Reluctant Polygamist: Preface

[ALarson]

5 hours ago, Meg Stout said:

The case history of Jonathan and Elvira demonstrates that in at least one case the legal husband claimed he had not been consummating his marriage from December 1, 1842 to June 27, 1844.

Meg, do you have a reference for a statement by Jonathan where he "claimed he had not been consummating his marriage from December 1, 1842 to June 27, 1844"?  

.

Edited June 23, 2016 by ALarson

[JulieM]

5 hours ago, Meg Stout said:

The marital situation of Jonathan, Elvira, and Joseph is the Rosetta Stone I have used to postulate regarding the rest of Joseph's plural marriages.

Why?  You don't appear to even know for sure what was taking place with Elvira's  marriages to Jonathan and Joseph.

[jkwilliams]

2 minutes ago, JulieM said:

Why?  You don't appear to even know for sure what was taking place with Elvira's  marriages to Jonathan and Joseph.

Indeed. Seems an odd choice to use that marriage as typical. 

[James Tunney]

Meg, I don't see how priviledging Joseph Smith in this helps when Brigham Young, Lorenzo Snow, Wilford Woodruff and many others had sex with their polygamous wives and had children with them. Also, Brigham Young had a child with Zina Huntington while she was still married to her husband. So how do you explain this? The men above got their ideas from Joseph Smith. Did they wrongly think that having sex with their wives was permitted?

Edited June 23, 2016 by James Tunney

[Meg Stout]

27 minutes ago, James Tunney said:

Meg, I don't see how priviledging Joseph Smith in this helps when Brigham Young, Lorenzo Snow, Wilford Woodruff and many others had sex with their polygamous wives and had children with them. Also, Brigham Young had a child with Zina Huntington while she was still married to her husband. So how do you explain this? The men above got their ideas from Joseph Smith. Did they wrongly think that having sex with their wives was permitted?

My premise is not that it would have been unrighteousness for Joseph Smith to consummate the marriages to his wives.

My premise is that there must be a single reality that resulted in all the data that we have in front of us.

The matter of Zina Huntington will be covered when we talk about Chapter 27 - Eradicating Spiritual Wifery.

[jkwilliams]

1 minute ago, Meg Stout said:

My premise is not that it would have been unrighteousness for Joseph Smith to consummate the marriages to his wives.

My premise is that there must be a single reality that resulted in all the data that we have in front of us.

The matter of Zina Huntington will be covered when we talk about Chapter 27 - Eradicating Spiritual Wifery.

It's a huge mistake to assume there is a single reality that explains all the data. Humans are not known for consistency. Not even prophets. 

[Meg Stout]

5 hours ago, Calm said:

I would like to see the quote from Johnathan Holmes' story to his children abt not being her husband, etc.

Question to Meg Stout:  It would appear that the only thing you identify as objective evidence is the existense of children.  If I am wrong, can you please state what else you would label "objective evidence" and why you believe this standard is appropriate for historic work?

Objective evidence here refers to physical evidence, such as children or disease. As early as 1825, Jeremy Bentham’s A Treatise on Judicial Evidence (1825) argued that testimony needed to be backed up by material proof.

There is testimony, then there is physical evidence.

I have never said testimony should be ignored. I am merely saying that testimony can be wrong or words can be misunderstood in ways that the person giving testimony never anticipated.

Physical evidence (such as DNA or crushed watch faces or obituaries or the physics of rifles) should be used as the bones upon which testimony should be draped. In no case should testimony be used to claim that credible physical evidence is incorrect.

[Meg Stout]

5 hours ago, ALarson said:

Meg, I went onto Amazon to look at the reviews for your book.  I find it a bit odd that all five of your 5 star reviews were written either on the same day (four of them), or the day before (the other one).  Did you ask these people to write reviews for you?

https://www.amazon.com/Reluctant-Polygamist-Joseph-Smith-Jr/dp/1530935156/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1466693341&sr=8-3&keywords=reluctant+polygamist

Hi ALarson,

When the book was published, I held a raffle for copies of the book to the first 20 persons who had requested an autographed copy of the book by that Saturday (April 9). Everyone who responded was delighted. I sent the books off the following week.

The first review of the book was posted on April 21. It was a one star review that could have been written by John. Except John didn't know I'd published the book until April 27. I replied to the one star review suggesting they could improve their credibility by reviewing other products or using a name other than "Publius."

I noticed that there was only that single review of the book sometime in May. After a week or two, I replied to the list of people to whom I had mailed books and asked if they might consider giving the book a review. A few e-mailed me and told me they couldn't post a review until some future time. A couple of others said they had put up a review.

After MHA I checked the book listing and found that the "Publius" review was gone. When someone deleted that review, my comment on that review also disappeared.

[jkwilliams]

Just now, Meg Stout said:

The first review of the book was posted on April 21. It was a one star review that could have been written by John. Except John didn't know I'd published the book until April 27. I replied to the one star review suggesting they could improve their credibility by reviewing other products or using a name other than "Publius."

Nice parting shot. Be well, Meg. 

[Gray]

23 minutes ago, Meg Stout said:

Objective evidence here refers to physical evidence, such as children or disease. As early as 1825, Jeremy Bentham’s A Treatise on Judicial Evidence (1825) argued that testimony needed to be backed up by material proof.

There is testimony, then there is physical evidence.

I have never said testimony should be ignored. I am merely saying that testimony can be wrong or words can be misunderstood in ways that the person giving testimony never anticipated.

Physical evidence (such as DNA or crushed watch faces or obituaries or the physics of rifles) should be used as the bones upon which testimony should be draped. In no case should testimony be used to claim that credible physical evidence is incorrect.

An interesting approach, but where does that leave things like the first vision? No physical evidence can confirm that it happened. 

The problem here though is not that you want physical evidence, it's that you seem to want to assume Joseph Smith's marriage relationships were platonic unless you find conclusive physical evidence to the contrary. That's not really how evidence works. I could assume that John the Baptist was a space alien unless I see physical evidence that he was an earthling, and then claim I'm taking an evidence-based approach. But that would be a particularly egregious case of special pleading. That's exactly the problem with your approach to this issue, IMO. 

Edited June 23, 2016 by Gray

[Meg Stout]

3 hours ago, ALarson said:

It appears he made no statement about it.  The statements provided below state that Jonathan and Elvira were not married until after Joseph's death, so it's a bit confusing. 

This is what I found written in Meg's book about this:

 

Hi ALarson,

Thank you for finding that set of statements from the book and posting the footnotes.

Aside from Elvira's signed affidavit stating that she was sealed to Joseph in June 1, 1843, we do not have any journal or letter from her.

Jonathan left a journal, but he is a man of very few words. "Cobbled" is the most frequent entry in his journal (he was a cobbler). He was at Sutter's Mill when gold was found, but all we have of that in his journal is months of nothing written at all. We have the testimony from his descendants regarding what he said regarding his marriage to Elvira and what he said to Elvira at her deathbed, when he asked what report of his stewardship she would take back to Joseph Smith.

We mostly see Elvira and Jonathan through the evidence left by others.

One fun bit I was following up on at MHA was the stone house Jonathan built for Elvira in Farmington. It turns out that Farmington has unusual stone resources. Even so, the majority of early houses even in Farmington were made from adobe. There's a story there, likely primarily arising from the fact that Jonathan's family had stone homes back in Massachusetts. But knowing what I do about the rodents that infested the Old Fort, I like to think that Jonathan went to that extra effort at least in small part because he knew it would please Elvira to know that there were no rodents cavorting in the walls of her home.

[Guest]

5 hours ago, stemelbow said:

Well I'm glad you pursued the topic, with vigor.  It can't be easy to resolve the whys of what people of the past did without considerable disagreement particularly when it comes to difficult topics of religion and polygamy.  Kudos for trying.  Ijust continue to feel very strongly that it doesn't matter one bit regarding why it was practiced if it didn't do any good at all.  And it didn't.  Even the environment of Nauvoo would have been different and there wouldn't have been the sex scandals there were, if no polygamy. 

 

When she or anyone is putting on trial (in effect) Joseph's life and using one example as a model, you don't give "kudos for trying". There must be a higher standard, it is great topic for debate, but not if the debate uses flawed logic and reasoning. Although it will be great fodder for the critics of our leaders and faith, because they use the same methods. No kudos for trying. 

[Meg Stout]

11 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

Nice parting shot. Be well, Meg. 

Not meant as a shot, John. I actually mentioned in my response to that review that I initially suspected in had been written by my "frenemy" John of Rintu's Rincon. But the review went up before I told you about the book. So in a way I was pointing people to your opinions about me and my research.

[cinepro]

29 minutes ago, Meg Stout said:

Objective evidence here refers to physical evidence, such as children or disease. As early as 1825, Jeremy Bentham’s A Treatise on Judicial Evidence (1825) argued that testimony needed to be backed up by material proof.

There is testimony, then there is physical evidence.

I have never said testimony should be ignored. I am merely saying that testimony can be wrong or words can be misunderstood in ways that the person giving testimony never anticipated.

Physical evidence (such as DNA or crushed watch faces or obituaries or the physics of rifles) should be used as the bones upon which testimony should be draped. In no case should testimony be used to claim that credible physical evidence is incorrect.

So based on your standards, what evidence is there that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy at all?

[Meg Stout]

4 minutes ago, Gray said:

An interesting approach, but where does that leave things like the first vision? No physical evidence can confirm that it happened.

The problem here though is not that you want physical evidence, it's that you seem to want to assume Joseph Smith's marriage relationships were platonic unless you find conclusive physical evidence to the contrary. That's not really how evidence works. I could assume that John the Baptist was a space alien unless I see physical evidence that he was an earthling, and then claim I'm taking an evidence-based approach. But that would be a particularly egregious case of special pleading. That's exactly the problem with your approach to this issue, IMO. 

Gray,

You are echoing what others are inferring, that my preference for physical evidence might suggest that I don't also value testimony.

I do value testimony. I just kick it around a bit harder before giving it a provisional place in the puzzle.

[ALarson]

1 hour ago, Meg Stout said:

The first review of the book was posted on April 21. It was a one star review that could have been written by John.

Not cool.

.

Edited June 23, 2016 by ALarson

[ALarson]

52 minutes ago, Meg Stout said:

Aside from Elvira's signed affidavit stating that she was sealed to Joseph in June 1, 1843, we do not have any journal or letter from her.

Jonathan left a journal, but he is a man of very few words. "Cobbled" is the most frequent entry in his journal (he was a cobbler). He was at Sutter's Mill when gold was found, but all we have of that in his journal is months of nothing written at all. 

You see, Meg, when you make statements like this:

Quote

Yet in the case of Jonathan Holmes and Elvira Annie Cowles, we have Jonathan's (admittedly late) story to his children and neighbors that he was not Elvira's husband until after Joseph's death

And, this:

Quote

The case history of Jonathan and Elvira demonstrates that in at least one case the legal husband claimed he had not been consummating his marriage from December 1, 1842 to June 27, 1844.

But when you are asked for references to this story told by Jonathan to his children and neighbors, or for a reference to a copy of Jonathan's claim that he had not consummated his marriage, and they don't exist, you lose all credibility.  Don't you see this?  

You state things as facts but appear to just be making things up as you go along in an effort to support what you want to be the truth regarding Joseph's polygamy.

.

 

Edited June 23, 2016 by ALarson

[Meg Stout]

3 minutes ago, ALarson said:

But when you are asked for references to this story told by Jonathan to his children and neighbors, or for a reference to a copy of Jonathan's claim that he had not consummated his marriage, and they don't exist, you lose all credibility.  Don't you see this?

Hi ALarson,

Christ didn't make a record of His earthly ministry that survived to our day. What we have is by means of those who heard him.

In the case of Jonathan, we have both the writings of his daughter and his grandchildren, to whom the story had been related. In addition to that, we have the written version of the story provided to Church headquarters by one of Jonathan's neighbors.

This is not physical evidence, and it isn't first person evidence. But it is consistent second hand evidence brought forward by disparate sources.

[stemelbow]

22 minutes ago, Pa Pa said:

When she or anyone is putting on trial (in effect) Joseph's life and using one example as a model, you don't give "kudos for trying". There must be a higher standard, it is great topic for debate, but not if the debate uses flawed logic and reasoning. Although it will be great fodder for the critics of our leaders and faith, because they use the same methods. No kudos for trying. 

I think there's plenty of room for giving kudos for trying, even if the result has bad conclusions.  I dont' think piecing together Joseph's polygamy is all that easy.  But in the end, it feels to me like instead of putting Joseph's life on trial her goal is to say though polygamy Joseph didn't do too bad.  It feels like a weird argument to hold to and effectively does the opposite of putting Joseph's life on trial. 

[jkwilliams]

20 minutes ago, cinepro said:

So based on your standards, what evidence is there that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy at all?

By her standards, there is no evidence that Bennett had sex with anyone. 

[stemelbow]

22 minutes ago, Meg Stout said:

Gray,

You are echoing what others are inferring, that my preference for physical evidence might suggest that I don't also value testimony.

I do value testimony. I just kick it around a bit harder before giving it a provisional place in the puzzle.

Considering your preference of your guesswork over testimony no one can argue you don't kick testimony around a bit harder.  It's easy to dismiss testimony in favor of your preferred assumption, if that's how one sees it.

[ALarson]

Just now, jkwilliams said:

By her standards, there is no evidence that Bennett had sex with anyone. 

Very true!  

 

[stemelbow]

2 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

By her standards, there is no evidence that Bennett had sex with anyone. 

Oops.  Well maybe he didn't have to have sex with anyone for Joseph to quell the fears and concerns that Bennett was seducing so many. 

[Meg Stout]

20 minutes ago, cinepro said:

So based on your standards, what evidence is there that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy at all?

Hi cinepro,

There is abundant first person testimony that Joseph taught the doctrine that plural marriage was permissible.

There is first person testimony that Joseph participated in ceremonies sealing him to women other than Emma. These testimonies include individuals who did not follow Brigham Young to Utah. James Whitehead, who remained in the Illinois area, would tell the Smith brothers in 1864 that he had personally witnessed Emma participate in ceremonies where Joseph was sealed to other women.

Emily Partridge in 1894 agreed when asked if she'd had carnal intercourse with Joseph Smith.

Malissa Lott indicated that she had been Joseph's wife in very deed. R. C. Evans, in his 1920 book about why he left the RLDS Church, claimed Malissa Lott had told him about Joseph's desire to sire a child with her, and the single sexual encounter that took place between them.

There are other testimonies that some claim consistitute proof that Joseph engaged in sexual relations with individuals other than Emma. Some of these may be true. But I don't accept that all indicate Joseph Smith had sex with the woman. In particular, I don't agree that Mary Heron should be added to the list of Joseph Smith's conjugal wives merely because her son-in-law indicated she was frigged by someone named Joseph.

[ALarson]

22 minutes ago, Meg Stout said:

Hi ALarson,

Christ didn't make a record of His earthly ministry that survived to our day. What we have is by means of those who heard him.

In the case of Jonathan, we have both the writings of his daughter and his grandchildren, to whom the story had been related. In addition to that, we have the written version of the story provided to Church headquarters by one of Jonathan's neighbors.

This is not physical evidence, and it isn't first person evidence. But it is consistent second hand evidence brought forward by disparate sources.

What?  You made statements and claims and now can't back them up. 

Here's what you wrote in your book:

Quote

In 1931 John Fish Wright’s son, William, brought a letter to LDS Church Headquarters. The letter read: “I was well acquainted with two of Joseph’s wives, LaVina and Eliza…  Before Joseph was shot, he asked Jonathan Holmes if he would marry and take care of LaVina, but that if LaVina wanted him to take care of her he would take her. He would fill that mission to please his Father in Heaven.” 

Jonathan’s descendants, including daughter Phebe, clearly understood that it was only after Joseph’s death that Elvira had become Jonathan’s wife, “probably at his direction”:

“I heard my mother testify that she was indeed the Prophet Joseph Smith’s plural wife in life and lived with him as such during his lifetime.  The Prophet Joseph Smith held Jonathan H. Holmes in the highest regard and he acted as one of the ‘bodyguards’ of the prophet.” 

“When Joseph Smith was martyred, [Jonathan with others] buried his body and later moved it to a more secure resting place.  Certain it is that after the Prophet's death, probably at his direction, my grandfather married one of his (Joseph Smith) plural wives, Elvira Annie Cowles Smith.” 

"After the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, Elvira Annie Cowles (Smith) married young widowed, Jonathan Harriman Holmes, who had served faithfully as a bodyguard of the prophet.” 

 

Where does it state that stories were told to them by Jonathan late in his life?  And where is the claim by Jonathan that he did not consummate his marriage between December 1, 1842 and June 27, 1844?

Do you have references for these claims you made or not?  

.

 

 

Edited June 23, 2016 by ALarson