az: In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith by Todd Compton
30 chps each a biogrphy of wmn Joseph Smith married, conspicuous absence Emma Smith.emphasizes that, though Joseph had many wives,they were all rejected by Emma who vigorously opposed polygamy & the intrusions it brought into her home. ...
Growing up in the Mormon Church, I learned several myths about early Mormon polygamy such as: 1. A man's wife had to approve the marriage to plural wives. 2. Most plural wives were older women whose husbands had died, and for whom polygamy represented safe heaven from a brutal world. 3. Most of Joseph's plural wives were sealed to him, but had no sexual relationship with him. 4. Joseph's plural wives never became pregnant from him. 5. There was never any admission or even mention of polyandry.
Through the biographies he has constructed, Compton exposes each of these myths. Chapter 1 discusses Fanny Alger, who married Joseph when she was only sixteen and he was twenty-seven. Emma didn't know about the marriage, and when she learned of it (by seeing Fanny and Joseph together, by one account, and noticing Fanny's pregnancy by another account - see pages 34-35) drove Fanny from their house. Oliver Cowdery (one of the Book-of-Mormon witnesses) described Joseph's relationship with Fanny as a sexual affair, and accused Joseph of adultery - resulting in Oliver's excommunication in 1838 (see pages 38-39).
Compton spends considerable effort reconciling Cowdery's description of Fanny Alger as an affair, and others who clearly describe a marriage relationship (though without the approval or knowledge of Emma). As I read the book I kept expecting Compton to draw the obvious conclusion, that Joseph had an affair with Fanny and then invented polygamy (which he may have been contemplating anyway) to save his presidency and justify his actions. Compton, however, never draws this conclusion, and ends still contemplating the two possible scenarios as mutually exclusive. - Reviewer:Duwayne Anderson (Saint Helens, Oregon) - See all my reviews