New First Vision Video

[JulieM]

8 minutes ago, Calm said:

If already posted, please ignore...

She did not feel "abused" because of plural marriage, but because she had to stay home from a disreputable dance and she was grateful she was protected from the "tongue of scandal".

"During the winter of 1843, there were plenty of parties and balls, and many were held at the mansion. The last one that I attended there that winter was on Christmas Eve. Some of the young gentlemen got up a series of dancing parties to be held at the mansion once a week. My brother William put his name down before asking father's permission, and when questioned about it made him believe that he must pay the money for himself and the lady, whether he went or not, and that he could not honorably withdraw from it. He carried the day, but I had to stay at home, as my father had been warned by the Prophet to keep his daughter away from there, because of the blacklegs and certain ones of questionable character who attended there. His wife Emma had become the ruling spirit and money had become her God. I did not betray William, but I felt quite sore over it, and thought it a very unkind act in father to allow him to go and enjoy the dance unrestrained with others of my companions, and fetter me down, for no girl loved dancing better than I did and I really felt that it was too much to bear. It made the dull school still more dull and like a wild bird, I longed for the freedom that was denied me; and thought myself a much abused child, and that it was pardonable if I did murmur. I imagined that my happiness was all over and brooded over the sad memories of sweet departed joys and all manner of future woes, which (by the by) were of short duration, my bump of hope being too large to admit of my remaining long under the clouds. Besides my father was very kind and indulgent in other ways, and always took me with him when mother could not go, and it was not a very long time before I became satisfied that I was blessed in being under the control of so good and wise a parent who had taken counsel and thus saved me from evils, which some others in their youth and inexperience were exposed to though they thought no evil. Yet the busy tongue of scandal did not spare them."

http://www.boap.org/LDS/Early-Saints/HWhitney.html

Yes, I've read all of this before.  I do think that's why she didn't go to those particular dances (safety reasons), but in the context of what she was writing about, I think there's more to why she was unhappy initially when she realized this was a real marriage and that she wouldn't be able to be a part of things that she would have been otherwise.  There was more she missed than just a few unsafe dances.  I don't think it was that simple. 

Could she be with boys her age?  Could she date?  She had to keep the secret and always be more guarded with her friends, etc.  It definitely affected her life as a teen.

When you read all she wrote, I believe she was sad about what she missed out on and was expressing how she felt at that time (as a young girl).  I think she came to terms with it as she matured and as she was older looking back.  She was remarkable, IMO.

Edited March 8, 2017 by JulieM

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Danzo said:

How would the church allow or disallow a marriage.

They certainly don't have the authority to annul marriages.

They don't allow those in legal polygamous marriages to be baptized.  What I have heard reported by missionaries serving in such areas is they encourage the families to stay intact and do not suggest divorce (women and children in some countries would become social outcasts if the mother was divorced).

[CV75]

1 hour ago, JulieM said:

What has been historically inaccurate here?  

We may come to different conclusions or beliefs or interpretations, but this discussion has included historical integrity or accuracy from what I've read.

The history does not conclusively prove that Joseph Smith was a liar and adulterer. That claim arises from bias, and it is intellectually dishonest (intentional or not) to pass it off as proven, factual history. Therein is the lack of historical integrity (more as a discipline than as the sharing of source material), intentional or not.

My post was about the need for validation of so-called knowledge when it is actually bias, which is an even worse form of intellectual dishonesty and lack of historical integrity. My post was not about historical accuracy, so you can see how easy it is for some folks to conflate these concepts.

[JLHPROF]

9 minutes ago, JulieM said:

Could she be with boys her age?  Could she date?  She had to keep the secret and always be more guarded with her friends, etc.  It definitely affected her life as a teen.

Here we go with the presentisms again...
 

[JulieM]

13 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

Here we go with the presentisms again...
 

Not really.  Just questions.  I think she did write more about that too (boys and friends).  I'll look when I get the chance.

Edited March 8, 2017 by JulieM

[JLHPROF]

3 minutes ago, JulieM said:

Not really.  Just questions.  I think she did write more about that too (boys and friends).

I'm more interested in where she says "His wife Emma had become the ruling spirit and money had become her God."

I wonder what that would have meant.

[Calm]

36 minutes ago, JulieM said:

Yes, I've read all of this before.  I do think that's why she didn't go to those particular dances (safety reasons), but in the context of what she was writing about, I think there's more to why she was unhappy initially when she realized this was a real marriage and that she wouldn't be able to be a part of things that she would have been otherwise.  There was more she missed than just a few unsafe dances.  I don't think it was that simple. 

Could she be with boys her age?  Could she date?  She had to keep the secret and always be more guarded with her friends, etc.  It definitely affected her life as a teen.

When you read all she wrote, I believe she was sad about what she missed out on and was expressing how she felt at that time (as a young girl).  I think she came to terms with it as she matured and as she was older looking back.  She was remarkable, IMO.

She was going to dances while she was sealed to Joseph for over six months at least..  Nothing in what she writes that I remember said she was restricted in hanging out with those her own age there.  She playacted in theatre and sang in choirs.  There is a lot of evidence she wasn't that restricted from what she said she was involved in.  I do not doubt she was not allowed to have romantic relationships, but only friendships, I just don't know how different that was from most girls her age still living at home with parents (total guess, but those out earning their keep likely had more freedom in their limited off hours).  Also this may have been her own decision and not something forced on her by her parents given she was an intelligent girl and knew relatively soon, iirc, after her introduction to plural marriage others who were involved in it (Sarah Whitney, iirc), so I think she would have known that it was anticipated to be a full marriage quite soon.

The "abused child" was specifically in regard to that one event.  It was, iirc, over 6 months from the time she was sealed to the prophet.  She was down because she couldn't go and then cheered up because her dad kept her busy and then loved him for not letting her go because it protected her reputation.  There is no way it applies to plural marriage.  Other writings might, but she is addressing one case, not speaking generally in that paragraph.

----

If you want to point to unhappiness caused by plural marriage, then you should be able to come up with a quote that has to do with it rather than the "abused child" that was about protecting her from "blacklegs" and a 'soiled reputation'.  My memory is there is a poem which may not be explicit, but is reasonably interpreted to be a regret for lost freedom.

I don't doubt the secrecy was hard on her, including probably wondering what it meant for the future given even though she knew plural wives, the community in general didn't.  I believe her personal feelings were likely strongly affected, I just haven't seen solid evidence yet it actually changed anything in her activity.  It might have been all about her future, her dreams.  More than bad enough.  I think the difference needs to be made to be accurate.  That is what respect should bring, accuracy in describing what someone does and feels...letting their actual lives and words speak for them, not primarily our imaginations and what we want.

Edited March 8, 2017 by Calm

[Calm]

6 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

I'm more interested in where she says "His wife Emma had become the ruling spirit and money had become her God."

I wonder what that would have meant.

She would not have been a confidant of Emma's given the age difference, imo.  I would not be surprised if this is info/gossip she picked up later rather than heard at the time.

Edited March 8, 2017 by Calm

[JulieM]

47 minutes ago, CV75 said:

The history does not conclusively prove that Joseph Smith was a liar and adulterer.

Well an honest historian at least admits that lies were involved with Joseph being able to live polygamy.

[Danzo]

53 minutes ago, Calm said:

They don't allow those in legal polygamous marriages to be baptized.  What I have heard reported by missionaries serving in such areas is they encourage the families to stay intact and do not suggest divorce (women and children in some countries would become social outcasts if the mother was divorced).

We can definitely state that polygamous marriages (to the living, at least) are outlawed in the church.  I haven't heard that child marriages are (at least those legally performed).

My wife comes from an area where child marriages(as we define them)  used to be quite common, even expected although that is changing now that there is more access to schools and other activities for the young.  As far as I know the church hasn't excommunicated anyone over them.

[JLHPROF]

27 minutes ago, Calm said:

She would not have been a confidant of Emma's given the age difference, imo.  I would not be surprised if this is info/gossip she picked up later rather than heard at the time.

Maybe.
I'm not so convinced.
She married Joseph in 1843 at 14 and her second husband Horace for time at 17.  She was married to Joseph for barely a year, widowed for 18 months and then remarried.  She was initiated into the anointed quorum in 1845, the year before she remarried.

As an attendee of the meetings of the anointed quorum she probably heard much discussion of the disagreements with Emma.  After Joseph's death Emma considered much Church property to be her family's property (that's how the RLDS/CoC ended up with the JST documents).

So she may not have been a confidant, but as:

1. A wife of Joseph Smith from 1843-44
2. A member of the anointed quorum from 1845 onward
3. A daughter of Heber C. Kimball

I'm going to say if she picked this gossip concerning Emma and money in the 1843-46 period up, it may not be so after the fact at all.  Pretty contemporary.

Edited March 9, 2017 by JLHPROF

[JLHPROF]

7 minutes ago, JulieM said:

Well an honest historian at least admits that lies were involved with Joseph being able to live polygamy.

I agree that Joseph lied publicly.
I don't see that as a problem or even a sin.

[Calm]

As far as "context" of the "abused child" phrase, she wasn't just writing about her life as a plural wife, she was writing about her community and everything that was going on with her, the incidents and experiences:

"but the history of this people is always interesting to the Latter-day Saints, and incidents of our travels and experience are calculated to benefit the young and rising generation."

In her first collection, the first story is about a faithful widow and her second convert husband who her family lived with.  Her second story was about her young brother being burned and healed.  Then it was about their less than wonderful new home and the birth of another sibling.  Then illnesses and more hearings, her father leaving on a mission, problems of safety in Kirtland.

Second collection much the same, with a mention of her later knowledge of her father's plural wife, Sarah Noon.  Includes letters from her dad.  Then she tells the story of her introduction to plural marriage.  Then her father leaving on another mission.  She writes about what the Prophet said about her father.  She includes a history of the meetings of the young men and women done by the secretary.  Follows with events in the summer of 43.  Lots more stories.  The one immediately before her telling of the blackleg dances is the Maid of Iowa experience of new immigrants.  Afterwards she tells of her experience in the choir.  And then the "dramatic entertainments".  She is focusing in that part on the social life of the community, though mainly from a personal viewpoint.

"We were not wanting for amusements, even in the midst of some of the most trying scenes. The Latter-day Saints seldom drooped or pined for their "Leeks and Onions," but adapted themselves to circumstances with an excellent grace."

She is simply relating general history, personal and other she heard about that she believes the audience will find interesting, including her personal point of view as good writers do.

To claim this little vignette had anything to do with plural marriage or the overall composition primarily dealt with that subject is insisting to read Helen's complete experience as one of plural marriage.  She had a full life growing up with much besides her sealing occurring within it.  It is not respectful, imo, to simply look at her life through the one filter of plural marriage.

[Calm]

8 minutes ago, Danzo said:

We can definitely state that polygamous marriages (to the living, at least) are outlawed in the church.  I haven't heard that child marriages are (at least those legally performed).

My wife comes from an area where child marriages(as we define them)  used to be quite common, even expected although that is changing now that there is more access to schools and other activities for the young.  As far as I know the church hasn't excommunicated anyone over them.

I have not heard of anything.

[bluebell]

41 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

I'm more interested in where she says "His wife Emma had become the ruling spirit and money had become her God."

I wonder what that would have meant.

It's impossible to say.  

She might have had a really contentious relationship with Emma, she might have been lying, she might have been passing along something she heard, she might have been telling the truth, or it might be any number of combinations of those options. 

[Calm]

6 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

Maybe.
I'm not so convinced.
She married Joseph in 1843 at 14 and her second husband Horace for time at 17.  She was married to Joseph for barely a year, widowed for 18 months and then remarried.  She was initiated into the anointed quorum in 1845, the year before she remarried.

As an attendee of the meetings of the anointed quorum she probably heard much discussion of the disagreements with Emma.  After Joseph's death Emma considered much Church property to be her family's property (that's how the RLDS/CoC ended up with the JST documents).

So she may not have been a confidant, but as:

1. A wife of Joseph Smith from 1843-44
2. A member of the anointed quorum from 1845 onward
3. A daughter of Heber C. Kimball

I'm going to say if she picked this gossip concerning Emma and money in the 1843-46 period up, it may not be so after the fact at all.  Pretty contemporary.

What I mean is it is unlikely her personal experience that led her to that conclusion.  It sounds more like something an adult would say so, not a 'teen' who dearly wanted to be going to those dances initially.  

[bluebell]

8 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

I agree that Joseph lied publicly.
I don't see that as a problem or even a sin.

Do you believe he lied to Emma?

[JLHPROF]

1 minute ago, Calm said:

What I mean is it is unlikely her personal experience that led her to that conclusion.  It sounds more like something an adult would say so, not a 'teen' who dearly wanted to be going to those dances initially.

Again, her statement that "money had become her God" could easily be a result of her attendance at the Annointed Quorum meetings and her statement that "Emma had become the ruling spirit" could easily have come from her husband.
I think it is equally likely that the teenage Helen heard these things as it is the recollection of the adult Helen.

[JLHPROF]

1 minute ago, bluebell said:

Do you believe he lied to Emma?

Yes.   But I am pretty convinced it was AFTER she had been taught the principle of plural marriage.
Therefore he had no further obligation to seek her permission after she rejected or refused to embrace the law.

[CV75]

1 hour ago, JulieM said:

Well an honest historian at least admits that lies were involved with Joseph being able to live polygamy.

“At least?” Care to tweak it a little more, as if to imply you can refute what I said? LOL…

So that’s what an honest historian does--Hmm! Thank you for exemplifying my comments about bias, intellectual dishonesty and lack of historical integrity!

[Calm]

"What does emerge powerfully from the poem, though, is a sense of her dashed dreams of romantic love and missed social opportunities: “Thy sicken’d heart will brood and imagine future woes, / And like a fetter’d bird with wild and longing heart, / Thou’lt dayly pine for freedom and murmur at thy lot.” The poem ended where her reminiscences did, with a statement of trust in her father.

.

.

.

"Helen admitted to contemplating different paths in her younger years. Looking back, though, she willingly made peace with the trial of plural marriage in order to have all that Mormonism provided her. “In my younger days, in the early scenes of trial and temptation, I thought that I would be perfectly happy if the plural system could be relinquished. I felt unwilling to sacrifice my earthly happiness for the promise of future reward. I thought I could content myself with a lesser glory. But I found that there was not real substance in any religious doctrine outside of ‘Mormonism,’ and I could not disbelieve one part (as many have professed to do) without rejecting it completely.”"

https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/no-weapon-shall-prosper/subject-can-bear-investigation-anguish-faith-and-joseph-smiths

So please, if you wish to emphasize Helen's negative reactions to plural marriage and feelings of loss freedom, use the poem, not the phrase "abused child" which has nothing to do with her feelings about plural marriage as a teen or an adult.  Respect her sense of humor and her amusement at herself on the one hand and her honest sharing of her pain on the other and don't take short cuts or repeat others' misrepresentations.

As a side note, the author also makes this comment:

"At the heart of his Nauvoo teachings was the Prophet’s emphasis on creating binding links that would join the Saints as God’s extended family. Writing to the Church in 1842, Joseph Smith stressed that baptisms for the dead would function as a “welding” link (see D&C 128:18). Certainly, celestial marriage would function as another. [22] Not yet a part of Latter-day Saint understanding, though, was a sense that families could be sealed together through ordinances across generations of the dead. No Saint of the 1840s was sealed to his or her own ancestors through vicarious ordinances; later Church Presidents would add intergenerational sealing to temple practice. Their absence in Nauvoo helps explain Heber Kimball’s actions with regard to his daughter. [23]

Convinced that sealing was God’s plan for his people, the Nauvoo Saints in effect created extended eternal families by sealing living Saints of no blood relation—through plural marriages and adult “adoptions”—rather than through sealing to one’s own progenitors via proxy work. (Through what the Saints called the “law of adoption,” adult men without faithful Latter-day Saint parents were sealed to other adult men as their adopted sons.) [24] Lucy Walker, for instance, who married Joseph Smith days before Helen did in 1843, remembered the Prophet explaining that their sealing would help “form a chain that could never be broken, worlds without end.” [25] Since endowments and sealings for the dead were not yet part of Latter-day Saint temple practice, the Nauvoo Saints’ sealing work bore a marked sense of urgency. In other words, whatever was to be done in terms of ordinance work beyond baptism was to be done here and now and only for the living. Speaking in 1859, Elder Orson Pratt put it bluntly: “All these things have to be attended to here.” [26] Saints like Heber Kimball thus yearned to be linked or welded into an extended celestial family. Viewed in this light, Elder Kimball and the Prophet Joseph Smith seem to have been collecting kin as much as wives. In the words of one historian, “Joseph did not marry women to form a warm, human companionship, but to create a network of related wives, children, and kinsmen that would endure into the eternities. . . . Like Abraham of old, Joseph yearned for familial plentitude.” [27]"

Edited March 9, 2017 by Calm

[JulieM]

9 minutes ago, CV75 said:

“At least?” Care to tweak it a little more, as if to imply you can refute what I said? LOL…

 

So that’s what an honest historian does--Hmm! Thank you for exemplifying my comments about bias, intellectual dishonesty and lack of historical integrity!

 

You don't believe that there were lies told by Joseph to Emma?  I'm sincerely interested in your answer.

[T-Shirt]

1 hour ago, JulieM said:

You don't believe that there were lies told by Joseph to Emma?  I'm sincerely interested in your answer.

That is, actually, a very loaded question and, frankly, one that needs to be looked at more closely than just answering, "yes" or "no"   If you mean, did Joseph do things without telling Emma? or did he conceal anything from her? then the answer is, yes.  As far as him actually telling her something that was not true, I don't think we can answer that question, there just isn't enough information.  We know, with assurity, that Emma knew of plural marriage, but we do not know when she learned of it.  We also know, with assurity, that Emma, at times, approved of, or, at least, allowed her husband to practice it.  In addition, we know that she, at times (and likely most of the time), hated plural marriage.  However, we really don't know much about when, where and how often she felt either of these extremes.  Most of it is conjecture.  Someone, smarter than me, can correct me if I am wrong, but I don't believe there is any record of Joseph ever lying to Emma, in the sense of telling her something that was not true.

If you could suspend your disbelief for just a minute and look at this from Joseph's point of view, with the perspective that he really was commanded to practice plural marriage, and was threatened by an angel after having put it off, then the whole thing plays out very logically.  We know, pretty well, that his marriage to Fanny Alger did not go well and that Emma was not happy about it.  According to D&C 132, Joseph is specifically given the right to enter into more marriages without Emma's permission or knowledge, as long as she had initially been instructed in the principle.  However, it appears that he was reluctant to cause more marital problems, nor did he want to injure Emma further, so he put it off until warned by the angel.  It makes perfect sense that he would not want to try to convince Emma again.  He was in a no win situation, either keep peace in his marriage and continue to delay, or obey God.  He did not want a repeat of the incident with the 116 pages of manuscript, so it is not hard to understand, right or wrong, why he chose to obey God and not tell Emma.  We may not like it, but for a man who loved God and loved his wife, this plays out exactly how one could imagine.  The only question really is, was Joseph really commanded, by God, to practice plural marriage?  Only you can answer that for yourself, but the sequence of events, in my opinion, play out in such a manner that makes his story plausible if not likely.

[JulieM]

3 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

I agree that Joseph lied publicly.
I don't see that as a problem or even a sin.

But that does make him a liar.  Anyone who claims to be well informed regarding the history here who claims otherwise has not seriously studied Joseph's statements and what took place, IMO.  I get that different opinions and feelings are involved get, but Joseph did lie,

[JulieM]

24 minutes ago, T-Shirt said:

That is, actually, a very loaded question and, frankly, one that needs to be looked at more closely than just answering, "yes" or "no"   If you mean, did Joseph do things without telling Emma? or did he conceal anything from her? then the answer is, yes.  As far as him actually telling her something that was not true, I don't think we can answer that question,...,

Yes we can.  Lying by omission is still lying.  You don't believe he lied by omission when he went through the mock marriages with the Partridge sisters rather than tell Enma the truth that they were already married without her knowledge?  He deceived her.

 

Edited March 9, 2017 by JulieM