Faith, Facts, and Fanny Alger: Why We Don’t Build Doctrine on What We Don’t Know
The Fanny Alger situation is one of the most misread episodes in Church history. Here is what the evidence actually shows — and what it does not.
The Danger of Building on Silence
One of the greatest errors in religious reasoning is when people take what is not revealed and turn it into dogma. That is the very definition of speculation.
Take for example the thief on the cross. How many preachers and theologians have argued that this man is proof of salvation by faith alone? Yet the truth is we know almost nothing about his life before that day. He could very well have been a disciple of John, already baptized by water unto repentance (Luke 3:3). He could have walked with Christ earlier, fallen away, and in that final hour returned in humility. The scriptures give us only the scene at Golgotha, not his whole discipleship record. To turn his deathbed plea into a universal doctrine of faith-alone salvation is to build castles in the clouds — unsupported and unsupportable.
The same principle applies to one of the most frequently criticized episodes in the life of Joseph Smith: his early plural marriage to Fanny Alger.
What We Actually Know
The Relationship: Joseph and Fanny were united in a secret, religiously framed marriage in Kirtland sometime in the mid-1830s. Later accounts disagree on the exact date and who performed the ceremony, but they agree that a covenant was made.
The Sealing Keys: On April 3, 1836, Elijah restored the sealing power in the Kirtland Temple (Doctrine & Covenants 110). From that moment forward, Joseph possessed explicit authority to seal marriages for eternity.
The Timeline Tension: If Joseph and Fanny’s union occurred in late 1835 or early 1836, it would have been very near in time to the restoration of those sealing keys. Some date estimates place it before, some after. We simply do not know.
The Later Resolution: In 1899, Fanny was sealed by proxy to Joseph Smith in the Salt Lake Temple under President Lorenzo Snow. This act shows how later prophets treated the union — as legitimate, needing only to be recorded properly.
What We Do Not Know
We do not know the exact month of the marriage. We do not know whether it occurred before or after April 3, 1836. We do not know if Joseph intended it as a sealing (for eternity) or as a “time only” covenant to be completed later. All sources on these questions are secondhand, conflicting, and decades late.
So what do we do? Exactly what we must do with the thief on the cross: refuse to build sweeping doctrines on missing pieces.
Two Solid, Non-Speculative Interpretations
If before April 3, 1836: Joseph performed a religious marriage for time only, acting under his prophetic and Melchizedek Priesthood authority, obeying a divine commandment that foreshadowed later sealing ordinances. The sealing itself could then be completed later — and indeed, it was, in 1899.
If after April 3, 1836: Joseph performed the marriage under the sealing keys restored by Elijah, making it an eternal covenant.
The Chronology and the Law
The Fanny Alger relationship (approximately 1833–1836) predates D&C 132 by approximately a decade — D&C 132 was recorded in 1843. Critics routinely apply a law retroactively that did not exist in its written, codified form at the time of the events they are judging. This is not a technicality. It is a fundamental error of historical reasoning.
This does not mean Joseph acted without any understanding of plural marriage. He taught the principle privately years before it was formally recorded. But teaching a principle privately, under divine direction, while the full revealed framework is still being given — and then being judged by the completed text a decade later — is anachronistic criticism. It would be like judging Abraham’s marriage to Hagar by the standards of the Mosaic covenant, which would not be given for generations.
What D&C 132:61–63 actually requires is that the first wife give consent and be informed. Emma’s knowledge of and reaction to Fanny Alger is historically disputed. Some accounts suggest she knew; others suggest she did not. The honest answer is that the historical record is incomplete, and reasonable people reading the same sources reach different conclusions. That ambiguity is not evidence of guilt — it is evidence of an incomplete record.
The secrecy charge deserves a direct confrontation: Joseph operated under literal threat of death. The Missouri Extermination Order of 1838 — signed by Governor Lilburn Boggs — made it legal to kill members of the Church on sight. That is not a metaphor. That is a documented government order authorizing murder. The environment in which Joseph operated in the 1830s was one of mob violence, tarring and feathering, illegal imprisonment, and lethal persecution. Discussing plural marriage publicly in that climate would have accelerated and intensified violence against thousands of people.
The code language in early revelations and the private teaching of plural marriage were not deception as a character trait — they were survival tactics in a documented climate of murderous persecution. The early Christian church operated in similar secrecy under Roman persecution and is never condemned for it. The standard being applied to Joseph Smith is not being applied universally.
The Consent and Secrecy Charge — Examined
The Charge, Stated Fairly
Critics raise a pointed and serious objection: the Joseph–Fanny relationship was conducted in secrecy, Emma did not consent, and it predates any formal revelation on plural marriage. They argue that without a revealed framework, without Emma’s knowledge, and without public accountability, this was not a religious marriage at all — it was an affair. The charge deserves a direct answer, not a deflection.
D&C 132 and the Timing of Revelation
The revealed standard for plural marriage is found in D&C 132:61:
D&C 132:61
“And again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood — if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified; he cannot commit adultery for both of them are appointed unto him.”
This revelation was recorded in 1843. The Fanny Alger situation was approximately 1835–1836. The consent standard critics invoke to condemn Joseph was not yet formally codified — it was part of a framework being revealed incrementally. Joseph was not violating D&C 132; D&C 132 had not yet been given.
This is a pattern woven throughout scripture. Abraham practiced plural marriage (Genesis 16) long before the Mosaic law codified Israel’s covenant structure. Jacob married two sisters (Genesis 29) under a covenant arrangement that preceded formal legislation. Prophets act on partial revelation while the full framework is still being given. Joseph Smith was doing precisely that — receiving a principle line upon line, not being handed a completed manual and then deliberately deviating from it.
Secrecy Is Not Automatically Guilt
The secrecy is real and must be acknowledged honestly. It caused real pain to Emma. It created real confusion in the early Church. The emotional weight of that should not be minimized. But secrecy in religious practice under genuine threat of persecution is not automatically evidence of wrongdoing.
The early Christian disciples met in secret under threat of Roman persecution (Acts 12:12). Jesus himself instructed those he healed to tell no man, until the appointed time (Matthew 8:4). Revelation is sometimes given quietly before it is publicly proclaimed — not because it is shameful, but because the world is not yet prepared to receive it. The command to Joseph to practice plural marriage was given years before he was commanded to teach it publicly. Secrecy in that context is not deception; it is obedience to the timing God set.
The anti-polygamy laws being considered in that era were not abstract — they carried real social and legal consequences. That historical pressure is part of the context critics consistently omit.
The Standard Being Applied Is Not Universal
Critics who press the consent charge against Joseph Smith should apply that standard consistently. In 1830s frontier America, arranged marriages were common. Wives had limited legal standing. Age gaps that would raise eyebrows today were unremarkable. Marriages were routinely conducted without anything resembling modern informed consent — and none of those are labeled criminal or called affairs by the same critics.
The standard being applied to Joseph Smith is not a universal ethical standard. It is a selective one — elevated and applied specifically to condemn him, while being silently waived for everyone around him. That is not rigorous historical analysis. That is motivated reasoning dressed up as moral concern.
The Verdict
The Fanny Alger situation is historically complex. Joseph operated under early, incomplete revelation — before the full framework of D&C 132 was given, before the consent standard was formally codified, and before the sealing keys had been restored. He was not violating a revealed law he had been given; he was receiving a principle incrementally, as prophets always have.
The clean narrative critics prefer — “Joseph was simply a predator” — is not what the evidence requires. The retroactive application of D&C 132, combined with incomplete historical records and the physical danger Joseph operated under, means that narrative oversimplifies a genuinely complex situation. Complexity is not exoneration, but it is not guilt either. It is history doing what history does: resisting tidy conclusions.
Where the consent standard of D&C 132:61 was later violated in subsequent plural marriages, those were human failures — not failures of the doctrine. What the Gospel of Jesus Christ teaches is that God authorized plural marriage under specific conditions, administered through proper priesthood authority. That is supported by the Bible, by D&C 132, by the historical practice of the patriarchs, and by the prophetic ratification of the 1899 temple sealing.
The hard history does not change the revealed doctrine. It complicates the story — as all human history does — but it does not overturn the revelation. Critics who demand a cleaner story than the Bible itself provides have already disqualified every prophet in it.
Conclusion
When critics seize upon the Alger timeline, they are doing exactly what others do with the thief on the cross — constructing bold conclusions from silence. But the Gospel of Jesus Christ teaches us to build on revelation, not conjecture.
The facts are these:
What the Record Shows
- D&C 110 — God gave Elijah’s sealing power on April 3, 1836.
- Historical record — Joseph Smith entered into a covenant marriage with Fanny Alger at roughly the same time.
- 1899 Temple sealing — Later prophets ratified that union by sealing Fanny to Joseph in the Salt Lake Temple.
- D&C 132:61 — The full consent framework was revealed in 1843 — after the Fanny Alger situation, not before.
- Missouri Extermination Order (1838) — Joseph operated under documented, state-sanctioned threat of lethal violence that made public disclosure of plural marriage genuinely dangerous.
That is what we know. What lies beyond is the Lord’s prerogative, not ours. But what we know is enough. The God who commanded Abraham, Jacob, and Moses did not abandon His pattern of working through imperfect prophets in imperfect circumstances to accomplish His purposes. Joseph Smith stands in that line. The revelation he received stands. The hard questions are real — and they have real answers, for those willing to follow the evidence where it leads.