Helen Mar Kimball

FAIR Answers—back to home page

The Prophet said...that it [plural marriage] would damn more than it would have because \so many/ unprincipled men would take advantage of it, but that did not prove that it was not a pure principle. If Joseph had had any impure desires he could have gratified them in the style of the world with less danger of his life or his character, than to do as he did. The Lord commanded him to teach & to practice that principle.

—Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, Letter to Mary Bond, n.d., 3-9 quoted in Brian Hales, Joseph Smith's Polygamy: History, Vol. 1, 26-27. off-site

Helen Mar Kimball

Jump to Subtopic:

• Question: What were the circumstances surrounding the sealing of Helen Mar Kimball to Joseph Smith?
• Question: Was Joseph Smith a "serial practitioner of statutory rape" or a "pedophile"?
• Question: Was Helen Mar Kimball's marriage to Joseph Smith ever consummated?
• Question: Did Helen Mar Kimball "confess" to having marital relations with Joseph?
• Question: What were Helen Mar Kimball's views on plural marriage?
• Helen Mar Kimball: "I have encouraged and sustained my husband in the celestial order of marriage because I knew it was right"

Question: What were the circumstances surrounding the sealing of Helen Mar Kimball to Joseph Smith?

Jump to details:

• Question: What were the circumstances surrounding the sealing of Helen Mar Kimball to Joseph Smith?
• Helen’s father, Heber C. Kimball, had the most active part in bringing Helen and Joseph together
• Brigham Young instructed polygamous men to wait to consummate their sealings to younger brides until they were at least eighteen
• Helen was not called to testify in the Temple Lot case, in which the Church was attempting to prove that Joseph had normal marital relations with some of his plural wives, even though she was available
• Helen became an advocate of plural marriage and vigorously defended it

Question: Was Joseph Smith a "serial practitioner of statutory rape" or a "pedophile"?

Jump to details:

• Question: Was Joseph Smith a "serial practitioner of statutory rape" or a "pedophile"?
• Charges of statutory rape are inapplicable, since no such law or convention applied to any of Joseph's wives
• Large spousal age differences were not uncommon before and after Nauvoo, among members and non-members
• What is Presentism?
• Hitchens' attack on Joseph Smith for "statutory rape" is a textbook example of presentist history
• "Pedophilia" applies to children; Helen was regarded as a mature young woman
• Four Key Questions
• 1. The Age of Joseph's Wives
• 2. Were there marital relations?
• 3. Statutory Rape and the Law
• 4. Did Joseph violate societal norms?
• Why the modern world is different

Question: Was Helen Mar Kimball's marriage to Joseph Smith ever consummated?

Jump to details:

• Question: Was Helen Mar Kimball's marriage to Joseph Smith ever consummated?
• Critics generally do not reveal that their sources have concluded that Helen's marriage to Joseph Smith was never consummated
• Helen wrote a poem entitled "Reminiscences," which is often cited by critics
• Helen was disappointed that she was not permitted to attend a party or a dance

Question: Did Helen Mar Kimball "confess" to having marital relations with Joseph?

Jump to details:

• Question: Did Helen Mar Kimball "confess" to having marital relations with Joseph?
• Helen allegedly said "I would never have been sealed to Joseph had I known it was anything more than ceremony"
• The source of the statement is "suspect"
• In order for this story to be true, Helen would be telling a story at variance with all other things that she wrote
• If we accept the statement as valid, we may interpret it in other ways than conjugality.

Question: What were Helen Mar Kimball's views on plural marriage?

Jump to details:

• Question: What were Helen Mar Kimball's views on plural marriage?
• Helen disliked plural marriage because of the difficulties it placed on her mother

Helen Mar Kimball: "I have encouraged and sustained my husband in the celestial order of marriage because I knew it was right"

Jump to details:

• Helen Mar Kimball: "I have encouraged and sustained my husband in the celestial order of marriage because I knew it was right"

⍗

Source(s) of the criticism:

Critical sources

Bill McKeever and Eric Johnson, Mormonism 101. Examining the Religion of the Latter-day Saints (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2000), 254. ( Index of claims ) Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery, Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith, 2nd edition, (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 147. George D. Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy: "...but we called it celestial marriage" (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2008), 201-202. ( Index of claims , (Detailed book review)) Richard S. Van Wagoner, Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess (Salt Lake City, Signature Books, 2005), 293–294. (Reviews)

Notes