Item Detail
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30051
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2
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10
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English
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Sexual Slander and Polygamy in Nauvoo
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Journal of Mormon History
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July 2018
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44
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3
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Champaign, IL
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University of Illinois Press; Mormon History Association
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1-22
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[2019 JWHA Best Historical Article]
One of the major problems encountered when studying the beginnings of Mormon polygamy is the lack of contemporaneous historical documentation. This is because of the secret nature of polygamy and the crime of polygamy. The LDS Church’s “Gospel Topics” plural marriage essay dealt with secrecy in Kirtland, Ohio, and Nauvoo, Illinois. The essay argued participants “[kept] their actions confidential.” George D. Smith agreed, “Secrecy itself defined and delineated this tragedy.” However, he added, “Mormon record-keepers faced a
dilemma in writing about Nauvoo” because they were “engaged in ‘illegal’ bigamous marriages.”
Another reason for the lack of contemporaneous documents is the existence of sexual slander laws and their criminal and civil use in nineteenth-century Illinois. While legislatures created these laws to protect women’s reputations, Joseph and Hyrum Smith used them to counter claims against their participation in polygamy or “spiritual wifery.”
Such lawsuits help to explain the lack of detail in John C. Bennett’s
History of the Saints, and William and Wilson Law’s Nauvoo Expositor. While these laws may have helped to protect polygamists, they challenge historians studying Nauvoo polygamy. A legal lens provides context to the limited polygamy sources in the 1840s.
[Author's abstract] -
Identifying the Earliest Mormon Polygamists, 1841-44
'Illicit Intercourse,' Plural Marriage, and the Nauvoo Stake High Council, 1840-1844
John C. Bennett, Joseph Smith, and the Beginnings of Mormon Plural Marriage in Nauvoo
Joseph Smith's Polygamy
Nauvoo Polygamy : "... But We Called it Celestial Marriage"
Plural Marriage
The First Fifty Years of Relief Society : Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women's History
The History of the Saints : Or, An Expose of Joe Smith and Mormonism
The Joseph Smith Papers : Journals, Volume 3 : May 1843–June 1844
The Joseph Smith Papers : Revelations and Translations, Volume 2 : Published Revelations