We’re diving into Nauvoo polygamy & Joseph Smith’s many wives. How often did he have sexual relations with his wives? Was it less frequent than many think? John Turner attempts to answer. Check out our conversation…
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Insights into Joseph Smith’s Controversial Practice
The Nauvoo period (1839-1844) in the history of the Latter-day Saints is a fascinating and often controversial chapter, particularly concerning the practice of plural marriage, or polygamy, by Joseph Smith. Historian John Turner, author of the acclaimed biography “Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of American Prophet,” sheds light on this complex topic.
Nauvoo: A New Beginning and an Acceleration of Vision
Following Joseph Smith’s escape from jail in Missouri, the Latter-day Saints established a new community in Nauvoo, Illinois. The choice of Nauvoo was largely due to an individual named Isaac Galland, a land speculator who had extensive land holdings on both sides of the Mississippi River in Nauvoo and Iowa. Galland was in contact with church leaders even while Joseph was imprisoned, making the possibility of purchasing these lands an early consideration.
Upon arriving in Quincy, Illinois, Joseph Smith quickly pursued these land purchases, and Saints began to gather rapidly on both sides of the Mississippi. Despite facing opposition and being advised by opponents to spread out, Joseph Smith characteristically doubled or tripled down on his vision rather than backing down from setbacks. This resolve led to the quick establishment of Nauvoo, a community that by 1844 rivaled Chicago as the largest city in Illinois. Far from an interruption, Nauvoo represented an “acceleration of Joseph’s vision” in the years after 1839.
The Astonishing Pace of Plural Marriages
It is in this rapidly growing and centralizing community that Joseph Smith’s plural marriage practice truly took off. John Turner noted that the pace of Joseph’s marriages was “astonishing,” with him reportedly taking a dozen wives in 1842 alone. While “monogamy affirmers” or “polygamy skeptics” contend that these events did not occur, most scholars, including John Turner and Larry Foster, agree that the evidence for Joseph Smith’s practice of polygamy is “overwhelming”.
The Evidence: What Do We Know?
While it is difficult to precisely date exact timelines or get directly inside Joseph Smith’s mind to understand his intentions, there is substantial evidence regarding his polygamous activities. Joseph Smith took pains to keep his plural marriages quiet. However, information comes from:
- Contemporary Accounts:The William Clayton Journalis described as a “fantastic and extensive contemporary account” that is considered reliable, aligning with other early 1840s sources. Journals kept by Willard Richards and Brigham Young also provide corroborating information.
- Affidavits and Testimony:Numerous affidavits about Joseph’s plural marriages exist, including very late sources like the Temple Lot testimonyfrom a number of his wives and other individuals. Even though the church had a particular purpose in affirming Joseph’s polygamy in this legal conflict, testimonies from women like Emily Dow Partridge were “not flattering for Joseph Smith,” making it unlikely the church fabricated them. According to Turner, it’s an “open and shut case” that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy.
Theological Motivations: Getting “All That You Can”
Joseph Smith himself did not explicitly articulate a singular reason for the exact number of women he married. However, contextually, and based on what other early Latter-day Saints said about plural marriage during these years, it appears that Joseph connected “the size of an individual’s family on earth to the extent of his heavenly glory”. This theological motivation led him to pursue additional plural marriages “assiduously” and at times, “recklessly,” to “get all that you can” as he explained to William Clayton.
This rationale explains why he was sealed to such a “diversity of women” – very young women, older women, married women, and single women. Joseph’s approach was not to quietly or secretively be sealed to just two or three women, but to continually pursue additional plural marriages, even after the practice became a public controversy in the summer of 1842. Turner notes that Joseph “just was not his approach” to keep his head down or make fewer waves, often demonstrating a “lack of caution and prudence” in his activities toward the end of his life.
The Question of Sexual Relations and Consummation
A frequently asked question concerns the frequency of sexual relations in these plural marriages. It’s crucial to distinguish between what can be documented and what is a reasonable supposition.
- Documented Consummation:Some of Joseph Smith’s plural marriages were indeed consummated. For example, concerning what was likely his first plural marriage to Louisa Beaman (Fanny Alger is not counted as a plural wife but rather a “dirty, nasty, filthy affair or scrape”), Joseph Bates Noble’s testimony indicates that he saw Joseph and Louisa go into a house and implies consummation. A “number of plural wives” also stated that their marriages were consummated. However, it is not known if all marriages were consummated.
- Uncertainty in Some Cases:There’s no definitive information for all marriages, especially those to already married women or very young women like Helen Mar Kimball, who was 13. While it was an idea in 1850s Utah that men could take girls as young as 12 or 13 as wives, Brigham Young often advised men to wait a few years after the ceremony before consummating the marriage.
- Supposition of Infrequent Sex:A “reasonable supposition” or conclusion is that, as a general rule, there was at most infrequent sexin these plural marriages. This is primarily because, as far as is known, the plural marriages did not produce children, despite Joseph Smith being fertile and having children with Emma through the time of his death. If there was a lot of sex, one would expect children, and the alternative — that pregnancies were aborted — doesn’t seem likely. It’s even possible Joseph consummated some sealings once and then had little to do with the women again, as he lacked time for ongoing relationships with most.
This hypothesis that sex was infrequent suggests that plural marriage was not solely about Joseph’s sex drive. While he may have had sincere theological motivations, this does not absolve him of “behaving inappropriately in many instances” towards women, their families, and his associates, whose wives he sometimes pursued. The topic, like Joseph Smith himself, tends to be polarizing, with some viewing it as “nothing” and others as “everything,” but the evidence suggests a more nuanced reality.
The intricacies of Joseph Smith’s polygamy remain a subject of ongoing historical inquiry, with scholars striving to understand the motivations and realities behind this controversial practice, often limited by available information.
Comments?
Don’t miss our other conversations with John: https://gospeltangents.com/people/john-turner/
Copyright © 2025
Gospel Tangents
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Except for book reviews, no content may be reproduced without written permission
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