I feel bad for Emma having to put up with Joe Smith! She probably was very upset! Of course Mormons will say Joseph Smith didn't marry a lot of wives! Yes he did!
Law was, of course, Smith's Second Counselor, whose printing press was destroyed following the only issue printed of "The Nauvoo Expositor" that exposed Joseph Smith's polygamy.
Emma was very embarrassed and didn't go for any of it. What is interesting is that her 2nd husband (Bidwell) did similar, he had an affair and made babies and Emma was kind enough to raise her step kids. She never divorced him, I guess she was too tired to fight the men in her life and just kind of accepted it?
Mormon Enigma is a great book that describes all the details.
Keep in mind, none of them were actually wives -- seeing as how not one of them was a legal marriage.
But anyway, she kicked at least one out of her house, threw another one down the stairs (apparently causing a miscarriage), tried to poison Joseph (according to Brigham)...and then for the rest of her life denied that Joseph had ever had any other "wives."
So it's safe to say she didn't take his affairs very well.
ificouldhietokolob Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Keep in mind, none of them were actually wives -- > seeing as how not one of them was a legal > marriage. > > But anyway, she kicked at least one out of her > house, threw another one down the stairs > (apparently causing a miscarriage), tried to > poison Joseph (according to Brigham)...and then > for the rest of her life denied that Joseph had > ever had any other "wives." > > So it's safe to say she didn't take his affairs > very well.
Badassadam1 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Was there a ceremony of any kind?
For at least some -- but it was typically a quick "sealing" done in private in Joseph's office, with one "witness" (one of the other church big-wigs that had been brought in on the secret).
Ceremony or not, it still wasn't legal, and he only had one wife. The rest were affairs.
Emma Smith was responsible for the founding of the RLDS Church (which is my childhood church) and that church has always vehemently disavowed polygamy, to the point that they tried really hard to sweep it under the rug up until fairly recently, when researchers had found enough proof to make them look foolish for doing so. I think it's reasonable to assume she wasn't having any of that. ;)
They weren’t wives. They were affairs. The Mormon church calls them plural wives to cover it up. Half the women were married to other members of the church. The first, Fanny Alger, was a maid in Joesph and Emma’s home. Oliver Cowdery called Joseph and Fanny’s relationship “a dirty, nasty, filthy affair.” Oliver Cowdery was one of the 3 witnesses of the bom. Why do you think the church denied Joseph had plural wives for so many years? Because once a person learns the details about the women, their is no excuse for Joseph’s affairs.
I think she saw them for what they were -- affairs. She knew she had a husband who was running around on her, chasing anything with a skirt. Joseph calling it "polygamy" was just a way of trying to dress it up.