Specific works/Nauvoo Polygamy/Romance

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Censorship

A FAIR Analysis of: Specific works/Nauvoo Polygamy A work by author: George D. Smith Romance

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Romance

Had romance blossomed between her and the charismatic...prophet?
—Nauvoo Polygamy, p. 1

∗       ∗       ∗

The Whitney letter

The letter that Joseph wrote to the Whitney's appears to be "exhibit A" in the quest to show that Joseph was "romantic" with his plural wives. The letter is referred to over and over again, usually edited in such a way that the alleged "romantic" aspects are emphasized:

• "The prophet then poured out his heart, writing to his newest wife: "My feelings are so strong for you…now is the time to afford me succour….I know it is the will of God that you should comfort me now." (p. 53)
• Joseph "recommended his friend, whose seventeen-year-old daughter he had just married, should 'come a little a head, and nock…at the window.'" (p. 53)
• "Emma Hale, Joseph's wife of fifteen years, had left his side just twenty-four hours earlier. Now Joseph declared that he was "lonesome," and he pleaded with Sarah Ann to visit him under cover of darkness. After all, they had been married just three weeks earlier. (p. 53)
• “Did Sarah Ann keep this rendezvous on that humid summer night? Unfortunately, the documentary record is silent.” But “the letter survives to illuminate the complexity of Smith’s life in Nauvoo." (p. 54)
• “when Joseph requested that Sarah Ann Whitney visit him and ‘nock at the window,’ he reassured his new young wife that Emma would not be there, telegraphing his fear of discovery if Emma happened upon his trysts.” (p. 64)
• Joseph's "summer 1842 call for an intimate visit from Sarah Ann Whitney…substantiate[s] the intimate relationships he was involved in during those two years." (p. 185)

Joseph and women

The author portrays Joseph Smith through a critical lens as a womanizer who had a "predilection" to "take an interest in more than one woman" (p. x) and who was in a constant "quest for female companionship." (p. xii) The author talks about Joseph fitting "secret liaisons with women and girls" into his "busy schedule." (p. 55)

The author even states that what interested him the most was how Joseph "went about courting…these women." (p. 54), despite a total lack of evidence that any sort of "courtship" was involved! Joseph often used intermediaries—usually a relative—to approach any prospective plural wife.

Joseph is condemned through absence of evidence

Beyond his constant speculation regarding Joseph's alleged sins, the author condemns Joseph through the absence of evidence. For example, the author states that Joseph's 1842 letter to John Wentworth "left out any reference to the sinful thoughts he had previously mentioned. He had come effectively to de-emphasize the feelings of sin and guilt he had once experienced." (p. 21) The author notes that there is nothing in Lucy Mack Smith's history about "women, wives, or early struggles with chastity." (p. 22)

Joseph's association with future plural wives while they were children

The author appears to wish to make a point of noting that a number of Joseph's plural wives were young children when he first met them. It is noted that "[i]t was eleven years after the Smiths roomed with the Whitneys that Joseph expressed a romantic interest in their daughter." (p. 31) The author even speculates on the nature of Joseph's relationships with these young women "from the time he first met them," and asks: "How relevant is it that in many instances he had lived under the same roof as his future wife prior to marrying her?" (32-33)

Further reading

A FAIR Analysis of Critical Works

• American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows— (Index of claims)
• An Insider's View of Mormon Origins — (Index of claims—Use of sources)
• Archaeology and the Book of Mormon
• Ashamed of Joseph: Mormon Foundations Crumble
• Becoming Gods: A Closer Look at 21st-Century Mormonism/Inside Today's Mormonism — (Index of claims—Use of sources)
• Behind the Mask of Mormonism
• Specific works/Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows
• Specific works/By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus
• Counterfeit Gospel of Mormonism
• Covering Up the Black Hole in the Book of Mormon
  • Answering Mormon Scholars, Vol. 1
  • Answering Mormon Scholars, Vol. 2
• Decker's Complete Handbook on Mormonism
• Early Mormonism and the Magic World View — (Index of claims—Use of sources)
• Specific works/Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Mormonism
• Faithful History: Essays on Writing Mormon History
• From Captain Kidd's Treasure Ghost to the Angel Moroni: Changing Dramatis Personae in Early Mormonism
• In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith — (Index of Claims)
• Indian Origins and the Book of Mormon
• Inventing Mormonism: Tradition and the Historical Record
• Is the Mormon My Brother?
• Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet
• Joseph Smith and the Origins of The Book of Mormon (2nd edition)—(Index of claims)
• Joseph Smith's New York Reputation Reexamined
• The Kingdom of the Cults (Revised) — (Index of claims)
• Leaving the Saints
• Letters to a Mormon Elder
• Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church — (Index of claims)
• Mormon America: The Power and the Promise — (Index of claims)
• The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power — (Index of claims)
• The Mormon Mirage: Seeing Through the Illusion of Mainstream Mormonism
• Mormonism 101—Index of claims
• Mormonism (Kurt Van Gorden)
• Mormonism: Shadow or Reality? — (Index of claims)
• The Mysteries of Godliness—A History of Mormon Temple Worship
• Nauvoo Polygamy — (Index of claims—Use of sources—Prejudicial language—Presentism—Mind reading—Censorship—Romance—Assumptions—Magick)
• New Approaches to the Book of Mormon
• New Mormon Challenge
• No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith — (Index of claims)
• One Nation Under Gods — (Index of claims—Use of Sources—Prejudicial language—Absurd claims—Presentism—Mind reading—Rewording—Omissions—Sarcasm)
• The Refiner's Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644–1844
• Same-Sex Dynamics Among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example — (Index of claims)
• Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess
• The Changing World of Mormonism — (Index of claims)
• Trouble Enough: Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon
• Under the Banner of Heaven — (Index of claims)
• Word of God: Essays on Mormon Scripture