By Jerald and Sandra Tanner

We are very happy to announce that we have now completed the new book, Joseph Smith and Polygamy. This book contains a very detailed study of the Mormon doctrine of plural marriage.

We can only present a small portion of the material here, but the book itself is filled with new and important information concerning the subject of polygamy.

To begin with, the Mormons believed in monogamy. The Book of Mormon (which was published in 1830) stated that: . . .

David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord. (Book of Mormon, page111, [Jacob 2] verse 24)

In 1843, however, Joseph Smith gave a revelation is which we find the following:

Verily, thus said the Lord . . . you have inquired of my hand to know and understand wherein I, the Lord, justified my servants . . . David and Solomon, . . . as touching the principle and doctrine of their having many wives and concubines— . . .

David’s wives and concubines were given unto him of me, . . . (Doctrine and Covenants, section 132, verses 1 and 39)

[Bold in quotations added for emphasis and does not appear in originals.]

Notice that the revelation states that David and Solomon were justified in their polygamous practices, whereas the Book of Mormon states that polygamy is an abominable practice. When the Mormon Apostle LeGrand Richards was asked concerning this contradiction, he stated:

Your fourth question: . . . explain Jacob, 2:23-27 compared to D.&C. 1[3]2:1. In one place it said it was “abominable” and the other “justified.” I am afraid I can’t adequately reconcile these two statements. If the one in Doctrine & Covenants 131:1 had omitted the names of David and Solomon, then I think I could reconcile the two statements. (Letter from LeGrand Richards to Morris L. Reynolds, dated July 14, 1966)

The Mormon Apostle John A. Widtsoe made this statement concerning Joseph Smith:

It is nothing short of miraculous that the enemies of Joseph Smith,who have resorted to almost every untruth about him, have seldom charged him with sex immorality. . . . No woman’s name was ever linked, sinfully,with his. He was so clean morally that even those who hated him and his doctrine most did not venture to accuse him of moral wrong. (Joseph Smith—Seeker After Truth, 1951, page 228)

In the book, Joseph Smith and Polygamy, we show that nothing could be further from the truth. For instance, Oliver Cowdery, one of the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon, accused Joseph Smith of having a “dirty, nasty, filthy affair” with a girl by the name of Fanny Alger. The Mormon writer Max Parkin made the following statement in his thesis for the Brigham Young University:

The charge of adulterous relations “with a certain girl” was leveled against Smith by Cowdery in Missouri in 1837; this accusation became one of the complaints the Church had against Cowdery in his excommunication trial in Far West, April 12, 1838. In rationalizing Cowdery’s accusation, the Prophet testified “that Oliver Cowdery had been his bosom friend, therefore he entrusted him with many things.” (Conflict at Kirtland, 1966, page 166)

Although the Mormon leaders denied that they were living plural marriage, they continued to add new wives to their families. Joseph Smith even asked for other men’s wives. In sermon delivered in the Tabernacle in 1854, Jedediah M. Grant (second counselor to Brigham Young) stated:

When the family organization was revealed from heaven—the patriarchal order of God, and Joseph began, on the right and on the left, to add to his family, what a quaking there was in Israel. Says one brother to another, “Joseph says all covenants are done away, and none are binding but the new covenants; now suppose Joseph should come and say he wanted your wife, what would you say to that?” “I would tell him to go to hell.” This was the spirit of many in the early days of this Church.

. . . .

What would a man of God say, who felt aright, when Joseph asked him for his money? He would say, “Yes, and I wish I had more to help to build up the kingdom of God.” Or if he came and said, “I want your wife?” “O yes,” he would say, “here she is, there are plenty more.” . . .

. . . Did the Prophet Joseph want every man’s wife he asked for? He did not, . . . If such a man of God should come to me and say, “I want your gold and silver, or your wives,” I should say, “here they are, I wish I had more to give you, take all I have got.” (Journal of Discourses,vol. 2, pages 13-14)

In his book, Mormon Portraits, Dr. Wyl stated:

Joseph Smith finally demanded the wives of all the twelve apostles that were at home then in Nauvoo. . . . That Joseph did demand and obtain the wives of the twelve, is proved beyond doubt by irrefutable testimony.But there is further proof from a very high authority. Jedediah Grant, Brigham’s counselor, . . . said in one of his harangues . . . : “Do you think that the Prophet Joseph wanted the wives of the twelve that he asked for, merely to gratify himself? No; he did it to try the brethren. But if President Young wants my wife, or any of them, he can have them,” etc. . . . Vilate Kimball, the first wife of Heber C. Kimball, . . . was a good, pure woman, she was better than her “religion,” though a slave to it in a manner. She loved her husband, and he, not yet developed as the brute he later became, loved her, hence a reluctance to comply with the Lord’s demand that Vilate should be consecrated like the moveable property of the other “Apostles.” Still, Joseph was to them a prophet, and therefore the act might be right in him though simply damnable in any other man.They thought the command of the Lord must be obeyed in some way, and a “proxy” way suggested itself to their minds. They had a young daughter only getting out of girlhood, and the father apologizing to the prophet for his wife’s reluctance to comply with his desires, stating, however, that the act must be right or it would not be counselled—the abject slave of a father asked Joe if his daughter wouldn’t do as well as his wife. Joe replied that she would do just as well, and the Lord would accept her instead. The half-ripe bud of womanhood was delivered over to the Prophet. (Mormon Portraits, by Dr. Wyl, 1886, pages 70-72)

The fact that Joseph Smith asked for Heber C. Kimball’s wife is verified in the book, The Life of Heber C. Kimball, written by the Mormon Apostle Orson F. Whitney:

Before he would trust even Heber with the full secret, however, he put him to a test which few men would have been able to bear.

It was no less than a requirement for him to surrender his wife, his beloved Vilate, and give her to Joseph in marriage!

The astounding revelation well-nigh paralyzed him. He could hardly believe he had heard aright. Yet Joseph was solemnly in earnest. His next impulse was to spurn the proposition, and perhaps at that terrible moment a vague suspicion of the Prophet’s motive and the divinity of the revelation, shot like a poisoned arrow through his soul.

But only for a moment, if at all, was such a thought, such a suspicion entertained. He knew Joseph to well, as a man, a friend, a brother, a servant of God, to doubt his truth or the divine origin of the behest he had made. No; Joseph was God’s Prophet, His mouth-piece and oracle, and so long as he was so, his words were as the words of the Eternal One to Heber C. Kimball. His heart-strings might be torn, his feelings crucified and sawn asunder, but so long as his faith in God and the Priesthood remained, heaven helping him, he would try and do as he was told. Such, now, was his superhuman resolve.

Three days he fasted and wept and prayed. Then, with a broken and a bleeding heart, but with soul self-mastered for the sacrifice, he led his darling wife to the Prophet’s house and presented her to Joseph.

It was enough—heavens accepted the sacrifice. The will for the deed was taken, and “accounted unto him for righteousness.” Joseph wept at this proof of devotion, and embracing Heber told him that was all that the Lord required. He had proved him, as a child of Abraham, that he would “do the works of Abraham,” holding back nothing, but laying all upon the altar for God’s glory.

The Prophet joined the hands of the heroic and devoted pair, and then and there, by virtue of the sealing power and authority of the Holy Priesthood, Heber and Vilate Kimball were made husband and wife for all eternity. (Life of Heber C. Kimball, by Orson F. Whitney, pages 333-335)

Ann Eliza Young made this statement:

Joseph not only paid his addresses to the young and unmarried women, but he sought “spiritual alliance” with many married ladies who happened to strike his fancy. He taught them that all former marriages were null and void, and that they were at perfect liberty to make another choice of a husband. The marriage covenants were not binding, because they were ratified only by Gentile laws. These laws the Lord did not recognize; consequently all the women were free.

. . . .

One woman said to me not very long since, while giving me some of her experiences in polygamy: “The greatest trial I ever endured in my life was living with my husband and deceiving him, by receiving Joseph’s attentions whenever he chose to come to me.”

. . . .

Some of these women have since said they did not know who was the father of their children; . . . (Wife No. 19, by Ann-Eliza Young, 1876, pages 70-71)

The Mormon Apostle John A. Widtsoe admitted that Joseph Smith was sealed to married women, but he claimed that they were not to be his wives until after death. Patty Bartlett Sessions, the wife of David Sessions,however, made it very clear in her private journal that she was married to Joseph Smith for both “time” and “eternity”:

I was sealed to Joseph Smith by Willard Richards Mar. 9, 1842, in Newel K. Whitney’s chamber, Nauvoo, for time and all eternity, . . . I was after Mr. Session’s death sealed to John Parry for time of the 27th, March, 1852, GSL City. (Private Journal of Patty Bartlett Sessions, quoted in Intimate Disciple, Portrait of Willard Richards, by Claire Noall, 1957, page 611)

The fact that some members of the Mormon Church were worried that someone else would take their wives is evidenced by a speech that Brigham Young gave on February 16, 1847. In this speech he stated:

There is another principle that has caused considerable uneasiness and trouble (E.I.) the idea of some men having more wives than one. Such tremendous fear takes hold of some that they don’t know how to live and still they can’t die, and begin to whisper and talk arround saying, I am actually afraid to go on a mission for fear some man will be sealed to my wife, or when they return home some will be babbling about you don’t know but what you have got another man’s wife. For my part some say I am afraid to speak to a young woman for fear that she belongs to somebody else or for fear somebody else wants her (others deny the faith as they think, but they never had any), and say that it is all from the devil and so on. . . . but those that suffer fears and jealousy to arrise in their bosoms either back right out or get to be mighty righteous and for fear that they are sleeping with some other man’s wife they kick up a broil at home and perhaps abuse their companions through jealousy,then go to some woman that does not understand which is right or wrong and tell her that she cannot be saved without a man and he has almighty power and can exalt and save her and likely tell her that there is no harm for them to sleep together before they are sealed then go to some clod head of an elder and get him to say their ceremony, all done without the knowledge or counsel of the authority of this church. . . . were I to say to the elders you now have the liberty to build up your kingdoms, one half of them would lie, swear, steal and fight like the very devil to get men and women sealed to them. They would even try to pass right by me and go to Jos. thinking to get between mine and the 12. Some have already tried to use an infulence against me, but such jealousies and selfishness shall be stopped and if the brethern do not stop it I will blow it to the four winds by making them all come and be sealed to me and I through my father, and all this church to Jos. (Sermon by Brigham Young, quoted in Journals of John D. Lee, 1846-1847, edited by Charles Kelly, 1938, pages 79-80)

There were all kinds of strange marriages under the Mormon plural wife system. According to Fawn Brodie, Joseph Smith married “five pairs of sisters” and “Patty and Sylvia Sessions” who were “mother and daughter.” The fact that Patty and Sylvia Sessions were mother and daughter is verified by the Mormon writer Claire Noall:

Sylvia Lyon, Patty’s daughter and the wife of Windsor J. Lyon, was already sealed to Joseph. This afternoon she was to put her mother’s hand in the Prophet’s. (Intimate Disciple, by Claire Noall, page 317)

L. John Nuttall, a prominent Mormon, told that John Taylor (who became president of the Mormon Church) promised his own sister that she could be sealed to him in the event that she could not be reconciled to continue with any of her husbands:

Monday Feb. 25, 1889.

. . . Agnes Schwartz & her daughter Mary called this morning to see Prest. Woodruff, on her family matters which he promised to write to her about. She said that her brother John the late President John Taylor had told her some 30 years ago that if she could not be reconciled to continue with any of her husbands she might be sealed to his brother William or himself and she now wanted to be sealed to him. This is a very curious proceeding & which I dont understand. (Journal of L. John Nuttall, vol. 2, pages 362-363, taken from a typed copy at the B.Y.U.)

L. John Nuttall does not relate what happened, but if the sealing actually took place, John Taylor, according to Mormon doctrine, will find himself married to his own sister in the resurrection.

Heber C. Kimball, who was a member of the First Presidency of the Mormon Church, stated:

It would be as easy for the United States to build a tower to remove the sun,as to remove polygamy or the Church and kingdom of God. (Millennial Star, vol. 28, page 190)

Federal laws were passed against the practice of polygamy, and the Mormons found themselves in a real dilemma.

By the year 1888 many people were suggesting that the church have a new revelation which would suppress the practice of polygamy. Some friends of the church wrote an epistle stating that polygamy should be suppressed. They wanted the Mormon leaders to submit it to the people as if the leaders had written it themselves. The Mormon leaders rejected this proposal, but the fact that Wilford Woodruff had the epistle read before the “council of apostles” shows that he was desperate for a solution to the church’s predicament. L. John Nuttall recorded the following in his journal under the date of December 19, 1888:

Wednesday Dec. 19, 1888. . . . Bro Jos. F. Smith went home this evening Pres Woodruff & myself spent the evening together. he handed me a communication which had been sent to him for action by friends in the East. and which he purposed laying before the apostles tomorrow night It purports to be an epistle from the authorities to the Saints. and reiterates the passage of the anti-Polygamy laws. the rigid enforcement of the same, quotes from the Book of Doctrine & Covenants. and endeavours to show forth reasons why the church should openly renounce the practice of Polygamy in the future, and until the time comes when the Saints can again practice that principle of their religion unmolested. I did not see how such a (p. 295) thing could be done consistently with our covenants. did not think that would satisfy our enemies. These are the same ideas that were advanced by Dr. Miller of Omaha some 3 years ago & which Prests Taylor & Cannon could not accept. (Journal of L. John Nuttal, vol. 2, page 329 of typed copy at Brigham Young University)

The next day (December 20, 1888) L. John Nuttal made this statement in his journal:

Thursday Dec. 20, 1888 . . . This evening I attended a meeting of the council of apostles at the Presidents office . . . The communication which Prest Woodruff handed to me last night was presented by Bro Woodruff who asked me to read it which I did, then by request read it again. The youngest member was then asked to speak his views in brief and as continued until all had spoken. the brethren were very emphatic in opposing or accepting such a measure. they felt it had not come from the right source. did not offer even as much as a mess of potage for the relinquishment of our religion.If we gave up one portion we would be required to give up all. could not accept any such documents nor their proposition. I felt glad that I was of the same mind. (page 296)

In spite of the fact the the Mormon Church leaders taught that plural marriage could never be stopped, in 1890 Wilford Woodruff issued the Manifesto, which was supposed to stop the practice of plural marriage. The Mormon leaders promised to obey the law of the land, but many of them broke their promises. Very few people realized to what extent the leaders of the Mormon Church had broken their promises, until they were called to testify in the “Proceedings Before the Committee of Privileges and Elections of the United States Senate in the Matter of the Protests Against the Right of Hon. Reed Smoot, a Senator from the State of Utah, to Hold His Seat.”

Joseph F. Smith, who was the sixth President of the Mormon Church, admitted that he had continued to live in polygamy after the Manifesto and that he was violating both the laws of the land and the laws of God:

The Chairman: And in not doing it, you are violating the law?

Mr. Smith: The law of my state?

The Chairman: Yes.

Mr. Smith: Yes, sir.

Senator Overman: Is there not a revelation published in the Book of Covenants here that you shall abide by the law of the State?

Mr. Smith: It includes both unlawful cohabitation and polygamy.

Senator Overman: If that is a revelation, are you not violating the laws of God?

Mr. Smith: I have admitted that Mr. Senator, a great many times here. (Reed Smoot Case, vol. 1, pages 334-335)

Walter M. Wolfe, who was at one time professor of geology at Brigham Young College, claimed that the Apostle John Henry Smith stated that the Manifesto was only a trick to beat the devil at his own game:

Mr. Wolfe: There was a meeting in the Brigham Young Academy, in Provo,Utah, that was addressed by B. F. Grant, a brother of Apostle Heber J. Grant. At that meeting Apostle John Henry Smith was present.

The Chairman: On what date was that; what year?

Mr. Wolfe: I don’t remember the year. It was in the late nineties, probably.

Mr. Carlisle: It was after the manifesto?

Mr. Wolfe: Yes, sir; it was after the manifesto. On my way home I walked several blocks with B. F. Grant and Apostle Smith. and on the way we were talking about the conditions existing, and President Smith used these words to me: “Brother Wolfe, don’t you know that the manifesto is only a trick to beat the devil at his own game?” (Reed Smoot Case, vol. 4, page 13)

Walter M. Wolfe also gave this testimony:

Mr. Carlisle: Now, you may proceed to state what you know about Ovena Jorgensen and about her having contracted a plural marriage with somebody after your knowledge of her, after you became acquainted with her.

Mr. Wolfe: In the summer of 1897 I was in Colorado. On my return, at the beginning of the school year, I found that Ovena Jorgensen was not in attendance. She returned to school some time during the month of October. Shortly after her return, she came to my house and asked to see me privately. She said: “Brother Wolfe, I have something that I must tell you, the reason why I have been late in coming back to school. I have been married.” I said: “Not in polygamy.” She said: “Yes, sir, in polygamy. I have married Brother Okey.”

The Chairman: What year was that, professor.

Mr. Wolfe: This was in October, 1897.

Mr. Worthington: That she told you this?

Mr. Wolfe: This is her story to me.

Mr. Worthington: I say, it was in October, 1897, that she told you?

Mr. Wolfe: Yes, sir. I asked her how it had happened, and she said that some years before she had gone into service at the house of this man Okey; that he had loved her and she loved him. He had asked her to marry him and she had declined, saying that it was impossible on account of the manifesto, but she had promised that she would marry no one else. Mr. Okey visited President Woodruff several times, I should judge from her conversation, and each time was refused his request that he marry that girl. In August, 1897, Okey and the girl went together to see President Wilford Woodruff, and they laid the case before him. He brushed them aside with a wave of his hand and said he would have nothing to do with the matter, but referred them to President George Q. Cannon. George Q. Cannon asked if the girl had been through the Temple and received her endowments. They told him no. He said that that must be done first and then he would see as to the rest of it. They went through the Temple and the girl received her endowments. Then they were given a letter by President George Q. Cannon to President Ivins, of the Juarez Stake,and they went to Mexico.

The Chairman: Who was this letter to?

Mr. Wolfe: President A. W. Ivins, or the Juarez Stake.

The Chairman: Mexico?

Mr. Wolfe: Mexico; yes, sir. They went to Mexico, and there the girl told me the marriage ceremony was performed, and they returned to Utah.

Mr. Carlisle: This statement that you have made is the statement she made to you?

Mr. Chairman: You say they were given a letter to the president. What do you mean by that? what President?

Mr. Wolfe: President Ivins. The Mormon Church geographically is divided into stakes very much as the States of the Union are divided into counties. (Reed Smoot Case, 1906, vol. 4, pages 10-11)

Stanley S. Ivins, the son of Anthony W. Ivins, told us that his father received instructions after the Manifesto to perform marriages for time and all eternity outside of the Mormon Temples. He was sent to Mexico and was told that when the First Presidency wanted a plural marriage performed they would send a letter with the couple who were to be married. Whenever he received these letters from the First Presidency, he knew that it was alright to perform the ceremony.

Stanley S. Ivins confirms the fact that his father, Anthony W. Ivins, did perform the marriage ceremony mentioned above and that he recorded this fact in his record book. Stanley Ivins also stated that Walter Wolfe’s testimony concerning this marriage hurt the church’s image so much that the First Presidency of the Church sent Anthony Ivins a letter requesting him to go back to Washington, D.C. and give false testimony before the Committee on Privileges and Elections of the United States Senate. The First Presidency of the Mormon Church actually wanted him to lie under oath and state that he did not perform the ceremony. Stanley Ivins stated that his father refused to go back to Washington, D. C. and lie about the marriage, even if Walter Wolfe’s testimony did damage the image of the Church.

The book, Joseph Smith and Polygamy, contains many other interesting things which we do not have room to discuss here. It contains information concerning the spiritual wife doctrine, the John C. Bennett book, the Nancy Rigdon affair, the Sarah Pratt affair and also the Martha H. Brotherton affair. Also included is a list of 84 women who may have been married to Joseph Smith.

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