Marriages to other men's wives
Joseph was sealed to roughly a dozen women who already had living husbands, some of them faithful members.
What the Church claims
Marriage is between a man and his wife or wives; D&C 132 itself defines a woman 'with another man' as an adulteress. Joseph's sealings are presented as consistent with the revelation.
Once the evidence is in, this claim: Weak. That the sealings happened is conceded by the Church. Whether they were sexual is unresolved, and the strongest critical case for it, Josephine Lyon's paternity, was refuted by DNA.
The record
- The Church: 'Estimates of the number of these sealings range from 12 to 14'. Compton counts 11; Hales adds Esther Dutcher and Mary Heron.
- Zina Huntington married Henry Jacobs on 1841-03-07 and was sealed to Joseph on 1841-10-27; Marinda Hyde was sealed while apostle Orson Hyde was on his Jerusalem mission (April 1842 per Joseph's journal list).
- The women continued living with their legal husbands; the Church notes 'most if not all of the first husbands seem to have continued living in the same household'.
- One sealing (Ruth Vose Sayers) is documented as 'for eternity only'. For most others the sources are silent on type.
- Sylvia Sessions Lyon told her daughter Josephine in 1882 'that I was the daughter of the Prophet Joseph Smith'; DNA published in 2019 shows Josephine was Windsor Lyon's child.
- Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner said Brigham Young sealed her to Joseph 'for time and all eternity' in February 1842 while she was married to Adam Lightner.
The moving target
- pre-2014: Plural sealings to women with living husbands were not discussed in Church curriculum.
- 2014-10: Concedes 12-14 such sealings; offers three possible explanations (dynastic links, a way to obey without full marriage, women's wish for a worthy eternal partner); notes 'complaints ... are virtually absent from the documentary record'.
The exchange
Brian Hales
These were 'eternity-only' sealings without sexual relations; there is 'no credible evidence' of sexual polyandry, and DNA has disproved the one claimed child.
The answer: Only one eternity-only sealing is actually documented; Hales generalises it to the rest. Sylvia Lyon evidently believed Joseph could have been her daughter's father, which presupposes a sexual relationship whatever the biology; Mary Lightner described her sealing as for 'time and all eternity'; and Hales himself lists a source alleging sexual involvement with the married Mary Heron. The honest summary is 'unknown, with some indications'. Eternity-only sealing still means Joseph claimed other men's wives as his own for the afterlife, sometimes without the husband's knowledge.
What they get right: The DNA result is a genuine apologetic win, and critics (the CES Letter included) who state sexual polyandry as established fact overreach.
Gospel Topics essay
The women chose it and did not complain; several husbands knew and consented.
The answer: Consent given to a man claiming to speak for God, with the alternative framed as disobedience, is compromised consent. Orson Hyde was abroad on a mission at the earlier attested date of his wife's sealing.
Both cases at full strength
The skeptics' case
Nothing in D&C 132 permits a man to marry a woman who already has a husband, yet Joseph did so about a dozen times, including the wives of an apostle on a mission and of faithful friends. The 'eternity-only' category rests on a single documented case. At minimum Joseph claimed other men's wives for eternity in secret ceremonies.
The apologetic case
Joseph's sealing theology was about linking families into a heavenly network, not about acquiring partners; the married women kept living with their husbands, no child has ever been traced to Joseph, and the one explicit paternity claim has been refuted by DNA.
What would change this
Contemporary documents specifying 'eternity only' for most of these sealings, with the husbands' informed consent.
Closely related
Sources
- Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo (Gospel Topics essay)
- Biographies of Joseph's Plural Wives (35 individual pages)
- Did Plural Marriages Include Sexual Relations?
- Resolving a 150-year-old paternity case in Mormon history using DTC autosomal DNA testing of distant relatives
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