Under the Banner of Heaven (17 page)

In the summer of 1831 the Johnson family took Joseph and Emma Smith into their home as boarders, and soon thereafter the prophet purportedly bedded young Marinda. Unfortunately, the liaison apparently did not go unnoticed, and a gang of indignant Ohioans—including a number of Mormons—resolved to castrate Joseph so that he would be disinclined to commit such acts of depravity in the future.

According to Luke Johnson, Marinda’s older brother, on March 24, 1832, “a mob of forty or fifty” came to the Johnson house, forced their way into Joseph’s room in the middle of the night, and Carnot Mason dragged Joseph out of bed by the hair of the head; he was then seized by as many as could get hold of him and taken about forty rods from the house, stretched on a board, and tantalized in the most insulting and brutal manner; they tore off the night clothes that he had on, for the purpose of emasculating him, and had Dr. Dennison there to perform the operation; but when the Dr. saw the Prophet stripped and stretched on the plank, his heart failed him and he refused to operate.

Having lost the nerve to follow through with their castration plans, the mob severely beat Joseph, covered his naked body with tar, plastered him with feathers from a down pillow, and then abandoned him in the woods.

Despite this harrowingly close call, Joseph remained perpetually and hopelessly smitten by the comeliest female members of his flock. Among them was a nubile resident of Kirtland named Fanny Alger, who was introduced to Joseph in 1830, after her parents became some of the earliest converts to the church. By the winter of 1833, when Fanny was sixteen, she had moved into the Smith household as a domestic servant and had grown very close to both Smiths, particularly Emma. According to a Mormon named Ann Eliza Webb Young, Fanny was “a very pretty, pleasing young girl,” and Mrs. Smith “was extremely fond of her; no own mother could be more devoted, and their affection for each other was a constant object of remark, so absorbing and genuine did it seem.”

Joseph, however, was also extremely fond of young Fanny, and he took her as his plural wife in February or March 1833; she may well have been the second woman, after Emma, whom he formally married. He tried to keep the relationship secret, but Emma eventually discovered Joseph and Fanny flagrante delicto, and by the fall of 1835 had thrown the girl out of their house.

Neither Emma’s tears nor her rage were enough to make Joseph monogamous, however; nor were the prevailing mores of the day. He kept falling rapturously in love with women not his wife. And because that rapture was so wholly consuming, and felt so good, it struck him as impossible that God might possibly frown on such a thing. Joseph wasn’t by nature reflective or deliberative. He conducted his life impulsively, acting according to instinct and emotion. The Lord, it seemed to him, must surely have intended man to know the love of more than one wife or He wouldn’t have made the prospect so enticing. In the Old Testament, moreover, Joseph found ample proof that this was indeed God’s intent, wherein the polygamous customs of Abraham and Jacob—the patriarchs from whom the Mormons were directly descended—were recounted without reproach or shame.

Joseph continued to take plural wives throughout the 1830s in Ohio and Missouri, and he married with even greater frequency in Nauvoo in the early 1840s, but he did whatever was necessary, including bald-faced lying, to conceal his polygamous behavior—not only from censorious non-Mormons but from all but a select few of his own followers, as well. As the prophet explained to his innermost circle in 1832, “he had inquired of the Lord concerning the principle of plurality of wives, and he received for answer that the principle of taking more wives than one is a true principle, but the time had not yet come for it to be practiced.” More correctly, the time had not yet come for the practice to be made public.

So Joseph kept the fact of his multiple wives a secret and bided his time until the proper moment for revealing the sacred principle arrived. He did not have similar qualms about revealing other divine commandments, however. In Nauvoo the prophet entered a phase of feverish doctrinal creativity, resulting in the church’s most innovative theological developments.

During this period, for instance, Joseph revealed the principle of vicarious baptism for the dead, whereby living Saints could be baptized in proxy for deceased ancestors—giving departed generations an opportunity to experience salvation through the One True Church, even if the departed had passed away long before Joseph introduced Mormonism to the world. It was also in Nauvoo that he introduced the elaborate rituals of the temple endowment ceremony, and revealed not only that God had once been a man, but—even more astonishing—that every man has the capacity to become a god.

And then, on July 12, 1843, he formally codified the divine commandment revealing the sacred importance of plural marriage. Unlike the other revelations of this period, it was kept secret and wasn’t acknowledged until 1852, a full eight years after the prophet’s death.

This burst of theological inspiration coincided with an extended eruption of libidinous energy. Between 1840 and 1844 God instructed the prophet to marry some forty women. Most were shocked and revolted when Joseph revealed what the Lord had in mind for them. Several were still pubescent girls, such as fourteen-year-old Helen Mar Kimball. Although she acquiesced when the prophet explained that God had commanded her to become his plural wife—and that she would be permitted twenty-four hours to comply—Helen later confided to a friend, “I was young, and they deceived me, by saying the salvation of our whole family depended on it.”

Joseph married Helen Mar Kimball in Nauvoo in May 1843. Earlier that same month, young Lucy Walker was also wed to the prophet after being similarly coerced. Her father had been among those shot during the Haun’s Mill Massacre (although he was one of the lucky few who managed to survive the carnage inside the blacksmith shop). In January 1842 Lucy’s mother died of malaria, a plague that was rife in Nauvoo’s swamps. Joseph responded to this tragedy by sending Lucy’s grief-stricken father on a two-year mission to the eastern states to heal his broken heart; in their father’s absence, the prophet then “adopted” Lucy and most of her siblings. According to Lucy’s autobiography, while she was living in the prophet’s home, “President Joseph Smith sought an interview with me, and said, ”I have a message for you, I have been commanded of God to take another wife, and you are the woman.“ My astonishment knew no bounds.”

When the horrified girl balked at his proposal, Joseph explained to Lucy that if she refused she would face eternal damnation. “I have no flattering words to offer,” he said. “It is a command of God to you. I will give you until to-morrow to decide this matter. If you reject this message the gate will be closed forever against you.”

Lucy reacted with both anger and despair: “This aroused every drop of scotch in my veins. For a few moments I stood fearless before him, and looked him in the eye. I felt at this moment that I was called to place myself upon the altar a living sacrifice… this was too much, the thought was unbearable.” Courageously, she replied to the prophet that unless she, personally, received a revelation straight from God that He wanted her to wed the prophet, she wouldn’t do it. At which point, she wrote, Joseph stood before her with “the most beautiful expression of countenance, and said, ”God Almighty bless you, You shall have a manifestation of the will of God concerning you; a testimony that you can never deny.“ ”

According to Lucy’s memoirs,

It was near dawn after another sleepless night when my room was lighted up by a heavenly influence. To me it was, in comparison, like the brilliant sun bursting through the darkest cloud. My soul was filled with a calm, sweet peace that I never knew. Supreme happiness took possession of me, and I received a powerful and irresistible testimony of the truth of plural marriage, Which has been like an anchor to the soul through all the trials of life. I felt that I must go out into the morning air and gave vent to the Joy and gratitude that filled my soul. As I descended the stairs, Prest. Smith opened the door below; took me by the hand and said: “Thank God, you have the testimony. I too, have prayed.” He led me to a chair, placed his hands upon my head, and blessed me wirh Every blessing my heart could possibly desire.

Lucy Walker was married to the prophet on May 1, 1843, a day after turning seventeen.

It beggars the imagination to consider how Joseph managed to maintain relationships with forty spouses. Not even this profusion of wives, however, managed to sate his appetite. According to Sarah Pratt, the wife of Mormon apostle Orson Prart, the prophet Joseph used to frequent houses of ill-fame. Mrs. White, a very pretty and attractive woman, once confessed to me that she made a business of it to be hospitable to the captains of the Mississippi steamboats. She told me that Joseph had made her acquaintance very soon after his arrival in Nauvoo, and that he had visited her dozens of times.

Nauvoo was a closely woven, self-absorbed community that generated a robust flow of gossip. Try as he might, it was impossible for Joseph to conceal so much illicit activity from his followers. Time and again public allegations would be made against the prophet, but he was extremely adept at portraying his accusers as instruments of Satan out to defame not only him, a persecuted innocent, but all of Mormondom. Joseph repeatedly managed to sweep unsavory charges under the rug before irreparable damage could be inflicted—a talent he shared, of course, with many successful religious and political leaders through the ages.

Throughout this period of frenzied coupling, Joseph adamantly denied that he endorsed plural marriage, let alone engaged in the practice himself. “When the facts are proved, truth and innocence will prevail at last,” he asserted in a speech given to the citizens of Nauvoo in May 1844. “What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven wives, when I can find only one. I am the same man, and as innocent as I was fourteen years ago; and I can prove them all perjurers.”

His denials had always gotten him off the hook before, but his repeated success at wiggling out of tight situations incubated a dangerous hubris, which in turn increased his sexual recklessness—and it all caught up to him shortly after he delivered the speech quoted above. In the spring of 1844 a scandal of Monica Lewinsky—like proportions exploded in Nauvoo, and this time, finally, the conflagration was too big and too hot to be extinguished by the prophet’s charm.

TWELVE

CARTHAGE

When Smith led his followers into Nauvoo, one may argue that Smith had done all he needed to do. His followers had memories of persecution to nurture. They had created distinct forms of worship organized around an unusual concept of priesthood and had gathered a community. Smith entered Nauvoo with a political welcome and a generous city charter that allowed Mormons a considerable amount of autonomy. Yet, precisely at that point, he embarked on a course of new departures, introduced in politically maladroit ways, that threatened to destroy everything he had created.

R. Laurence Moore, Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans

Despite Joseph Smith’s many forceful denials, by 1844 several members of the prophet’s inner circle had been told the truth about his spiritual wifery, and some had been shown the secret revelation of July 12, 1843, concerning the doctrine of celestial marriage; a few were even practicing polygamy themselves. But not everyone who had been let in on the secret approved of the doctrine. Foremost among those who objected was his original wife, Emma Smith. She had been married to Joseph since 1827, still loved him, and, at the age of thirty-nine, had no desire to share her husband with dewy juveniles less than half her age. Joseph had promised to be faithful to Emma when he’d made his wedding vows, and she expected him to keep that promise.

Outspoken by nature, Emma despised polygamy and did not hesitate to make her views known to the prophet. At one point she even threatened to take a plural husband if he didn’t give up his plural wives, prompting Joseph, on June 23, 1843, to complain to his secretary that Emma was “disposed to be revenged on him for some things. She thought that if he would indulge himself she would too.”

Emma harangued Joseph so relentlessly about his philandering that the original intent of the revelation canonized as Section 132 seems to have been simply to persuade Emma to shut up and accept his plural wives—while at the same time compelling her to refrain from indulging in any extracurricular sex herself. Indeed, on the morning of July 12, just before Joseph recorded the notorious revelation for posterity, his brother Hyrum explicitly urged the prophet, “If you will write the revelation on celestial marriage, I will take and read it to Emma, and I believe I can convince her of its truth, and you will hereafter have peace.”

A very dubious Joseph replied, “You do not know Emma as well as I do.”

But Hyrum persisted: “The doctrine is so plain, I can convince any reasonable man or woman of its truth, purity or heavenly origin.” Thus persuaded, Joseph agreed to commit to paper the revelation that became Section 132. Not coincidentally, it repeatedly mentions Emma by name. For example, in the revelation’s fifty-fourth verse God warns,

And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abide not in my law.

The meat of the matter—the part of the commandment that gives men license to marry a plurality of wives—occurs just before the conclusion of the revelation, when the Lord tells Joseph,

If any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another… then he is justified; he cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him…

And if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore he is justified…

But if one or either of the ten virgins, after she is espoused, shall be with another man, she has committed adultery, and shall be destroyed; for they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment.