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A number of historians of Mormon history have tried to explain the rationale and motivation behind Joseph Smith’s teachings about “plural marriage.” Although it’s not unreasonable to assume a sexual motivation, Smith’s primary motivation may have been his expansive theology–a theology, in this specific case, that his wife would not accept.

After establishing his new church in 1830 and while continuing to study the Bible, Smith’s far-reaching religious vision to restore “all things” from previous ages made him open to reinstating Old Testament polygamy, explains historian Richard Van Wagoner. Perhaps the timing was right: Americans had won the Revolutionary War and were open to “the surprising and unusual in religious life, according to historian Merina Smith, and in the early 1840s, a core group of Joseph Smith’s believers accepted his developing “exaltation narrative” that included “new family forms.” Joseph Smith biographer Richard Bushman explains that Joseph Smith began to imagine “ecclesiastical and family kingdoms that would persist into eternity.” University of Richmond professor Terryl Givens explains that Smith sought to establish a “timeless and borderless web of human relationships” among his followers, just as the great appeal of first-generation Christianity in the ancient world was “the feeling of entering into an extended family community.” For Joseph Smith, marriage “sealings” joined people, and he was even sealed to some married men and women.

Although there’s evidence that Joseph Smith seemed most interested in creating an interconnected web of believers that could be exalted together, Bushman says Smith  “never wrote his personal feelings about plural marriage” and, according to historian John G. Turner, “whether [he] was motivated by religious obedience or pursued sexual dalliances clothed with divine sanction cannot be fully resolved through historical analysis.” We don’t know to what extent Joseph Smith pursued sexual relations with his wives, and according to Bushman, although “nothing indicates that sexual relations were left out of plural marriage, not until many years later did anyone claim Joseph Smith’s paternity, and evidence for the tiny handful of supposed children is tenuous.” But his wife Emma’s negative reaction to his additional marriages may indicate that she, at least, felt his ideas, if not his actions, went too far.

In the early 1840s as Smith secretly began marrying additional wives and encouraging his closest confidantes to do the same, of course he feared “wrecking his marriage,” as Bushman explains it. During this time, according to Emma Smith’s biographers Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery, Smith repeatedly tried to explain “plural marriage” to his wife Emma, sometimes taking her alone on long buggy rides to talk to her about it. In May 1843 after much convincing, Emma finally gave her consent to a polygamous marriage and participated in her husband’s marriage to two sisters, giving her “free and full consent.”

Not long afterwards, however, according to Bushman, “Emma began to talk as firmly and urgently to Joseph about abandoning plural marriage as he had formerly talked to her about accepting it.” In the spring of 1843, “the recovery of his domestic life” became “almost impossible.”  As Bushman explains, “They were in impossible positions: Joseph caught between his revelation and his wife, Emma between a practice she detested and belief in her husband.” Evidently fearing the legal and financial ramifications of many wives, Emma requested half ownership of a steam boat and “sixty city lots,” and Joseph evidently agreed “to add no more” wives. If he did, he told friend and secretary William Clayton, Emma “would divorce him.” Under these conditions, Joseph and Emma reconciled. Tragically, in 1844, he was murdered by an angry mob, and Emma deeply mourned his death.

Starting in 1852 in Utah, polygamous marriage was openly encouraged by Smith’s successor Brigham Young, and about 25 to 30% of Mormon men, women, and children lived in polygamous families. In 1876, Smith’s revelation on “celestial marriage”–marriage which endures after death and which could include “plural marriage”–was canonized in a Mormon book of revelations called Doctrine and Covenants. In 1890, Mormons officially gave up polygamy but not the larger belief in celestial marriage. Today Mormon marriages still encompass the essence of Smith’s original theology–celestial, or eternal, marriage–as monogamous couples continue the practice of sacred marriage “sealings” to each other and to their ancestors, fulfilling Smith’s desire to vertically, horizontally, and everlastingly connect Latter-day Saints.

Featured image: Image taken from page 277 of ‘Life in Utah‘ by British Library (1870). Public domain via Flickr.

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By Paula Kelly Harline

Happy Pioneer Day! The morning of 24 July in downtown Salt Lake City, thousands of Westerners watch the “Days of ’47” parade celebrating the 1847 arrival of Mormon pioneers; in the afternoon, they attend a rodeo or take picnics to the canyons; at night they launch as many fireworks as they did for Fourth of July.

What may be less known than the role of Brigham Young in all this is the contribution made by polygamous women. When Brigham Young parceled out Salt Lake City land plots, he allowed polygamous husbands to draw a lot for each of their wives, and this pattern continued exponentially as polygamous wives sometimes moved without their husbands to settlements in Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico, supporting themselves as teachers, hat-makers, landlords, post mistresses, boarding house proprietors, laundresses, venders, and farmers.

For example, in 1850 not long after 39-year-old Martha Spence Heywood arrived in Salt Lake City, she became the third wife of the 35-year-old captain of her wagon train. After a few months of living in the family’s Salt Lake house, Martha moved 90 miles south to the new settlement of Nephi where she had the first of two babies in a wagon with one Church sister attending. She tried to establish herself as a teacher but wrote in her diary that there were “considerably hard feelings” against her “as a school teacher,” maybe because she was sometimes sick or maybe because townspeople resented her husband who did not live in Nephi but had a supervisory role in their struggling settlement. Along with teaching, Martha made hats that her husband advertised in the Salt Lake Deseret News. After a few years in Nephi, she moved to southern Utah and claimed a vacant “good adobe” house. Once again taking up school teaching, she even accepted produce as payment so that any child could attend school and, over the years, established herself as a legendary school teacher. The Heywood family owned homes in three towns.

Starting in 1890, Mormons no longer officially sanctioned new polygamous marriages, but those who were already married like second wife Mary Ann Hafen carried on until the polygamous generation died out. In 1891, she moved 50 miles away from her “general merchant” husband John (who lived in Santa Clara, Utah, with his first wife) to Bunkerville, Nevada, where they could get cheaper land. Mary Ann wrote in her autobiography that in the “first year” when she and her children were “just getting started” in Bunkerville, her husband came down from Santa Clara “frequently” and “helped [them] a good deal.” But as time went on, “he had his hands full taking care of his other [three] families,” so she cared “for her seven children mostly by [her]self” because, as she explained, “I did not want to be a burden on my husband, but tried with my family to be self-supporting.” John had provided them with “a house, lot, and land and furnished some supplies.” Mary Ann rented out her twenty-five-acre farm up the road—the 1900 census listed her as a “landlord.” Sometimes she and her children used the farm to grow cotton and sorghum cane that she could exchange at mills for cloth and sorghum sweetener. She sewed the family’s clothing on the White sewing machine she saved up for. They preserved peaches and green tomatoes and ate from their large garden, and they kept a couple of pigs, a cow, and some chickens.

In yet another example, first wife Lydia Brinkerhoff settled in the town of Holbrook, Arizona, while the second wife Vina and their husband settled on farmland outside town—the two locations multiplied the family’s financial prospects. In town, Lydia took in boarders, did laundry for hotels, sold vegetables from the farm, and managed the town’s mail contract.

Settling new land was not easy, and, in general, frontier women worked hard sewing linens and clothing, churning butter, making cheese, raising chickens, planting vegetable gardens, preserving jams and jellies, curing meat, cooking, producing soap and candles, and washing clothes. Mormon polygamous wives also took seriously their responsibility to nurture their children into their faith.

During the historical reflection that accompanies Pioneer Day, we can see how polygamous wives also participated in the Western American dreams of independence and expanding land ownership.

Paula Kelly Harline has been teaching college writing for over 20 years for the University of Idaho, Brigham Young University, and Utah Valley University. She has also worked as a freelance writer and artist. She currently lives with her husband, Craig, in Provo, Utah. She is the author of The Polygamous Wives Writing Club: From the Diaries of Mormon Pioneer Women.

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Polygamy is a major part of Mormon history, dating back to the 1800s when Mormon leaders first encouraged it.  While it is now a taboo subject, it had an undeniable impact on Mormon life, as illustrated in this infographic.

Download a jpg or pdf of the infographic.

Paula Kelly Harline has been teaching college writing for over 20 years for the University of Idaho, Brigham Young University, and Utah Valley University. She has also worked as a freelance writer and artist. She currently lives with her husband, Craig, in Provo, Utah. She is the author of The Polygamous Wives Writing Club:  From the Diaries of Mormon Pioneer Women.

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I read both of these books within a month of each other, and so it's very hard not to compare them. They were both fantastically good, but if I had to sum each on up in one word, the first book would be "gripping" and the second "compelling."

The Chosen One Carol Lynch Williams

Kyra lives with her family in a polygamist religious compound. The current prophet has isolated the community and banned all reading except for the Bible. Kyra has been chosen, meaning that she, at age 13, will marry her uncle, age 60. She will be his 7th wife.

Kyra knows she has sinned. She has snuck out at night to kiss a boy and hold his hand. Even worse, she sneaks out during the day to visit the book mobile.

I am not a huge fan of books where reading opens a whole new world to a character and the power of books blah blah blah. You tend to be preaching to the choir. At worst, it's just authors talking about how important they are to the world.

This isn't like that. Kyra likes her books, but they serve as her personal, private rebellion. It's also not the main plot line, but the bookmobile (and the fact it's mobile) is a very important device in the plot. If that makes any sense.

When Kyra is promised to her uncle, she is torn--torn between her desire to run, to flee and her family--running means never seeing them again, it means her mothers might be reassigned to other men, men who are not as nice as her father is.

William's language is immediate, Kyra's thoughts are short, concise, almost choppy, which leads the tension and the drama as she decides what to do.

Powerful, amazing stuff.

Sister Wife Shelley Hrdlitschka

Unity is a fundamentalist religious community in British Columbia and the home of three very different girls. Celeste has impure thoughts and has feelings for a boy in her community, but she it is almost time for her to be assigned to a husband. Nanette, her younger sister, is pure and pious and cannot wait to be assigned--she feels she is ready to be a wife and a mother. Taviana is from the outside and was living on the streets until someone from Unity found her and brought her in.

After Taviana is kicked out of Unity, Celeste is assigned to the father of the boy she likes and she wants to leave Unity, but she can't figure out how she would be able to leave her family.

The story is told in alternating chapters from the three girls' points of view. The subject matter is compelling enough, but it's a slightly quieter and slower book than The Chosen One. But, I liked the different points of view presented. Celeste's husband, while quite a bit older, is not a bad guy, but a complex character who tries to be kind and gentle and nice. Nanette sees nothing wrong in her lifestyle and can't understand why Celeste doesn't just pray harder to rid herself of such impure thinking. Taviana knows Unity isn't for her, but is grateful for the safe place it gave her when she needed one the most.

I liked this one better, because it was more nuanced and complex. It wasn't as gripping and terrifying, but it had much more meat.

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The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams. St. Martin's Press. May 2009. ARC supplied by publisher.

The Plot:
Kyra Carlson is almost 14; as the oldest daughter in her family, she will be the first to be "chosen", to be married. She is one on the "The Chosen Ones," who live on a compound, secure in their knowledge that they live the way God wants. Outside the gates, it is Satan's world.

But Kyra has always wanted to know about the world outside the fence, a world where children like her eldest sister, Emily, aren't ignored for being different and slow; a world where there aren't multiple wives; a world where she isn't expected to marry a man over fifty years older than herself.

The Good:

Williams' writing is as sparse as Kyra's world; and conveys how limited the choices are of "The Chosen. "It's still early and there is the promise of the sun. The sky to the east lightens, and everything around us seems like an old photo, kind of gray. The way I feel, I think, worn out and gray."

The writing doesn't drown the reader in description; it's brushstrokes, hints, but it's enough to feel the heat and cramped trailers of the ordinary people, like Kyra's family, versus the luxury of the Prophet and the Apostles. It's enough to paint Kyra finding freedom in her thoughts, in music, in discovering a mobile library full of worlds to explore, in falling in love with a teenaged boy.

Longtime readers know this is exactly the type of writing I adore; each word carefully chosen, none wasted, no extra words. It's Kyra's words and emotions; and we are with her always, whether it's hiding in a tree, reading forbidden books; caring for a sister; realizing her parents are complex and flawed.

We, the reader, know that Kyra has few options: conform and accept the marriage; run away; or die. This is a story where Kyra can never, ever, change how the Chosen are. At best, Kyra can save herself. At worst... yes, it can be worse than Kyra can imagine.

Williams creates a sense of anxiety and suspense as we wonder what Kyra will chose; as we realize the consequences her family will suffer if her choice is anything other than what her Prophet and community demands; the suspense quickens the pulse, pages are read faster and faster, dreading what is coming, but having to find out what happens next.

Williams never identifies the polygamist sect as any one religion (other than Christian -- they read the Bible, talk of God, Heaven, Jesus). And, interestingly enough, it's not a condemnation of polygamy; it is a condemnation of fundamentalism, misogyny, and dictatorships. It is a condemnation of giving up freedom and the ability to make one's own choices. It is a condemnation of child abuse masked as something holy.

The current Prophet is the son of the previous Prophet; under his leadership, the Chosen Ones have gotten more extreme. Yes, thirteen year old girls were married off before; but they were not married to old men. Yes, there was a Compound; but there were no fences, and people could freely leave and go to town. Kyra doesn't know if she would want to share a husband with other wives; but the evil described in this story is not evil from multiple wives, but rather evil from unchecked power and a leader having total control over every aspect of his follower's lives.

As one reads this -- as Williams' reveals the total control the Prophet has, the stranglehold on all the Chosen One's lives -- one cannot help but wonder at the parents and adults who allow this to happen. Williams does not paint Kyra's father or three mothers as bad people; but they are people who have slowly ceded away their responsibility for their children's happiness and safety; just as others have chosen to try to share the power (and therefore the rewards) of being an Apostle or "God Squad" member.

Kyra, and her family, will haunt you.

Links:
Becky's Book Reviews review
The Reading Zone review
A Curious Reader review

My Twitter review

© Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy

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