Joseph Smith Polygamy: Tough Polygamy Questions with Dr. Brian Hales (Part 4)

Scott Woodward:
Another listener asked the question, “What evidence would you put forward as an indication of Joseph’s motives in practicing polygamy?” Anything else you (Dr. Brian Hales) want to say about Joseph Smith Polygamy motives?

Brian Hales:
Well, again, I think there’s ample evidence that the reason Joseph was sealed for eternity only to the first six or eight of his plural wives in Nauvoo. This is ’41 and 1842, is because he didn’t want to do it. He didn’t want to make Emma feel bad. He knew how Emma felt from Kirtland in 1835, 36, and he didn’t want to hurt her. The evidence of libido-driven practice is simply not there in the details, but you know, if I were to stand on a corner of a street in Cincinnati and say, “Hey, Joseph introduced polygamy around among the Mormons. Why do you think he did it?” Every single person is going to tell me he wanted sex. Nobody’s going to say, “Well, I think he was a prophet restoring Old Testament polygamy,” or something else. It just isn’t going to happen. So we’ve got to overcome that in our hearts, and God will help us. I think if we pray about this we can come to understand it enough to not worry about it. But since we don’t have the details we would like—I don’t think anybody fully understands why God did it. No one ever told us why. There’s reasons why it could be permitted, but why it was commanded is beyond any statement of any key holder that I’m aware of, so.

Scott Woodward:
So you’re saying the marriage for eternity only to other men’s wives, at least the first eight or so, is evidence to you that Joseph was not driven by libido because those particular types of marriages were such that sex would not be allowed? Right? Because she’s already got a husband that she’s living with and having sexual relations with, and eternity only allows Joseph to technically check the box of obedience, but not have to follow through with the multiply and replenish the earth aspect of that commandment. You think that’s evidence that Joseph is reluctant to engage sexually, but he still wants to obey the Lord. Is that—am I characterizing you correctly?

Brian Hales:
Exactly. And the evidences are not as strong as we would like. We’re picking from details here and there, but it’s very clear that his initial usage of the sealing authority to create a plural marriage were marriages only for the next life.
That’s quite well documented, and if the guy’s looking for sex, why would you do that? But if you’re trying to appease an angel who’s appeared twice commanding Joseph to use this authority, and you don’t want to hurt Emma, this is the exact behavior that you could expect from him.
And then we have the story in February of 1842 with the angel coming a third time to command Joseph Smith Polygamy, this time with the sword. And then, if you look at the chronology, it’s only after that point that Joseph is consistently proposing to single women with whom we can document conjugality. So the chronology really does line up quite nicely.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. I’m persuaded by that. I think that’s right. All right. “What’s the appropriate response?” another listener asks. This is Chris. Chris asks, “What’s the appropriate response when somebody argues that plural marriage exists solely because there are more faithful women than men?” He says, “This is a popular belief from where I’m from.” What do you want to say about that? That one doesn’t seem to ever go away.

Brian Hales:
Well, and it’s interesting that the idea that the church needed polygamy in order to give all of the worthy women husbands was even used by some church leaders in the 1850s as an excuse to the government. But the late studies, and we’ve had some really fine studies, Kathleen Flake and others have looked at different towns and different regions, and it usually isn’t the case. There isn’t usually more women than men in these areas. And Joseph never said that was the reason why. He did say, according to one account, that it would allow for more offspring.

And on that topic, we need to point out that monogamous wives would have eight children, polygamous wives would have six. And so the argument is that monogamy would have expanded a society faster. But if most of the women or all of the women are bearing six children instead of some of the women having eight, and a lot of women not being married—
You can see how in a society the population would grow faster with polygamy. And there’s a couple of articles that are referenced in the Gospel Topic essay that bear this out, that this is actually true. So you do grow the population faster when polygamy is practiced.

Scott Woodward:
Hmm. Interesting. Here’s another question. This one’s from a listener named Scott. I like his name. Here’s what Scott asks. He said, “Do you think in the end that Joseph Smith had any regrets in his approach to practicing plural marriage?” Brian, do you think he would do anything differently if he could go back and do it again? We’re just talking in terms of approach here. And then Scott says, “For instance, eternity-only sealings with women who are already married or not informing Emma of every plural wife he chose to marry.” What do you think? Do you think he had any regrets? I know this is an impossible question to answer for sure, but from your feeling, what might he do differently if he could go back and do it all again?

Brian Hales:
You know, in the final section of the paperback version that I did with my wife, Laura, we have five things, if we could go back in time, we would whisper into Joseph’s ear, and I already alluded to one of them, and let me see if I can remember them, that one is, “Don’t be married to other men’s wives, even if it’s for eternity, because it looks really bad.” “Don’t be married to 14-year-olds, even if they’re not consummated,” and there are very good reasons to believe that those were not consummated.

Scott Woodward:
Just for the optics of it, just don’t do that for the optics of it in the 21st century.

Tell Emma. Don’t work behind her back. It looks really bad.” And on that topic, I think that we have in section 132 an admonition to Emma to forgive Joseph his trespasses.
So there’s evidence that Joseph had trespassed against Emma.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. In some way.

Brian Hales:
What does that mean? You know, how deep was it? Apparently it didn’t knock his worthiness because section 132 tells us that no one should “set on” Joseph and that he will be exalted. But Joseph wasn’t perfect.
He was worthy, but he wasn’t perfect. And so if he could have gotten Emma involved a little earlier, it would’ve been really good. The fourth, I’m trying to remember what the fourth one was here. The fifth one was, “Don’t be mayor of Nauvoo.” You know? “Let somebody else do all the politics stuff, and you just stay as prophet,” because had he not been mayor you almost wonder would he have actually been martyred, at least the way that he was, so.
Oh, and I just remembered the fourth one, and that is to Joseph Smith not be sealed to quite so many women. He was sealed in one way or another to over 30, and he probably could have fulfilled the angel’s wishes with a handful or so.

Scott Woodward:
So if you could go back in a time machine and just give him a little advice. Number one, don’t marry other men’s wives. It just looks bad. Number two, don’t marry a 14-year-old girl. Number three, tell Emma about all of them. And number four, you could probably fulfill the commandment with a few less.

Brian Hales:
Not so many.

Scott Woodward:
And number five, don’t become mayor. That’s fantastic.

Brian Hales:
These are the things that are harder for us today because of our presentism, I think, to understand and accept, but none of them, I think, are sinful in the way that it would prevent him from being worthy to be a prophet.

Scott Woodward:
So there’s nothing—let me just, let’s just get this on the record, then. Brian Hales, there’s nothing you’ve ever come across in your research of Joseph Smith’s polygamy that has caused you to say, “I think that disqualifies him from being a true prophet of God.”

Brian Hales:
Oh, there’s nothing at all. I mean, that’s a very easy question, but let me extend it. During my research in 2007 to 2013, I would have people ask me, “Are you worried that you’re going to find out something that’s going to shake your testimony of Joseph Smith as a prophet?” And at the time I said, “No, I’m not too worried,” because in the back of my mind, I didn’t think he could create the Book of Mormon in 1829. I thought God was with him in 1829 when he dictated the Book of Mormon. And so I don’t think he lost that mantle or worthiness, you know, clear into Nauvoo until he was killed. Now, that was an assumption on my part. When I finished my research on polygamy around 2015, then I switched over to test that theory. Could Joseph Smith, using his own intellectual abilities in 1829, have produced the Book of Mormon? I have a book coming out, hopefully in October, by Greg Kofford Books on Joseph Smith as the non-author of the Book of Mormon.
And believe me, the evidence is pretty clear that he didn’t have those skills, so.

We’re moving off topic here, but it tells you something about what I believe as Joseph as a prophet.

Scott Woodward:
Wow. And you hired Don Bradley, right? I think I heard you once say you paid him $50,000 to find every stinking document on polygamy that he could find anywhere in any attic or any library or any dusty corner of Earth. And try to just look at all the evidence without any preconceived conclusions as to what you were going to find. Do I have that part of the story, right, that you were just like, “Let’s just go see everything. Let’s just see every shred of evidence and let’s not be afraid of anything.” So far am I tracking correctly?

Brian Hales:
Yeah. No, it’s absolutely right. I just said, “Bring in everything. We just want to see it all.” And, you know, the interesting thing about Don is that—well, my books have been criticized, the three volumes, but nobody has said we left anything out. And in the last 10 years, they’ve been out 10 years, if I were to do a second edition, I’d stop talking about polyandry so much, because he didn’t do it, but there would only be a handful of things that we would introduce. I mean, Don especially was very thorough. We got all the documents either referenced or quoted in there. Greg Kofford allowed us to put these huge block quotes in there, which historians generally don’t like, but we wanted to let them tell the story, not us. And so the information is there. We think we achieved a level of transparency on that.
And then, of course, as you know, and I didn’t know this at the time, but I hired Don in 2007 for a couple of years, and he wasn’t in the church. He had had his name removed. He had an issue with God and suffering and children, and you can read his story. It was in the Deseret News recently, but—

Scott Woodward:
And you were unaware. You were unaware that he had gone through that, that he was out of the church?

Brian Hales:
No, I knew he didn’t go to church because we would meet sometimes on Sunday mornings down in Salt Lake, and he’d come in in his Levi’s, like he’d just rolled out of bed, you know, or—and he’d kept late hours. He’d go to bed at two or three in the morning. So, you know, and—but he was doing such great work. We just rolled with it, and we had great conversations, even though we kind of were coming from different, you know, angles. And then six months after we finished our work, he called me and says, “Hey, I’m getting rebaptized,” you know?
So here’s a guy who’s seen all that data, and he’s getting back into the church. Although he will say it wasn’t polygamy that convinced him the church was true. You know, there were other reasons why he came to renew his belief in Joseph Smith as a prophet.

Scott Woodward:
That’s so tremendous, because I think a lot of people are worried that if they dig too deep into church history generally, but polygamy specifically, if I dig too deep, I’m probably going to find something that’s going to destroy my testimony. And you and Don Bradley and many others have proven that that’s just not true.
There’s that Alexander Pope poem that says—I think Joseph Smith liked this poem.

“A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.”

So a little learning is dangerous because it intoxicates your brain and makes you think that you know some things. But he says what you need to do now is drink deeply, and that will sober you again. You’ll become sober to the truth of the situation.

Brian Hales:
I like that. I’ve not heard that, but I believe it. It’s true.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. There’s a scientist, Werner Heisenberg, who said, “The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass, God is waiting for you.”

Brian Hales:
Oh. I love that analogy.

Scott Woodward:
So the moral of the story is we’ve got to drink deep, right?
And that’s what you show us how to do really well, Brian, drink deep. Get to the bottom of the glass before you draw your conclusions. Because we don’t want to draw thick conclusions from thin research, right?To listen to the full podcast episode, visit https://doctrineandcovenantscentral.org/podcast-episode/qr-tough-polygamy-questions-with-dr-brian-hales%e2%80%8b.

By Dr. Scott Woodward, Source Expert

Dr. Scott Woodward has dedicated his professional career to educating within the Church Education System for almost twenty years. Currently, he serves as an esteemed faculty member in the BYU Idaho Religion department. He also holds the role of a managing director and content producer at Doctrine and Covenants Central, an affiliate of Book of Mormon Central. He shares his knowledge his Youtube channel titled “D&C Stories with Scott Woodward“. Dr. Woodward earned his PhD in Instructional Psychology and Technology from Brigham Young University.

Fact checked by Mr. Kevin Prince, Source Expert

Kevin Prince is a religious scholar and YouTube host of the Gospel Learning YouTube Channel. His channel currently has over 41,000 subscribers with over 4.5 million views. Mr Prince also developed the Gospel Learning App, a trusted source where truth-seeking individuals can easily find trusted answers to religious questions from the best teachers in the world.