Melissa Lott (Smith) Bernhisel Willes - wife #34

Melissa Lott (January 9, 1824 - July 13, 1898) moved with her family to Nauvoo in 1842. Her father, Cornelius, managed the Smith family farm a couple of miles south of town. Melissa soon moved in with the Smiths and helped out with Joseph and Emma's children. She moved back home as a single teen.

Then, towards the end of June, 1843, Joseph sent an entourage of secret wives to convince Melissa that she needed to marry him. Eliza Snow, Elvira Holmes, Elizabeth Durfee, and Elizabeth Whitney (mother of one of Joseph's teenage wives, Sarah Ann Whitney) dropped by the Lott farm for a chat.

Nineteen-year-old Melissa was secretly married to Joseph in September. Her parents were present as Melissa and Joseph vowed to keep themselves "wholly for each other" in the capacity of husband and wife. Melissa later confirmed that she was Joseph's wife "in very deed," which is to say they had sex. She even returned to the Smith home that winter. I wonder if Emma noticed anything.

Less than year after Joseph was murdered, Melissa married again, this time to a man named John Milton Bernhisel. Three years later, now in Utah, she married Ira Jones Willes, with whom she had six children: Achsa, Stephen, Lyman, Ira, Cornelius, and Polly.

Melissa lost her husband and son Cornelius in 1863. Achsa and Stephen also died before reaching adulthood.

Eliza Maria Partridge (Smith) Lyman - wife #22

Eliza Partridge (April 20, 1820 - 1885), the older and less attractive sister of Emily Partridge, only found out about the principle of plural marriage after moving in with the Smiths following her father's passing. Eliza and Emily were approached by Elizabeth Durfee, another of Joseph's secret wives, and they give in - Emily because she was lured into the Kimball home and pressured, Eliza because... because... I don't know. Maybe she saw that her sister went through with it, remembered, Elizabeth's talk, and reasoned that Joseph could not possibly be doing anything inappropriate. Either way she joined in the game within a week of her sister Emily, and, like Emily, was kicked out of the house once Emma hit her limit.

Following Joseph's death, Eliza married Amasa Mason Lyman, a member of the First Presidency at the time, not to mention a polygamist. His third wife, Caroline Partridge, was Eliza and Emily's sister (Eliza was his fourth). Another sister, Lydia, would become his eighth and final wife.

Eliza had a baby on her way west, but that child died. She had another child before arriving in Utah. She had five children in all.

Amasa was later excommunicated for apostasy and the Partridge sisters left him. Eliza remarried.

Eliza, who had been so disgusted by polygamy in her early twenties, spend her later years as an activist for polygamy.

Read her autobiography here.

Emily Dow Partridge (Smith) Young - wife #21

Emily Partridge (February 28, 1824 - 1899) ended up nannying for the Smiths after her father, Edward Partridge, bishop of Nauvoo, died in 1840. A year in Joseph asked Emily if she would be willing to read a secret letter and then burn it. She wouldn't.

Not long after that Elizabeth Durfee stepped in and had a sit down with Emily and her sister Eliza. The topic? Plural marriage.

Joseph approached Emily again on her nineteenth birthday, this time with words she couldn't decline to hear. Days later Elizabeth approached Emily again and send her to meet Joseph at Heber Kimball's home. It was a plot to get Joseph married to her right then and there. Heber's two children were sent to the neighbor's house and Emily was to leave with them, only she was immediately called back with loud whispers. She found herself alone with Joseph and Heber. Joseph explained that God had given her to him. She decided it best to go along with things and marry Joseph. The newly weds didn't consummate their marriage that night, but did sleep together on various occasions afterward.

This, people, sounds like an abduction, not a holy covenant. It resembles abuse, not love.

As usual the marriage took place without Emma's knowledge or permission. Joseph then used the temple endowment oath of wifely obedience to her husband to leverage Emma into accepting plural marriage. Emma was endowed only after accepting the Partridge sisters as sister wives and standing witness to a second farcical wedding.

 Denounce your husband and lose your crown? I think not!

Emma's acceptance of the situation did not last long. She eventually sent Emily and Eliza out of the house.

After Joseph's assassination Emily married Brigham Young, with whom she had seven children.

You can read her autobiography here.

Elizabeth Davis Goldsmith Brackenbury Durfee (Smith) Lott - wife #12

Elizabeth Durfee (March 11, 1791 - December 16, 1876), Joseph Smith's twelfth wife, gives us yet another case of Joseph marrying a woman who "belonged" to another man. At the time of her marriage to Joseph she was still Jabez Durfee, her third husband following the death of her previous two.

The Durfee's moved to Nauvoo with their ten children (she had had children with both of her previous husbands and Jabez had a few of his own as well) in 1839. She married Joseph Smith in 1842. She was 51 and, like the Patty Sessions, who was also older than Joseph, became a polygamy recruiter. Elizabeth was not a virgin and did not bear Joseph any children. Emma didn't know about this marriage either.

Elizabeth and Jabez separated shortly after Joseph's death. She married again, this time to Cornelius Lott. In addition to finding a fifth husband, she got a sister wife through Cornelius' daughter Melissa, who was also married to Joseph.

Elizabeth never made it out to Utah. Instead she grew tired of the Brighamites and went back to Nauvoo, where she joined Emma and Joseph Smith III in the Reformed LDS Church (Community of Christ).

Marry the prophet! Marry the prophet! Don't disobey!

What, pray tell, is holy about Joseph Smith recruiting older women to help convince young women to marry him? How awful is it to have pressure from both the prophet and a few select older women of the community? Did Elizabeth know that Joseph was having sex with some of his wives or did she think this was all a spiritual thing?