Brigham Young Embraces Nauvoo Polygamy - The Brigham Young Podcast Pt. 3 | Ep. 2198

Comments · 44

• PE

  @perryekimae · 6 days ago

  Expecting great things from John Turner in the next one! Super excited to finally have this sort of discussion on the succession crisis!

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• LA

  @LangeveldFamily · 6 days ago

  I think Turner falls a little short on some of the details that make Martha Brotherton’s account awfully hard for historians to dismiss. Here’s my take: <br> <br>First, Brigham later had Martha sealed to him. Martha rejected him, went public, and Brigham called her account a “base falsehood.” Yet after her death, he had her sealed to him by proxy in 1870. That is a pretty strange thing to do with a woman who supposedly invented the entire encounter. Apparently she was a liar, but Brigham still went ahead and made her part of his eternal family when she was no longer around to object. <br> <br>Second, the “harlot” accusation. Martha’s family had just emigrated from England. In her affidavit, Martha says she had been in Nauvoo only “near three weeks” when the encounter happened. Yet after she went public, the Mormon press attacked her as one of the “mean harlots.” When exactly did this teenage English immigrant manage to establish herself as a Nauvoo harlot? She had barely unpacked. Where is the evidence for the accusation? If there isn’t any, it looks a lot more like a sexual smear against a teenage girl who had made a damaging accusation against church leaders. That speaks to the credibility of the people attacking Martha more than it does to Martha’s credibility. <br> <br>Third, the story was circulating before Bennett published her affidavit. Hyrum Smith was already publicly responding to a report involving Brigham Young, Heber Kimball, and “having two wives” months before Martha’s affidavit appeared. So dismissing the whole thing as something Bennett cooked up later does not work particularly well. <br> <br>And then there is the bigger problem: <b>*Martha got the secret right.*</b> She claimed Brigham was privately proposing plural marriage at a time when church leaders were publicly denying it. We now know Brigham had accepted plural marriage and practiced it. That does not prove every detail of her story, but it is a pretty significant point in her favor. <br> <br>Finally, Martha herself raised her age as a problem. This matters when people today argue that seventeen was not unusually young in the nineteenth century. We do not need to impose our standards on 1842 because Martha tells us what &quot;she&quot; thought in 1842. According to her affidavit, she told Brigham she was seventeen, was “not of age,” and could not marry without her parents’ consent. Brigham’s reported response was not, “You’re right, we need your parents’ permission.” He kept trying to persuade her, suggested keeping it from her parents, and even tried to kiss her. Whatever general argument someone wants to make about nineteenth century marriage ages really misses the point here. The seventeen year old herself was saying she was too young, was not legally of age, and did not have her parents’ consent. Brigham apparently did not consider any of those objections deal breakers. <br> <br>None of this proves Martha remembered every line of dialogue perfectly. But the cumulative picture is pretty hard to explain away. The supposedly lying teenage “harlot” correctly described the secret practice, raised her own age and lack of parental consent as objections, had her story circulating before Bennett published it, and decades later was sealed to the very man she said had proposed to her. <br> <br>At some point, “Martha made it up” requires considerably more explaining than “Martha basically told the truth.” When the men denying her story were secretly doing the very thing she accused them of doing, while publicly smearing her sexual character, I think historians should be asking just as many questions about their credibility and behavior as they do about Martha’s.

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• SU

  @susiekathryn8570 · 6 days ago

  Dr. John Turner is a super hero in our house and Dr John … well we are on Team John.

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• KA

  @karynlynngrant · 5 days ago

  I bought the book. I just finished reading “Wife No. 19”. I am just starting BRIGHAM YOUNG: PIONEER PROPHET”. My heart &nbsp;was &nbsp;wrenched while reading Ann Eliza Young’s book. Shocked to learn about my third Great Grandfather—-. Jedediah Morgan Grant. &nbsp;WOW!

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• EL

  @elizabethlowery6611 · 5 days ago

  Ive enjoyed ALL the interviews with Both the Johns

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• DI

  @dianethulin1700 · 6 days ago

  I need to catch that last episode. Brigham Young converted my family in Upstate New York on his way to England in 1838

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• NE

  @NebjosaMeier · 5 days ago (edited)

  Brigham Young’s real innovation was eternal marriage and parent-child sealing, ritual reconstructions of kinship designed to bypass Joseph Smith’s principle that priesthood and covenant passed strictly by blood or lineage. Because Joseph’s sudden death left Brigham without standing, he turned to the Nauvoo Temple to manufacture the connection. When Emma blocked Brigham from being directly adopted to the dead Joseph, he married multiple women in Smith’s name and wrote the law of sarah to prove she could stop adoption in his name, but she couldn&apos;t stop marital sealings in his name to fulfill the promise and raise up seed. This ensured the children he fathered were sealed to Joseph by right of eternal marriage, using &quot;multiplicity&quot; to seize control of the Smith dynasty. He could have his cake and make more, because he owned the franchise. Brigham was now the one who could declare any human relationship void or valid even ones he made up just like Warren Jeffs. <br>​Years later in Utah, Brigham sealed his personal claim to direct inheritance by retrofitting the miracle of his transfiguration. Promoting accounts that he had manifested Joseph’s exact image and voice in August 1844, he claimed a supernatural adoption that neatly bypassed the temple ritual Emma had denied him. Brigham had received the image of the father. If this seems weird it was. He was single white female and the talented Mr Ripley before it was cool. He probably would have flayed Joseph&apos;s skin and wore it as a body suit if he had to.

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• HS

  @hsavage2899 · 6 days ago

  Looking at the origins of polygamy through an Occam’s razor lens: IMO Joseph, Brigham, Parley and Heber were sitting around together over drinks, musing about biblical polygamy and how nice it would be to sleep with whomever they choose, and Joseph says “mmm.. I can make that happen”.

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• TH

  @TheHypnotstCollector · 6 days ago

  &quot;embraces&quot; is a peculiar and humorous word to describe Bring&apos;em Young&apos;s relationship to polygamy.

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• TA

  @tawnyachristensen7310 · 7 days ago

  Good one!

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• CE

  @censusgary · 6 days ago

  Early Methodists (at least some of them) did greet one another with a kiss. Among Methodists nowadays, à handshake is more common.

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• GR

  @greyskyynb · 7 days ago (edited)

  When it comes to Brigham being impulsive initially, he may just be immature when it comes to love honestly. Even in later years in SLC, he always had a “favorite” wife, usually the newest, youngest one. (Edited to add: she would have a special seat next to him at the dining table, she was the one he would take to the balls, and she enjoyed privileges like new dresses and things the other wives &nbsp;didn’t have). His “favorite” was never a secure position. So it seems like he just gets infatuated &amp; it affects his behavior in ways that he wouldn’t act in other areas of his life.

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