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The first publication of a list of women alleged to be Smith's plural wives was in 1887, by Andrew Jenson, an assistant LDS Church historian. It included 27 women besides Emma Smith. [6] There are currently 49 women on this list. However, historians disagree as to the number and identity of the plural wives Smith had.
In Nauvoo, Illinois, Smith introduced ecclesiastical leaders to the practice of polygamy, and he married several plural wives. [16] On July 12, 1843, Smith dictated and had recorded what he said was a revelation from God describing the theology and purpose of polygamy, relating it to biblical portrayals of polygamous marriage by Old Testament ...
The Mormon doctrine of plural wives was officially announced by one of the Twelve Apostles, Orson Pratt, and church president Brigham Young in a special conference of the elders of the LDS Church assembled in the Salt Lake Tabernacle on 28 August 1852, and reprinted in the Deseret News Extra the following day. [2]
Helen Mar Kimball (August 22, 1828 – November 13, 1896) was one of 30 to 40 plural wives of Joseph Smith, [1] founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. She was sealed in marriage to him when she was 14 years old. After his death when she was 16, she married Horace Whitney "for time"; Whitney was the brother of another of Smith's wives. She ...
Of his fifty-six wives, twenty-one had never been married before; seventeen were widows; six were divorced; six had living husbands; and the marital status of six others is unknown. [1] Nine of his wives had previously been plural wives of Joseph Smith, and Young was sealed to them as a proxy for Smith. [1]
Even so, many plural husbands and wives continued to cohabit until their deaths in the 1940s and 1950s. [120] Enforcement of the 1890 Manifesto caused various splinter groups to leave the LDS Church in order to continue the practice of plural marriage. [121]
Historians generally conclude that Smith did have multiple wives, but as Compton has written, little is known of these marriages after the sealing ceremony. Allegations that Smith had at least one child born to a plural wife remain unproven. Helen Mar Kimball's testimony and some scholars suggest that many of these marriages were not consummated.
A number of stories about her relationship with Smith resurfaced during the late nineteenth century during periods of intense antipolygamy campaigns against Utah Mormons. Secondhand witnesses, Mormon and non-Mormon, variously alleged that Smith had married Alger as a plural wife or had an extramarital sexual relationship with her. [10]