet’s house with his wife [and] said thus to the prophet Joseph O mister Smith you have done it now it will never do it is all but Blassphemy you must take back what you have said to day is it is outrageous it would ruin us as a people." So in the afternoon session Smith again took the stand, according to Robinson, and said "Brethren and Sisters I take back what we said this morning and leave it as though there had been nothing said."[2]
Why did Joseph keep the doctrine of plural marriage private?
The Saints would have suffered negative consequences
Keeping the doctrine private was also necessary because the enemies of the Church would have used it as another justification for their assault on the Saints. Orson Hyde looked back on the Nauvoo days and indicated what the consequences of disclosure would have been:
In olden times they might have passed through the same circumstances as some of the Latter-day Saints had to in Illinois. What would it have done for us, if they had known that many of us had more than one wife when we lived in Illinois? They would have broken us up, doubtless, worse than they did.[3]
It is thus important to realize that the public preaching of polygamy—or announcing it to the general Church membership, thereby informing the public by proxy—was simply not a feasible plan.
Why did Joseph Smith say "I had not been married scarcely five minutes...before it was reported that I had seven wives"?
Notes
- ↑ John Dehlin, "Questions and Answers," Mormon Stories Podcast (25 June 2014).
- ↑ Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1986),48; citing Robinson, Journal, 23–24.
- ↑ Orson Hyde, "The Marriage Relations," (6 October 1854) Journal of Discourses 2:75-75.