Joseph Smith and children through plural marriage

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Joseph Smith and children through plural marriage

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• Question: Can you summarize what we know about whether or not Joseph Smith fathered any children by his plural wives?
• Question: Did Joseph Smith father any children through polygamous marriages?
• Question: Did Joseph Smith produce any children by his plural wives?: The case for children
• Question: Did Joseph Smith produce any children by his plural wives? The case against children
• Question: What did the husband of Sylvia Sessions know about her sealing to Joseph Smith for eternity?
• Question: Did Prescindia Buell (or Sarah Pratt, or Mrs. Hyde) not know who was the father of her son?
• Question: Did Joseph Smith father children by polyandrous plural wife Prescindia Buell?
• Question: What is the current state of the evidence for proving or disproving that Joseph Smith had children by his plural wives?
• Question: Was the only purpose of polygamy to "multiply and replenish the earth" and "bear the souls of men"?
• Question: If the only purpose of polygamy was to "raise up seed," then why did Joseph not have children by his plural wives?

Question: Can you summarize what we know about whether or not Joseph Smith fathered any children by his plural wives?

Jump to details:

• Question: Can you summarize what we know about whether or not Joseph Smith fathered any children by his plural wives?
• Table 11‑1 Possible Children of Joseph Smith, Jr., by Plural Marriage

Question: Did Joseph Smith father any children through polygamous marriages?

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• Question: Did Joseph Smith father any children through polygamous marriages?
• Science has eliminated most of the possibilities that had long been rumored to be descendants of Joseph Smith. There are a couple for which DNA can tell us nothing either way and that rest on dubious historical reasoning. Thus critics cannot claim in honesty that Joseph had any children by his polygamous wives.

Question: Did Joseph Smith produce any children by his plural wives? The case for children

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• Question: Did Joseph Smith produce any children by his plural wives?: The case for children
• Josephine Fisher (Josephine Lyon)
• Other possible children

Question: Did Joseph Smith produce any children by his plural wives? The case against children

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• Question: Did Joseph Smith produce any children by his plural wives? The case against children
• George Algernon Lightner and Florentine M. Lightner
• Orson W. Hyde and Frank Henry Hyde
• Ruled out by DNA Evidence: Oliver Buell, Mosiah Hancock, John Reed Hancock, Zebulon Jacobs, Moroni Llewllyn Pratt, and Orrison Smith
• John Hyrum Buell, Son of Prescinda Huntington Buell
• Scant evidence: Sarah Elizabeth Holmes, Hannah Ann Dibble, Loren Walker Dibble, Joseph Albert Smith, and Carolyn Delight
• Fanny Alger and Eliza R. Snow: Miscarriages?

Question: What did the husband of Sylvia Sessions know about her sealing to Joseph Smith for eternity?

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• Question: What did the husband of Sylvia Sessions know about her sealing to Joseph Smith for eternity?
• Sylvia was married to Windsor Lyon by Joseph Smith in Nauvoo, and was sealed to Joseph Smith at some point after she was married
• Daughter Josephine was proven not to be a daughter of Joseph Smith, Jr. through DNA analysis
• Sylvia may have considered herself divorced from Windsor after he was excommunicated from the Church

Question: Did Prescindia Buell (or Sarah Pratt, or Mrs. Hyde) not know who was the father of her son?

Jump to details:

• Question: Did Prescindia Buell (or Sarah Pratt, or Mrs. Hyde) not know who was the father of her son?
• The source for this claim is a notoriously unreliable anti-Mormon work. It makes several errors of fact in the very paragraph in which the claim is made
• Is the source reliable?
• The claim
• Errors of fact
• Such an admission would be out of character for a believing Utah woman of the 19th century
• It is difficult for Joseph to have even had contact with her at the proper time to conceive a child

Question: Did Joseph Smith father children by polyandrous plural wife Prescindia Buell?

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• Question: Did Joseph Smith father children by polyandrous plural wife Prescindia Buell?
• All those who have been definitively DNA tested so far—Oliver Buell, Mosiah Hancock, Zebulon Jacobs, Moroni Pratt, and Orrison Smith—have been excluded as children of Joseph Smith
• The geography
• The DNA
• Maybe another Buell child?

Question: What is the current state of the evidence for proving or disproving that Joseph Smith had children by his plural wives?

Jump to details:

• Question: What is the current state of the evidence for proving or disproving that Joseph Smith had children by his plural wives?
• Table 11‑2 Possible Children of Joseph Smith, Jr., by Plural Marriage
• Conclusions

Question: Was the only purpose of polygamy to "multiply and replenish the earth" and "bear the souls of men"?

Jump to details:

• Question: Was the only purpose of polygamy to "multiply and replenish the earth" and "bear the souls of men"?
• Doctrine and Covenants states that polygamy is for the purpose of multiplying and replenishing the earth
• The institution of the practice of polygamy was part of the "restoration of all things"
• The institution of the practice of polygamy made available the blessings of eternal marriage to everyone
• Can this be included in the interpretation of D&C 132: 63?

Question: If the only purpose of polygamy was to "raise up seed," then why did Joseph not have children by his plural wives?

Jump to details:

• Polygamy was not permitted only for the purpose of procreation
• Joseph was also sealed for eternity to some women who were already married, but these women continued to have children by their current husbands

Why would Joseph Smith be sealed to other men's wives?

Summary: Why would Joseph Smith be sealed to other men's wives? Some of these men were even active members of the Church. Were these marriages for time or only for eternity? Were these marriages consumated? Why did these women continue to live with the husbands after being sealed to Joseph Smith?

Question: Were there sexual relations in Joseph's marriages to women with living husbands?

Summary: There is no good evidence for sexual relations in polyandrous sealings.

See also Brian Hales' discussion

Did Joseph Smith’s Plural Marriages Include Sexual Relations?	Some wonder if sexual relations were included in Joseph Smith’s plural marriages. The answer is yes or no, depending upon the type of plural marriage. Those marriages, often called “sealings,” were of two types. Some were for this life and the next (called “time-and-eternity”) and could include sexuality on earth. Others were limited to the next life (called “eternity-only”) and did not allow intimacy in mortality. Overall, evidence indicates that less than half of Joseph Smith’s polygamous unions were consummated and sexual relations in the others occurred infrequently.
Sexual Relations are Documented In Less than Half of Joseph Smith’s Plural Marriages	It appears the Prophet experienced sexual relations with less than half of the women sealed to him. There is no credible evidence that Joseph had sex with three subgroups of his plural wives: (1) fourteen-year-old wives, (2) non-wives (or women to whom he was not married), and (3) legally married women who were experiencing conjugal relations with their civil husbands.
Children from Joseph Smith’s Plural Marriages	No children are known to have been born to Joseph and his plural wives.

Notes