CES Letter Answers

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Joseph Smith's Marriages ​

The claim:

Joseph Smith "was married to at least 34 women," including "11 of them were married women of other living men," and "7 of them were teenage girls as young as 14-years-old." He married Helen Mar Kimball at 14, promised families eternal salvation in exchange for their daughters, denied polygamy publicly, and — in a side-by-side chart — looks more like Warren Jeffs than a prophet of God.[1]

The CES Letter's polygamy section is its most emotionally charged chapter. It stacks numbers, ages, and accusations into a portrait of a sexual predator using religion as cover — then caps it with a visual comparison to a convicted child rapist.

That portrait depends on treating every sealing as the same thing, ignoring the voices of the women involved, and stripping away every piece of context that would require the reader to think rather than react.

What happens when you look at the actual list of marriages — names, dates, circumstances — instead of a summary count?

Not all sealings were marriages ​

The CES Letter calls them all "marriages." The women who participated did not.

Early Latter-day Saint sealing theology recognized distinct categories:[2][3]

TypeWhat it meantSexual relationship?
Time-and-eternityA full marriage — binding in this life and the nextEvidence for some
Eternity-onlyA sealing for the afterlife only — not a marriage in mortalityNo
Dynastic/familialConnecting families across generations — more adoption than marriageNo

Helen Mar Kimball described her sealing as being "for eternity alone."[2:1] Women sealed to Joseph while married to other men continued living with their husbands, bore their husbands' children, and never described themselves as Joseph's wives in any mortal sense.[4]

When the CES Letter says "34 wives," it counts an eternity-only sealing the same as a time-and-eternity marriage. The women knew the difference. The CES Letter doesn't want you to.

The age data tells a different story ​

The CES Letter states that "7 of them were teenage girls as young as 14-years-old" and emphasizes that "Joseph was 37-years-old when he married 14-year-old Helen Mar Kimball."[1:1]

Here are the actual numbers. Joseph was sealed to ten women under age twenty:[5]

Age at sealingNumber
194
173
161
142

Most of Joseph's plural wives were adults in their twenties, thirties, and forties. The oldest, Fanny Young, was 56.[2:2]

The CES Letter implies Joseph was fixated on young girls. The data says the opposite. Craig Foster's peer-reviewed study in Interpreter concluded Joseph "was not fixated on teens" and that his marriage pattern "does not exhibit pedophilic behavior" — a clinical category involving prepubescent children that is scientifically inapplicable here.[6]

Helen Mar Kimball ​

Helen is the centerpiece of the CES Letter's age argument. The facts it presents are accurate: she was 14, Joseph was 37, and her father arranged the sealing.[5:1]

What it leaves out:

The sealing was her father's initiative. Helen wrote that her father "taught me the principle of Celestial marriage and having a great desire to be connected with the Prophet, Joseph, he offered me to him."[7] Heber C. Kimball wanted his family linked to Joseph's for eternity. This was a dynastic sealing.

Helen described the sealing as "for eternity alone."[2:3] An eternity-only sealing was not a marriage in the mortal sense.

There is no evidence of sexual relations. Helen continued living in her parents' home. She complained about missing dances — the concern of a teenage girl living at home, not a wife.[8] Brian Hales found that "Helen never describes being alone with the Prophet without a chaperone before or after her sealing to him." Michael Marquardt, a non-LDS historian, concluded her sealing was "a spiritual one unlike other wives who had sexual relations with the prophet."[5:2] At the 1892 Temple Lot trial, when other plural wives testified about conjugal relations, Helen was conspicuously absent from the witness list — despite being geographically closer than several who did testify.

Helen became one of plural marriage's most articulate defenders. She published Plural Marriage as Taught by the Prophet Joseph (1882) and Why We Practice Plural Marriage (1884), and wrote extensively for the Woman's Exponent.[9] She later gave her own husband two plural wives. The CES Letter quotes her adolescent distress and ignores her adult voice entirely.

Marriage ages in 19th-century America ​

Craig Foster's study documented regional marriage patterns using census data:[6:1]

RegionYear% of females aged 15-19 who were married
Mountain/Pacific187027.5%
West-South Central186023.8%
New England18806.7%

Illinois Governor Thomas Ford married Frances Hambaugh when she was 15. The legal age of marriage in Illinois was 12 for girls with parental consent.[6:2] Brigham Young later instructed polygamous men to wait until younger brides reached at least eighteen before consummating their marriages — evidence that leaders distinguished between sealing and sexual relations with young women.[5:3]

The CES Letter says Joseph's behavior was shocking "even by 19th century standards." Foster found the opposite: "None of Joseph's contemporaries complained about the age differences between polygamous or monogamous marriage partners."[6:3]

Polyandry — briefly ​

The CES Letter states that "11 of them were married women of other living men."[1:2] Brian Hales's exhaustive research identifies approximately 14, and the critical question is what kind of sealings these were.

Hales concludes these were eternity-only sealings — afterlife bonds, not mortal marriages. The women continued living with their legal husbands, continued bearing their husbands' children, and complaints from first husbands are "virtually absent from the documentary record."[2:4][4:1]

Even Dan Vogel, a non-LDS historian, acknowledged: "There is no solid evidence of polyandrous sexuality in any of Joseph Smith's plural marriages."[4:2]

For a deeper examination, see the dedicated article on polyandry.

No children from plural marriages ​

DNA testing has found no confirmed biological children of Joseph Smith from any plural marriage.[10]

Alleged childMotherDNA result
Josephine Lyon FisherSylvia Sessions LyonNot Joseph's — Windsor Lyon confirmed as father
Oliver BuellPrescinda HuntingtonNot Joseph's
Zebulon JacobsZina HuntingtonNot Joseph's
Orrison SmithFanny AlgerNot Joseph's
Moroni Llewellyn PrattMary Ann Frost PrattNot Joseph's
Mosiah HancockClarissa Reed HancockNot Joseph's

The Josephine Lyon case was considered the strongest — Sylvia Sessions reportedly confessed on her deathbed that Josephine was Joseph's daughter. DNA proved otherwise.[10:1]

Ugo Perego, the geneticist who conducted the studies, published results in "non-Latter-day Saint, peer-reviewed, reputable journals."[10:2]

Joseph fathered nine children with Emma during the same period. A man with 30+ "wives" who produces zero children with any of them while fathering nine with his legal wife does not fit the profile of a sexual predator.

Fanny Alger: the earliest and most fragmentary case ​

The CES Letter calls the Fanny Alger relationship "an illegal marriage" that Oliver Cowdery described as a "dirty, nasty, filthy affair" and argues that because sealing authority wasn't restored until April 3, 1836, the relationship was adultery.[11]

The Fanny Alger episode is the most fragmentary in Joseph's plural marriage history. Nineteen accounts exist, but the earliest was composed 37+ years after the event, and thirteen are secondhand.[12]

A ceremony was performed. Mosiah Hancock recorded that his father Levi Hancock obtained consent from Fanny's father, then from Fanny directly, and performed a ceremony as Joseph instructed. Multiple contemporaries — including former members — called it a "marriage."[12:1]

The "dirty, nasty, filthy" quote. The original word in Oliver Cowdery's 1838 letter was "scrape," not "affair" — an unknown hand later overwrote it. Cowdery sided with Emma in opposing the relationship. But his characterization may describe the mess it caused, not the nature of the relationship itself.[12:2]

The sealing authority question. The CES Letter argues sealing keys weren't restored until Elijah appeared in the Kirtland Temple on April 3, 1836. But Joseph claimed authority to perform marriages under the priesthood before that date. A time-only plural marriage performed under priesthood authority is theologically distinct from an eternal sealing.[12:3]

The Alger family followed Joseph. Fanny married a non-member and left the Church. But her parents migrated with Joseph to Missouri, then Nauvoo, then Utah.[12:4] Parents whose daughter was exploited by a religious leader don't typically follow that leader across the frontier for a decade.

Worth Acknowledging

The Fanny Alger case is genuinely difficult. The evidence is sparse, and honest historians disagree. But the CES Letter presents only the most hostile interpretation as though it were established fact.

The angel threatened Joseph, not the women ​

The CES Letter frames the angel-with-a-drawn-sword accounts as Joseph threatening women with divine punishment if they refused him.[1:3]

The accounts overwhelmingly describe the opposite. The angel appeared to Joseph. It threatened him.

Approximately twenty different reminiscences recount Joseph's encounters with the angel. They tell a consistent story of resistance:[13]

Benjamin F. Johnson: Joseph "put it off" and "waited until an Angel with a drawn Sword Stood before him and declared that if he longer delayed fulfilling that Command he would Slay him."

Lorenzo Snow: The Prophet "hesitated and deferred from time to time" and "foresaw the trouble that would follow and sought to turn away from the commandment."

Helen Mar Kimball Whitney: "Had it not been for the fear of His displeasure, Joseph would have shrunk from the undertaking."

Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner declined Joseph's initial proposal. Joseph's response to Sarah Granger's refusal was benign: "I will not cease to pray for you."[3:1]

One account requires honest treatment: Lightner later recalled that "an angel came to me three times between the years of 1834 and 1842 and said I was to obey that principle or he would slay me."[13:1] This is the only account where the angel's threat extends beyond Joseph. But the overwhelming pattern across twenty reminiscences is a man being compelled against his will — not a predator using divine threats to collect wives.

The public denials ​

This is the genuinely hard part.

In May 1844, weeks before his death, Joseph told the Saints:

"What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven wives, when I can only find one."[14]

He had over 30 plural sealings by that point. There is no way to make this comfortable.

What historians have found ​

Multiple scholars — including those sympathetic to the Church — document that Nauvoo leaders used "carefully worded" language:[15]

  • Danel Bachman: "The language of the defense was carefully chosen to disavow practices that did not accurately represent Church doctrines."
  • Todd Compton: Authorities "chose to disavow the practice, sometimes using language with coded double meanings."
  • Lawrence Foster: Smith made "indirect denials" and "always carefully refrained from saying that such statements weren't true."

The distinction leaders drew was between "polygamy" — associated with harems and frontier bigamy — and "celestial marriage" as practiced under priesthood authority. The 1842 Times and Seasons affidavit was specifically directed against John C. Bennett's "spiritual wifery," a sexual free-for-all Bennett promoted while falsely claiming Joseph's authorization.[16]

That distinction may not satisfy you. It didn't satisfy everyone at the time, either.

An honest assessment ​

Two things are simultaneously true. Joseph's denials were misleading to his audience. And public disclosure would have destroyed the Church, violated anti-bigamy laws, and endangered lives. The Nauvoo Expositor, which publicly accused Joseph of polygamy, set in motion the events leading to his murder.

Prophets in scripture have concealed truths to protect their people. Abraham told Abimelech that Sarah was his sister (Genesis 20). Rahab lied to protect the Israelite spies (Joshua 2). These parallels don't make the denials comfortable. But they place them within a biblical pattern.

The Warren Jeffs comparison ​

The CES Letter's final move is a chart comparing Joseph Smith to Warren Jeffs.[1:4]

The chart cherry-picks categories where numbers overlap. Here are the categories it leaves off:

Joseph SmithWarren Jeffs
Children through plural wives0 confirmedMultiple
Convicted of sexual abuseNoYes
Sexually assaulted own childrenNo evidenceConvicted
Plural wives lived with himMost did notYes
Eternity-only sealingsYes, manyNo
Wives publicly defended himYes, consistentlyNo
Reluctance documented~20 accountsNo

Warren Jeffs was convicted of raping children, including his own. Joseph Smith has zero confirmed children from plural marriages, no criminal charges, and approximately twenty accounts documenting his resistance to the practice. Jeffs's wives were controlled. Most of Joseph's plural wives lived in their own homes, many with their legal husbands.[17]

Comparing the two is not analysis. It is character assassination by association.

The positive case ​

The CES Letter's strategy is to make you so uncomfortable that you stop asking questions. But there is a case for Joseph Smith on this topic — not just against the CES Letter's framing.

Joseph didn't want this ​

A predator seeks victims. Joseph resisted plural marriage for years. Twenty independent accounts describe his reluctance. He "foresaw the trouble that would follow." He "put it off." He "would have shrunk from the undertaking."[13:2]

A man who delays for years, agonizes over the consequences, and only acts under what he believed was divine compulsion does not match any profile of predatory behavior.

The theology: eternal families, not earthly gratification ​

Joseph's plural sealings emerged from a specific theological framework — the restoration of the sealing power and the doctrine that family relationships can persist beyond death.

D&C 130:2 states: "That same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory."[18] The sealing ordinance was the mechanism for making those relationships permanent. Many of Joseph's sealings — particularly the eternity-only sealings to married women — were about creating eternal family networks, not earthly marriages.[3:2]

D&C 132:51 frames the practice explicitly as an Abrahamic test — proving whether the Saints would "do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them" as Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac.[19] The Heber C. Kimball test is the paradigm: Joseph asked Heber to give his wife Vilate to Joseph. Heber agonized. Joseph revealed it was only a test — he never intended to take Vilate. The purpose was to see whether Heber would sacrifice everything God asked.[20]

For a detailed examination of D&C 132's provisions and how Joseph's practice related to them, see D&C 132 Contradictions.

The women speak for themselves ​

The CES Letter treats Joseph's plural wives as silent victims. They weren't.

Lucy Walker, asked about her agency: "A woman would have her choice, this was a privilege that could not be denied her."[3:3]

Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner: "He was commanded to take me for a wife. I was his, before I came here."[20:1]

Lucy Walker described her spiritual confirmation: her room was "filled with a holy influence" akin to "brilliant sunshine" after she prayed about the proposal.[2:5]

Brigham Young on learning of plural marriage: "I had to pray unceasingly" and "the Lord revealed to me the truth of it and that satisfied me."[2:6]

None of the approximately 35 women sealed to Joseph ever publicly complained about him or accused him of wrongdoing — including those who later left the Church.[20:2]

The CES Letter wants you to hear from everyone except the women involved. Their voices tell a different story.

Key Point

The Church's Gospel Topics Essay on Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo addresses these issues directly — polyandry, ages, the angel with the drawn sword, and the public denials. It is worth reading in full.

Bottom line: Joseph Smith's plural marriages are genuinely difficult. The CES Letter takes that difficulty and strips away every piece of context that would help you think clearly — the distinction between sealings and marriages, the absence of children, twenty accounts of Joseph's reluctance, and the lifelong testimonies of the women themselves. What remains is a caricature designed to provoke outrage, not understanding. The evidence, examined in full, shows a man who resisted a commandment he didn't want, practiced it within a theological framework his critics ignore, and left behind not a trail of victims but a group of women who defended him for the rest of their lives.

  1. Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Polygamy | Polyandry," pp. 51-55. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  2. "Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo," Gospel Topics Essays, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/plural-marriage-in-kirtland-and-nauvoo?lang=eng ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  3. Brian C. Hales, Joseph Smith's Polygamy, 3 vols. (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2013). See also Hales, "Plural Wives Overview," Joseph Smith's Polygamy. https://josephsmithspolygamy.org/plural-wives-overview/ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  4. Brian C. Hales, "Sealings to Legally Married Women — Sexual Polyandry," Joseph Smith's Polygamy. https://josephsmithspolygamy.org/common-questions/sexual-polyandry/ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  5. Brian C. Hales, "Sealings to Young Brides," Joseph Smith's Polygamy. https://josephsmithspolygamy.org/common-questions/14-year-old-wives-teenage-brides/ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  6. Craig L. Foster, "Assessing the Criticisms of Early Age Latter-day Saint Marriages," Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 31 (2019): 191-232. https://interpreterfoundation.org/journal/assessing-the-criticisms-of-early-age-latter-day-saint-marriages ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  7. Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, 1881 Autobiography, in A Woman's View: Helen Mar Whitney's Reminiscences of Early Church History, ed. Jeni Broberg Holzapfel and Richard Neitzel Holzapfel (Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1997), pp. 482-487. ↩︎

  8. Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, poem (1881). Helen wrote of being "a fetter'd bird with wild and longing heart," expressing frustration at social restrictions — the complaint of a teenager living at home, not a wife performing wifely duties. ↩︎

  9. Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, Plural Marriage as Taught by the Prophet Joseph (Salt Lake City, 1882); Why We Practice Plural Marriage (Salt Lake City, 1884). ↩︎

  10. "Joseph Smith and Children through Plural Marriage," FAIR. https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Joseph_Smith_and_children_through_plural_marriage. See also Ugo A. Perego et al., DNA studies on alleged Smith offspring, published in Forensic Science International: Genetics (2019) and presented at the Mormon History Association (2016). ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  11. Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Polygamy | Polyandry," p. 56. ↩︎

  12. Brian C. Hales, "Joseph Smith and Fanny Alger," Joseph Smith's Polygamy. https://josephsmithspolygamy.org/common-questions/fanny-alger/ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  13. Brian C. Hales, "Encouraging Joseph Smith to Practice Plural Marriage: The Accounts of the Angel with a Drawn Sword," Mormon Historical Studies 11, no. 2 (Fall 2010): 23-39. https://ensignpeakfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Encouraging-Joseph-Smith-to-Practice-Plural-Marriage-The-Accounts-of-the-Angel-with-a-Drawn-Sword.pdf ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  14. Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Polygamy | Polyandry," pp. 57-58. ↩︎

  15. Danel W. Bachman, "A Study of the Mormon Practice of Plural Marriage Before the Death of Joseph Smith" (MA thesis, Purdue University, 1975); Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997); Lawrence Foster, Religion and Sexuality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981). ↩︎

  16. "Joseph Smith's Polygamy: Public Denials," FAIR. https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Joseph_Smith/Polygamy/Denials ↩︎

  17. "Warren Jeffs Comparison," Debunking the CES Letter. https://debunking-cesletter.com/polygamy-polyandry-1/warren-jeffs-comparison/ ↩︎

  18. Doctrine and Covenants 130:2. ↩︎

  19. Doctrine and Covenants 132:51. ↩︎

  20. Sarah Allen, "Rebuttal, Part 20: Polygamy/Polyandry," FAIR (2021). https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/blog/2021/10/27/part-20-ces-letter-polygamy-polyandry-questions-section-a ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

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