This compelling essay, an excerpt from the book No Weapon Shall Prosper: New Light on Sensitive Issues, delves into one of the most complex and often controversial aspects of early Latter-day Saint history: Joseph Smith's practice of plural marriage. The piece focuses on the experience of Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, who at fourteen became the Prophet's youngest plural wife in Nauvoo in May 1843.

Author J. Spencer Fluhman meticulously reconstructs Helen Mar's tumultuous spiritual and emotional journey, using her own candid writings—including reminiscences, autobiographical sketches, and diary entries—as a unique window into the period. The essay explores the pressures, anguish, and ultimate faith that defined her decision, which she and her family viewed as an "Abrahamic test" necessary for their "eternal salvation and exaltation". While a clear picture of all early plural marriages remains elusive, this single-subject study offers modern readers profound insight into the complicated beliefs, doctrines, and sacrifices that characterized the nineteenth-century Latter-day Saint experience.

This is a vital read for anyone seeking a deeper, more nuanced understanding of a difficult, yet foundational, chapter in Church history.