New Five Part Series on Polygamy

[Marcus]

When a 37 year old marries a 14 year old, do you question the 14 year old about sex?

She lived many years past fourteen but it certainly is not usual to ask older women about that. Best I know Helen did not explain. She may have or may not have had sex with Joseph Smith.

My point was that a 37 year old marrying a 14 year old is a problem, now AND then, full stop. I don't need to question a 14 year old, or a woman, about what sexual acts were or were not engaged in when she was 14 to know what Smith did was immoral and wrong.

[huckelberry]

She lived many years past fourteen but it certainly is not usual to ask older women about that. Best I know Helen did not explain. She may have or may not have had sex with Joseph Smith.

My point was that a 37 year old marrying a 14 year old is a problem, now AND then, full stop. I don't need to question a 14 year old, or a woman, about what sexual acts were or were not engaged in when she was 14 to know what Smith did was immoral and wrong.

I completely agree.

[I Have Questions]

Does this cover the rationale for a 37 year old Joseph Smith marrying and having sex with a “mere girl” of 14 years old?

So did Helen report that she had sex with Joseph Smith?

Why would you expect a wife to report on her sex life to a third party?

[MG 2.0]

It might be well to watch the series and see what the current apologetics are in regards to Joseph's polygamy and what came thereafter.

My simple suggestion to drumdude (and apparently others now) is to have an open mind and be willing to listen. By the sound of it, there are some closed minds here.

This series may be for those that lurk here who are open minded as they look through the fog/lens of history.

Regards,
MG

[sock puppet]

So did Helen report that she had sex with Joseph Smith?

Why would you expect a wife to report on her sex life to a third party?

Helen Mar Kimball: age 14 (b. Aug 22, 1828) (Joseph Smith was 37 then, in 1843): Helen wrote in her journal how she did not want to be with or married to Joseph Smith but that because he promised her parents that they would go to heaven if she did, her father Heber C Kimball, pressured Helen into this at age 14. In her autobiography, Helen wrote

"He [her father—Heber C. Kimball] taught me the principle of Celestial marriage and having a great desire to be connected with the Prophet, Joseph, he offered me to him; this I afterwards learned from the Prophet’s own mouth."

Jeni Broberg Holzapfel and Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, eds., A Woman’s View: Helen Mar Whitney’s Reminiscences of Early Church History (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1997), 482–87. She wrote (Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, “Scenes in Nauvoo,” Woman’s Exponent 11, no. 5 (August 1, 1882): 39.)

I remember how I felt, but which would be a difficult matter to describe — the various thoughts, fears and temptations that flashed through my mind when the principle was first introduced to me by my father [Heber C. Kimball], who one morning in the summer of 1843, without any preliminaries, asked me if I would believe him if he told me that it was right for married men to take other wives, can be better imagined than told. But suffice it to say the first impulse was anger, for I thought he had only said it to test my virtue. … My sensibilities were painfully touched. I felt such a sense of personal injury and displeasure for to mention such a thing to me I thought altogether unworthy of my father, and as quick as he spoke, I replied to him, short and emphatically, “No, I wouldn’t!” I had always been taught to believe it a heinous crime, improper and unnatural, and I indignantly resented it.
This was the first time that I ever openly manifested anger towards him, but I was somewhat surprised at his countenance, as he seemed rather pleased than otherwise. Then he commenced talking seriously, and reasoned and explained the principle, and why it was again to be established upon the earth, etc., but did not tell me then that anyone had yet practiced it, but left me to reflect upon it for the next twenty-four hours, during which time I was filled with various and conflicting ideas. I was skeptical — his only daughter, and I knew that he would not cast her off, and this was the only convincing proof that I had of its being right. I knew that he loved me too well to teach me anything that was not strictly pure, virtuous and exalting in its tendencies; and no one else could have influenced me at that time or brought me to accept of a doctrine so utterly repugnant and so contrary to all of our former ideas and traditions. This was just previous to his starting upon his last mission but one to the eastern states. Fearing that I might hear it from a wrong source, knowing, as he did, that there were those who would run before they were sent, and some would not hesitate to deceive and betray him and the brethren, he thought it best that I should hear it from his own lips.
The next day the Prophet called at our house, and I sat with my father and mother and heard him teach the principle and explain it more fully, and I believed it, but I had no proofs, only his and my father’s testimony. I thought that sufficient, and did not deem it necessary to seek for any further.

and

I heard him [Joseph Smith] teach and explain the principle of celestial marriage. After which he said to me, “If you will take this step, it will ensure your eternal salvation and exaltation and that of your father’s household and all of your kindred.” This promise was so great that I willingly gave myself to purchase so glorious a reward.

Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, “Autobiography, 30 March 1881,” MS 744, CHL. Typescript and copy of holograph reproduced in Jeni Broberg Holzapfel and Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, eds., A Woman’s View: Helen Mar Whitney’s Reminiscences of Early Church History (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1997), 482–87.

Helen explained how the marriage to Joseph Smith affected her when she was 15

During the winter of 1843, there were plenty of parties and balls. … Some of the young gentlemen got up a series of dancing parties, to be held at the Mansion once a week. … I had to stay home, as my father had been warned by the Prophet to keep his daughter away from there, because of the blacklegs and certain ones of questionable character who attended there. … I felt quite sore over it, and thought it a very unkind act in father to allow [my brother] to go and enjoy the dance unrestrained with others of my companions, and fetter me down, for no girl loved dancing better than I did, and I really felt that it was too much to bear. It made the dull school still more dull, and like a wild bird I longed for the freedom that was denied me; and thought myself a much abused child, and that it was pardonable if I did murmur.

Woman’s Exponent 11, no. 12 (November 15, 1882), 90; see Jeni Broberg Holzapfel and Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, eds., A Woman’s View: Helen Mar Whitney’s Reminiscences of Early Church History (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1997), 224. [UNUSUAL for the Joseph Smith Papers project, there is not a brief biography of Helen included, just that a lot was deeded to her and that she reminisced that when malaria had hit Nauvoo, Joseph Smith in a relaxing of the Word of Wisdom "often made tea and administered it with his own hands." Fn 26 to Historical Introduction at https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper ... ical-intro. The absence of a bio of Helen in the Joseph Smith Papers project is of itself curious.]

[I Have Questions]

It might be well to watch the series and see what the current apologetics are in regards to Joseph's polygamy and what came thereafter.

My simple suggestion to drumdude (and apparently others now) is to have an open mind and be willing to listen. By the sound of it, there are some closed minds here.

This series may be for those that lurk here who are open minded as they look through the fog/lens of history.

Regards,
MG

You haven’t watched it, hence why you can’t answer my question.

[huckelberry]

It might be well to watch the series and see what the current apologetics are in regards to Joseph's polygamy and what came thereafter.

My simple suggestion to drumdude (and apparently others now) is to have an open mind and be willing to listen. By the sound of it, there are some closed minds here.

This series may be for those that lurk here who are open minded as they look through the fog/lens of history.

Regards,
MG

MG. I thought Sock Puppet posted a good selection of relevant material. Does your link have interesting additions. You could invite readers with a bit of preview. I am aware Helen married and had a number of children with a man who had multiple wives. She wrote in support of the principal.

More than a couple of people thought the pain to be a sacrifice for faith.

[sock puppet]

It might be well to watch the series and see what the current apologetics are in regards to Joseph's polygamy and what came thereafter.

My simple suggestion to drumdude (and apparently others now) is to have an open mind and be willing to listen. By the sound of it,

there are some closed minds here

This series may be for those that lurk here who are open minded as they look through the fog/lens of history.

Regards,
MG

And chief among the closed minds is that of MG 2.0!!! He is seriously that un-self-aware.

[huckelberry]

So did Helen report that she had sex with Joseph Smith?

Why would you expect a wife to report on her sex life to a third party?

Questions, you have a valid point. Not reporting sex contact hardly means there was none, after all every knows such contact is normal part of a real marriage and Helen does note some surprise at it being a real marriage.

People argue that a young plural wife may wait for a bit more maturity before sexual relations. Whether that is the case with Helen is pure speculation and I am certainly not going to try and argue the matter one way or the other. For me Marcus underlined the crucial point.

[Chap]

... By the sound of it, there are some closed minds here. ...

MG: Please watch this series of videos that may persuade you that eating dog-food for breakfast can be delicious and fun.

Chap: No thanks, I've seen enough of that stuff to know I'd hate it.

MG: Oh thou closed mindèd one!