Joseph Smith's Polyandry?

[ALarson]

2 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

The conversation about the sealing was between Heber C. Kimball and Sylvia concerning the sealing. Heber then met the four children. Phebe does not say what Heber talked with them about, just that he met them. The upshot is that he advised Sylvia to remain in Utah so the children could "receive the teachings of the gospel without conflicting opinions."

You can't seriously believe that Sylvia's children did not know they were sealed for eternity to Joseph (we have statements from one of them stating that Sylvia spoke of her "special sealing" to the Prophet Joseph Smith "often"). Do you think Sylvia would have led them to believe they were sealed to Heber C. Kimball for eternity?  I'm pretty appalled at how much dishonesty and deceit you're accusing Sylvia of being involved in.  

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Edited June 22, 2016 by ALarson

[JulieM]

14 hours ago, Meg Stout said:

Alas, the Internet, when providing a source, doesn't automatically show which elements in that source the author later repudiated.

That would be awfully brilliant, though. For example, there wouldn't be anyone still accusing me of believing Emily Partridge passed a plate of meat while having sex with Joseph...!!

If you no longer believe in your meat theory, what do you now believe Emily meant by her testinony under oath?  

Here are the questions asked of Emily and her answers:

"Q. Had you roomed with him prior to … the night after you were married the last time?

A. No sir, not roomed with him.

Q. Well had you slept with him?

A. Yes sir.

Q. [Had you] slept with him … before the fourth of March 1843 [their marriage date]?

A. No sir. …

Q. Did you ever live with Joseph Smith after you were married to him after that first night that you roomed together?

A. No sir. Emma knew that we were married to him, but she never allowed us to live with him. . . .

Q. Do you make the declaration now that you ever roomed with him at any time?

A. Yes sir.

Q. Do you make the declaration that you ever slept with him in the same bed?

A. Yes sir.

Q. How many nights?

A. One.

Q. Only one night.

A. Yes sir.

Q. Then you only slept with him in the same bed one night?

A. No sir.

Q. Did you ever have carnal intercourse with Joseph Smith?

A. Yes sir.

Q. How many nights?

A. I could not tell you.

Q. Do you make the declaration that you ever slept with him but one night?

A. Yes sir.

Q. And that was the only time and place that you ever were in bed with him?

A. No sir.

Q. Were you in bed with him at any time before . . . you were married?

A. No sir, not before I was married to him. I never was."

[jkwilliams]

44 minutes ago, JulieM said:

If you no longer believe in your meat theory, what do you now believe Emily meant by her testinony under oath?  

For context, here's what Meg said that started the "meat commerce" meme:

Quote

 

It all boils down to the one admission from Emily, where she responded “Yes sir.” when asked if she had engaged in carnal intercourse with Joseph Smith. But recall that this Emily had been the wife of Brigham Young, had lived through the culture wars of the 1870s and later, when her people were being put in jail for polygamy, when women were going on the underground with fake identities to avoid being forced to testify against husbands and fathers.

Had Emily not replied “Yes sir.” to that question, she believed that the temple lot of prophesy would be awarded to Joseph’s sons and their Church and therefore forever made unavailable to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Besides this, Emily was by then 70 years old, and knew her way around the English language. Carnal refers to meat. Intercourse refers to commerce or trade (ever visited Intercourse, PA?). Therefore “carnal intercourse” would also be a legitimate description of passing Joseph a platter of turkey or chicken or mutton or beef at a meal, an activity the young Emily had almost certainly engaged in.

As I recall the testimony, Emily was really testy after her “Yes sir.” Which I would be too, if I had technically told the truth but actually implied a falsehood.

 

So, no, Meg doesn't say it actually was an exchange of meat products, but rather that Emily was lying by technically telling the truth but actually implying a falsehood. That might be remotely plausible if divorced from Emily's other statements that she had slept with Joseph after the first wedding ceremony and the corroboration of Benjamin Johnson that the couple had occupied the same room and bed that Joseph had occupied with another of Joseph's wives: Benjamin Johnson's sister Almira. So, again, the insistence that Emily was lying is based on no particular reason, given that her statements were clear and corroborated.

Edit: Note that, in addition to saying she had "carnal intercourse" with Joseph, Emily also says she "roomed" with him, "slept with him," and was "in bed" with him. Yet, Meg tells us, "I sleep with people in the same bed all the time without sex occurring." Of course, most people would not say the same about their wedding night. I wouldn't, anyway.

Edited June 22, 2016 by jkwilliams

[JLHPROF]

55 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

The problem here is that Meg is "not persuaded" that "Joseph had relations with some but not all of his plural wives." What you call "lurid speculation" is merely a discussion of the evidence for sexual polygamy.

Which again, is ridiculous.

Polygamy = plural marriage.
Do married people have relations with each other?  Yes (often)
Was Joseph married to more than one woman?  Yes, upwards of 30 during his life and heaven only knows how many hundred in the next world.

So:
Given that married people generally have relations and given that Joseph Smith was married to as many as 30 women during his life it's not that hard to put A & B together.

It makes no sense to try and determine whether Joseph had relations with his wives unless you are trying to prove that he didn't.  Otherwise it wouldn't matter.

And anyone trying to prove that he didn't has some weird kind of perspective on either marriage or Joseph.  The idea that this was some kind of platonic spiritual ceremony until Brigham Young got his hands on it is the grossest misinterpretation of history out there.  Heber C. Kimball's first plural child was born in Nauvoo.  I'm sure Joseph gave his approval.

 

 

[jkwilliams]

12 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

Which again, is ridiculous.

Polygamy = plural marriage.
Do married people have relations with each other?  Yes (often)
Was Joseph married to more than one woman?  Yes, upwards of 30 during his life and heaven only knows how many hundred in the next world.

So:
Given that married people generally have relations and given that Joseph Smith was married to as many as 30 women during his life it's not that hard to put A & B together.

It makes no sense to try and determine whether Joseph had relations with his wives unless you are trying to prove that he didn't.  Otherwise it wouldn't matter.

And anyone trying to prove that he didn't has some weird kind of perspective on either marriage or Joseph.  The idea that this was some kind of platonic spiritual ceremony until Brigham Young got his hands on it is the grossest misinterpretation of history out there.  Heber C. Kimball's first plural child was born in Nauvoo.  I'm sure Joseph gave his approval.

Again, that's what we're talking about: Meg's perspective on marriage and Joseph Smith. I completely agree with you that her assertions are gross misrepresentations of history, deliberate or not. Basically, we are being asked to believe that a married couple would sleep together, share a room and a bed, and have carnal intercourse multiple times but have maintained a platonic relationship. Perhaps we are to believe that they engaged in "bundling."

Edited June 22, 2016 by jkwilliams

[ALarson]

7 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

And anyone trying to prove that he didn't has some weird kind of perspective on either marriage or Joseph.  The idea that this was some kind of platonic spiritual ceremony until Brigham Young got his hands on it is the grossest misinterpretation of history out there.  Heber C. Kimball's first plural child was born in Nauvoo.  I'm sure Joseph gave his approval.

Same with William Clayton's child born in Nauvoo to his first plural wife (prior to Joseph's death).  I think Joseph would have taken disciplinary action against these men if they were not supposed to be consummating their plural marriages.

[jkwilliams]

Just now, ALarson said:

Same with William Clayton's child born in Nauvoo to his first plural wife (prior to Joseph's death).  I think Joseph would have taken disciplinary action against these men if they were not supposed to be consummating their plural marriages.

Rereading my series of blog posts reviewing her "digest," I am shocked at just how unsupported her theories are by the evidence. Lots of "I propose," "I imagine," "Perhaps," but slim to no documentary evidence. Just a lot of conjecture from the evidence there is that is strung to the next conjecture. Somehow, I doubt that this has anything to do with autism or engineering, just bad historical fiction.

[JulieM]

55 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

Edit: Note that, in addition to saying she had "carnal intercourse" with Joseph, Emily also says she "roomed" with him, "slept with him," and was "in bed" with him. Yet, Meg tells us, "I sleep with people in the same bed all the time without sex occurring." Of course, most people would not say the same about their wedding night. I wouldn't, anyway.

So, Emily slept with Joseph, roomed with Joseph and had carnal intercourse with him (for more nights than she could tell),  but Meg believes there was no sex?

Wow 

Meg, you do know that Emily thought of herself as being married to Joseph, don't you?  Her testimony makes that quite obvious when asked about the dates when she was intimate with Joseph.

 

Edited June 22, 2016 by JulieM

[jkwilliams]

1 minute ago, JulieM said:

So, Emily slept with Joseph, roomed with Joseph and had carnal intercourse with him (for more nights than she could tell),  but Meg believes there was no sex?

Wow

Yes, it is that bad. What is far more interesting to me is why anyone would need there to be no sex so badly that they would parse her statements so painfully. Meg says it wouldn't bother her, but her assertions belie that, in my view.

[jkwilliams]

5 minutes ago, JulieM said:

So, Emily slept with Joseph, roomed with Joseph and had carnal intercourse with him (for more nights than she could tell),  but Meg believes there was no sex?

Wow 

Meg, you do know that Emily thought of herself as being married to Joseph, don't you?  Her testimony makes that quite obvious when asked about the dates when she was intimate with Joseph.

 

Yes, she says she didn't sleep with him or share a bed with him before the marriage. That's kind of significant, IMO.

[ALarson]

14 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

What is far more interesting to me is why anyone would need there to be no sex so badly that they would parse her statements so painfully. Meg says it wouldn't bother her, but her assertions belie that, in my view.

Yes, she keeps saying that she's willing to consider it or even admit some of Joseph's marriages may have involved sex, but her writings and fictional histories do not support her willingness to actually look at the evidence available.

I'm not a fan of polygamy, but I don't understand why people get so riled up regarding the thought of the people involved consummating their marriages (mainly Joseph Smith).  IMO, it defies all logic to hold him to a higher standard.  

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Edited June 22, 2016 by ALarson

[jkwilliams]

2 minutes ago, ALarson said:

Yes, she keeps saying that she's willing to consider it or even admit some of Joseph's marriages may have involved sex, but her writings and fictional histories do not support her willingness to actually look at the evidence available.

I'm not a fan of polygamy, but I don't understand why people get so riled up regarding the thought of the people involved consummating their marriages (mainly Joseph Smith).  IMO, it defies all logic to hold him to a higher standard.  

I don't understand it, either. The reason for scholarly consensus isn't that we're all a bunch of "neurologically typical" non-special people but because that's where the evidence points. Again, if we're going to discount clear testimony, we had better have a compelling reason to do so. It's certainly possible to read things the way Meg does, but the question remains: why should we? When I first ran across her blog, I thought it was going to be an interesting alternative take on the history, but I was sorely disappointed.

[Rain]

27 minutes ago, ALarson said:

Yes, she keeps saying that she's willing to consider it or even admit some of Joseph's marriages may have involved sex, but her writings and fictional histories do not support her willingness to actually look at the evidence available.

I'm not a fan of polygamy, but I don't understand why people get so riled up regarding the thought of the people involved consummating their marriages (mainly Joseph Smith).  IMO, it defies all logic to hold him to a higher standard.  

.

It bothers me. I couldn’t tell you why exactly, but not enough to think through it. I think it also bothers people because of the idea that he married some young women. Strangely that bothers me less because my grandma and aunt were 15 and 14 (not LDS or LDS related), but I understand why it would bother others. 

 

Edited June 22, 2016 by Rain

[ALarson]

 

29 minutes ago, Rain said:

It bothers me. I couldn’t tell you why exactly, but not enough to think through it. I think it also bothers people because of the idea that he married some young women. Strangely that bothers me less because my grandma and aunt were 15 and 14 (not LDS or LDS related), but I understand why it would bother others. 

I do understand that many are bothered because of the secrecy involved with Joseph (vs. Brigham and others later on) and how he married many wives without Emma's knowledge or consent.  But, with the evidence, testimonies and documents that are now available to us, it's amazing to me that anyone still claims that none of Joseph's plural marriages were consummated.  

[Jeanne]

3 minutes ago, ALarson said:

 

I do understand that many are bothered because of the secrecy involved with Joseph (vs. Brigham and others later on) and how he married many wives without Emma's knowledge or consent.  But, with the evidence, testimonies and documents that are now available to us, it's amazing to me that anyone still claims that none of Joseph's plural marriages were consummated.  

It was the secrecy that bothered me the most.  There were some contradictions on what actually happened at what the D and C mentions. 

[ALarson]

11 minutes ago, Jeanne said:

It was the secrecy that bothered me the most. 

Yes, for me too.  And then, I was one that was always taught that Joseph was only sealed to older widows who needed to be taken care of because their husbands had been killed by the mobs.  

When I learned the actual details of his marriages, it was upsetting to me too.  But at some point, members need to do their own research on this and they will find the evidence that supports Joseph consummating at least some of his plural marriages.  And why wouldn't he have (as other members did)?  They were all living the same restored principle after all.

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Edited June 22, 2016 by ALarson

[kllindley]

1 hour ago, ALarson said:

 IMO, it defies all logic to hold him to a higher standard.  

.

So, actually reading Meg, I don't think she does hold him to this standard.  I think that she posits that he was reluctant to do so right away although he understood that this was the purpose of polygamy as revealed and taught.  IIRC, Meg suggested that Joseph may have been struggling to implement the practice knowing that Emma would be hurt.    

1 hour ago, JLHPROF said:

Which again, is ridiculous.

Polygamy = plural marriage.
Do married people have relations with each other?  Yes (often)
Was Joseph married to more than one woman?  Yes, upwards of 30 during his life and heaven only knows how many hundred in the next world.

So:
Given that married people generally have relations and given that Joseph Smith was married to as many as 30 women during his life it's not that hard to put A & B together.

It makes no sense to try and determine whether Joseph had relations with his wives unless you are trying to prove that he didn't.  Otherwise it wouldn't matter.

And anyone trying to prove that he didn't has some weird kind of perspective on either marriage or Joseph.  The idea that this was some kind of platonic spiritual ceremony until Brigham Young got his hands on it is the grossest misinterpretation of history out there.  Heber C. Kimball's first plural child was born in Nauvoo.  I'm sure Joseph gave his approval.

Here is a perfect example of where putting A & B together may not be supported by the evidence.  Which is not to say that it is wrong.  However, if every plural marriage was consummated on the wedding night we still have to account for several unpleasant facts.  To list a few I can think of: 1) Joseph had sex with minors.  2) He also had sex with (and was married to) women who were already married and remained married (and apparently sexually active.) 3) Out of the "upwards of 30" women he had sex with none bore a child despite the his own teaching that one primary purpose of plural marriage was to raise up a righteous posterity.  

Hales, Brodie, and everyone else writing about Joseph's polygamy has to prioritize some evidence over others in order to maintain a coherent narrative.  This is because some of the evidence is simply contradictory and cannot be reconciled.  Each historian, (amateur or experienced) has to acknowledge that they dismiss some evidence as false, which generally requires an explanation of motive for providing false evidence.  

I can't speak for Meg, (and I'm not just here defending her) but I believe that there are many different ways to reconcile 1, 2, and 3.  Meg's explanation is admittedly unlikely.  And there is very little evidence that her theory is "the most correct."  So little that I don't believe it.  AND I don't see anywhere where her current theory (as put forward in her book) directly contradicts the available historical evidence.  Again, I don't personally believe her explanation to be correct.  I don't find any compelling reason to accept it as factual.  At the same time, I find it more likely (given current historical evidence) than say Fawn Brodie's explanations.  

[jkwilliams]

7 minutes ago, ALarson said:

Yes, for me too.  And then, I was one that was always taught that Joseph was only sealed to older widows who needed to be taken care of because their husbands had been killed by the mobs.  

When I learned the actual details of his marriages, it was upsetting to me too.  But at some point, members need to do their own research on this and they will find the evidence that supports Joseph consummating at least some of his plural marriages.  And why wouldn't he have (as other members did)?  They were all living the same restored principle after all.

Yep, the secrecy and the coercion are what bother me. Plural marriage doesn't bother me at all, as all 4 of my grandparents were descendants of polygamists. 

[ALarson]

1 minute ago, jkwilliams said:

Yep, the secrecy and the coercion are what bother me. Plural marriage doesn't bother me at all, as all 4 of my grandparents were descendants of polygamists. 

Same for me!!!

[ALarson]

2 minutes ago, kllindley said:

So, actually reading Meg, I don't think she does hold him to this standard.  I think that she posits that he was reluctant to do so right away although he understood that this was the purpose of polygamy as revealed and taught. 

But then she goes to great lengths and accuses women of lying under oath rather than to conclude from the evidence we have that Joseph did consummate some of his marriages.  She says she considers it as a possibility, but it's never a part of her theories or conclusions (from what I've seen at least) 

 

4 minutes ago, kllindley said:

IIRC, Meg suggested that Joseph may have been struggling to implement the practice knowing that Emma would be hurt.  

Well, I agree with her here, but then she doesn't follow through with what Joseph actually did do regarding living the principle of plural marriage.  She twists and contorts the evidence available to avoid doing this.

[jkwilliams]

Just now, ALarson said:

But then she goes to great lengths and accuses women of lying under oath rather than to conclude from the evidence we have that Joseph did consummate some of his marriages.  She says she considers it as a possibility, but it's never a part of her theories or conclusions (from what I've seen at least) 

 

Well, I agree with her here, but then she doesn't follow through with what Joseph actually did do regarding living the principle of plural marriage.  She twists and contorts the evidence available to avoid doing this.

Yep. Joseph's hiding it from Emma is one of the things that bothers me the most, yet it makes absolutely no sense if one accepts this alternate theory. Why have the Partridge sisters go through a second marriage ceremony if they, Joseph, and Emma had been investigating the "sex ring" all along? There are a number of ways these alternate theories contradict the evidence, and yet when you point that out, you're belittled for not being open-minded or intelligent enough to consider another approach.

[JLHPROF]

2 minutes ago, kllindley said:

So, actually reading Meg, I don't think she does hold him to this standard.  I think that she posits that he was reluctant to do so right away although he understood that this was the purpose of polygamy as revealed and taught.  IIRC, Meg suggested that Joseph may have been struggling to implement the practice knowing that Emma would be hurt.   

If that was all she was saying - that he was reluctant to practice plural marriage and concerned about Emma's feelings, then I would agree with her.  I'm not sure that's all that is being posited.  I think, and I am willing to be corrected, that the idea of plural marriages being a primarily spiritual union and being differentiated from regular marriages which included sexual relations, is what is being advanced here.  Hales leans this way too.  So do others.

I consider this creation of "classes of wives" to be completely false, and more than a little insulting to both of the imaginary groups.  There is no hierarchy or class division between a man's wives.  Not unless you are a twisted fundamentalist who numbers or ranks wives.

Quote

Here is a perfect example of where putting A & B together may not be supported by the evidence.  Which is not to say that it is wrong.  However, if every plural marriage was consummated on the wedding night we still have to account for several unpleasant facts. 

I don't think every plural marriage was consummated, on the wedding night or otherwise.  But I see no problem with relations between husbands and wives.  And neither would they.

Quote

To list a few I can think of: 1) Joseph had sex with minors. 

No such thing in 1840's.  "Minors" are a 20th century construct.

Quote

2) He also had sex with (and was married to) women who were already married and remained married (and apparently sexually active.) 3) Out of the "upwards of 30" women he had sex with none bore a child despite the his own teaching that one primary purpose of plural marriage was to raise up a righteous posterity. 

 Statistically:

• One study, published in the journal Human Reproduction, followed women who were trying to get pregnant by having sex at the time in their monthly cycle when they were believed to be most fertile. Of the 346 women in the study, 310 conceived in the first year. The breakdown was like this:
  38 percent were pregnant after 1 month.
  68 percent were pregnant after 3 months.
  81 percent were pregnant after 6 months.
  92 percent were pregnant after 12 months.
   

So the no children when he maybe had relations once or twice with only some plural wives and not at the correct time of the month statistically presents very little challenge to whether these marriages were consummated.  Given the situations, the odds were against a child, not for.

As for polyandry - that's been done to death on this board.  You either understand the way Joseph and his wives were thinking and operating or you don't or you do and can't accept it.  Not much more to say at this point.

[ALarson]

20 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

So the no children when he maybe had relations once or twice with only some plural wives and not at the correct time of the month statistically presents very little challenge to whether these marriages were consummated.  Given the situations, the odds were against a child, not for.

So true.  Plus the secretive manner in which Joseph lived polygamy, made it even more crucial for him to be careful.  I'm not surprised at all that there were no children from his plural marriages (that we know of).

What surprises me is that some members continue to use this as definitive proof that he never consummated any of his marriages.

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Edited June 22, 2016 by ALarson

[Meg Stout]

3 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

The problem here is that Meg is "not persuaded" that "Joseph had relations with some but not all of his plural wives." What you call "lurid speculation" is merely a discussion of the evidence for sexual polygamy. 

In the field where I work, there is something called the receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve. You can set your standards for accepting "evidence" at any point along the curve, but as you become looser and looser in the amount of data you will accept, you begin to see more and more clutter, also referred to as "false alerts."

The first thing I am looking at is whether or not there were children. Fawn Brodie and others set the standard as "If I can find any information that supports the possibility of a child born to a woman I think might have been Joseph's wife, then I'll list the kid."

I set the standard as "Is there physical evidence or reasonable likelihood that the child was conceived when the woman says she had covenanted with Joseph and he was still living." So far, it appears that there were no children produced by Joseph's activities with his plural wives.

The second thing I'm looking at is the credibility of the reports that Joseph engaged in sex with the women. I don't question that he was alone with them. Emily's statements in 1894 are clear that she was saying she had engaged in carnal intercourse with Joseph after she married him and that she was unwilling to state intercourse had occurred only one time. While this seems quite solid, I point out that Emily had a motivation to ensure that the court believed she'd been intimate with Joseph. It doesn't mean that she did lie, but it suggests that her testimony should be qualified. That said, there is every reason to think that Joseph would have felt it was appropriate to consummate his union with Emily Partridge, as Emma had agreed with the union and we have evidence of other men consummating their relationships with plural wives in May 1843 (Joseph B. Noble, William Clayton, possibly Heber C. Kimball). We don't have difinite statements on this from Eliza Partridge, but one can suppose that had she lived to testify in 1894, she might have said the kind of things we see Emily say. On the other hand, Sarah Lawrence claimed that there was no intimacy involved in her covenant with Joseph Smith, an assertion that made many people rather upset with her. Sarah Lawrence's suggestion that there was no sexual intimacy involved in her covenant with Joseph suggests that we cannot simply extend Emily's testimony to suggest that other single girls in mid 1843 consummated their unions with Joseph.

The other instance that I am inclined to include is the report that Malissa Lott consummated the union with Joseph. Malissa testified to this in general terms. The intriguing source of the details for this is an RLDS apostate who was attempting to destroy the RLDS Church, so the motivation of the source combines with the late date to permit a certain level of skepticism. However details mentioned by the RLDS apostate are correct (e.g., that the children's bedroom was adjacent to the room where Emma and Joseph slept). Malissa also makes sense as a wife Joseph would seek to bear a child with, as her father was in a position to protect her.

Because Louisa Beaman had so many years to conceive, had she been intimate with Joseph, and because she subsequently proved to be so very fertile when united with Brigham Young, I downgrade the likelihood that Joseph engaged in intimacy with Louisa, despite what her brother-in-law reported.

Looking at Emma Hale, we see an instance where Joseph apparently refrained from consummating the marriage on the wedding night. Emma married Joseph in January, but would not conceive until September. Joseph had been told, after Alvin died, that there was another person who was to accompany him to retrieve the golden plates. Apparently that person was Emma. So while Joseph was intent on securing her as wife, he may not have wanted her to be either pregnant or newly delivered of a child when it came time to attempt to retrieve the plates. So in Joseph's history we see evidence that suggests Joseph was not in the habit of automatically consummating a marriage as soon as ceremony made the interaction acceptable.

The standard approach for many commenting on this is "wife means wife which means sex." Also, few if any of those commenting are acknowledging the illicit intercourse heresy that Joseph and Emma were combatting in 1842, which would have significantly reduced the likelihood that Joseph and Emma would have been willing to risk allowing the activities of righteous men and their plural wives to be confused with the gross iniquity that had pervaded Nauvoo in 1841-1842.

My standard for proclaiming someone a conjugal wife of Joseph Smith is simply more restrictive that the standard others are happy to use.

[juliann]

18 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

 

I consider this creation of "classes of wives" to be completely false, and more than a little insulting to both of the imaginary groups.  There is no hierarchy or class division between a man's wives.  Not unless you are a twisted fundamentalist who numbers or ranks wives.

 

You haven't read accounts if you don't acknowledge classes of wives. The first wife was often considered to deserve more even by the additional wives. The worst was when there were favorites, usually the newest or youngest. One of the reasons I don't care much for BY is his choosing of favorites at the expense of the others, to the point the neglected wives enjoyed watching the come down of the current favorite when the next took her place. 

Whatever JS was trying to do, it was done badly and with a sick system. I think he tried to manage the anti-woman nature of polygamy by also allowing polyandry. But BY then institutionalized the worst parts of it while restricting women's choices while expanding men's. 

There has been a strain of scholarship that has used sex to prop up JS's character, making it dependent on him not having relations with married women even as he was having sex with.multiple unmarried women. It is contorted thinking and downright strange, in my opinion.  And it will blow up in their faces because the investigation is just beginning to move away from the older narrow thinking. (And in this I applaud Meg though I wish she had something based on more respectful treatment of women and the evidence.)

With all of the women's records just now going digital, it is foolish to be drawing lines in the sand. We haven't begun to understand what happened and what we do know almost always comes from the men rather than the women who were the vast majority of the polygamists. The denial brings up images of those who mocked the idea that others could have come to the American continent by other means than the land bridge. Or those who draw lines in the sand with BOM evidences...if it isn't in front of their faces right now it doesn't exist and will never be found to.