A Mormon Woman's Consent

Silence isn't consent. Religious and community pressure isn't consent. Threatening eternal damnation isn't consent.

This is a story of Mormon women. I cannot contain the entirety of our existence within this topic in one small essay, nor can I cover the myriad of issues and nuances we experience with it. But in a few small moments, I wish to paint vignettes of some women and their own experiences with consent in the Mormon world.

*

In 1843, Helen was only fourteen years old. Like most girls her age, she loved dancing and socializing. She was also a budding writer and poetess. She lived with her family in Nauvoo, a Mormon settlement on the banks of the Mississippi.

It was early summer when her father first sat her down. He spoke of the principle of plural marriage, or that men should have more than one wife. Helen was openly angry and upset at her father for the first time ever, by her own admission. In disbelief, she listened as he went to explain that he had offered her to Joseph Smith the prophet as a wife. “My father had but one Ewe Lamb, but willingly laid her upon the altar,” she wrote.

Like many other women who became his wives, she was given only 24 hours to decide if she would marry Joseph, a man 23 years her senior.

Helen wrote of her struggle for those hours, teetering between belief and doubt. She knew her father loved her and wouldn’t lead her astray; how then would he teach her something that wasn’t purely of God?

The next morning, Joseph appeared at their door. He spoke to her of celestial marriage and gave her an enormous responsibility. Not only did she need to decide if she would agree to become his plural wife, she held in her hands the salvation of her entire family. Smith explained to this young girl that if she agreed to the marriage, she would “ensure the eternal salvation and exaltation and that of your father’s household & all of your kindred.”

Her choice held a great a reward, but also a great condemnation. I could imagine her trembling under such a weight. Would she sacrifice herself so that her family could be saved?

Her own mother feared it, but said nothing to dissuade her. Though her heart had been broken and miserable since her husband had married Sarah Noon, Vilate did nothing but ask if Helen was willing and gave her consent. It was hardly enthusiastic permission or encouragement.

Despite all the reservations or fears, Helen agreed to the marriage and in May 1843, she, age 14, was married to Joseph Smith, age 37.

In her own words: “like a wild bird I longed for the freedom that was denied me.”

(Source: In Sacred Loneliness by Todd Compton)

Helen Mar Kimball later in life. Image from josephsmithpolygamy.org

*

Open your scriptures to D&C 132.

In 1843, having been recently converted to the new and everlasting covenant of plural marriage––celestial marriage, the Principle, the fullness of the Priesthood––Hyrum Smith wanted to help convert Emma.

Emma was his sister-in-law and Joseph Smith’s first wife. Between 1841 and 1843, Joseph had married approximately 30 women polygamously, with his wife only agreeing to a few of them. Most were conducted in secret without her knowledge. According to the Law of Sarah, as described in D&C 132:65, the first wife’s permission was needed for husband’s to take on plural wives. That law, though, had loopholes.

Hyrum encouraged his brother to dictate a revelation to Emma on polygamy, confident that it would seal her approval once and for all. Joseph agreed––possibly begrudgingly––and dictated a revelation to William Clayton, who wrote it down. Hyrum then took it to read to Emma, who promptly rejected it. Some accounts suggest she even threw it into the fire to burn.

In this revelation, Emma is named directly and told “if she will not abide this commandment [polygamy] she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord.” And again, “if any man have a wife, who holds the keys of this power [polygamy], and he teaches unto her the law of my priesthood [polygamy], as pertaining to these things, then shall she believe and administer unto him, or she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord your God; for I will destroy her,” … “and he is exempt from the law of Sarah.”

In what is now 66 verses, Joseph Smith proclaimed that men were allowed to obtain virgins to espouse as wives, and that the wife would obey and consent to it, or else be destroyed. Emma should agree to stop fighting Joseph on his secret and not-so-secret marriages to other women––some as young as 14 or already married to other men––or else she would be destroyed by God.

She never did.

These words are now entombed in our scriptures, a part of our doctrine. Women obey, or be destroyed.

In the 1907 Reed Smoot hearings, President Joseph F. Smith took the stand to testify on the church’s practices with polygamy before Congress. He spoke of Mormon women in general and their practice of polygamy in Utah:

Smith: The condition is that if she does not consent the Lord will destroy her, but I do not know how he will do it.

Question:  Is it not true that if she refuses her consent, her husband is exempt from the law which requires her consent?

Smith: Yes; he is exempt from the law which requires her consent. She is commanded to consent, but if she does not, then he is exempt from the requirement.

Question: Then he is at liberty to proceed without her consent, under the law. In other words, her consent amounts to nothing?

Smith: It amounts to nothing but her consent.

A woman’s consent amounts to nothing when placed against a righteous priesthood man.

(Source: Year of Polygamy Podcast. Quotes from Reed Smoot Proceedings 1907)

Emma Smith circa 1845

*

I’m twenty-one years old, seated in a padded fold-out chair in the Creation Room of the Los Angeles temple. I’m wearing a newly purchased white dress, one I tried on and picked with care weeks ago in a small dressing room at Deseret Book in Provo. On my lap, I clutch a fabric envelope with carefully folded sacred clothing. Clothing completely foreign to me, given without context by an old woman working in the distribution center for me to purchase.

I had stood with my mom as she asked me whether I wanted a straight cut apron or a rounded one? I looked to my mother for guidance, having no idea what an apron was or how it was used. We agreed to the rounded one, since it was more “feminine” as the worker suggested. Did I want a clip in veil or a tie veil? My mother preferred the clip in, but I went with tie. Where or how I would tie it made no sense to me, but I went along with the enthusiasm shown by the worker and my mother. I watched carefully as she taught me how to fold those clothes so they would fit into the white envelope.

Now sitting in the temple, I run my hands along the straight pin the worker placed along the top fold of the envelope to keep it closed, trying my hardest to remember how precisely she folded each item. I can’t forget or do it wrong.

I’m about to take out my endowment, a critical step before I get married and sealed to my fiance one week later. Without completing the endowment ceremony and making the sacred covenants contained within it, I won’t be allowed to get married to him in the temple––the literal crowning achievement of literally my entire existence. Nothing matters more than getting married in the temple to a worthy priesthood holder. This has been drilled into me since infancy.

I wonder back on my temple prep class as other patrons shuffle in and take their seats. I took it briefly at BYU during the second hour of church, taught by an elderly couple whose names I can’t remember. During the class, we read through a pamphlet on the importance of making covenants, or special promises, to God. We talked about how critical it was to keep what happens in the temple sacred and never speak of it outside the temples walls, and especially not to those who haven’t been through themselves. And so, that couple never told me what happens in the temple, what the ceremony would be like, or what I would covenant to do.

In fact, no one in my entire 21 years has ever told me a single thing about the temple, except that it was wonderful and sacred and crucial to my salvation. Without the temple, I would be doomed to the terrestial, or worse the telestial, kingdom for eternity. As a primary child, I sang “I love to see the temple, I’m going there someday” until the words were printed on my mind. In young women’s, we decorated signs about the temple being our castle and our future husbands being our princes. We tried on leader’s wedding dresses and learned to iron white shirts.

Everything in my upbringing pointed me to temple. It was as much a part of my future one day as getting wrinkles and going gray.

So now I’m here, ready––I think––to take this step and get married. I’d prayed and pondered and studied. I’d felt the Spirit. I’m here and doing this. What other choice do I have?

The temple ceremony starts. A disembodied voice tells us we can raise our hand and leave right now rather than make these sacred covenants because God will not be mocked. My heart pounds in my chest. Of course, I do not raise my hand. Though I do not even know what it is I will be promising. How could I stand in front of my family, this crowd of members, even my future husband? It would destroy everything I’d built. So I sit and squirm in my chair.

The ceremony goes on. I follow instructions, helped by my gentle mother. I promise to obey my husband. I didn’t think I would have to do that. My inner self cries out and hates it, but I do it anyways. I don’t know half of what I promise to do or what these signs and tokens can possibly mean. But each moment, my anxiety rises. I must remember each and every single one, otherwise I won’t get to pass the angels who stand as sentinels and get into heaven.

We do a prayer circle. The instructions invite couples to come forward and participate. I’d rather jump off a cliff than go up in front of everyone and do who knows what. But then I watch in abject terror as my future husband crosses the room and holds out his hand to me, signaling that I should stand and join him. He wants to do the prayer circle. I want to melt into the floor. But I just promised to obey him. So I take his hand and go up to the altar to fumble through whatever they will ask me to do.

At the end, I stumble forward to go through the veil, the last of all the patrons. The workers want me to wait so it won’t be as loud when my husband takes me through the veil. My stomach clenches. I didn’t know that would be a thing; that my husband would stand on the other side of this sacred white fabric cascading from the ceiling and take me through the final steps. What if I fail and don’t remember it all? Or say it wrong? What if he decides I’m not good enough to marry in seven days?

And then I have to tell him my new name, which I promised to never reveal except when instructed. This is the only time I will ever be allowed in my lifetime to say this special new name aloud and it will be only for my husband’s ears. He will carry my name with him his entire life to bind me as his… but I will never know his new name.

I cross at last through the veil and into the Celestial Room. Family stands waiting to greet me in the large, white and beige room with enormous chandeliers. They hug me, kiss me, tell me how proud they are of me. I beam, soaking in their praise. Praise I wouldn’t have had if I hadn’t stuck through it. Now I’m allowed to ask questions, after I’ve done the things not before, in this small, sacred space. But as I try to even begin to think of questions, I’m overwhelmed. And the few I manage to get out, I’m met with a chorus of well we don’t knows, and it’ll all make sense one days, and it’s symbolic of somethings.

So no one knows. No one truly knows.

I went through almost two hours of confusion and it turns out everyone is walking in the same fog. We're all here on a hope and a prayer that one day it’ll all make sense, with just the gleanings of what we’ve figured out for ourselves through ponderings, but none of those are officially sanctioned or even shared.

The following week a similar ceremony takes place for my wedding. Only this time, I kneel at an altar across from the husband, and listen to the covenant from a man of authority dressed in white. I’m told not to look at my husband at all during the ceremony, but instead to look at the man reciting the words. I’m told to remember them and cherish them. And then at the end of the words, I’m to say “yes” and we will be pronounced married.

But I don’t know what I’m saying yes to. I haven’t been told the ceremony or the covenant in advance. I simply know that in order to get married, to get sealed and live forever with this man that I love more than anything, I have to say yes. Whatever he says, I have to say yes. And so I do. I give myself to husband, though he doesn’t give himself to me in return. He covenants to preside over me.

I’m married to my husband by the words of another man. Words I’m never allowed to discuss outside of the temple or share with others. Words I can hardly remember. Words I didn’t write or read before. Words I will never speak aloud myself because I am not man.

And now years later, I struggle and I mourn for that 21 year old girl. The one who knew nothing, but gave everything.

Babies. We were babies.

*

Consent is free of coercion. Silence is not consent. Holding eternal damnation or loss of eternal family over someone is not consent. Spiritual manipulation is not consent. Wielding priesthood authority over someone else is not consent. Withholding blessings or opportunities in order to get compliance is not consent.

Being told you must become a polygamous wife or condemn your entire family is not consent. Marrying more women whether or not your wife agrees is not consent. Telling her she’ll be destroyed is not consent. Going to the temple with no idea what covenants you will make or what truly happens there is not consent.* Getting married without knowing what you will be promising to God and your spouse is not consent. Being forced to become a polygamist after you’ve passed because your husband remarries is not consent. Being told you must go on a mission because you were baptized at age eight is not consent. Agreeing to callings because you’ve been told to never say no is not consent. Pressuring your children to stay on the covenant path or face exile from their family is not consent. Refusing to give degrees a student earned if their faith changes while in college is not consent.

Consent isn’t static. It’s not something you give once as a blank check for anything else that happens. It can change and reshape as you grow. You can consent to something one day and then not the next. Decisions you made yesterday do not hold tomorrow hostage.

We can’t make true, informed choices without real consent. Our agency means nothing when we are coerced, pressured, and manipulated into choices, or when it is weaponized against us.

*

Hope is not lost. I cling to the scripture that we can assuredly hope for a better world, a better world that can be built here and now if only we’ll listen and stretch ourselves to be more Christlike. The church can change. We can all be a part of this movement by speaking up when we feel our consent is violated, by teaching our children to use their agency with true consent, and by pushing for reforms. We can be a part of the solution by treating our children, and the children of others in the church programs, better than we were treated. We can refuse to participate in things that make us uncomfortable. We can trust our own inner voices, which I truly believe is the real Spirit of Christ and Holy Ghost.

I worship an expansive God, one that’s more than our wildest imaginations can comprehend. Their love is ever-expansive and all-encompassing. They don’t force or steal agency. They aren’t scared of us using our choices to their full extent without threat or pressure to comply because They know They have us in Their hands. They know that Christ’s grace cover us all. They know we will all be safely gathered in.

*The church has in the last couple of years started publicly sharing the covenants made in the temple. I see this as an awesome step forward and such a great thing! However, the temple endowment is still extremely foreign and symbolic in nature, and very little else about it is allowed, at least culturally, to be discussed. I believe more could be shared and talked about, even the majority of the “script” could be published. They also do not share the temple sealing covenant prior to a couples’ sealing to my knowledge. If the member has been previously endowed before marriage, they can attend proxy sealings and learn what is said. But for many, women especially, their own sealing is the first sealing they ever attend. I believe the church could do better and share the actual words of the covenant for couples’ well in advance.