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Joseph Smith's performance of marriages in Ohio

Summary: Critics charge that Joseph Smith performed monogamous marriages for time of already-married members, violating Ohio law in Kirtland. Such claims are false and represent a misunderstanding about the marriage and divorce law of the day.

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• Question: Did Joseph Smith violate marriage laws in Ohio by performing marriages?
• Question: When Joseph Smith performed the marriage of Newel Knight and Lydia Bailey, were they guilty of bigamy since Lydia had not been formally divorced from her previous husband?

Question: Did Joseph Smith violate marriage laws in Ohio by performing marriages?

Jump to details:

• Question: Did Joseph Smith violate marriage laws in Ohio by performing marriages?
• Joseph did not knowingly violate marriage laws in Ohio, and seems to have used his prophetic gifts to spare victims of the nineteenth-century's legal and bureaucratic immaturity unnecessary suffering
• The Knight-Bailey wedding was not illegal, since Newel Knight obtained a marriage license from the secular authorities
• A review of Ohio state law demonstrates that Joseph's decision to perform marriages was correct

Question: When Joseph Smith performed the marriage of Newel Knight and Lydia Bailey, were they guilty of bigamy since Lydia had not been formally divorced from her previous husband?

Jump to details:

• Question: When Joseph Smith performed the marriage of Newel Knight and Lydia Bailey, were they guilty of bigamy since Lydia had not been formally divorced from her previous husband?
• Lydia and Newel were aware of the prohibition on bigamy, and Lydia refused to marry Newel until they approached Joseph for his counsel
• Ohio law had, until just prior to their wedding, allowed spouses to remarry without formal divorce if they had been abandoned for three years
• The Knights' predicament highlights an aspect of early nineteenth-century marriage which modern readers often ignore
• Despite potentially violating some legal niceties, however, Lydia almost certainly did not engage in bigamy since her previous husband had died

To learn more: D&C 1835 edition, Section CI denies polygamy

See also

Latter-day Saints and divorce in the nineteenth century

Jump to Subtopic:

• Divorce among Mormons in the 19th century
• Joseph Smith's performance of marriages in Ohio

To see citations to the critical sources for these claims, click here

Notes