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| | #REDIRECT[[Joseph Smith and children through plural marriage]] |
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| ==Criticism==
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| *Critics claim that Joseph Smith fathered children with some of his plural wives, and that he covered up the evidence of pregnancies.
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| *Critics claim that Joseph Smith had intimate relations with other men’s wives to whom he had been sealed, and that children resulted from these unions.
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| ===Source(s) of the criticism===
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| *{{AntiBook:Brodie:No Man Knows|pages=Chapter 24}}
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| ==Response==
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| There is no question that Joseph Smith was capable of producing children by Emma. It is logical to assume that if Joseph had intimate relations with many other women, that there would be evidence of pregnancy and children. The focus of the critics is primarily on Joseph’s sealings to women who were married to other husbands, since having a child by any of the previously single women to whom he was married would fall within the expected scope of plural marriage.
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| The available evidence, however, does not support the claim that Joseph had intimate relations with married women. Fawn Brodie, who repeatedly stated her belief that Joseph Smith had intimate relations with many of his plural wives, identified several individuals that she thought ‘’might’’ be children of Joseph Smith, Jr. Yet, even Brodie noted that “it is astonishing that evidence of other children than these has never come to light.” Brodie actually postulated, in spite of a complete lack of evidence, that Joseph must have been able to successfully practice some sort of primitive birth control, or that abortions must have been routinely employed.
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| Brodie does indeed identify some specific individual whom she claims are likely to have been the progeny of Joseph Smith. These individuals are examined, along with a comparison of Brodie’s claims against modern evidence.
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| {| valign="top" border="1" style="width:100%; font-size:85%"
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| !width="50%"|Brodie’s claim (‘’No Man Knows My History’’, p. 301, 345, 465)
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| !width="50%"|Modern evidence
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| |Brodie claims that “the physiognomy revealed in a rare photograph of Oliver Buell seems to weight the balance overwhelmingly on the side of Joseph’s paternity.”
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| ||Presendia Huntington Buell’s son, Oliver Buell, born sometime in 1838-1839, was confirmed to be the son of Norman Buell through DNA research in 2007.{{ref|deseretnews1}} Oliver is not the son of Joseph Smith, Jr.
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| |Brodie states that “[t]here is some evidence that Fannie Alger bore Joseph a child in Kirtland.”
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| ||Fanny Alger’s son Orrison Smith was determined through DNA testing in 2005 not to be a descendant of Joseph Smith, Jr.{{ref|perego1}}
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| |”Legend among the descendants of Levi W. Hancock points to another son of the prophet. If the legend is true, the child was probably John Reed Hancock, born April 19, 1841.”
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| ||Mosiah Hancock, born April 9th, 1834, who was thought to be one of Joseph’s children, was shown to be the son of Levi Hancock and Clarissa Hancock through DNA testing in 2007.{{ref|deseretnews2}} Nothing is yet known regarding John Reed Hancock.
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| |The son of Mary Rollins Lightner “may as easily have been the prophet’s son as that of Adam Lightner.”
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| || George Algernon Lightner, born March 22, 1842, died as an infant and therefore had no descendants. DNA testing cannot help determine paternity.
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| |Mrs. Orson Hyde’s sons Orson and Frank “could have been Joseph’s sons.”
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| || Orson Washington Hyde, born November 9, 1843, died as an infant and therefore had no descendants. DNA testing cannot help determine paternity.
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| |Mrs. Parley P. Pratt’s son Moroni “might also be added to this list.”
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| || Moroni Llewellyn Pratt, born December 7, 1844, was confirmed to be the son of Parley P. Pratt through DNA research. Moroni Pratt was not the son of Joseph Smith, Jr.{{ref|perego2}}
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| |”According to tradition,” Emma beat Eliza Snow and caused her to abort Joseph’s child.
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| ||{{nw}}
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| |Zina was “about seven months pregnant with Jacob’s child at the time of her marriage to the prophet.” (Brodie, p. 465) John D. Lee and William Hall stated that Zina had been “pregnant by Smith.”
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| ||Zina Diantha Huntington Jacob’s son Zebulon was ruled out as a Joseph Smith descendant by DNA testing in 2005.{{ref|perego3}}
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| |}
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| Josephine Lyon, daughter of Sylvia Sessions Lyon, is reported to have told her daughter that she “was the daughter of the Prophet Joseph Smith” shortly before she died. It is not known whether Sessions was referring to her daughter as being a literal descendant of Joseph Smith, or if she was referring to that fact that she had been sealed to the prophet. DNA testing is ongoing in order to make this determination, but it is rendered more difficult since the Y chromosome evidence of paternal lineage is not present in females.
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| ==Conclusion==
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| Critics have long had difficulty reconciling their concept of Joseph as a promiscuous womanizer with the fact that the only recorded children of the prophet are those that he had with Emma. Science is now shedding new light on this issue as DNA research has so far eliminated a number of possibilities that had long been rumored to be descendants of Joseph Smith.
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| ==Endnotes==
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| #{{note|deseretnews1}}[http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695226318,00.html DNA Tests rule out 2 as Smith descendants], ‘’Deseret News’’, Nov. 10, 2007
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| #{{note|perego1}}Ugo A. Perego, Natalie M. Myers, and Scott R. Woodward, “Reconstructing the Y-Chromosome of Joseph Smith Jr.: Genealogical Applications, ‘’Journal of Mormon History’’ Vol. 32, No. 2 (Summer 2005) 70-88.
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| #{{note|deseretnews2}}’’Deseret News’’, 2007.
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| #{{note|perego2}}Perego, Myers and Woodward, 2005.
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| #{{note|perego3}}Perego, Myers and Woodward, 2005.
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| ==Further reading==
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| ===FAIR wiki articles===
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| {{PolygamyWiki}}
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| ===FAIR web site===
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| {{PolygamyFAIR}}
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| ===External links===
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| {{PolygamyLinks}}
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| ===Printed material===
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| {{PolygamyPrint}}
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