The Plural marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo

Latter-day Saints believe that monogamy, marriage of a man and a woman is the law of the Lord's position marriage.1 In biblical times, the Lord commanded some of his people to the practice of plural marriage-marriage a man and more than one woman.2 Some early members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also received and obeyed this commandment given by God's prophets.After receiving a revelation commanding him to practice plural marriage, Joseph Smith married several wives and introduced the practice of close associates. This principle was one of the most difficult aspects of the Restoration-Joseph of staff and other members of the Church. Plural marriage tested the faith and caused controversy and opposition. Few saints of the last days initially welcomed the restoration of a totally alien to their sensibilities biblical practice. But many later testified powerful spiritual experiences that helped him overcome his hesitation and gave them courage to accept this practice.Although the Lord commanded the adoption and after the cessation of plural marriage in the last days, He did not give exact instructions on how to obey the command. Significant social and cultural changes often include misunderstandings and difficulties. Church leaders and members experienced these challenges, since they attended the command to practice plural marriage and again later while working suspend after President Wilford Woodruff Church issued a statement inspired known as the Manifesto in 1890, which led to the end of plural marriage in the Church. Yet, the church leaders and members tried to follow the will of God.Many details about the early practice of plural marriage are unknown. Plural marriage was introduced between the first incremental saints, and participants keep their shares are requested confidential. They do not talk about their experiences in public or in writing until after Latter-day Saints had moved to Utah and Church leaders had publicly acknowledged the practice. The historical record of the early plural marriage is therefore thin: few contemporary records provide further details and memories are not always reliable. Some ambiguity always accompany our knowledge on this subject. Like the participants, "we see through a glass darkly" and requests walk fe3The beginnings of plural marriage in the ChurchThe revelation on plural marriage was not written until 1843, but his first verses suggest that part of it emerged from the study of Joseph in the Old Testament in 1831. The people who knew José and later stated that he received the revelation of that time .4 The revelation in Doctrine and Covenants 132, he says that Joseph prayed to know why God justified Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David and Solomon have many wives. The Lord replied that he had ordered them to enter the practice.5Latter-day Saints understand that they were living in the last days, what the revelations call the "dispensation of the fulness of times." 6 ancient principles, such as prophets, priests and temple-would be restored on earth. Plural marriage was one of those old principles.Polygamy was allowed for millennia in many cultures and religions, but, with few exceptions, was rejected in western cultures.7 At the time of Joseph Smith, monogamy was the only legal form of marriage in the United States. Joseph knew the practice of plural marriage arouse public anger. After receiving the command, he taught a few associated with it, but not this teaching spread widely in the 1830s.8When God commands a difficult task, sometimes it sent additional messengers to encourage his people to obey. According to this model, partners Joseph said that an angel appeared to him three times between 1834 and 1842 and ordered him to continue the plural marriage when she hesitated to go forward. During the third and final aspect, the angel came with his sword, threatening the destruction José unless he went ahead and obeyed the commandment fully.9Fragmentary evidence suggests that Joseph Smith first performed angel order to marry a plural wife, Fanny Alger, in Kirtland, Ohio, in the mid-1830s Several Latter-day Saints who lived in Kirtland reported decades after Joseph Smith had married Alger, who lived and worked in the house of Smith, after having obtained their consent and that of his parents.10 Little is known about this marriage, and nothing is known about the talks between Joseph and Emma Alger respect. After the wedding ended in separation Alger, Joseph appears to have established the subject of plural marriage aside until after the Church moved to Nauvoo, Illinois.Plural marriage and Eternal MarriageThe revelation that taught plural marriage was part of a larger revelation given to Joseph Smith-that marriage could last beyond death and eternal marriage it is essential to inherit the fullness that God desires for their children. Already in 1840, Joseph Smith taught private Apostle Parley P. Pratt that the "divine order" allowed Pratt and his wife to be together "for time and eternity." 11 Joseph also taught that men and Pratt-who had remarried after the death of his first wife might be married (or sealed) to their wives for eternity, under the appropriate conditions.12Possible sealing of husband and wife for eternity for the restoration of priesthood keys and ordinances. On April 3, 1836, the Old Testament prophet Elijah appeared to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in the Kirtland Temple and restored the priesthood keys necessary to perform ordinances for the living and the dead, including marriages performed by the authority of together.13 priesthood sealing families could link loved ones together for eternity, provided justice; marriages performed without this authority would lead to death.14Marriage performed by priesthood authority meant that the procreation of children and the perpetuation of families remain in the eternities. Joseph Smith's revelation on marriage declared that the "continuation of the seeds forever and ever" helped fulfill God's purposes for His children.15 This promise was given to all couples married by priesthood authority and They were faithful to their covenants.Plural marriage in NauvooFor much of Western history, from the family of "interest" economic, political and social considerations dominated the choice of spouse. Parents have the power to arrange marriages or unions to prevent disallowed. In the late 1700s, romance and personal choice began to compete with these traditional motifs and practices.16 By the time of Joseph Smith, he insisted many couples marry for love, as he and Emma did when they fled against the wishes of their parents.Reasons Latter-day Saints "to plural marriage were often more religious than economic or romantic. Besides the desire to be obedient, a strong incentive was the hope of living in God's presence with his family. In the revelation on marriage, the Lord promised participants "crowns of eternal lives" and "exaltation in the eternal worlds." 17 men and women, parents and children, parents and descendants would be "sealed" to each other, their lasting commitment eternity, in line with Jesus' promise that the priesthood ordinances performed on earth can be "bound in heaven." 18The first plural marriage in Nauvoo was when Louisa Beaman and Joseph Smith were sealed in April 1841.19 Joseph married additional wives and authorized many other Latter-day Saints to practice plural marriage. The practice spread slowly at first. By June 1844, when Joseph died, about 29 men and 50 women had entered into plural marriage, along with Joseph and his wives. When the Saints entered the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, at least 196 men and 521 women had entered into plural marriages.20 Participants in these plural marriage first promised to keep their participation confidential, but anticipate a time when it was recognized publicly practice.However, rumors spread. Some men unscrupulously use these rumors to seduce women to join them in an unauthorized practice sometimes referred to as "spiritual wifery." When this was discovered, the men were separated from the Church.21 The rumors led the cast members and leaders carefully worded denials spiritual wifery and denouncing polygamy, but were silent about what he saw as divinely mandated Joseph Smith made statements and other stresses "celestial" plural marriage.22 that the Church has practiced any civil law than monogamy, while implicitly leaving open the possibility that individuals under the guidance of the living prophet of God, could do so.23Joseph Smith and Plural MarriageDuring the time that plural marriage was practiced, the Latter-day Saints together to distinguish between time and eternity and sealings for eternity alone. Together for time and eternity including commitments and relationships in this life, in general, including the possibility of sex. Only eternity together indicate the relationships in the next life alone.Evidence indicates that Joseph Smith participated in the two types of joints. The exact number of women he was sealed in your life is unknown because the evidence is fragmentary.24 Some of the women were sealed to Joseph Smith later said their marriages were for time and eternity, while others indicated that their relations were for eternity alone.25Most sealed to Joseph Smith had between 20 and 40 years old at the time of sealing it. The oldest, young Fanny, was 56 years old. The youngest was Helen Mar Kimball, daughter of close friends of José Heber C. Kimball and Vilate Murray, who was sealed to Joseph several months before your birthday number 15. The marriage at an age as unsuitable for today's standards days, it was legal at the time, and some married women in their mid teens.26 Helen Mar Kimball spoke of his sealed to Joseph as "only for eternity", suggesting that the relationship did not involve relations.27 sexual After Joseph's death, Helen remarried and became a vocal advocate of him and plural marriage.28After her marriage to Louisa Beaman and before marrying other single women, Joseph Smith was sealed to a number of women who were already married.29 Neither these women nor Joseph explains much about these boards, although several women said they were for eternity alone. 30 Other women left no records, so it is unknown whether their boards were for time and eternity, or were for eternity alone.There are several possible explanations for this practice. These boards may have provided a way to create an eternal bond or link between Joseph's family and other families in the iglesia.31 These ties extended vertically, from parents to children, and horizontally, from one family to another. Today this kind of everlasting chains are achieved through the temple marriages of people who are also sealed to their own biological families, thereby linking families together. Boards Joseph Smith and married women may have been an early version of linking family to family. In Nauvoo, most, if not all husbands first they seem to have continued living in the same house with their wives during the life of Joseph, and complaints about these meetings with Joseph Smith are virtually absent from the documentary record.32These meetings could also be explained by the reluctance of Joseph to enter plural marriage because of the sadness that would bring his wife Emma. He may have believed that married women together to fulfill the Lord's command, without requiring him to have normal marriage relationships.33 This may explain why, according to Lorenzo Snow, the angel rebuked Joseph for having "objections" in the plural marriage, even after he had entered the practice.34 After this rebuke, according to this interpretation, Joseph returned mainly for sealing with single women.Another possibility is that, in a time when life expectancy was shorter than they are today, faithful women felt the urge to be sealed by priesthood authority. Several of these women were married or non-Mormons and former Mormons, and more than one woman later expressed unhappiness in their marriages present. Living in a time when divorce was difficult to obtain, these women may have believed Joseph Smith sealed give them blessings which otherwise might not receive the next life.35Women who were joined by Joseph Smith on plural marriage risked reputation and self-respect to be associated with a so foreign to their culture and so easily misunderstood by others first. "I made a greater sacrifice to give my life," said Zina Huntington Jacobs, "because I never expected again to be regarded as an honorable woman." However, she wrote: "I've looked at writing and humble prayer to my Heavenly Father gained a testimony to me." 36 After Joseph's death, most women sealed to him moved to Utah with Santos remained faithful members of the Church, and defended both plural marriage and Joseph.37Joseph and EmmaPlural marriage was difficult for everyone involved. For Joseph Smith's wife Emma, ​​it was an unbearable ordeal. Records the reactions of plural marriage Emma are scarce; she did not let firsthand, making it impossible to reconstruct his thoughts. Joseph and Emma loved and respected each other deeply. Having entered into plural marriage, he poured his feelings in his diary for his "beloved Emma," whom he described as "bold, strong and unwavering, unchangeable, affectionate Emma." After Joseph's death, Emma kept a lock of her hair in a locket she wore around her neck.38Emma passed, at least for a time, four of the plural marriages of Joseph Smith in Nauvoo, and she accepted four of those wives at home. She could have passed from other marriages as well.39 But Emma probably did not know about all sealings.40 Joseph She wavered in his vision of plural marriage in some footholds and sometimes denouncing it.In the summer of 1843, Joseph Smith dictated the revelation on marriage, a long and complex containing both text and glorious promises and stern warnings, some targeting Emma.41 The revelation instructed the women and men who have to obey the law and the commandments of God in order to receive the fullness of his glory.The revelation on marriage requires that women give their consent before her husband could get into plural marriage.42 However, towards the end of revelation, the Lord said that if the first wife "do not get this law," command to practice plural marriage, the husband would be "exempt from the law of Sarah," presumably the requirement that the husband win the consent of the first wife before marrying Emma After mujeres43 additional opposed to plural marriage, Joseph was put in one, forced to choose between God's will and the will of his beloved Emma. agonizing dilemma He may have thought Emma rejection of plural marriage it exempt from the law of Sarah. His decision "not to receive this law" allowed to marry additional wives without their consent. Due to the early death of Joseph and Emma's decision to remain in Nauvoo and not discuss plural marriage after the Church moved west, many aspects of its history remain known only to those two.