When Heber C Kimball asked Sister Eliza R Snow the question if she was not a virgin although married to Joseph Smith, she replied, ‘I thought you knew Joseph Smith better than that.’ Angus M Cannon
[Doctor Bennett] would give them medicine to produce abortions, provided they should become pregnant. Hyrum Smith affidavit, Official History of the Church 5:71
Joseph was commanded to take more wives and he waited until an angel with a drawn sword stood before him and declared that if he longer delayed fulfilling that command he would slay him. Hyrum Smith, cited Benjamin F Johnson’s letter to George S Gibbs 1903
Smith’s revelation on polygamy opened floodgates of lies and hypocrisy. Hundreds of honest women and honorable men were forced to become liars by circumstances created by Smith, Young and other Church leaders.
In the first place, polygamy was a violation of section 121 of the Illinois State law of 1833. This law provided for a $500 fine and one year in prison for each violation. Smith had to swear his new wives and also his friends and their plural wives to oaths of secrecy in order to stay out of prison.
Noted Church historian B H Roberts admitted that secret marriages were performed by early leaders and that this practice resulted in duplicity and hypocrisy: ‘This enforced secrecy which a reasonable prudence demanded gave rise to apparent contradictions between public utterances of leading brethren in the Church and their having a plurality of wives’.
The official Church policy of lying about polygamy, called ‘reasonable prudence’ by B H Roberts nevertheless proves that Apostle John A Widstoe was lying when he said, ‘The Church ever operates in the full light. There is no secrecy about its doctrine or work.’ Arza Evans, The Keystone of Mormonism
The Lawrence sisters had come to Nauvoo from Canada without their parents in 1840 when Maria was about eighteen and Sarah fifteen. Emma and Joseph offered them a home. According to William Law’s account, the girls had inherited about eight thousand dollars in English gold. Law said, Joseph got to be appointed their guardian, and indicated that he and Sidney Rigdon were bondsmen to Joseph. Newell and Avery, Emma Hale Smith: Mormon Enigma p144
In the group of Smith’s well-documented wives, eleven (33%) were 14 to 20 years old when they married him. Nine wives (27%) were twenty-one to thirty years old. Eight wives (24%) were in Smith’s own peer group, ages 31 to 40. In the group aged 41 to 50, there is a substantial drop off: 2 wives, or 6%, and 3 (9%) in the group aged 51 to 60. Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness
Presendia, who was Norman Buell’s wife and simultaneously a plural wife of the Prophet Joseph Smith, said that she did not know whether her husband Norman or the Prophet was the father of her son, Oliver. And a glance at a photo of Oliver shows a strong resemblance to Emma Smith’s boys. Mary Ettie V Smith, ‘Fifteen Years Among the Mormons’ p34; viz Fawn M Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith
Since the founding of the Roman empire monogamy has prevailed more extensively than in times previous to that. The founders of that ancient empire were robbers and women stealers, and made laws favoring monogamy in consequence of the scarcity of women among them, and hence this monogamic system which now prevails throughout Christendom, and which had been so fruitful a source of prostitution and whoredom throughout all the Christian monogamic cities of the Old and New World, until rottenness and decay are at the root of their institutions both national and religious. Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses XI:128
The only men who become Gods, even the sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy. Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses XI:269
When England and the rest of the nations learn war no more, instead of passing a law in this or any other nation against a man having more than one wife, they will pass a law to make men do as they should in honoring the daughters of Eve and making wives of and providing for them. Will not this be a happy time? Yes, very fine. If you will produce this to-day, I’ll tell you what I would be willing to do, I would be willing to give up half or two-thirds of my wives ... Do this and you are welcome to them. Would I get more wives? If I had a mind to. Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses XII:255
But it is not the privilege of a woman to dictate the husband, and tell how or how many he shall take, or what he shall do with them when he gets them, but it is the duty of the woman to submit cheerfully. Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses XVII:159
Monogamy, or restrictions by law to one wife, is no part of the economy of heaven among men. Such a system was commenced by the founders of the Roman Empire ... Rome became the mistress of the world, and introduced this order of monogamy wherever her sway was acknowledged. Thus this monogamic order of marriage, so esteemed by modern Christians as a holy sacrament and divine institution, is nothing but a system established by a set of robbers ... Why do we believe in and practice polygamy? Because the Lord introduced it to his servants in a revelation given to Joseph Smith, and the Lord’s servants have always practised it. And is that religion popular in heaven? It is the only popular religion there. Brigham Young, The Deseret News 6th August 1862
Now, where a man in this church says, ‘I don’t want but one wife, I will live my religion with one,’ he will perhaps be saved in the Celestial kingdom; but when he gets there he will not find himself in possession of any wife at all. He has had a talent that he has hid up. He will come forward and say, ‘Here is that which thou gavest me, I have not wasted it, and here is the one talent,’ and he will not enjoy it but it will be taken and given to those who have improved the talents they received, and he will find himself without any wife, and he will remain single forever and ever. Brigham Young, Deseret News 17th September 1873
... it is frequently happening that women say they are unhappy. Men will say, ‘My wife, though a most excellent woman, has not seen a happy day since I took my second wife’. No, not a happy day for a year’, says one; and another has not seen a happy day for five years.’
It is said that women are tied down and abused: that they are misused and have not the liberty they ought to have; that many of them are wading through a perfect flood of tears.
... I am going to give you from this time to the 6th day of October next, for reflection, that you may determine whether you wish to stay with your husbands or not, and then I am going to set every woman at liberty and say to them, Now go your way, my women with the rest, go your way.
And my wives have to go and do one of two things; either round up their shoulders to endure the afflictions of this world, and live their religion, or they may leave, for I will not have them about me. I will go into heaven alone, rather than have scratching and fighting around me. I will set all at liberty. ‘What, first wife too?’ Yes, I will liberate all.
... Prepare yourselves for two weeks from to morrow; and I will tell you now, that if you will tarry with your husbands, after I have set you free, you must bow down to it, and submit yourselves to the Celestial Law. You may go where you please, after two weeks from to-morrow; but, remember, that I will not hear any more of this whining. Brigham Young, Deseret News 6:235, see Journal of Discourses IV:55
When she had lived at the farm a year, she told me that Brigham had never been to see her once during all that time; but that he had got possession of her property, and was using it for factory purposes. The water-course ran through her yard, her house was made an office, and the whole place was so changed and so entirely spoiled as a residence, that she never could go there again to live. She must, whether she would or not, live there until Brigham chose to move her somewhere else, or until her children could find some place for her to go to. She supports herself entirely, independently of the man who has swindled her out of her home and her property; and the only assistance she receives is from her children, who are very kind to her, annoyed as they were at her for giving up her home, and, above all, allowing it to fall into Brigham Young’s hands. His duck-and-goose story was all misrepresentation, made use of merely to induce her to go to the farm; and when she got there she very soon found that she would have those lovely feather beds, not, at least, by raising the fowls to supply the feathers. The Prophet’s imagination had evidently run away with memory when he ardently painted the glories of the farm to his bride. This poor old lady was made a tool for the gratification of Brigham Young’s avarice, as her son had been the victim to one of his followers’ jealous anger. She has little to love Mormonism for. Its two leading doctrines, the ‘Celestial Marriage’ and ‘Blood-Atonement’ have pretty thoroughly shut out happiness from her life, and rendered her in her old age lonely and dependent. Ann Eliza Young, ‘Wife no 19’ re Mrs Lewis
It got torn down in the 30s I think. Another well-kept secret about Brigham Young, besides him ordering the extermination of immigrants from Arkansas (not Missouri) is this: he built a mansion for his favorite wife, Amelia, across the street from the Lion House. Apparently it was so ostentatious even some of the faithful commented on its extravagance. John Taylor I believe moved in when he became prophet, but was embarrassed by the money spent on it when so many pioneers were literally starving. Sad when you think of Emily Partridge, one of Brigham’s wives, who had to make a living for herself (and her child with Brigham) without help. For references, see lds.org family search, and In Sacred Loneliness by Todd Compton. Also Wife No. 19 by Ann Eliza Webb Young.
Our current ‘Amelia’s Palace’ is of course the City Creek Center. The parallel is sad but true. Brigham Young took tithing money for his own support and now the church is using funds originally derived by tithing income to build a 4 billion dollar mall. They have lied about the funding and the cost. They are not a church. They need to be thrown in jail for fraud. Courtney #19, board post 13th May 2010, 'Amelia’s Palace: Mansion Built For BY’s Favorite Wife'
In Nauvoo it was the orders from Joseph Smith and his apostles to beat, wound and castrate all Gentiles that the police could take in the act of entering or leaving a Mormon household under circumstances that led to the belief that they had been there for immoral purposes ... In Utah it was the favorite revenge of old, worn-out members of the Priesthood, who wanted young women sealed to them, and found that the girl preferred some handsome young man. The old priests generally got the girls, and many a young man was unsexed for refusing to give up his sweetheart at the request of an old and failing, but still sensual, apostle or member of the Priesthood. As an illustration ... Warren Snow was Bishop of the Church at Manti, San Pete County, Utah.