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Old-Timer wrote:Quote:
Hales claims that if JS did have sex with a women who was legally married to another man, then she was NOT also having sex with that other man.
Fwiw, I think that is a stupid claim, as worded.
Hales makes the point, as I understand it, that when these women were sealed to Joseph their prior legal marriage was “done away” and made invalid by the sealing. Hales believes they continued to live with their “legal” husbands as a cover, but as they were now the wives of Joseph they were no longer considered married to their former husbands – so he believes they no longer slept with them.
I would like to hear the details of how he explains a couple of specific examples that on the surface seem to contradict his claim. It seems to me he has constructed this view that he can make sense of – and if evidence breaks it down his worldview may also crumble, thus he has significant reason to “make” it stick …in his own mind at least. Not that this makes his points invalid, I just get the feeling that he is invested – which makes me account for his bias as I evaluate.
I think people who are bothered deeply by polygamy but want to justify it somehow latch onto things they can accept – and I think that as true of me and anyone else as Hales. I just don’t want to hang my hat on the idea that sexual monogamy still existed for the women in polyandrous relationships. I’ve seen no evidence of it, so I don’t believe it. Things were MUCH less Puritanical in the early Church than they are now, and if I am OK with men having sex with multiple women in marriages they believed were valid (and I am), I have to be OK with women having sex with multiple men in marriages they believed were valid (so I am). For my own internal consistency meter, I can’t accept one and not the other. I think Hales argument says more about him than it does about Joseph and the saints who were involved in polyandry.
“Stupid” probably was too strong a word. If Hales reads this thread
I appreciate the tone of this discussion. Mostly reading as I am not as learned as I should be. I wish there was a Sunday School class for those of us trying to work things out where discussions like this could occur. I would actually go to class then rather than attend “Hall class” where I must admit to having a few of these types of chats I attended a book signing Saturday night in Orem with Brian Hales and Don Bradley. I asked him specifically about Sarah Pratt (which I mentioned earlier in the thread), and Hales claims that Sarah was NOT sealed to Joseph, but rather had a sexual relationship with John C. Bennett. He also said 11 of the 14 polyandrous sealings were “eternity only” sealings to women whose husbands were not LDS. Only 3 women had LDS husbands, and he thinks at least 2 were non-sexual. I wish I had taken notes on the other one, because I can’t remember what he said in regards to that. I just posted about it on my blog: http://mormonheretic.org/2013/03/10/brian-hales-and-don-bradley-discuss-polygamy/ None of these unions resulted in known offspring, whereas Emma was perpetually preggers. However, I am of the opinion that sex happened in some (but not all or necessarily even most) of the marriages, not just celibate sealings. mormonheretic wrote:I attended a book signing Saturday night in Orem with Brian Hales and Don Bradley. I asked him specifically about Sarah Pratt (which I mentioned earlier in the thread), and Hales claims that Sarah was NOT sealed to Joseph, but rather had a sexual relationship with John C. Bennett.
👿 Oh, that is a comment that brings my blood to the verge of a boil. I have read and searched out some info on Sarah Pratt, I don’t see one thread of evidence to support the claims of her and John Bennett other than the accusations of Joseph and his partners (as in the paper, was it the Wasp?) at a time when it was “needed” to discredit the accounts that Joseph proposed to her. I read some of her own later writings, all in total I tend to agree with William Law, that Sarah was a virtuous woman – and that fact, that she would stand up for her personal beliefs, got her into public trouble in Nauvoo.As I recall the time frame that is required for the w/Bennett accusations is so unlikely that it makes the charges almost laughable.
[Edit:] After reading much of your MH post, I wonder if you meant to ask Hales about Joseph’s sealing to Orson Hyde’s wife while Orson was on his mission to the holy land. It is widely understood among historians that Joseph never married Orson Pratt’s wife, but he did marry Nancy Marinda Johnson Hyde.
Orson wrote:mormonheretic wrote:I attended a book signing Saturday night in Orem with Brian Hales and Don Bradley. I asked him specifically about Sarah Pratt (which I mentioned earlier in the thread), and Hales claims that Sarah was NOT sealed to Joseph, but rather had a sexual relationship with John C. Bennett.
👿 Oh, that is a comment that brings my blood to the verge of a boil. I have read and searched out some info on Sarah Pratt, I don’t see one thread of evidence to support the claims of her and John Bennett other than the accusations of Joseph and his partners (as in the paper, was it the Wasp?) at a time when it was “needed” to discredit the accounts that Joseph proposed to her. I read some of her own later writings, all in total I tend to agree with William Law, that Sarah was a virtuous woman – and that fact, that she would stand up for her personal beliefs, got her into public trouble in Nauvoo.As I recall the time frame that is required for the w/Bennett accusations is so unlikely that it makes the charges almost laughable.
And if that’s the case then it undermines everything else Hales says. How can he be trusted to debunk myths when he is selective about evidence.
It sometimes bothers me that mormon historians/mopologists won’t let anything stick. We go on about fallibility of leaders, but any time you try to discuss an evidence of them being fallible it’s time for the smoke and mirrors again.
mackay11 wrote:
It sometimes bothers me that mormon historians/mopologists won’t let anything stick. We go on about fallibility of leaders, but any time you try to discuss an evidence of them being fallible it’s time for the smoke and mirrors again.We can point to examples of that from some sources, but thankfully we also do have some fine and more objective historians. Individual personalities always come into play – and everyone has their bias.
No, I was specifically referring to Sarah Pratt and Joseph Smith. As I wrote the post, I looked it up in Rough Stone Rolling, pages 466-468. Bushman discusses the back and forth accusations between Bennett and Smith, each accusing the other of a sexual relationship with Sarah. In the midst of the back and forth allegations, Joseph recommended Orson divorce Sarah. Bushman writes “Orson, still loyal to his wife, demurred. He was reinstated as an apostle, and that afternoon both he and Sarah were rebaptized in the Mississippi. By the time Orson left Nauvoo in 1846, he had taken four additional wives.” This bit of info seems to lead one to believe Orson and Sarah supported Joseph. But it’s not that simple. Bushman also says that Sarah “forty years later, after Orson’s death, and after she had left the Church, she told a story that substantially supported Bennett against Joseph.” The footnote references the Van Wagoner book on polygamy.
When I read
Rough Stone Rollingthe first time (years ago), I (mis)remembered (to quote Roger Clemens) the part that Joseph had sent Orson on a mission and then married Sarah. Upon reading it yesterday, Bushman never states that Joseph married Sarah, and in fact Bushman leaves the whole relationship and accusations pretty ambiguous. Now (StayLDS) Orson, I can understand your reaction completely. This episode has never sat well with me. John C. Bennett has often been assailed by the LDS as an unreliable witness, and he is. I remember going to an MHA conference with Hales, Todd Compton, and Lawrence Foster. Foster proclaimed that despite Bennett’s poor reputation, he was telling the truth sometimes. Foster argued that we must not throw out all of Bennett’s testimony, and we should accept the testimony that is reliable. I agree. Without reading what Hales has said, I don’t have enough evidence to say one way or the other. I am just reporting what Hales said. Hales could be right or wrong. To Hales’ credit, he got Todd Compton to endorse his book with these words:
Quote:“Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, the first thorough treatment of Joseph Smith’s plural marriages written by a conservative Mormon scholar, is a landmark in the historiography of Mormon polygamy. While I disagree with some of Hales’s conclusions, I admire his willingness to confront difficult topics and the depth of his research. This impressive work furthers the ongoing dialogue in the Mormon historical community on a fascinating and challenging aspect of the life and teachings of Mormonism’s founding prophet.” –Todd M. Compton, author of In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith
I will also add that Hales got Lawrence Foster (a non-Mormon) to endorse his book with these words:
Quote:“Brian Hales is an exceptionally thorough, meticulous, and evenhanded researcher and assessor of Joseph Smith’s complex and controversial polygamous practices and the theological rationale that supported them. His path-breaking and indispensable three-volume study provides the most comprehensive documentation and assessment yet available of the extant evidence on the topic, even though Hales’s fellow scholars of Joseph Smith’s polygamy may not always find persuasive the ways in which he interprets and contextualizes his evidence.” –Lawrence Foster, author of Religion and Sexuality
Something tells me that Compton and Foster probably don’t agree with Hales on this point either.
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