Join Megan Conner on a deeply personal journey in this eye-opening episode of "The Midlife Revolution" where she shares her transformative decision to leave the LDS Church. Explore the historical controversies of Joseph Smith's polygamous marriages, including his unions with teenagers, and delve into how these revelations sparked a profound crisis of faith. Discover the ethical dilemmas posed by these practices, the church's own acknowledgment in its publications, and the critical historical analyses that shaped Megan's path out of Mormonism. Whether you're grappling with your own faith, curious about religious history, or seeking understanding of one of Mormonism's most debated topics, this episode promises to challenge your perceptions and inspire reflection.

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this entire time.

All of that stuff just has

really disturbed me over

the last couple of days.

And I've kind of been in this rabbit hole.

I would really like to have

your opinion because I am

I'm really having a hard time with this.

And I'm really upset about

just the entire dynamic of

Like it feels like the

church leaders have been

lying to us all along and

that they've covered it up

this entire time.

All of that stuff just has

really disturbed me over

the last couple of days and

I've kind of been in this rabbit hole.

I would really like to have

your opinion because I am,

I'm really having a hard

time with this

welcome to the midlife

revolution thanks for being

here everybody and thank

you for your patience while

i got everything settled

outside of the closet

um i think last wednesday we

left off the episode about

my faith crisis a little

sooner than i wanted to

because of my technical

difficulties and so i

wanted to finish um the

video that i started out

with i posted on tick tock

a shortened version of my

meltdown in the car where i

was at a point where i had gotten

so much information about

some of the truth claims of

the church that i didn't

really know what to do and

then i as i continued

digging i found some

information that disturbed

me well here's what's

interesting about it these

are it's information that i

knew for a long time this

was nothing new to me

um the difference is that

when you are in the church

and you are trying so hard

to uh just live your life

according to the teachings

of the church lots of times

when problems come up you

sort of explain them away

and what the saying in the

church was that you're

supposed to just put them

on the shelf there was a

famous talk that one of the

women leaders gave when i was a teenager

that said that just if

there's something you don't

understand or something

that you are wrestling with

or struggling with,

and it's a question that

can't be answered,

just put it on the shelf.

And then someday we'll know

everything we need to know.

You can ask God when you see

him or God will reveal it

to the prophets and you'll be fine.

So that's why a lot of times

when Mormons leave the church,

they say my shelf broke

because there were so many

things on the shelf.

I kept putting things on the

shelf over and over and

finally my shelf broke.

And this is what happened to me as well.

I had a lot of things on my

shelf and the meltdown in

the car was me taking

things off the shelf and

examining them and looking

at them for the first time

from the perspective of,

critical thinking rather

than magical thinking and

trying to bring in facts

where before there had just

been feelings.

And people will often

comment when I talk about

leaving the church that they will say,

don't forget the feelings

that you have because the

church teaches us to,

when we feel that burning sensation of,

when we feel that burning in

our heart that warm feeling

that's supposed to be the

holy ghost telling us that

what we're hearing is true

and so we rely on those

feelings rather than on

facts because the story of

joseph smith is frankly

unbelievable that god and

jesus christ appeared to

him and told him that he

was going to be a prophet um so

If you think about that

story just from a factual standpoint,

it doesn't make a lot of sense, right?

You have to make a lot of

room for conjecture.

And what I have come to find

is that the solution that

requires the least amount

of conjecture is likely the

truest explanation for something.

When I was in the church,

I was told to just be faithful,

just pray harder,

just get a better witness, you know,

just keep believing.

No matter what you do,

just keep believing.

And that allowed me to look

beyond a lot of facts and a

lot of logical explanations

because I was trying to be

faithful and come at it

from a faithful perspective.

so i knew all about polygamy

um or at least i thought i

did growing up in the

church i knew that polygamy

was a practice in the

church what i was told is

that it was something we

did a long time ago the

church officially disavowed

it it was a temporary thing

and then you know when the

church denounced it we

completely moved away from

polygamy and we'll never have to

do it again in this life,

and then God will explain

why he did that later.

That's what I was taught as

a child and as a youth growing up.

As a young adult,

I came to understand that a

lot of people believed that

it was Brigham Young who

instituted the practice of

polygamy after the saints

went to the Utah Territory.

Then facts started to come

out that said that actually

Joseph Smith did institute polygamy.

Then we were told he had a few wives,

but it was after the revelation,

section one,

thirty two of the Doctrine

and Covenants came out,

which we're going to go

over a whole timeline.

And then that Emma knew

about it and that she was

fine with the revelation

because it was explained to

her from a faithful standpoint.

then so much information

came out about joseph smith

being the one who actually

instituted polygamy that

the church started having

to make some concessions

for the historical accuracy

of those accounts and there

was a woman named sandra

tanner who did a lot of

research on not just

polygamy but church history

in general the book of

mormon and she really was

the pioneer is the pioneer

of so much of this research,

compiling the research,

and she and her husband put

out several books, pamphlets, essays,

things like that,

to help people have a true

historical frame for Mormonism.

So during this time of research,

I had always known polygamy

was a problem for me,

it was an issue for me,

and the idea that we don't

practice it anymore really isn't true.

Because when you get married in the temple,

man and a woman get married,

let's say the wife dies.

Well,

the man can be eternally sealed to

another woman.

Let's say a man and woman

get married and the man dies.

The woman cannot be

eternally sealed to another man.

So at this current time,

there are two leaders of

the church who are sealed

to multiple women.

That's basically polygamy,

except for the fact that

their wives did pass away,

but then they married another woman.

They were sealed to them eternally.

So what they believe,

the top two leaders of the church,

Russell Nelson and Dallin Oaks,

what they believe is that

they will have both of

those women as wives in the afterlife.

So to say that we don't

practice polygamy anymore

and it's not part of our

faith is not really accurate.

So during this time of

questioning everything and

taking everything off my shelf, I finally,

after this car meltdown,

decided that I was going to

attack polygamy from the

standpoint of like,

I just have ignored and all

of this stuff.

And I've been told so many

different things.

I don't know what's true anymore.

So I'm going to go find out the truth.

And I came across a lecture

that Sandra Tanner was

giving to a group of other

Christian leaders.

It was talking about why

Mormons leave the church.

And I would like to share it with you.

How do you rationalize

Joseph Smith approaching

teenage girls and women

that are married and have

living husbands and telling

them they have to go into polygamy?

And by the way,

be sure you don't mention

this to my wife.

And the Mormon scholars all know this.

This is not a historical

thing that they challenge.

They just have to, well,

this fellow I had dinner with,

I said to him,

How do you avoid the

conclusion that Joseph

Smith was a sexual predator?

And he says, whoa, that's pretty strong.

And I said,

but how do you avoid that conclusion?

If you look at the story,

it seems obvious that

that's what you have.

And he says, well,

I believe he was sincere.

He thought he was following

God kind of thing.

And I said, well,

David Koresh was probably sincere.

And you could name all the

polygamists are sincere.

There's all kinds of people

out there that are sincere.

But that doesn't mean they

may not be promoting

something that's very,

very wrong

So when I heard Sandra

Tanner refer to Joseph

Smith as a sexual predator,

it really caught my

attention because I am a

survivor of multiple types

of assaults and abuse.

And it was the first time

that the cognitive

dissonance of my survivor

brain and my Mormon brain

started fighting with each

other because during my

trauma healing and my

recovery i finally learned

the words that i needed to

describe what happened to

me i learned what a

predator was i learned what

grooming was i learned how

manipulation and control

happens and to hear sandra

tanner refer to joseph

smith as a predator blew my mind

Because I didn't think that

that was the case.

I thought that all of his wives...

had given consent and I

thought that they had all

agreed to do this.

And I knew the apologetic

argument that some of his

wives were just spiritual wives.

They were not,

they were ceilings for eternity only,

that he didn't live with any of them,

that there was no offspring

produced from any of these.

And so all of these like

conflicting ideas were just

swimming around in my head

and I was trying to make sense of them.

so i decided to go look at

some source documents and

what i really wanted was

the first-hand accounts of

these women now i am not

prepared to give a

comprehensive explanation

of polygamy so this is not

intended to be a a just a definitive um

the last word on polygamy, comprehensive,

it would take such a long

time to dig into all of that,

that I really just wanted

to give sort of an overview

of the things that I think

people misunderstand the

most and the things that I didn't know,

which when I discovered them,

finally became the last straw for me.

So after hearing just this

snippet from Sandra Tanner,

I didn't even listen to the

rest of the lecture because

my mind was so blown.

I was like,

I am immediately going down a

rabbit hole to look for source documents.

So that's what I did.

And I think it would be

helpful to just for you

guys to go over just a

brief timeline of polygamy

in Joseph Smith's era.

so the church

was founded in uh so this

is the timeline of how this

all happened okay um

In eighteen twenty was the

first time that Joseph

Smith wrote down about

having a vision of God and Jesus Christ.

But this all comes after that.

So in eighteen twenty three,

that's when and I'm going

to put all this in quotes

because this is what the claim is.

Right.

I'm not I'm not presenting this as fact.

Moroni appears to Joseph

Smith and quotes prophecies

about restoring the sealing

keys as part of the priesthood.

In eighteen twenty seven,

he marries Emma Hale,

his first and only legal wife.

In eighteen twenty nine,

he translates the Book of Mormon

in the book of jacob in the

book of mormon there's some

allusions to like when

polygamy is authorized by

god i'm not gonna dig into

all of that right now

that's for that's a rabbit

hole for another time and

then in june is when the

church was restored and

that was when joseph smith

started revising the bible

um and and the reason why

these things are important

to note is because this to

me shows that it was a very

methodical planned out

strategy by joseph smith to

little by little introduce

the idea of multiple wives and polygamy

If we look at it from the standpoint of,

I think,

all of these predatory situations,

people who lead high

control groups are in it

for three things.

And I learned this during my

cousin Lori's trial.

It really sums up so much of

why people do anything.

Money, power, and sex.

And if you think about it,

Joseph Smith already had

the power because he had

lots of followers at this point.

He was starting to get a lot

of money because people

were making sure that he

and his family were well cared for.

His home in Nauvoo,

Illinois was referred to as

the mansion house.

It was a very big house for the time.

And if you've ever been to

Nauvoo and seen like the

other little houses,

Joseph Smith was much bigger.

He had plenty.

And so this was kind of the third house

rung to that stool right

that that he wanted to find

a way to have access to

women so this timeline i

think shows a very

methodical lead up to being

able to introduce that

legitimate legitimately

because he could have done

it secretly but i think

what he really wanted was

for everyone to be on board

with it and for him to be

able to get exactly what he wanted so in

Joseph Smith receives a

revelation affirming that

marriage is ordained of God,

and then starts talking

about the idea of plural marriage.

In July of that year,

he reportedly receives a

revelation informing a group of elders,

these are basically just

leaders of the church in Missouri,

that they should take

plural wives among the Native Americans.

that's again a rabbit hole

for another time a very

problematic part of mormon

history is that they

believed that they needed

to help to tame the natives

quote unquote these are

their words and to

turn them into a fair and

delightsome people.

There are parts of the Book

of Mormon that talk about

white skin being white and

delightsome and black skin being a curse.

And the Mormons believed at

that time that if they took

Indian women to wife and

had children with them,

that the children would

gradually become whiter and whiter,

and that would make them

more and more righteous.

If you've never heard this before,

it is very shocking,

horrible part of Mormon history that,

again,

not a lot of LDS people like to

think about or talk about,

but it's there.

And again,

it's a rabbit hole for another

time that we will dig into.

So that was kind of the

first mention of polygamy

was having elders or

leaders in the church take

Native Americans as wives.

Then in eighteen thirty-two,

Joseph Smith and Sidney

Rigdon were tarred and

feathered by a mob in Hiram, Ohio.

Fifty years later,

a source alleges that it

was in retaliation for an

intimate relationship

Joseph had with a young

woman and his future plural

wife named Marinda Nancy Johnson.

Now, as a child and a young adult,

I was always taught that

the reason why Joseph and

Sidney suffered this

horrible tar and feathering

was because people didn't

like Mormons and people

didn't like the fact that

Joseph Smith talked about

seeing God in Jesus Christ.

That's what I was taught as a child.

Digging into the history,

we find out that there was among the mob,

a physician who they had brought along,

the mob had brought along

because they had asked him

to castrate Joseph Smith.

because the reason they were

attacking him was because

of this terrible affair

that he had had with a young woman.

That's the part of the

history that I never got taught.

Now, lucky for Joseph,

the doctor decided at the

last minute not to go through with it,

that he couldn't stomach it.

But just knowing that he was

there and the reason for

him being there

corroborates this idea that

he was being tarred and feathered,

not because he was being

persecuted for his faith,

but because he had been

caught doing inappropriate

things with young women.

So back to the timeline.

according to mary elizabeth

rollins leitner who had a

lot of journal writings

about this time period and

others an angel with a

drawn sword appears to

joseph smith for the first

of three times between

eighteen thirty four and

eighteen forty two

commanding him to practice

plural marriage isn't that

convenient that an angel

threatens him with death if

he doesn't start marrying plural wives um

So Joseph's first plural

wife was Fanny Alger

sometime between eighteen

thirty three and eighteen thirty five.

I want to go quickly to a

biography of Fanny Alger.

So this,

and I also want to share with you

the sources that I'm using here.

This website is called

josephsmithspolygamy.org,

and it is a faithful website.

This website was created and

maintained by a couple who are

very well-versed in church history.

And they wanted to create a

website that would help

people frame polygamy in

the right way so that you

could understand the truth

of the history of polygamy,

but remain faithful.

um so everything that they

have posted here is done so

under fair use because they

don't make any money from

running this website i

highly recommend you going

to it because i think that

if you objectively look at

all of the facts um that

you even though they're

writing this from a faithful perspective

I think the conclusions that I came to,

the conclusions that one would come to,

even reading the faithful

perspective of it,

makes it really impossible

to ignore that the way that

this was done was very

predatory in nature.

I will also say that I get a

ton of comments like this one.

Thomas, one, two, three.

Thanks for being here.

Not sad.

Why?

Or sorry, not sad.

Not sure why you would want

to listen to someone talk

about why they left the

church if you are unhappy about it.

But I get this.

It's so sad that you traded

your exaltation for leaving.

Well, obviously,

that's not the way that I see it.

The way that I see it is that I...

stopped listening to

apologetics and started

researching facts and so

the way that i see it is

that i traded magical

thinking for critical

thinking and i would rather

know the truth

um some people do not want

to know the truth and

that's okay some people

want to remain in mormonism

blissfully ignorant and

that is okay i think

religion is necessary for a

lot of people and i'm not

ever trying to cause anyone

else to leave the church

what i like to do is make

sure that people have

informed consent so if

people do want to know the truth

they learn the truth and

then continue to stay that

is perfectly fine it i my

faith crisis was the

hardest thing i've ever

been through and

considering what i've been

through that is saying a

lot um i would not wish

that on my worst enemy i

wouldn't want anybody to

have to go through a faith

crisis but being a truth teller

I do not want to stay silent

about my experiences and

this is my experience.

So I do get a lot of people telling me,

you know,

how sad it is to see where I am

and how sad it is that I

chose to be led astray and

things like that.

Those comments don't really

bother me because they're not about me.

They're about the person

making the comment.

The hard thing is when

people leave the church,

they become a mirror for people who stay.

When someone sees a person

leave the church,

it forces them to examine

their own shelf items and

their own cognitive dissonance.

And it makes us feel shame

that if the person speaking is correct,

it means that what I have

believed for a long time is false.

and it's it means

confronting some really

difficult truths so i

appreciate anybody who's

here whether you're

faithful mormon or not um

if you're here listening i

appreciate you being here

and if you hear something

that offends you ask

yourself why it offends you

does it offend you because

you think it's a lie or

does it offend you because if it's true

It means that threatens your worldview.

It was really,

really hard for me to admit

that I had been duped and lied to.

that was the hardest part of

it for me because I

considered myself to be an

intelligent human being.

And not only was I duped and lied to,

but then I perpetuated it

by teaching it to my children.

And that was really hard for

me to wrestle with as well.

today.

This is an interesting comment.

At the time of the Bible,

multiple wives was common.

It wasn't common, but it was done.

mostly in the bible they

refer to it as concubines

um and things like that so

it's again it's a rabbit

hole for another time i'm

not prepared to have that

discussion today but it's

one that i commonly get and

and it's one that's worth

talking about so thank you

for making that that comment

So I want to go back to the

josephsmithspolygamy.org.

It's a very comprehensive site.

It covers polygamy very well.

There are some things I

disagree with on the site.

What I love is that they

have biographies of all of

Joseph's plural wives,

and they very extensively

cover the feelings of the wives,

which is why I really like this.

It's very comprehensive.

So Fanny Alger was Joseph

Smith's first plural wife.

um and so benjamin f johnson

a close friend of joseph

smith beginning in the

kirtland period recalled

the circumstances in so

they're clarifying that

benjamin f johnson said

this in regarding that time

and this is what we call a

late account meaning in he

didn't immediately write it

down this is him looking back on it

So he says, now, as to your question,

how early did the prophet

Joseph practice polygamy?

In eighteen thirty five at Kirtland,

I learned from my sister's husband,

Lyman R. Sherman,

who was close to the

prophet and received it

from him that the ancient

order of plural marriage

was again to be practiced by the church.

This at the time did not

impress my mind deeply,

although there lived then with his family,

the prophet's family,

a neighbor's daughter, Fanny Alger.

so fanny was living in the

home of the prophet and i

believe she was helping emma keep house

He says a very nice and

comely young woman about my age,

about my own age,

toward whom not only myself,

but everyone seemed partial

for the amiability of her character.

And it was whispered even

then that Joseph loved her.

The reason I think it's

important to talk about

this particular account is

because

If we frame it that way,

And if we look at it from

the perspective that Sandra

Tanner just gave us,

that he was a predator,

it makes a lot of sense

that someone who has

narcissistic tendencies and

who wants power and control

would choose someone that

everyone else wanted as his first wife.

Because then that means if Joseph has her,

then no one else can.

Just my two cents on that

particular topic.

According to Mosiah Hancock,

writing in eighteen ninety six,

Joseph did not approach Fanny directly.

Rather, he enlisted Levi Hancock,

the brother in law of Fanny's father.

So this would have been

Fanny's uncle to serve as intermediary.

Levi first approached Samuel Alger,

Fanny's father.

Samuel,

the prophet Joseph loves your daughter,

Fanny, and wishes her for a wife.

What say you?

Uncle Sam says,

go and talk to the old woman,

Levi's sister, Fanny's mother, about it.

It will be as she says.

Father goes to his sister and says,

Clarice, brother Joseph,

the prophet of the most high God,

loves Fanny and wishes her for a wife.

What say you?

Said she, go and talk to Fanny.

It'll be all right with me.

So this is sort of a

roundabout way for Joseph

to get permission from Fanny's family.

skipping on down a little it

says things didn't go well

for joseph and fanny in a

letter from william

mcclellan to joseph smith

iii mcclellan recalls

details of an conversation

with emma smith where emma

acknowledged that in the

spring of she missed joseph

and fanny alger meaning she

didn't know where they were

she went to the barn and

saw him and fanny in the

barn together alone which

would have been very very

unusual for this day

She looked through a crack

and saw the transaction.

She told me this story, too,

was verily true.

What Emma witnessed is not specified.

Whether it was the plural

marriage ceremony,

an exchange of affection,

or even sexual relations,

we are not told.

Regardless,

it is obvious Emma did not

believe the ceremony was

valid and concluded the

relationship was adulterous.

Oliver Cowdery,

who Joseph summoned to

diffuse the situation, sided with Emma,

discounting the validity of

the polygamous marriage and

later referring to it as a, quote, dirty,

nasty, filthy scrape.

Now,

if you go and you look up what the

word scrape meant in that time, it was,

quote, unquote, a low word.

So,

there are a lot of

apologists who say well we

don't have any proof that

joseph did anything

inappropriate with fanny

and later oliver cowdrey

was excommunicated so he

wasn't faithful so we can't

trust anything that he said

well why do you think he

was excommunicated one of

the reasons listed for his

excommunication was

disloyalty to the prophet

so it could be that oliver

was talking about this

affair with fanny alger and

the prophet did not want

him talking about it so he

excommunicated him because

in the mormon church s

communication immediately

means a loss of credibility

and and even now people who

leave the church have no

credibility with people who

are in the church because

we've left.

So we're not loyal anymore.

We're not listening.

And people will say, oh,

if you have apostatized,

meaning like you've left the church,

right?

You're speaking out against

the church and its leaders,

then you've lost the Holy

Ghost and you've lost the

ability to have truth

spoken to you by God.

So nothing you say counts.

Nothing you say can be true.

So anyway,

I wanted to just get back to this idea.

Oliver's vitriol may have

been intensified due to his

frustrations from recent

leadership changes that

diminished his overall importance.

And I believe that his

importance was diminished

because he was threatening

to expose the truth about

Joseph's polygamy.

So as a consequence of this, you know,

Emma coming in and finding Joseph and

Fanny, together.

Emma immediately turned

Fanny out of the house.

Subsequently,

both women were severely

traumatized and Oliver Cowdery alienated.

In addition,

rumors of adultery quietly

spread among the saints,

although they were never

loud enough to reach the local media.

The first mention of the

relationship in any known

manuscript occurred in January of

Anyway,

so this was Joseph's first

experience with having a plural wife.

I want to go back to the

timeline here for a second.

So that was between eighteen thirty three,

eighteen thirty five.

We don't have the exact dates.

And then summer of eighteen thirty five,

the first edition of the

Doctrine and Covenants is published.

And for those of you who are

not familiar with it,

the Doctrine and Covenants

is a book of scripture that

was published as.

a collection of Joseph

Smith's revelations.

And what's interesting to me

looking at it now is that,

especially in the beginning

of the Doctrine and Covenants,

it appears that Joseph is

using this connection with

God to pray to God about

very specific things and

then get very specific

answers about what other

people are supposed to be doing.

And from time to time,

there are things that

Joseph is supposed to be doing,

but there also are

instructions to his wife

and to the other people

that Joseph has appointed

as leaders of the church.

So it would be very easy for

someone who is just

manipulating people to say, okay,

I'm going to take this to God.

I'm going to pray to God about it.

And then God is going to tell me something,

but it's obviously going to

be whatever I want that thing to be.

This is why I think the idea

of I speak directly to God

is really dangerous because

people who are unscrupulous

can very easily use that to

manipulate people.

This is also called spiritual abuse.

I'm telling you that God told me,

that you're supposed to do this thing.

And if you don't do it,

there are gonna be consequences for you.

Not only right now in the

here and now of you're not

gonna get to retain your

leadership position,

but also in the future, in the afterlife,

eternal consequences for your soul.

And if you sincerely believe

that this person is a prophet of God,

then you do sincerely

believe that your eternal

salvation is in danger if

you don't do what they say,

which is why I have a

problem with Joseph

approaching young women and telling them,

God told me that you're

supposed to be my wife.

I really just want to put

that out there for people

to understand that that's

what Joseph did.

So going back to the timeline,

So the first edition of the

Doctrine and Covenants was published.

This includes the section one thirty two,

which is the section that

talks about plural marriage.

then in eighteen thirty six

elijah the prophet from the

bible appears in the

kirtland temple and bestows

sealing keys upon joseph

smith and and oliver

cowdrey which going back to

a comment that someone made

i wonder if they were

dabbling in psychedelics

because that's what i

always think like when

there was a second person

involved in some of these

visions and things like that

It makes me wonder how

Joseph accomplished getting

someone else on board with that.

Although in some instances,

we know that the other

quote unquote witness was

either not in the same room

or not in the same

proximity or that they saw, for example,

the golden plates

underneath a sheet and

didn't actually see the

plates themselves.

So there's a lot of

strangeness around

witnesses that saw and

experienced the same things as Joseph.

um in eighteen forty joseph

started teaching others

about plural marriage in

private and made vague

public hints at it

eventually becoming a

practice so i see this as

him really laying down the

the groundwork and the

foundation for this over

the course of several years

and just so that the whole

community would be on board

with it um i also just want

to mention this site is

called warmandr.org i don't

have time to go into

everything about this site

but i i believe it to be a

reliable resource if anyone

knows differently i would

i'd love to be informed of

that um but i wanted to

just make sure that i share

the sources that i'm using

here so in eighteen forty

one then joseph smith is

sealed to louisa beeman um

this is the first wife in nauvoo

And then later, a couple months later,

he starts introducing

plural marriage to the

members of the Quorum of the Twelve.

This is the greater

leadership of the church,

including Brigham Young, John Taylor,

and Heber C. Kimball.

Brigham Young and John

Taylor would later become

presidents of the church.

And then in eighteen forty one,

Joseph is sealed to Zina Huntington,

the first of about a dozen

women who had legal

husbands at the time of

their sealing to Joseph.

So just so that you know,

Joseph was sealed to women

who are already married.

Joseph was sealed to other young women.

He was sealed to old women.

He was, you know,

he had over thirty wives by

the time that we get through with it.

I think it's really

interesting to go to Wikipedia,

although I know it's not

always the most reliable source.

They do have an interesting

layout of Joseph Smith's

wives and their ages.

And it's pretty comprehensive,

so I want to show it to you.

So they have this.

They have a chart here on

this site and let me share it with you.

that I think is really

interesting to look at

because I'm a visual person.

And so this really puts it

into perspective for me.

By the way,

I do give to Wikipedia because

I do use them from time to

time for things.

But I always try to check

what's on Wikipedia with another source.

And I look at the footnotes

very carefully when I'm

doing this kind of digging.

So this chart,

this tells you women

who were also married to

another man are in a red square or red.

They're designated with the color red.

Blue means they were previously married.

Green means they were single at the time.

A circle means the marriage

date is known and a diamond

means the marriage date is estimated.

Um, on the right side over here,

it shows the age gap

between Joseph and the

woman that he was marrying.

And then the age of the

women at the time of marrying Joseph.

So the oldest woman was

around sixty and the

youngest was fourteen.

At the time that he married

this fourteen-year-old girl,

he was thirty-seven years old.

And we're going to talk

about her in just a second.

So this to me really puts a

visual perspective on it.

The fact that he had so many

women that were already

married to other men.

And I believe two of them

who were pregnant at the

time that he married them.

so zina

huntington is the first of

a dozen women who had legal

husbands at the time of

their ceiling that was in then

Joseph receives a revelation

from Miranda Nancy Hyde

that may contain veiled

instruction for her to

accept plural marriage.

Guys,

go in here and look through all these

footnotes.

It is really fascinating.

dig into it it said the

revelation said this let my

handmaid nancy miranda hide

hearken to the counsel of

my servant joseph in all

things whatsoever he shall

teach unto her and it shall

be a blessing upon her and

upon her children after her

mirinda recalled that this

revelation was given to her

specifically in the context

of joseph smith teaching

her about plural marriage late in

Joseph Smith purportedly

writes a letter later

referred to as the

happiness letter to Nancy Rigdon,

which reads as an argument

for justifying plural marriage.

Now,

I want to point out that church

leadership has quoted this

happiness letter

to basically say that the

whole design of our

existence is happiness.

They quoted this letter for

a long time while they were

still denying that Joseph

had practiced this type of polygamy,

especially during the Nauvoo period.

But let's go back and look

at what the letter says,

or at least part of it anyway.

the the text of this letter

first appeared in the

sangamo journal as per as

purported copy of the

original forwarded by john

c bennett who was joseph

smith's right hand man for

a very long time until he

crossed joseph and then he

got excommunicated are you

seeing a pattern

When anybody disagrees with Joseph Smith,

they get excommunicated.

It essentially says that

whatever God commands is right,

regardless of whether it

appears logical or right to

those who receive the commandments.

hi there

letter daily digest good to

see you as well um thank

you so much i really want

to go watch that episode

that you have with peter i

enjoyed his commentary

during nemo's

excommunication episodes and

i love nemo i think he's

amazing um i love it okay

so let's go back to the

happiness letter some scholars

question the authenticity of

the letter because of the

uncertain provenance of

Bennett's reproduced

version of the letter,

as well as Bennett's

unreliable allegations on

other matters related to Joseph Smith.

If the letter is authentic,

then it could provide

insight into Joseph's

rationale for the moral

basis of plural marriage,

although plural marriage is

never explicitly mentioned in the text.

The actual happiness letter,

Okay, here it is.

Happiness is the object and

design of our existence and

will be the end thereof if

we pursue the path that leads to it.

And this path is virtue, uprightness,

faithfulness, holiness,

and keeping all the commandments of God.

so that's the part that the

church leaders like to

quote all the time b.h

roberts as editor of

history of the church

included the letter in the

in the compilation with the

following note it is not

positively known what it

what occasioned the writing

of this essay but when it

is born in mind that at

this time the new law of

marriage for the church

marriage for eternity

including plurality of

wives under some circumstances

was being introduced by the prophet,

it's very likely that the

article was written with a

view of applying the principles here,

expounded to the conditions

created by introducing said

marriage system.

I would encourage you to look up,

and I'll put in the show notes later,

and read the happiness

letter in its entirety, because

I like to think of it in the

context that the person

receiving it would have received it.

I think it's important

always for us to consider,

and that's the whole reason

I started this perspective,

is because I wanted to hear

it from the perspective of the women

Did they feel like they were preyed upon?

And what were the

circumstances surrounding

the alleged proposals and

all of those things?

So B.H.

Roberts is considered to be

a faithful Mormon historian.

He was appointed by the

leadership of the church to

be a historian.

He did come across a lot of

problems with the Book of Mormon,

and he presented that to the church.

And they sent him on a mission.

So all right.

I want to go back to the

timeline real quick.

Okay.

Happiness letter, eighteen forty two.

In May.

Well, actually,

we should back up a little bit.

In March of eighteen forty two,

Joseph Smith became a Freemason.

He joined the

group of the masons that

were in the area at the

time where he would have

learned a lot of masonic

ceremonies and then two

months later he introduces

the endowment ceremony for

the first time which can

anyone guess very closely

resembles the masonic

ceremonies so there's that

um come to your own conclusion there

we'll talk about the temple

ceremony in a in a

different video it is

definitely a rabbit hole

for another time um then in

in at the end of well just

a couple weeks later church

leader and navu mayor john

c bennett is excommunicated

for adultery um with a

footnote it was publicly

announced in the times and

seasons because i believe

joseph wanted everybody to

know what was happening

The accusations of his

adultery were chronicled by

Andrew F. Smith,

who did a biography on John C. Bennett.

And it's a fascinating thing

to dig into as well.

If you look at it from the lens of, again,

everything that I started

researching at this point,

I wanted to look at it from

the lens of what conclusion

requires the least amount

of conjecture from me.

It's the sort of principle

of does it make more sense

that X or does it make more

sense that if Y then

possibly Z and maybe a third option.

The more I have to do what

they call the mental

gymnastics to make those

square pegs fit into those round holes,

the less likely it is for

that thing to be the

correct true explanation of that thing.

Also going through trauma

therapy and learning how to

defend myself against

manipulators and predators

and liars helped me to

frame all of this

information in a much

different light and look at

it from a much different lens.

once you know that you've

been manipulated and lied

to and you want to protect

yourself from it,

it's very difficult to

remove that lens from your

eyes and give people a pass

for something.

And what's interesting is as

a mother and as a teacher,

I was very able to put that

frame of mind on when I was

hearing stories from my

students about why they didn't do X, Y,

Z or why they missed this

assignment or whatever.

It was very easy for me to

think critically in those

situations and go,

that's just not likely to be true.

And to do the investigation

that it takes to prospect

verify when it came to my

students I had a wild story

once my very first year

teaching in the classroom

where It was a requirement.

I required my students to go

to the concert.

That was a grade for them

They had to perform that

was part of what they're

supposed to be learning.

I was a choir teacher and I

they knew that if they

missed the concert and they

didn't have some kind of an

emergency or an excuse of

that kind that they were

going to get a failing

grade and so they would of

course sometimes come up

with silly explanations of

why they weren't there my

very first year teaching my

very first concert this

girl did not come to the

concert and then she didn't

come to class for several days and

when she did finally come to

the club to come to class

um i said to her why did

you not come to the concert

and she said oh my dad died

just very matter of fact

like that and while i

understand that different

people grieve in different

ways of course i was very

suspicious of that and i

said i'm very sorry to hear

that and i just went on

with class and finished

class and everything

When I got to my conference period,

I called her mother and I said,

I'm so sorry to hear about your loss.

And the mother said, what loss?

And I said, well,

your daughter told me that

her father passed away.

And the mom was exasperated,

to say the least.

So it seems pretty obvious

to most people that that would be a lie,

although it's kind of a

wild lie to make up just to

not get a bad grade on a choir concert.

But that's how I feel when I

look now at some of these

apologetics and

explanations for polygamy in Mormonism.

It's like we've been asked

to explain away the most logical thing.

because we don't want to

believe that Joseph Smith

had poor character.

So I'm sorry for the digression.

I just wanted to explain my

frame of mind as I was

going through these things.

Having been a faithful member for,

you know, forty five-ish years,

I think I mentioned that I

started to be disaffected

with the church in twenty fifteen,

but I was still very, very faithful.

all the way up until just

prior to my divorce is when

I stopped going to church

every single Sunday and

doing every single thing I

was supposed to.

And oddly enough,

I didn't stop paying

tithing until after the

pandemic was over.

So I considered myself to be

a very faithful temple recommend holding

mormon my recommend expired

in twenty eighteen but i

was still worthy of a

recommend for a very long

time after that i would

have passed the interview

except for the fact that i

was questioning leaders so

there was that that's i

probably wouldn't have

gotten a recommend at that

point anyway i digress

again back to the timeline

i'm trying to stay on track um

So in July,

Joseph Smith is sealed to Sarah

Whitney in the presence of

her parents with her father,

Newell K. Whitney,

who also later was a polygamist,

performing the ceremony

using words that were given

to him in a revelation from Joseph.

Joseph Smith in handwrites a

letter to Elizabeth and

Newell K. Whitney and their daughter,

Sarah Ann,

who was recently sealed to Joseph,

asking them to visit him

while he's in hiding from

Missouri lawmen.

So by the end of August,

eighteen forty two,

Joseph is sealed to about a

dozen plural wives and then

no additional plural

marriages were performed

for about the next six months.

In October,

The Times and Seasons published

an official statement from

the Nauvoo Relief Society

condemning John C. Bennett

and denying the existence

of the secret wife system.

So at this time,

I just,

we're going to have to skip over

some of this stuff because

there's just so much information.

There are a couple of things

that were particularly