Unless I am mistaken, I am descended from the young, sturdy-looking wife who is standing in the back. Sometimes I think having a second (even) younger wife could be handy.

One possible explanation is that Joseph Smith didn’t have sex with his plural wives. According to sworn testimony of some of his wives, this is not the case.

Another explanation is that Smith did in fact have such children that aren’t publicly acknowledged because the children go by other names (e.g. by the name of the mother’s other polyandrous husband). This seems to be the case. (ibid)

Yet another explanation for the relative scarcity of children is that abortion was practiced in Nauvoo (though the impartiality of the witnesses for this is doubtful).

I honestly don’t have any firm conclusions about what went on between Smith and his women. It’s nigh on impossible to know. Of one thing I am confident: the history of Joseph Smith is not as clear and pure as LDS sunday school lessons would have us believe. While it is possible that Joseph Smith was above reproach, the evidence seems to me to weigh more heavily in the other direction. I tend to believe that Smith simply fits the oft repeated archetype of cult leader taking sexual liberties with his followers.^{[1] [2] [3]} It is certainly the simpler explanation when compared with angelic visitors and divine commandments to wed other men’s wives.

In 1839, the Huntington family arrived in Nauvoo, along with daughter, Zina. Within months, Zina’s Mother died from the malaria epidemic which claimed the lives of many of the early Nauvoo settlers. About this same time, Zina met and was courted by Henry B. Jacobs, a handsome and talented musician. Sometime during Henry’s courtship of Zina, Joseph Smith explained to Zina the “principle of plural marriage” and asked her to become one of his wives. Zina remembers the conflict she felt about Joseph’s proposal, and her budding relationship with Henry: “O dear Heaven, grant me wisdom! Help me to know the way. O Lord, my god, let thy will be done and with thine arm around about to guide, shield and direct …” Zina declined Joseph’s proposal and chose to marry Henry. They were married on March 7, 1841.

Zina later wrote, that within months of her marriage to Henry, “[Joseph] sent word to me by my brother, saying, ‘Tell Zina, I put it off and put it off till an angel with a drawn sword stood by me and told me if I did not establish that principle upon the earth I would lose my position and my life’”. Joseph further explained that, “the Lord had made it known to him she was to be his celestial wife.”

Zina chose to obey this commandment and married Joseph on October 27. She later recalled, “When I heard that God had revealed the law of celestial marriag … I obtained a testimony for myself that God had required that order to be established in this church … I made a greater sacrifise than to give my life for I never anticipated again to be looked upon as an honerable woman by those I dearly loved …”. Zina continued, “It was something too sacred to be talked about; it was more to me than life or death. I never breathed it for years”.

Zina’s first husband, Henry, was aware of this wedding and they continued to live in the same home. He believed that “whatever the Prophet did was right, without making the wisdom of God’s authorities bend to the reasoning of any man.” Over the next few years, Henry was sent on several missions to Chicago, Western New York and Tennessee. Henry missed his family and wrote home often. One of Henry’s missionary companions, John D. Lee, said, “Jacobs was bragging about his wife and two children, what a true, virtuous, lovely woman she was. He almost worshiped her …”.

Shortly after Joseph Smith’s death in 1844, Zina married Brigham Young. In May of 1846, Henry was sent on a mission to England. In Henry’s absence, Zina began to live openly as Brigham’s wife and remained so throughout her life in Utah. Henry seemed to struggle with this arrangement and later wrote to Zina, “… the same affection is there … But I feel alone … I do not Blame Eny person … may the Lord our Father bless Brother Brigham … all is right according to the Law of the Celestial Kingdom of our God Joseph.”

This law of monogamy, or the monogamic system, laid the foundation for prostitution and the evils and diseases of the most revolting nature and character under which modern Christendom groans,…

It is a fact worthy of note that the shortest lived nations of which we have record have been monogamic. Rome … was a monogamic nation and the numerous evils attending that system early laid the foundation for that ruin which eventually overtook her.—Apostle George Q. Cannon, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 13, pp. 195, 202

Since the founding of the Roman empire monogamy has prevailed more extensively than in times previous to that. The founders of that ancient empire were robbers and women stealers, and made laws favoring monogamy in consequence of the scarcity of women among them, and hence this monogamic system which now prevails throughout Christendom, and which had been so fruitful a source of prostitution and whoredom throughout all the Christian monogamic cities of the Old and New World, until rottenness and decay are at the root of their institutions both national and religious.—Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 11, p. 128

… the one-wife system not only degenerates the human family, both physically and intellectually, but it is entirely incompatible with philosophical notions of immortality; it is a lure to temptation, and has always proved a curse to a people.—Prophet John Taylor, Millennial Star, Vol. 15, p. 227

We breathe the free air, we have the best looking men and handsomest women, and if they [non-Mormons] envy us our position, well they may, for they are a poor, narrow-minded, pinch-backed race of men, who chain themselves down to the law of monogamy, and live all their days under the dominion of one wife. They ought to be ashamed of such conduct, and the still fouler channel which flows from their practices; and it is not to be wondered at that they should envy those who so much better understand the social relations.—Apostle George A. Smith, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 3, page 291

I have noticed that a man who has but one wife, and is inclined to that doctrine, soon begins to wither and dry up, while a man who goes into plurality [of wives] looks fresh, young, and sprightly. Why is this? Because God loves that man, and because he honors his word. Some of you may not believe this, but I not only believe it but I also know it. For a man of God to be confined to one woman is small business. I do not know what we would do if we had only one wife apiece.—Apostle Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses Vol 5, page 22

Just ask yourselves, historians, when was monogamy introduced on to the face of the earth? When those buccaneers, who settled on the peninsula where Rome now stands, could not steal women enough to have two or three apiece, they passed a law that a man should have but one woman. And this started monogamy and the downfall of the plurality system. In the days of Jesus, Rome, having dominion over Jerusalem, they carried out the doctrine more or less. This was the rise, start and foundation of the doctrine of monogamy; and never till then was there a law passed, that we have any knowledge of, that a man should have but one wife.—Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses Vol. 12, page 262

Thus we see that according to the prophets and apostles of the church founded by Joseph Smith we should lobby for a constitutional amendment which mandates that all capable men take more than one wife. Our civilization is at stake.

(Thanks to Talking to God for the inspiration.)

Were you taken in, even though you knew it was about change blindness? I don’t think this shows that we are deficient because we failed to notice what should have been obvious. As the article suggests, it would be dysfunctional to be aware of everything around us at that level of detail. Conscious thought is a limited resource because our brains are limited in size thanks in part to the limited size of women’s hips (I am sure mothers thank the stars that babies’ heads aren’t any larger). We just don’t have enough brain to take in more information.

Predictably, I thought about this in relation to Mormonism. The doctrines of Mormonism have changed radically over the course of its short history, yet people still insist that the Gospel according to Mormonism is eternal. Even in my own lifetime, doctrines have changed enough that I have noticed some changes.

Some may dismiss these as changes in Mormon folk doctrine, but that’s really all Mormon doctrine is. It lacks a defining written or oral creed, so everything is folk doctrine. That’s beside the point.

I’m talking about how unaware I was of these changes. I thought the changes in doctrine were minor and inconsequential. I absorbed this attitude from the people around me who all seemed to believe that the Gospel was unchanging. Why this belief despite ample evidence to the contrary?

The answer is complex, to be sure. Perhaps human change blindness can help explain some of it. If changes in doctrine are made quietly and slowly enough, it is quite easy to forget that we used to believe differently just a few years ago.

For example, I’ve recently learned that the LDS church has begun sealing women to more than one husband though not at the same time. Let me explain for anyone unfamiliar with the niceties of Mormon practice. A sealing is a marriage for “time and all eternity”, an eternal marriage. If a person’s eternal spouse dies, Mormonism considers them to still be married. So you can’t get sealed to another spouse after your first spouse dies because you’re still married to someone else.

Except that this is Mormonism and polygyny is okay. Men have long been allowed to be sealed to another woman as long as all previously sealed wives have died. Polyandry, on the other hand, isn’t kosher in the LDS church (even though Joseph Smith apparently practiced it), so women have only been allowed to be sealed to one husband ever. Make sense?

Anyway, that’s recently changed. As I mentioned, women are now allowed to be sealed to another man after their spouse dies. This may seem to some to be a small policy change, but this policy was based on the doctrine that polygyny was ordained of God while polyandry was not. I’m sure the rationale is that God will sort out in the world to come which (one) man the women will be sealed to forever.

I can’t help but speculate, however, that this represents another example of how Mormon doctrine changes over time without anyone suspecting it. Maybe a few years down the road Mormons will believe that God will also sort out which one woman a man will be sealed to, that polygamy was just a practical expedient here on earth to raise up Mormon seed to God, and that all polygamous sealings will be dissolved in eternity. That’s a long way from teaching that polygamy would be required of everyone who wanted to inherit the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom.

As I sought a greater connection with God through study and prayer, I learned that the history of the Mormon church isn’t what it is portrayed to be. I have encountered anti-Mormon literature throughout my life like most members of the Church. It caused me some moments of panicked doubt, but through study and the help of others, I was able to see through the spiteful lies and return to faith.

Things were different when I read Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Lyman Bushman, currently serving as a Stake Patriarch. This book wasn’t filled with lies from the anti-Mormon crowd. It presented what the historical evidence seems to say without bias for or against the LDS church.

It became clear from this book and others that the Mormon religion wasn’t founded by a heroic, almost god-like prophet of the last days, but by a deeply flawed human being. Brother Joseph may have had experiences which led him to feel a divine vocation, but I saw little evidence that the Church was actually led by the hand of God. Joseph lived as a human being, full of pride, anger, and lust. He fell victim to his own power. He seduced young women and other men’s wives into sexual relationships through charisma and the promise of eternal salvation for themselves and their families. Only after his first affair did he mention to anyone the doctrine of polygamy. In case it didn’t come through the first time I said it, Joseph Smith was married to other men’s wives while the men were still alive and married. In a handful of cases, Joseph Smith practiced polyandry. That was news to me.

There were missteps, blunders, and doctrinal reversals at every step of early Church history. Joseph’s inept leadership culminated in Joseph and Hyrum’s assassinations and the exile of most of the Saints into the Rocky Mountains. The Saints were not strictly innocent victims as we often see portrayed by the LDS church. They provoked some of their own troubles.

I next read Mormonism in Transition: A History of the Latter-day Saints, 1890-1930 by Thomas G. Alexander. This was another scholarly work which presented a balanced history of the Mormons in Utah during this pivotal time. The book treated many themes, but the ones that stuck with me concern:

1. the radical changes in doctrine during this time like the abandonment of the Adam-God theory which had been taught in the Temple Endowment for a time
2. the continued, secret solemnization of polygamous marriages by members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve well into the twentieth century despite public avowals to the contrary
3. the consolidation of centralized priesthood authority in the church which removed the autonomy of the Relief Society and the other auxiliary organizations (the Relief Society had been a parallel organization to the priesthood)
4. the change in emphasis from worship centered around gifts of the Spirit to attendance at the temple (this change also further reduced the autonomy of the Sisters of the Church who were probably the most fervent practitioners of the Gifts, who for example, would often heal members of Church through their spiritual gifts)
5. the nascent development of a literalist orthodoxy which changed the original, freeform, creedless Mormonism into the more authoritarian, exclusive religion we are familiar with today

I next read David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism by Gregory A Prince and Wm Robert Wright. This book tells the story of how Mormonism was transformed into something that is easily recognizable to modern members. It traces the continued consolidation of power and authority and the continued creation of an LDS orthodoxy. It also portrayed the machinations and politics at the highest levels of the Church which betrays the image of calm unanimity which is portrayed to the public. It only added another damning witness to the previous two books in my eyes.

At this point, I was on pretty shaky ground. I was a member of a church that I no longer recognized. I didn’t know whether to give up on Mormonism entirely or to become a fundamentalist Mormon in hopes of regaining something which was lost.

Enter the new crop of atheist authors, stage right. I never read any of Dawkins’, Harris’, or Dennet’s books, but I became familiar with their ideas through snippets of text and video on the internet.

I don’t think I’ve shared this anywhere else yet, but the following two sites were a central turning point when I became aware of how absurd a belief in God looked when observed objectively: Why Won’t God Heal Amputees and Kissing Hank’s Ass (video inspired by Kissing Hank’s Ass). The first asks a very provocative question. Had I ever heard of an amputee made whole through prayer? Why not? I thought I had a good answer to this challenging question, but as I read through that site, I realized that my answer was only a weak rationalization to preserve a belief which seemed more and more like simple superstition.

It all comes down to this: what the atheists said made sense on a level that all my religious training did not. My experiences, when I looked at them honestly, confirmed the atheists’ viewpoint much more than it confirmed the Mormon doctrines. I had never seen God or felt any special communion with Him. I never had a witness of the Holy Spirit that could be distinguished from a simple emotional response. I had never witnessed any miracles. Answers to my prayers had been sporadic and indistinguishable from natural phenomena. The leaders of the LDS church seemed like nothing more than sincere men who acted with no more insight than other intelligent managers in the business world.

My world under the burden of my religious faith had been filled with guilt, fear, and superstition. If you had told me this at the time, I would have denied it. The world was peachy keen from where I stood. I was a fish swimming in an ocean of water, ignorant of the true nature of my surroundings. I must say the following exactly as it is: the Mormon church laid a mighty awful mindfuck on me. It’s only now that I can see that.

Giving up on Mormonism, Satan, and God has made the world make sense. I was always struggling to reconcile my beliefs with what I saw in the world around me. I never dug too deeply into religious doctrines because it only ended in paradox and infinite regress. My mind is now unfettered by filial, cultural, or dogmatic constraints. I feel no obligation to believe anything that isn’t reasonable to me.

All the days of my life I had never known the pleasure of pure intellectual integrity. Now that I’ve tasted that fruit which is most precious and sweet above all that is sweet, I will not be easily persuaded to turn back to the pandemonium of the great and spacious houses of religious ignorance and pride.