9. Joseph Married Other Living Men’s Wives
September 25, 20247. Given 24 Hours to Decide
September 27, 2024
The first recorded sealing of the church was Joseph Smith to Louisa Beaman. Louisa was dressed up as a man at the time to hide the ceremony.
Table of contents
- The first recorded sealing of the church was Joseph Smith to Louisa Beaman. Louisa was dressed up as a man at the time to hide the ceremony.
- A1) Joseph Smith married Louisa Beaman while she was dressed as a man to hide the ceremony.
- A2) This marriage also provides evidence that at least some of these marriages included sex.
- Issues these Facts Raise
- Questions these Facts Raise
A1) Joseph Smith married Louisa Beaman while she was dressed as a man to hide the ceremony.
Supporting Sources and Quotes
Joseph and Louisa were married on April 5, 1841, “in a grove Near Main Street in the City of Nauvoo, The Prophet Joseph dictating the ceremony and Br Nobles repeating it after him.”, remembers Erastus Snow, Louisa’s brother-in-law. To help keep the union secret, Louisa wore a man’s hat and coat as disguise. Joseph Bates Noble recalled that after the ceremony, the couple spent their wedding night, “Right straight across the river at my house”. Noble said he encouraged them to, “Blow out the lights and get into bed, and you will be safer there”.
(Sources: In Sacred Lonliness; Temple Lot Case)
“The first plural marriage in Nauvoo took place when Louisa Beaman and Joseph Smith were sealed in April 1841.19” –LDS.org, Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Navoo
Noble said, “he performed the first sealing ceremony in this Dispensation in which he united Sister Louisa Beman to the Prop[h]et Joseph in May—I think the 5th day in 1841 during the evening under an Elm tree in Nauvoo. The Bride disguised in a coat and hat.”
- Quoted in Franklin D. Richards Journal, January 22, 1869, MS 1215, LDS CHL. Found online at: http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/plural-wives-overview/louisa-beaman/
Louisa was disguised as a man during the ceremony. Nauvoo polygamy was so secretive that it almost had a cloak-and-dagger atmosphere–perhaps its very secrecy, giving participants a sense of being in the center of the innermost church, helped infuse it with its sense of sacrality.
- Todd M. Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith. Kindle Edition.
A2) This marriage also provides evidence that at least some of these marriages included sex.
Supporting Sources and Quotes
Q. Do you know whether Joseph Smith ever lived any with Louisa Beaman as his wife? …
A. I know it for I saw him in bed with her. …
Q. What made you say the other day that Joseph Smith and that woman you sealed to him slept together that night?
A. Because they did sleep together.
Q. If you were not there that night, how do you know they slept together?
A. Well, they slept together I know. If it was not that night it was two or three nights after that.
Q. Where did they sleep together?
A. Right straight across the river at my house they slept together. …
Q. Did he sleep with her the first night after the ceremony was performed?
A. He did.
Q. Now you say that he did sleep with her?
A. I do.
Q. How do you know he did?
A. Well I was there.
Q. And you saw them go to bed together?
A. I gave him counsel. …
Q. What counsel did you give him?
A. I said “blow out the light and get into bed, and you will be safer there,” and he took my advice or counsel. …
Q. Well did you stay there until the lights were blown out?
A. No sir I did not stay until they blowed out the lights then.
Q. Well you did not see him get into bed with her that time?
A. No sir.
Q. And so you don’t know whether he followed your advice from your own knowledge?
A. No sir, I did not see him, but he told me he did.
Q. Well, you know from your own knowledge that he did?
A. Well, I am confident he did.
Q. But you don’t know it of your own knowledge from seeing him do it?
A. No sir, for I was not there.
- Joseph B. Noble, Deposition, Temple Lot Case, part 3, pages 396, 426–27, questions, 52–53, 681–704. The complete transcript of the Temple Lot Case is more than 1,750 pages long (copies at the Community of Christ Archives and microfilm at LDS Church History Library). A shortened version has been available from the RLDS Church (now Community of Christ) with much of the testimony regarding plural marriage in Nauvoo omitted (Lamoni, Iowa: Herald Publishing House, 1893); Price Publishing (Independence, Mo., 2003) reprints the RLDS version. See also Lawrence Foster, Religion and Sexuality: The Shakers, the Mormons, and the Oneida Community, 310n104. Found online at: http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/plural-wives-overview/louisa-beaman/.
- The original 1650-page Temple Lot Case transcripts were not available anywhere online until recently. They are now available online at the Church History Library at the following link: MS 1160: United States testimony 1892, Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
- All that was previously available online, which was commonly cited, were abstract summary transcripts (507 pages) which have been heavily edited by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (now the Community of Christ). The edited transcripts that were available online were published by the RLDS Church and contain information that is not present in the original transcript. (see The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Complainant, Vs. the Church of Christ at Independence, Missouri [1])
Note: Here is my quickly written overview: The Temple Lot Case was an important case related to polygamy. The RLDS and LDS church was fighting over who owned the temple lot in Kirtland. The LDS claim was that they had rights to it because it should have been passed to Joseph’s wives. The RLDS was trying to claim polygamy wasn’t a thing. Wikipedia overview here.)
“In court testimony given in 1892, Noble reported that after the marriage he said to Smith, “‘Blow out the lights and get into bed, and you will be safer there,’ and he took my advice.” Noble, under cross-examination, clarified that he did not actually see the couple get into bed, but “he [Smith] told me he did.” There is no good reason to doubt that Louisa’s marriage to Smith included sexuality. Noble further testified under oath, “Question: where did they [Joseph and Louisa] sleep together? Answer: Right straight across the river at my house they slept together.”
Todd M. Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith. Kindle Edition.
Benjamin Winchester, who had a stormy relationship with the Prophet and other Church leaders and was excommunicated in September 1844, also corroborates conjugality in a 1900 statement:
Q. Were you personally acquainted with any of Smith’s wives?
A. Yes, but especially with Louisa Beaman from a girl. About the year 43 Joseph Smith took rooms for her in my father’s house, and Smith came to see her about once a week.
Q. Did they sleep together?
A. Yes they did.
Q. Was there only one bed in the room?
A. Yes just one bed.
Q. Are you sure it was in 1843?
A. No, but it was about that time, or from 42 to 44.
- Benjamin Winchester, Testimony to Joseph Smith III, Council Bluffs, Iowa, November 27, 1900. Found online here at Brian Hales website: http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/common-questions/plural-marriages-sexual/louisa-beaman-evidence-of-sexuality/
Territory of Utah
SS.
County of Salt Lake
Be it remembered that on this twenty-sixth day of June A.D. 1869 personally appeared before me James Jack, a notary-Public in and for said county, Joseph Bates Noble, who was by me sworn in due form of law, and upon his oath saith, that, on the fifth day of April A.D. 1841, At the City of Nauvoo, County of Hancock, State of Illinois, he married or sealed Louisa Beaman, to Joseph Smith, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, according to the order of Celestial Marriage revealed to the Said Joseph Smith.
Subscribed and Sworn to by the
Said Joseph Bates Noble the day Joseph. B. Noble
and year first above written
[seal] James Jack
Notary Public
[Note: Also found in second record book entitled "40 Affidavits on Celestial Marriage," p. 1.]
Du. Book No 1
Joseph F. Smith
Salt Lake City
Utah
Issues these Facts Raise
Why is Louisa Beaman not celebrated in the church? After all, this is the first eternal marriage of this dispensation. Never once have I heard this taught in a lesson or manual. Didn’t even know who Louisa Beaman was. To me, this feels like a clear, purposeful omission by the church. Still, I feel unwelcome to bring this up in Sunday School, because it feels like a taboo subject. Sad as it is attached to the first eternal marriage.
For God’s first, sacred ceremony of eternal marriage it seems suspect that those involved did everything to hide the ceremony, including having Louisa dress up as a man.
Further, where is Emma? Why is she not the first?
Questions these Facts Raise
Why are we not taught in church about the first sealing that took place? Is the church ashamed that it was done in a rush with a woman dressed as a man (to hide her identity)?
