What lies did the Nauvoo Expositor print?

[_Runtu]

Joseph was never disloyal to Emma. She was always, he said, "the choice of my heart." One observer later recorded: "Although the Prophet Joseph obeyed the commandment of the Lord in regard to plural marriage and took a number of wives after his first love, Emma, he still loved her with an undying love, as is shown in the following speech when one of his wives spoke to him in a complaining manner of Emma. The Prophet turned to her and said 'If you desire my love you must never speak evil of Emma.'" (Lucy M. Wright, "Emma Hale Smith," Women's Exponent 30, no. 8, p. 59).

I fail to see how marrying other women without Emma's consent was being "never disloyal" to her. I respect you and your opinions, but I cannot help to be appalled by your statement (and Ms. Wright's).

If I did what he did, I think my wife would be quite justified in saying I had been disloyal. Of course, she would kick my butt out of the house, if she didn't kill me first. LOL

[_jtmoney]

Thank you Analytics!!! Below is what you posted directly from the Nauvoo Expositor - a plain statement that is not true. Finally, someone gets a lie from the paper - and it is a whopper.

"many of us know of a surety, that the religion of the Latter Day Saints, as originally taught by Joseph Smith, which is contained in the Old and New Testaments, Book of Covenants, and Book of Mormon, is verily true;"

Ha, so you are saying that the only lie told in the Nauvoo Expositor was the claim that the contents of the Book of Mormon are true.

I say here here to that.

[_Runtu]

Ha, so you are saying that the only lie told in the Nauvoo Expositor was the claim that the contents of the Book of Mormon are true.

I say here here to that.

I recall that Pahoran said the florid language used was dishonest, and bcspace has called it yellow journalism. Other than that, I don't know what was untruthful in the Expositor.

[_Nevo]

I fail to see how marrying other women without Emma's consent was being "never disloyal" to her. I respect you and your opinions, but I cannot help to be appalled by your statement (and Ms. Wright's).

I can understand why you're appalled by my statement (I ran it by my wife and she disagreed with it too), but I don't know why you would object to Lucy Wright's statement. Joseph and Emma did love each other, in spite of everything.

[_Runtu]

I can understand why you're appalled by my statement (I ran it by my wife and she disagreed with it too), but I don't know why you would object to Lucy Wright's statement. Joseph and Emma did love each other, in spite of everything.

I think people are capable of doing terrible things to people they love, but I think it says something about the depth of their love. We humans are really good at self-deception.

[_moksha]

This is an excellent point. His followers were also puritanical in their outlook toward sex outside of monogamy. Thus the dilemma was created of how to satisfy the cravings for the sensual while at the same time not alienating his followers. Secrecy was needed for the most part, but Hyrum's suggestion of polygamy as a way to get around the issue of others learning about these trysts was brilliant. It both satisfied those followers own puritanical hesitancies, and recruited co-conspirators who could assist in promoting even more trysts as well as keeping them secret.

If only you were to replace "satisfy cravings for the sensual" with "stave off angelic assassins bearing swords" (not that there isn't a certain Freudian connection!), you'd really be onto something!

You are right of course. by the way, that is a pretty non-sensual big sword!

[_Uncertain]

I can't really disagree, although I'm not sure that all the live-in housekeepers were, in fact, "super hot." The fact that Emma chose some of them for Joseph suggests perhaps not so much. But Fanny Alger was apparently very attractive. Certainly Joseph's polygamy would have seemed more self-denying and noble had he only chosen toothless old spinsters and widows.

Well in this case I was referencing his first plural wife Fanny Alger who was frequently described as quite attractive. I think it likely as you mentioned any wife picked by Emma would not be winning any beauty contests :). Starting out plural marriage with the young hottie housekeeper instead of the ugly but noble widow is not an auspicious beginning.

It is highly subjective. In my case, it's also highly selective. I cut Joseph a lot of slack because I feel his positive qualities outweigh his negative qualities. Had he been a complete "ass-hat" (to use the vernacular of the board) I would probably be much less charitably disposed toward him. Even Fawn Brodie's Joseph won my sympathies.

Fair enough no man should be judged only on his worst but also on his best.

Best,
Uncertain

[_Nevo]

Fair enough no man should be judged only on his worst but also on his best.

Agreed.

[_why me]

Hi Spurven. Sorry for the late reply.

How do I justify Joseph marrying women without Emma's consent? Well, he tried to get Emma's consent but she wouldn't give it. And when she eventually did give it, she soon withdrew it—though she seems to have remained conflicted right until Joseph left for Carthage (see the blessing she wrote for herself, quoted in Newell and Avery's Mormon Enigma).

Given Emma's intransigence (and who could blame her really?), and given his perception that his time was short (see the Esplin article I cited for more on this), what other choice did Joseph have if he really believed—as I think he did—that he would be "destroyed" if he failed to take additional wives?

Was Joseph correct? I don't know. If so, it raises the troubling theological question of why God would place Joseph and Emma in such a difficult situation, one that brought them so much grief and pain. But then the Hebrew God has been known to make difficult demands of his servants.

You have brought up some good points. Joseph did seem like a man in a hurry when it came to polygamy. And I find it difficult to assume as the former members on this thread that it was all done for lust. I believe that Joseph felt that it was a commandment and one he had to do without delay. And I think that his actions during that two year period seem like a man in a hurry.

And you are right about emma. I think that most men would be hard put to institute polygamy with such a wife as emma. And he knew that he was going to be in hot water when he began the practice again. What choice did he have if he believed himself a prophet? Very little.

But here is the problem: critics here see Joseph Smith has a conman. And as a conman, polygamy was also a con. And so, all that Joseph Smith did was done in the name of a con. And they make their arguments accordingly. But for believers who see Joseph Smith as a prophet, polygamy can be seen as a practice that needed to be implemented and Joseph Smith was commanded to do it or face spiritual destruction. And so he complied.

Now weighing the evidence: none of the women who were his plural wife ever to my knowledge spoke a bad word about him. In fact, just the opposite. Now I would assume that if Joseph Smith was a horny conman, his lust would come out in the bedroom if he were bedding these women and many of these women would feel abused. But...this did not happen. No kiss and tell even if some of the plural wives went their own way out of the LDS church.

And emma...well it seems that she knew that Joseph Smith loved her and even after his death, she continued to teach her children from the Book of Mormon. Quite a strange thing to do if she believed her husband to be conman. And the witnesses...well....they believed right up to the end that what they saw with their eyes or felt with their hands, was the real thing...they never denied their testimony. When we put it all together it is quite remarkable. Since if this were all a con, Joseph Smith had wonderful luck in keeping the con all together even after he was murdered. It should have fallen like a house of cards. Too many loose ends for a con to succeed. Now if it wasn't a con...then we can understand why it still is a success story: the LDS church.

[_why me]

I think people are capable of doing terrible things to people they love, but I think it says something about the depth of their love. We humans are really good at self-deception.

If we are speaking about Joseph Smith, I just don't see it. True, polygamy was hard for emma but also for Joseph Smith, if we take William Law's son's account to be a true account. According to that account we see a tearful Joseph implying that he has no choice in the matter. It seems that he was also suffering because of polygamy. And I am sure that emma saw Joseph's suffering too. It was a complicated time for the both of them.

Now critics like yourself will believe he was a lustful horny toad with a perpetual erection because you see him as a conman. And that is fine. But none of us were there. And so, we are free to put our presentism in place and judge accordingly.

But then again, emma suffered throughout the early history of the church. And she never faltered except for accepting polygamy. If I were her, I would have given up after the first home burning. Why keep her children in danger if she believed it to be a fraud? Not a very good mother if so. In fact, she comes across as a total idiot if she believed her husband to be a fraudster. But if she believed her husband to be a prophet, we see a strong woman who sacrificed much for her belief in her husband.

Emma was more inclined toward the kirkland Joseph. The nauvoo joseph was too revolutionary for her. But she still loved him and felt great distress at his murder.