The Worlds of Meg Stout » Blog Archive » A Faithful Joseph (Updated)

A Faithful Joseph (Updated)

In December 2013 I was given a chance to blog at Millennial Star about my views regarding Joseph Smith and polygamy.

At that time I had developed many of my theories based on a storytelling framework. Where there were gaps in the history, I had invented midrashic possibilities. And so my posts in 2013 and 2014 were laced with these midrashic vignettes.

As I have spent the past couple of years vetting my views in the public forum, I have had a chance to realize that some of my original midrashic theories were wrong. Others have evolved from fanciful theory to substantiated hypotheses. In both cases, I have found that casting my theories as midrashic vignettes made it easy for some to dismiss the entire fabric of my reconstruction as baseless. Therefore in this revision of A Faithful Joseph, the debunked theories are gone and the substantiated hypotheses are more carefully explained so the logic and basis of the hypotheses are clear.

Before we get started, let me give you the short version of A Faithful Joseph. I propose that Joseph was prompted to restore plural marriage to mitigate the damage strict monogamy would have done to the great work of sealing the family of mankind together in eternity, the central work that Mormons believe will effect the salvation of all mankind throughout all generations and all peoples. However a series of disasters made it impossible for Joseph to consummate the plural marriages he entered into. Most notably, an epidemic of vile and illicit seduction in Nauvoo caused Joseph to counsel his wives and faithful followers that it was not yet appropriate to consummate their plural marriages. Following Joseph’s death, the seducers and apostates voluntarily separated themselves from the body of believers, freeing the leaders who followed Joseph to fulfill the reproductive purpose of plural marriages. In the fiftieth year from Joseph’s first plural marriage, the commandment to continue plural marriage was rescinded. Despite the terrible turmoil caused by plural marriage, only the faith tradition which embraced plural marriage and the New and Everlasting Covenant enjoys the hope for marriages can endure into eternity.

________________________________________

Over the years, I have come to believe Joseph Smith was faithful to his beloved wife, Emma. But my road to that belief was long and tortured, a road littered with skepticism and for many years a road that presumed Joseph had been a fully sexual partner to many, if not all, his plural wives.

Nightfall at Nauvoo

I was fourteen when I first came face to face with unpleasant possibilities regarding the life of Joseph Smith. My mother had just finished reading Nightfall at Nauvoo, then a newly-released novel written by her uncle, Samuel W. Taylor.

She put the thick paperback down and cocked her head. “I think Sam presents an overall positive view of Joseph Smith,” she said.

Presuming Sam’s book was therefore “safe,” I began reading. I was a child who was shocked to hear detractors had called Joseph Smith “Joe.” I was completely unequipped to deal with the salacious accusations made by John Bennett and Thomas Sharp, repeated in Sam’s book. My teenaged testimony was crushed. Though God seemed to opine that I should remain an active Mormon, I white-knuckled for two decades harboring serious doubts about Joseph and the Church.

I went on to graduate from Seminary, earn the Young Womanhood in Recognition Award, be a Relief Society President, serve a mission, and marry in the temple. In 1999 I realized that the God at the center of Joseph Smith’s theology is the God I have experienced in my life. But I still had no comfortable explanation for Joseph and polygamy.

Annie Cowles

In 2001 a friend asked me to present a 5-minute spotlight in Relief Society on a notable Mormon woman. As she rattled off a list, I heard her mention the treasurer Emma selected for the first Relief Society, Elvira Annie Cowles, my ancestor. And so I accepted the assignment to summarize Elvira Annie’s life.

By 4 am that Sunday I had pieced together the fact that Annie was one of Joseph Smith’s plural wives, mother of the three women who married Job Welling, and grandmother of the two women who married Apostle John Whitaker Taylor in 1901. In an example of the conversations Mormons sometimes have with God, I heard Him say:

“You must write about these women.”

I was horrified. “I like being a Mormon,” I replied.

God, however, is persistent. I argued with Him for several years, certain that the story of Joseph’s plural marriages necessarily involved sexual relations. When Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped and other sordid polygamy stories emerged, I continued to think God had been wrong to ask me to study these women.

In 2006 I decided to write the story in novel form. At the time I believed Joseph and Elvira had been intimate, but decided I couldn’t portray that in my novel. Revisions conducted with dozens of advanced readers forced the story to take on a life of its own. One reader criticized my villain, Dr. Bennett, as one-dimensional. Another said I should tell the story from a male standpoint to retain male readers. A non-Mormon man said the sexual tension between my heroine and Joseph Smith was uncomfortably intense. As I warped the story in response to these comments, I had to dig deeper into extant facts, delving beneath the facile understanding I’d had of events and motivations. Causalities emerged that I’d previously been blind to.

No Sex?

Some of my friends live without any form of birth control. I saw in their lives the typical pattern for most married couples in the 1800s. A child is born within the first year, and other children arrive every two years thereafter. Watching these friends, I realized something was wrong with Annie’s reproductive history.

Annie’s first child was born in October 1845, nearly three years after her public marriage to Jonathan Harriman Holmes and over a year after Joseph’s death. Annie continued to bear children regularly whenever Jonathan was around, her second daughter showing up nine and a half months after Jonathan’s return with his Mormon Battalion unit. Annie’s last child would be born when she was 43 years old.

Clearly Annie and Jonathan were fertile. Joseph had children with Emma regularly. And yet Annie hadn’t produced a child during Joseph’s lifetime, in the years after the ceremonies I presumed would legitimize intimacies.

The other problem with my original (and faith-challenging) view of Joseph Smith’s sexual activities arose as Ugo Perego used DNA to investigate possible offspring of Joseph Smith by plural wives. Not a single suspected child can be proven to have been fathered by Joseph on a plural wife. ¹

Presuming Joseph had wanted to avoid children, the few methods of birth control available to Joseph were largely ineffective. The rhythm method wouldn’t even be invented until 1910. While lack of children does not prove lack of sex, it leaves lack of sex as a potential cause for the extant data.

Modern belief in Joseph’s sexual activities with women other than Emma is based solely on written reports, only two of which were produced under oath. Both ladies who so testified were given to Joseph when Emma was involved in the plural marriage ceremony, at a time when the plural wives were single and of marriageable age. Therefore sexual relationships between Joseph and these two women would not have constituted infidelity. However we must also consider the reason these women testified. These women took the stand and answered offensively intrusive questions in order to save the Temple Lot from falling into the hands of Emma’s sons, who denied Joseph had been a polygamist. Thus, it cannot be ignored that the two women had a powerful motive to contradict the story that Joseph had remained uniquely faithful to Emma Hale, even if the cost were a small lie.

Shortly before Emma died, she allowed her sons to interview her. In that interview, she allegedly affirmed she was Joseph’s only wife. I invite you to explore how Emma might have legitimately been telling the truth. To me it is a compelling tale full of honor and sacrifice.

[To see the next post in this series, go to Why would a Loving God Demand Polygamy.]

Below is a list of the original posts in this series.:

A Faithful Joseph (6:40)

Why would a Loving God Demand Polygamy (9:45)