🛏 Consummation¶
Estimated time to read: 5 minutes
Polygamous marriages weren't sexual!¶
How confident are we that this is the case?
One thing we need to agree on, irrespective of which side of the issue you stand, is a success criteria. How much information is enough? What information would definitively settle the question?
If the only thing that will settle this dispute is a journal account from Eliza R Snow that reads "yeah, Smith had this massive hog and got real freaky, kept going all night and I couldn't walk straight the next day 🥴" then you're not going to find that. If you're looking for a sermon from Joseph Smith publicly clarifying that "in case any of you were wondering, my relationships with Helen Kimball involve no penetrative sex. Just wanted to clear the air and get that out there," you won't find that either.
What you might find instead are affidavits of carnal intercourse, being married "in very deed," or "celestializing," which are much more euphemistic. I don't know how many ambiguous ways one could interpret that. Point being, don't forget that these documents were written in 19th century America, where mentioning anatomical parts or prurient verbs is scandalous. No one is going to write down in detail their romantic encounters.
How important is this issue?¶
I've encountered some folks, missionaries in particular, who will assert that what Joseph did shouldn't have a deep enough impact on us today. Did he have sex with teenagers? "Maybe— if yes, or if no, how does that affect our lives today under President Nelson?"
Well...
Today's priesthood lineage all traces back to Joseph. If he was called of God to be a prophet, I should damn well be able to expect him to act like one. If a teenager gets a bit too handsy with their romantic interest, any Aaronic priesthood that was present is removed until they confess to the local bishop. They are no longer authorized to pass, prepare, nor bless sacrament or perform baptisms- all priesthood ordinances- until they are deemed worthy again. Why then, in the ever-loving shit, is the prophet of the restoration held to a such a remarkably lower standard? If he isn't worthy of the priesthood office he held, wouldn't that mean anyone following after isn't really acting by God's authority? Because that's the exact scenario I distinctly remember being drilled on as a teenager in Sunday school. If we bless, prepare or pass the sacrament unworthily, it's not a saving ordinance because it wasn't done by proper priesthood authority. Was that just a shame tactic without any doctrinal basis? Because if it holds up, Joseph wasn't a worthy priesthood holder.
“Well, if he fuckin’, then why no babby?”¶
It seems to me that we don’t have solid info as to why, but we have a lot of suspicious circumstantial evidence. The first I could point to is how many of the children born between Joseph and Emma had died in infancy. I don't know enough about biology and reproductive organs to confidently draw a connection between that observation (Emma's children passing away) and Joseph's other spouses not carrying to full term.
Consider some possible reasons, having established that plural marriage did indeed happen.
- Plural marriage(s) never were consummated (appears false; Emma probably wouldn’t have had such a strong reaction if it was purely domestic)
- Plan B! Abort, abort!
John C Bennett was in the equivalent of the church’s first presidency at Nauvoo. He was a physician, a trained obstetrician, and is on record as having propositioned women with the following stipulation:
… he had promised to give his victims “medicine to produce abortions, providing they should become pregnant.”
— Joseph Smith, John C. Bennett, and the Extradition Attempt, 1842, BYU Religious Studies Center; see also Times and Seasons, 1 August 1842
I haven’t encountered any direct evidence that Bennett did perform abortions, but for him to be so close to Joseph Smith and being willing to perform abortions for Joseph seems likely. The above quote is what I will call strong circumstantial evidence.
The 19th century is not so far removed from us today to be considered barbaric or uncivilized. It is in our modern era, where humans understand that sex = babies. If an unexplained number of pregnancies showed up surrounding Joseph, people would get suspicious. The point was to be discreet. They didn’t want babies, that would blow their cover.
One way to circumvent suspicion is to engage in polyandry, or coital behavior with women who were already married. That way, there’s plausible deniability for extramarital affairs. I don't think paternity tests existed at the time, so if a plural wife of Joseph happens to be the legal wife of someone else, a pregnancy would look a lot less suspicious. Pedestrian, even.
Contraception methods in the 1830’s might not be quite as sophisticated today, but… did they understand ovulation cycles to avoid conception? I assume so, but I can't really say with confidence.
Sex doesn’t 100% result in conception every time— as I understand it, there are numerous factors at play. The absence of children does not mean there never were any extramarital affairs. It’s an indication, yes, but not a bulletproof refutation, either.