Women and Authority -- chapter 17

Women and Authority:
Re-emerging Mormon Feminism

Edited by
Maxine Hanks

Signature Books; Salt Lake City, Utah
© 1992 by Signature Books.

Mormon Women and Authority
5. An Expanded Definition of Priesthood?: Some Present and Future Consequences
6. Mormon Women as "Natural" Seers: An Enduring Legacy
7. Non-Hierarchical Revelation
8. Let Women No Longer Keep Silent in Our Churches: Women's Voices in Mormonism
9. The Grammar of Inequity
10. Healing the Motherless House
11. Personal Discourse on God the Mother
12. Emerging Discourse on the Divine Feminine

Mormon Women and Priesthood
13. Mormonism's Odd Couple: The Priesthood-Motherhood Connection
14. ister Missionaries and Authority
15. Reconciliation
16. Why Shouldn't Mormon Women Want This Priesthood?
17. Mormon Women Have Had the Priesthood since 1843
18. Put on Your Strength O Daughters of Zion: Claiming Priesthood and Knowing the Mother
19. Women as Healers in the Modern Church

XVII.

Mormon Women Have Had the Priesthood Since 1843

D. Michael Quinn

Notes:

D. Michael Quinn holds a Ph.D. in history from Yale University. He resigned in 1988 from Brigham Young University as full professor and director of the graduate history program. Since then he has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, and the Huntington Library. His recent publications include “Religion in the American West,” in Under An Open Sky: Rethinking America's Western Past, and “Plural Marriage and Mormon Fundamentalism,” in Fundamentalisms and Society: Reclaiming the Sciences, the Family, and Education. He lives in Salt Lake City. “Mormon Women Have Had the Priesthood Since 1843” is an expansion of his “Response,” Sunstone 6 (Sept.-Oct. 1981): 26-27.

1. Carol Cornwall Madsen, “Mormon Women and the Temple: Toward a New Understanding,” in Maureen Ursenbach Beecher and Lavina Fielding Anderson, eds., Sisters in the Spirit: Mormon Women in Historical and Cultural Perspective (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987), 87-88. See also Alma P. Burton, “Endowment,” and Allen Claire Rozsa, “Temple Ordinances,” in Daniel H. Ludlow, ed., Encyclopedia of Mormonism: The History, Scripture, Doctrine, and Procedure of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 5 vols. (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1992), 2:454-56, 4:1444.

2. Claudia Lauper Bushman, “Mystics and Healers,” in Bushman, ed., Mormon Sisters: Women in Early Utah (Salt Lake City: Olympus Publishing Co., 1976), 1-23; Linda King Newell, “A Gift Given, A Gift Taken: Washing, Anointing, and Blessing the Sick Among Mormon Women,” Sunstone 6 (Sept.-Oct. 1981): 16-25, reprinted in D. Michael Quinn, ed., The New Mormon History: Revisionist Essays on the Past (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1991); Linda King Newell, “Gifts of the Spirit: Women's Share,” in Beecher and Anderson, Sisters in Spirit, 111-50; Betina Lindsey, “Woman as Healer in the Modern Church,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 23 (Fall 1990): 39-61, 63-76. Martha Nibley Beck, “Women, Roles of Historical and Sociological Development,” in Ludlow, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 4:1574, briefly acknowledges that early Mormon “women received personal revelation, healed the sick, prophesied future events, and performed various other actions that required spiritual gifts.”

3. Discussion of this issue has appeared in Carol Cornwall Madsen, “Mormon Women and the Struggle for Definition: The Nineteenth Century Church,” Sunstone 6 (Nov.-Dec. 1981): 7-11, reprinted in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 14 (Winter 1981): 40-47; Margaret M. Toscano, “The Missing Rib: The Forgotten Place of Queens and Priestesses in the Establishment of Zion,” Sunstone 10 (July 1985): 16-22; Jill Mulvay Derr, “An Endowment of Power: The LDS Tradition,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 16 (Autumn 1984): 17-21; Linda King Newell, “The Historical Relationship of Mormon Women and the Priesthood,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 18 (Autumn 1985): 21-32; Madsen, “Mormon Women and the Temple,” in Sisters in Spirit, 80-110; and Paul James Toscano and Margaret Merrill Toscano, Strangers in Paradox: Explorations in Mormon Theology (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1990), 179-97.

4. Joseph Smith statement, 30 Mar. 1842, in microfilm copies of original minutes of the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, Joseph Smith Collection, at the following locations: Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah; the Archives, History Commission, The Auditorium, Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Independence, Missouri; and in transcript copy in Linda King Newell papers, Western Americana, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City; Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, The Words of Joseph Smith: The Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1980), 110; Jill Mulvay Derr, Janath Russell Cannon, and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, Women of Covenant: The Story of Relief Society (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992), 43, 53.

In citing manuscript sources, I give priority to locations which are available to the general public. For sources to which access is restricted, my verbatim typescripts are also a location.

5. Note forthcomming or see: Women and Athority page 387

6. “LDS Women's Place? New Conflict Emerges,” Salt Lake Tribune, 11 Apr. 1992, A-10. President of Seventy Loren C. Dunn “had the quotations removed, saying he could not justify them to his superiors.”

7. Minutes of the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, 28 Apr. 1842, 38; Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, 117. This passage was also changed in HC 4:604.

Derr, Cannon, and Beecher, Women of Covenant, 47, delete the “as well as to the Elders” reference in the original minutes. This deletion leads to the claim on page 447n80 that the original minutes are unclear as to whether “the Prophet was referring to Relief Society or priesthood leaders `placed at the head to lead.'” The authors do not explain if this use of the manuscript minutes was their decision or was part of the “counsel” they received from “members of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles and the Quorum of Seventy” (xii).

8. For explanation of “signs and tokens” and “true order of prayer,” see Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. (Liverpool and London: Latter-day Saints' Book Depot, 1854-86), 2:31, 18:132, 19:250; Heber C. Kimball diary (written by William Clayton), 11, 21 Dec. 1845, in George D. Smith, ed., An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton (Salt Lake City: Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, 1991), 205, 208, 221, 226, 228; Hugh W. Nibley, “The Early Christian Prayer Circle,” and D. Michael Quinn, “Latter-day Saint Prayer Circles,” Brigham Young University Studies 19 (Fall 1978): 41-78, 80-81; George S. Tate, “Prayer Circle,” in Ludlow, Encyclopedia of Mormonism 3:1120-21; Sheri L. Dew, Ezra Taft Benson: A Biography (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1987), 190.

9. Minutes of the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, 28 Apr. 1842, 40; Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, 118; Sheri L. Dew, “'Something Extraordinary,'” Ensign 22 (Mar. 1992): 52. This passage was also changed in HC 4:607. Derr, Cannon, and Beecher, Women of Covenant, 47, quote the unaltered minutes, and pages 49, 74 refer to the alteration of this quote in official history.

10. Note forthcomming or see: Women and Athority page 389

11. Book of the Law of the Lord, 28 Apr. 1842, in Dean C. Jessee, ed., The Papers of Joseph Smith, Vol. 2 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992), 378-79. This emphasis on “gifts of the priesthood” is absent in the HC 4:603 version of the prophet's remarks on women healing the sick and casting out devils.

12. Dallin H. Oaks, “The Relief Society and the Church,” Ensign 22 (May 1992): 36. In quoting from Nauvoo Relief Society minutes, Elder Oaks does not cite the prophet's promise “to make of this Society a `kingdom of priests' as in Enoch's day.” On the same page, Elder Oaks also describes Joseph Smith's instructions about women “laying on hands to bless one another” as though this referred to the initiatory ordinances of the endowment without acknowledging that healing was the actual context of the prophet's remarks. Then with no mention that Mormon women performed healing ordinances from the 1840s to the 1940s, Elder Oaks continues: “During the century that followed, as temples became accessible to most members, 'proper order' required that these and other sacred practices be confined within those temples.” See discussion of healing ordinances below. Undoubtedly, the above were unintentional mistakes in the use of historical evidence.

13. For discussion of this see HC 5:1-2 and 2n; Robert Bruce Flanders, Nauvoo: Kingdom on the Mississippi (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1965), 271-73; Quinn, “Latter-day Saint Prayer Circles”; Andrew F. Ehat, “Joseph Smith's Introduction of Temple Ordinances and the 1844 Mormon Succession Question,” M.A. thesis, Brigham Young University, 1982; David John Buerger, “`The Fulness of the Priesthood': The Second Anointing in Latter-day Saint Theology and Practice,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 16 (Spring 1983): 10-44; Beecher, “Women in Winter Quarters,” 15; Buerger, “The Development of the Mormon Temple Endowment Ceremony,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 20 (Winter 1987): 44-52. The first endowed men were Joseph Smith, James Adams, Hyrum Smith, William Law, Newel K. Whitney, George Miller, Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Willard Richards, and William Marks. See Book of the Law of the Lord, 4 May 1842 in Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:380; Heber C. Kimball diary, entry after 19 Oct. 1843, in Stanley B. Kimball, ed., On the Potter's Wheel: The Diaries of Heber C. Kimball (Salt Lake City: Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, 1987), 55-56; Heber C. Kimball sermon, 21 Dec.

1845, in George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 222 (Smith identifies George J. Adams, instead of James Adams, as one of the first endowed men; George J. Adams never received the endowment). Because of their later disaffection, HC 5:1-2 omitted the names of Law and Marks who were included in the original entry in the Book of the Law of the Lord, 4 May 1842.

14. Hyrum Smith patriarchal blessing to Leonora Taylor, 28 July 1843, archives, Historical Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah (hereafter LDS archives); Madsen, “Mormon Women and the Temple,” 101.

15. Scott H. Faulring, ed., An American Prophet's Record: The Diaries and Journals of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, 1989), 381.

16. Hyrum Smith patriarchal blessing to Olive G. Frost, 17 Sept. 1843, LDS archives.

17. “Meetings of anointed Quorum [—] Journalizings,” 28 Sept. 1843, original title of loose sheets beginning 26 May 1843, Joseph Smith papers, microfilm at Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, and at RLDS Archives, The Auditorium, Independence, Missouri; also slightly different entry in Faulring, An American Prophet's Record, 416. The “Meetings of anointed Quorum [—] Journalizings” shows that in six meetings from 26 May to the morning of 28 September 1843 the endowed men were consistently called a “Council.” This document's first reference to “Quorum” is for the evening meeting on 28 September. The endowed men who voted for Joseph Smith as president of the Anointed Quorum were Hyrum Smith, George Miller, Newel K. Whitney, Willard Richards, John Smith, John Taylor, Amasa Lyman, Lucien Woodworth, John M. Bernhisel, William Law, and William Marks. See next note.

18. Willard Richards diary, 11 Sept. 1843, LDS archives; the “quorum” reference for 28 September was in “History of Joseph Smith,” Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star 22 (31 Mar. 1860): 198, but was deleted in HC 6:31. See previous note.

19. Derr, Cannon, Beecher, Women of Covenant, 55.

20. “Meetings of anointed Quorum [—] Journalizings,” 28 Sept. 1843; also slightly different entry in Joseph Smith diary, 28 Sept. 1843, in Faulring, An American Prophet's Record, 416. Ehat, “Joseph Smith's Introduction of Temple Ordinance,” 76-96; Buerger, “The Fulness of the Priesthood,” 10-44; Buerger, “The Development of the Mormon Temple Endowment Ceremony,” 44-52; Madsen, “Mormon Women and the Temple,” 102.

21. Wilford Woodruff, “Historian's Private Journal,” 26 Feb. 1867, LDS archives, introduced the phrase “second Anointing” into the quote from the prophet's diary for 28 September 1843. Apostle Woodruff did this after consultation with Church Historian George A. Smith. HC 6:39 dropped Elder Woodruff's addition and then altered the wording and meaning of the 1843 quote.

22. Woodruff, Historian's Private Journal, 26 Feb. 1867; Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star 22 (7 Apr. 1860): 214; HC 6:46.

23. Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star 37 (2 Feb. 1875): 66; Wilford Woodruff, George Q. Cannon, and Joseph F. Smith to presidents of stakes and bishops of wards, 6 Nov. 1891, LDS archives; Young Woman's Journal 5 (Aug. 1894): 11; Hyrum L. Andrus, Joseph Smith, the Man and the Seer (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1961), 125n; Nels B. Lundwall (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1962), 272; Matthias F. Cowley, Wilford Woodruff . . . (1909; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1965), 198; James R. Clark, ed., Messages of the First Presidency, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1965-71), 3:228.

24. Heber C. Kimball diary, 21 Dec. 1845, in Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 227.

25. Phinehas Richards diary, 22 Jan. 1846, LDS archives, gives this description the day he receives the second anointing. Daniel Tyler, “Temples,” Juvenile Instructor 15 (15 May 1880): 111, used the term “fulness of the priesthood” and said that this ordinance makes them “kings and priests, queens and priestesses to God . . .” First Presidency counselor George Q. Cannon edited the Juvenile Instructor at this time.

26. Concerning the corresponding ordinances for males, first counselor George Q. Cannon stated on 2 August 1883: “Brother Nuttall whispers to me a thing with which you are no doubt all familiar; that in the washing that takes place in the first endowment, they are washed that they might become clean from the blood of this generation—that is, I suppose, in the same way they are ordained to be Kings and Priests—that is, that ordinance does not make them clean from the blood of this generation any more than it makes them Kings and Priests. It requires another ordinance [the second anointing] to make them Kings and Priests.” See Merle H. Graffam, ed., Salt Lake School of the Prophets: Minute Book, 1883 (Palm Desert, CA: ULC Press, 1981), 14, emphasis in original.

27. Sidney Rigdon to Stephen Post, [June] 1868, LDS archives (it should be noted that Rigdon had left the LDS church more than twenty years earlier); Ehat, "Joseph Smith's Introduction of Temple Ordinances," 103; Buerger, "The Fulness of the Priesthood," 23; HC 6:363, 392. Also Ian G. Barber, “The Ecclesiastical Position of Women in Two Mormon Trajectories,” Journal of Mormon History 14 (1988): 63-79, analyzes priesthood promises and activities of women within two post-1844 Mormon groups: Rigdon's “Children of Zion” and Alpheus Cutler's Church of Christ. Rigdon did not enter the Anointed Quorum to receive the endowment until 11 May 1844. Joseph Smith might have been willing to allow him to receive the second anointing, but Rigdon's wife was in Pittsburgh and Rigdon left Nauvoo in June. By the time he returned in August, he was a rival to Brigham Young, who was in charge of all temple ordinances. Therefore Rigdon never received the second anointing before his excommunication in September 1844.

28. See Buerger, “The Fulness of the Priesthood”; Barber, “Two Mormon Trajectories,” 72.

29. Brigham Young diary, 29 Oct., 1 Nov. 1843, copies in Donald R. Moorman [sic] papers, Archives, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, and in H. Michael Marquardt papers, Western Americana, Marriott Library, University of Utah; “Meetings of anointed Quorum [—] Journalizings,” 29 Oct., 1 Nov. 1843; Faulring, An American Prophet's Record, 426-27; Ehat, “Joseph Smith's Introduction of Temple Ordinances,” 102; Buerger, “The Fulness of the Priesthood,” 23.

30. William Clayton diary, 3 Feb. 1844, 7 Dec. 1845, in Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 125, 193; “Meetings of the anointed Quorum”; Joseph Smith diary, 3 Feb. 1844, in Faulring, An American Prophet's Record, 444; Ehat, “Joseph Smith's Introduction of Temple Ordinances,” 103; Buerger, “The Fulness of the Priesthood,” 23.

31. John Smith patriarchal blessing to Maria Louisa Turnbow, 7 Nov. 1845, in William S. Harwell, The Matriarchal Priesthood and Emma's Right to Succession as Presiding High Priestess and Queen (Salt Lake City: Collier's Publishing Co., 1991), 7.

32. Bathsheba W. Smith statement, 9 June 1905, Pioneer Stake Relief Society minutes, LDS archives, quoted in part by Derr, Cannon, and Beecher, Women of Covenant, 53-54; Ehat, “Joseph Smith's Introduction of Temple Ordinances,” 103. As previously quoted from the minutes of 30 March 1842, Joseph Smith's original words were that he wanted to make the Relief Society “a 'kingdom of priests' as in Enoch's day—as in Paul's day.”

33:

Name

Date Anointed and Endowed

Second Anointing

Emma Hale (Smith) 28 Sep. 1843 28 Sep. 1843

Jane Silverthorne (Law) 1 Oct. 1843 Did not receive

Rosannah Robinson (Marks) 1 Oct. 1843 22 Oct. 1843

Lucy Mack (Smith) 8 Oct. 1843 12 Nov. 1843
(With dead husband)

Fanny Young
(Carr, Murray, Smith) 23 Dec. 1843 In temple

Mary Catherine Fry (Miller) By 24 June 1844 (Probably bet. 23 Dec. 1843 and 3 Feb. 1844) 15 Aug. 1844

Sarah M. Bates (Pratt) Accepted 22 Dec. 1844 but not end. until Nauvoo temple In temple

See also Nauvoo Sealings, Adoptions and Anointings or Joseph Smith's Quorum of the Anointed.

34. John Smith patriarchal blessing to Louisa C. Jackson, 6 Feb. 1844, RLDS archives.

35. James E. Talmage The House of the Lord: A Study of Holy Sanctuaries, Ancient and Modern (Salt Lake City: “By the Church,” 1912), 94. This requires acknowledgement that Wilford Woodruff's diary says the following men received the second anointing alone, since their wives had not yet been endowed and were not present: Parley P. Pratt on 21 January 1844, Orson Hyde on 25 January 1844, Orson Pratt on 26 January 1844, and William Clayton on 3 February 1844. Joseph Smith's diaries indicate the same thing. The reference to Clayton is incorrect and arose from his name having appeared immediately after the second anointing for Joseph and Clarissa Young. Clayton's diary shows that he received only the first anointing in 1844, and Heber C. Kimball's diary in December 1845 listed Clayton among the Anointed Quorum's members who had not yet received “thare Last [or second] Anointing.” However, there is no mistake in the “second anointing” references to the Pratt brothers and Orson Hyde. (See Kenney, Wilford Woodruff's Journal 2:340, 343, 348; Faulring, An American Prophet's Record, 442-43; Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 125; Heber C. Kimball diary, 7 Dec. 1845, in Kimball, On the Potter's Wheel, 164.)

There were reasons why these men's legal wives did not receive the second anointing at this time. Parley P. Pratt's wife Mary Ann wanted to be sealed to her deceased husband; Orson Hyde's legal wife Marinda was one of Joseph Smith's plural wives; and Orson Pratt's wife Sarah was still under the stigma of her previous association with John C. Bennett.

If Joseph Smith allowed these three apostles to receive the second anointing without a wife in 1844, they were the only exceptions from September 1843 to the present. The only other possible explanation for the entries in Woodruff's and the prophet's diaries is that Parley P. Pratt, Orson Hyde, and Orson

Pratt received the fullness of the priesthood in connection with a deceased woman. That is my conclusion, which squares with the fact that Lucy Mack Smith received the second anointing on 12 November 1843 with her deceased husband. Since Parley's deceased wife had been an LDS church member, I believe she received the second anointing with him by proxy. I feel this interpretation is correct in view of the doctrine on which the second anointing is based. However, there is no evidence to identify the deceased women with whom Orson Hyde and Orson Pratt would have been correspondingly anointed in 1844.

36. Deseret News 1991-1992 Church Almanac (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1990), 46; HC 6:173; Faulring, An American Prophet's Record, 416; “Meetings of the anointed Quorum,” 28 Sept. 1843; Ehat, “Joseph Smith's Introduction of Temple Ordinances,” 102; Buerger, “The Fulness of the Priesthood,” 23.

37. John Smith patriarchal blessing to Caroline Cottam, 26 Mar. 1853, LDS archives; John Smith blessing to Elizabeth Bean, 1 May 1853, George Washington Bean journal, Book 1, 79-80, Archives, Lee Library, Brigham Young University, and his blessing to Sophia Pollard, 9 Nov. 1853; all are quoted in Irene May Bates, “Transformation of Charisma in the Mormon Church: A History of the Office of Presiding Patriarch, 1833-1979,” Ph.D. diss., University of California at Los Angeles, 1991, 281-82.

38. For female priesthood in biblical times, see Toscano and Toscano, Strangers in Paradox, 167-78; Anthony A. Hutchinson, “Women and Ordination: Introduction to the Biblical Context,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 14 (Winter 1981): 58-74; Melodie Moench Charles, “Scriptural Precedents for Priesthood,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 18 (Autumn 1985): 18-20; Savina J. Teubal, Sarah the Priestess: The First Matriarch of Genesis (Athens, OH: Swallow Press, 1984); Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, “Women in the Early Christian Movement,” in Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow, eds., Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1979), 84-92.

39. Journal of Discourses 6:125. A year earlier Heber C. Kimball made a statement to one of his wives which seems to contradict his sermon about the mother of Jesus: “I accordingly asked Mr. [Heber C.] Kimball if women had a right to wash and anoint the sick for the recovery of their health or is it mockery in them to do so. He replied inasmuch as they are obedient to their husbands, they have a right to administer in that way in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ but not by authority of the priesthood invested in them for that authority is not given to woman. He also said they might administer by the authority given to their husbands in as much as they were one with their husbands” (Mary Ellen Abel Kimball diary, 2 Mar. 1856, LDS archives).

40. Heber C. Kimball diary, 7 Dec. 1845, in Kimball, On the Potter's Wheel, 164. The three were Marinda Hyde, Agnes Smith, and Mercy Rachel Thompson. Kimball's list referred only to those present on the occasion. See note 33 above.

41. Heber C. Kimball diary (written by William Clayton), 14 Dec. 1845, in Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 214-15

42. In a private notebook for February 1852, Heber C. Kimball wrote that God had freed him from “the law of Lawless women” (see Kimball, On the Potter's Wheel, 174). For his public expressions of misogyny, see Stanley B. Kimball, Heber C. Kimball: Mormon Patriarch and Pioneer (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981), 234-36.

43. John Smith's patriarchal blessing to Nancy Howd, 16 Dec. 1845, in Jesse Perse Harmon papers, Archives, Lee Library, Brigham Young University, and his patriarchal blessing to Mehitable Duty, 27 Dec. 1845, RLDS archives, also quoted in reverse order in Bates, “Transformation of Charisma in the Mormon Church,” 283-84. However, I have found one statement by John Smith which was more limiting of women's priesthood rights than his other blessings from 1844 to 1853. To Emily Jacob on 26 January 1846, John Smith said: “I place my hands upon your head in the name of Jesus of Nazareth and seal upon thee the Priesthood with all the blessings of the new and everlasting covenant, which was sealed upon the children of Joseph, for this [is] thy lineage, the same as thy companion. Thou has a right to all the blessings which are sealed upon his head, for a woman can have but little power in the Priesthood without a man.”

44. HC 6:173. Two months after the general conference dropped William as Presiding Patriarch, Apostle Kimball referred to John Smith as “our patriarch” in Heber C. Kimball diary, 7 Dec. 1845, in Kimball, On the Potter's Wheel, 164. However, John Smith was not officially sustained as Presiding Patriarch until December 1847 and was not “ordained” to that presiding office until 1 January 1849. See discussion of Patriarchal priesthood and the patriarch's office in my Mormon Hierarchy (forthcoming).

45. Times and Seasons 6 (1 June 1845): 920 (emphasis added).

46. Patriarchal blessing by Joseph Young, 28 May 1878, in Zina Young Card papers, Archives, Lee Library, Brigham Young University.

47. Edward W. Tullidge, The Women of Mormondom (New York: Tullidge and Crandall, 1877), 487.

48. Woman's Exponent 6 (1 Dec. 1877): 102.

49. Woman's Exponent 17 (1 Sept. 1888): 54; reprinted as Franklin D. Richards, “Women and the Priesthood,” in Brian H. Stuy, ed., Collected Discourses Delivered By President Wilford Woodruff, His Two Counselors, the Twelve Apostles, and Others, Vol. 5 (Woodland Hills, UT: B.H.S. Publishing, 1992), 19.

50. Charles W. Hyde blessing to Mary Ann Dowdle, 22 Nov. 1875, in John Clark Dowdle journal, Archives, Lee Library, Brigham Young University, also quoted in Bates, “Transformation of Charisma in the Mormon Church,” 282. Also Charles W. Hyde blessing to Sarah Ann Turnbow on 12 Feb. 1862, quoted in Harwell, “Matriarchal Priesthoood,” 8; Ehat, “Joseph Smith's Introduction of Temple Ordinances,” 103; Buerger, “The Fulness of the Priesthood,” 23; Deseret Evening News, 17 Dec. 1891, 8.

51. Ola N. Liljenquist patriarchal blessing to Mary Ann Dowdle, 22 July 1889, John Clark Dowdle journal, 73-74.

52. HC 6:364; also Jer. 1: 4-5; Alma 13: 2-3; Brent L. Top, “Foreordination,” in Ludlow, Encyclopedia of Mormonism 2:522; Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 2d ed. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1966), 290-92.

53. For example, John Taylor in Journal of Discourses 21:367-68. Also Patriarch Elisha H. Graves told a woman in 1856: “Thou shalt be connected with a man of God, thru whom thou shalt receive the priesthood, exaltation, power and eternal glory, [and] become a mother in Israel.” See “Life of Lucy Hannah White Flake,” 4-5, Utah State Historical Society.

54. First Council of Seventy minutes, 1844-47, 9 Mar. 1845, 78, LDS archives; see also Jill Mulvay Derr, “Woman's Place in Brigham Young's World,” Brigham Young University Studies 18 (Spring 1978): 377-95.

55. Brigham Young diary, 12 Jan. 1846; transcript of Brigham Young unpublished sermon, 27 Aug. 1867, LDS archives; Journal of Discourses 17:119.

56. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 425, 482, 594, 599, 613.

57. Alan K. Parrish, “Keys of the Priesthood,” in Ludlow, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 2:780. This Encyclopedia of Mormonism is an official product of the LDS church. At the outset it expresses gratitude (lxiii) to “the General Authorities of the Church for designating Brigham Young University (BYU) as the contractual Author of the Encyclopedia.” Apostles Neal A. Maxwell and Dallin H. Oaks supervised the endeavor, with “special assignments” by four other general authorities. Despite an insistence that the encyclopedia's “contents do not necessarily represent the official position of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” church hierarchy had ultimate control over the project. In fact church headquarter's role was so extensive that Daniel H. Ludlow (formerly an officer of LDS church correlation) felt it necessary to conclude his editorial preface with this disclaimer: “In no sense does the Encyclopedia have the force and authority of scripture.”

58. See discussion of key(s) in Madsen, “Mormon Women and the Temple,” 97, 99.

59. April 1921 Conference Report, 24-25.

60. October 1903 Conference Report, 87.

61. Grethe Ballif Peterson, “Priesthood and LDS Women: Six Contemporary Definitions,” in Beecher and Anderson, Sisters in Spirit, 249-68; Cheryl Lynn May, “The Mormon Woman and Priesthood Authority: The Other Voice,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 6 (Summer 1971): 47-52; Nadine Hansen, “Women and Priesthood,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 14 (Winter 1981): 48-57; Charles, “Scriptural Precedents for Priesthood,” 18-20; Meg Wheatley-Pesci, “An Expanded Definition of Priesthood? Some Present and Future Consequences,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 18 (Autumn 1985): 33-42; Melodie Moench Charles, “Charles Replies” and “Charles: Not Facile,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 19 (Winter 1986): 7, 11; “LDS Doctrine Can't Justify Ban on Women Priests, Firmage Says,” Salt Lake Tribune, 9 Mar. 1989, B-1; Blake T. Ostler, “Speculation, Myth, and Unfulfilled Expectations,” Sunstone 14 (Dec. 1990): 58; “Y. Sociologist Ponders Prospect of Priesthood for LDS Women,” Salt Lake Tribune, 28 Sept. 1991, A-8. For an insightful essay about the over-emphasis on ordination to an office, see Kathryn H. Shirts, “Priesthood and Salvation: Is D&C 84 a Revelation For Women Too?” Sunstone 15 (Sept. 1991): 20-27.

62. Book of the Law of the Lord, 17 Mar. 1842 in Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith 2:371; Nauvoo Relief Society minutes, 17 Mar., 28 Apr. 1842; Derr, Cannon, Beecher, Women of Covenant, 29, 49; Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, 119; Journal of Discourses 21: 367-68; Vella Neil Evans, “Woman's Image in Authoritative Mormon Discourse: A Rhetorical Analysis” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Utah, 1985), 56, 183. For examples of early Mormon use of the word “ordained” for offices now restricted to setting apart by the contemporary LDS church, see Joseph Smith statement, 8 March 1832 in Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Joseph Smith's Kirtland Revelation Book [photocopy of original manuscript] (Salt Lake City: Modern Microfilm Co., 1979), 10-11; Lyndon W. Cook, The Revelations of Joseph Smith: A Historical and Biographical Commentary of the Doctrine and Covenants (Provo, UT: Seventy's Mission Bookstore, 1981), 171; HC 1: 334; D&C 124:91; Manuscript History of the Church, Book A-1, p. 11, 5-6 Dec. 1834, microfilm, Brigham Young University; Andrew Jenson, Church Chronology, 2d ed., rev. (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1899), xxiv-xxvii, s.v. William Law, Sidney Rigdon, Frederick G. Williams.

63. Dennis L. Thompson, “Setting Apart,” in Ludlow, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 3:1300; Evans, “Woman's Image in Authoritative Discourse,” 132-33, 186-87.

64. Talmage, House of the Lord (1912 ed.), 94 (emphasis added); also James E. Talmage, “The Eternity of Sex,” Young Woman's Journal 25 (Oct. 1914): 602-603. This 1912 quote restates the view expressed by Apostle Franklin D. Richards in Woman's Exponent 17 (1 Sept. 1888): 54.

65. Ronald K. Esplin, “Brigham Young and the Denial of the Priesthood to Blacks: An Alternative View,” Brigham Young Univeristy Studies 19 (Spring 1979): 394-402; Newel G. Bringhurst, “Elijah Able and the Changing Status of Blacks within Mormonism,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 12 (Summer 1979): 13-21, 22-36; Armand L. Mauss, “The Fading of the Pharoah's Curse: The Decline and Fall of the Priesthood Ban against Blacks in the Mormon Church,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 14 (Fall 1981): 10-45; also various essays in Lester Bush and Armand Mauss, eds., Neither White Nor Black: Mormon Scholars Confront the Race Issue in a Universal Church (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1984). For the role of this modern president in the dramatic change of policy, see Edward L. Kimball, ed., The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball . . . (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1982), 449-52.

66. This requires mention of women and priesthood within the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, headquartered at Independence, Missouri. Although it shares the LDS church's heritage until Joseph Smith's death in June 1844, the RLDS church specifically rejected the endowment ceremony. Therefore, RLDS women could receive priesthood only through ordination to a priesthood office. In 1984 a revelation allowed women to receive priesthood through ordination to offices in the RLDS church. This revelation was canonized, yet dissident congregations at the 1986 RLDS world conference unsuccessfully attempted to rescind the revelation. Women presently hold every office of the RLDS church except general authority offices. See L. Madelon Brunson, “Stranger in a Strange Land: A Personal Response to the 1984 Document,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 17 (Autumn 1984): 11-16, reprinted in Restoration Studies 3 (1986): 108-15; Velma Ruch, “To Magnify Our Calling: A Response to Section 156,” Restoration Studies 3 (1986): 97-107; Richard P. Howard, “Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,” in Ludlow, Encyclopedia of Mormonism 3:1215. This development in the Reorganization has been cited by some Mormons as a precedent for ordaining women to priesthood offices of the LDS church.

67. “Kimball Says No Women in Priesthood,” Salt Lake Tribune, 13 June 1978, D-1.

68. Newell, “Gifts of the Spirit: Women's Share,” 116; Evans, “Woman's Image in Authoritative Mormon Discourse,” 163, 187; Derr, Cannon, Beecher, Women of Covenant, 446n65.

69. Derr, Cannon, Beecher, Women of Covenant, 446n65. However, that is exactly what Sidney Rigdon did with respect to the “female priesthood” of his organization. See Barber, “Two Mormon Trajectories,” 70.

There is no evidence for the ordination of women to priesthood offices in my examination of the following sources from Nauvoo and Utah: the sermons and diaries of Joseph Smith and of general authorities instructed by him in the Anointed Quorum, The Book of the Law of the Lord (1841-1842), the diaries of the prophet's private secretary William Clayton, the “Journalizings” of the Anointed Quorum (1843-44), the minutes of the Nauvoo Relief Society, the minutes of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles from 1835 on, the minutes of the First Council of Seventy from 1835 on, the Nauvoo High Council minutes (1839-45), the Church Historian's Office Journal from 1844 on, patriarchal blessings given to women from 1843 on, or in the Nauvoo temple records of initiatory ordinances, endowment, adoption, and second anointing.

However, Joseph Smith made a statement to the Nauvoo Relief Society on 17 March 1842 which could have been misremembered by Utah leaders of the Relief Society. “If any officers are wanted to carry out the designs of the [Relief Society] Institution,” the

minutes quote the prophet, “let them be appointed and act apart, as Deacons, Teachers &c. are among us.” Ending the quote at “&c.” allows the appointment of female officers with the same titles of the priesthood offices. However, the last three words of the quote show the intent of parallel function of Relief Society visiting teachers and building custodians which were the Nauvoo activities of the priesthood offices of teacher and deacon. See Nauvoo Relief Society minutes, 17 Mar. 1842; Newell, “Gifts of the Spirit: Women's Share,” 115.

70. M. Elizabeth Little, “A Welcome,” Woman's Exponent 9 (1 Apr. 1881): 165; Madsen, “Mormon Women and the Struggle for Definition,” 10; Madsen, “Mormon Women and the Temple,” 90, 104; Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, “The Eliza Enigma,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 11 (Spring 1978): 31, 38; Evans, “Woman's Image in Authoritative Mormon Discourse,” 187; early records of Salt Lake Endowment House, St. George temple, Logan temple, Manti temple, Salt Lake temple, LDS Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. In the twentieth century this position was renamed “temple matron” (see David H. Yarn, Jr., and Marilyn S. Yarn, “Temple President and Matron” in Ludlow, Encyclopedia of Mormonism 4:1445). Emmeline B. Wells, “Pen Sketch of an Illustrious Woman: Eliza R. Snow Smith,” Woman's Exponent 9 (15 Oct. 1880): 74, said that each female temple worker was “officiating in the character of priestess.”

71. Talmage, House of the Lord (1912 ed.), 194. For example, President Spencer W. Kimball's heart surgeon and his wife received their second anointing in the Salt Lake temple on Sunday, 9 June 1974. See Russell M. Nelson, From Heart to Heart: An Autobiography (Salt Lake City: By the author, 1979), 360. Nelson is now a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

The second anointing occurs while the Salt Lake temple is closed to regular temple work. Located in the center of the Celestial Room's south wall, the interior of the Holy of Holies was described on pages 192-94 of the 1912 edition of Talmage's House of the Lord which featured a photograph of the exterior of the Holy of Holies on page 282 (Plate 21) and its interior on page 294 (Plate 27). These photographs were reprinted in [C. Mark Hamilton], The Salt Lake Temple: A Monument to a People (Salt Lake City: University Services, 1983), 122, 128-29. Although similar to adjacent sealing rooms, the Holy of Holies in the Salt Lake temple has two distinctive architectural features. First, opposite the doorway is a large stain-glass mural, backlit, of Joseph Smith's first vision, inscribed with the words: “This is my Beloved Son; hear Him.” Second, the Holy of Holies has an unusually high ceiling which extends through the floor above, so that its circular dome can be seen by the First Presidency and apostles as they leave their council room on the floor above the Celestial Room. Aside from the second anointing ceremony, the altar in the Holy of Holies is sometimes used by the church president for the true order of prayer. In the Holy of Holies in early 1978, President Spencer W. Kimball petitioned God to end the church's priesthood ban against those of black African descent. See discussion above.

72. Derr, Cannon, Beecher, Women of Covenant, 12.

73. G. Homer Durham, ed., The Discourses of Wilford Woodruff . . . (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1969), 61-62. Seven years after this reprint, G. Homer Durham became an LDS general authority.

74. “My Father In Heaven,” Times and Seasons 6 (15 Nov. 1845): 1039; “Motherhood of God,” Latter Day Saints' Millennial Star 34 (27 Feb. 1872): 140; “Our Mother in Heaven,” Juvenile Instructor 29 (15 Apr. 1894): 263-64; Joseph F. Smith, John R. Winder, and Anthon H. Lund, “The Origin of Man,” Improvement Era 13 (Nov. 1909): 78; John Herren, Donald B. Lindsey, and Marylee Mason, “The Mormon Concept of Mother in Heaven: A Sociological Account of Its Origins and Development,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 23 (Dec. 1984): 396-411; Rick Branch, “Our Mother Which Art in Heaven”: The Study of Mormonism's Mother God Doctrine (Marlow, OK: UMI Books, 1984); R. Clayton Brough and Ethel M. Brough, Divine Motherhood: Teachings About Our Mother in Heaven and the Eternal Opportunities Through Motherhood (Springville, UT: Art City Publishing, 1985); Allen W. Litchfield, “Behind the Veil: The Heavenly Mother Concept Among Members of Women's Support Groups in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” M.A. thesis, Brigham Young University, 1987; Linda P. Wilcox, “The Mormon Concept of a Mother in Heaven,” in Beecher and Anderson, Sisters in Spirit, 64-77; Margaret Merrill Toscano, “Beyond Matriarchy, Beyond Patriarchy,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 21 (Spring 1988): 39-53; Melodie Moench Charles, “The Need for a New Mormon Heaven,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 21 (Autumn 1988): 82-86; Alison Walker, “Theological Foundations of Patriarchy,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 23 (Fall 1990): 81-84; Gordon B. Hinckley statement in Ensign 21 (Nov. 1991): 100.

75. Joseph F. Smith sermon, 14 Nov. 1913, at the residence of Alfred W. McCune, Salt Lake City, LDS archives; also Journal of Discourses 1:312, 6:45, 11:240-41, 18:171; Evans, “Woman's Image in Authoritative Mormon Discourse,” 187.

76. Eugene England, “On Being Male and Melchizedek,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 23 (Winter 1990): 78; Hugh W. Nibley, “Priesthood,” Sunstone 14 (Dec. 1990): 10-11.

77. Robert T. Divett, “Medicine and the Mormons: A Historical Perspective,” and Linda P. Wilcox, “The Imperfect Science: Brigham Young on Medical Doctors,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 12 (Autumn 1979): 16-25, 26-36; Susan Sessions Rugh, “Patty Bartlett Sessions: More Than a Midwife,” Ann Gardner Stone, “Dr. Ellen Brooke Ferguson: Nineteenth-Century Renaissance Woman,” Christine Croft Waters, “Dr. Romania Pratt Penrose: To Brave the World,” Gail Farr Casterline, “Dr. Ellis Reynolds Shipp: Pioneer Utah Physician,” Jean Bickmore White, “Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon: Doctor, Wife, Legislature, Exile,” and Vicky Burgess-Olson, “Dr. Margaret Ann Freece: Entrepreneur of Southern Utah,” in Burgess-Olson, Sister Saints, 303-22, 325-39, 341-60, 363-81, 383-97, 399-413; Chris Rigby Arrington, “Pioneer Midwives,” and Cheryll Lynn May, “Charitable Sisters,” in Bushman, Mormon Sisters, 43-65, 228-29.

78. Ben Barker-Benfield, “The Spermatic Economy: A Nineteenth-Century View of Sexuality,” Feminist Studies 1 (Summer 1972): 45-74; Ann Douglas Wood, “`The Fashionable Diseases': Women's Complaints and Their Treatment in Nineteenth-Century America,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 4 (Summer 1973): 25-52; Carroll-Smith Rosenberg and Charles Rosenberg, “The Female Animal: Medical and Biological Views of Woman and Her Role in Nineteenth-Century America,” Journal of American History 60 (Sept. 1973): 332-56; John S. Haller, Jr., and Robin M. Haller, The Physician and Sexuality in Victorian America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1974); G. J. Barker-Benfield, The Horrors of the Half-Known Life: Male Attitudes toward Women and Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Harper and Row, 1976); the Wood and Smith-Rosenberg articles also appear in Judith Walzer Leavitt, ed., Women and Health in America: Historical Readings (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984).

79. However, Derr, Cannon, Beecher, Women of Covenant, 44, 68, 114, 220, claim that Mormon women regarded their healing ordinances as acts of faith only. In view of the evidence presented in this essay, it seems clear that Women of Covenant imposes current church definitions on very different nineteenth-century perceptions.

80. John Smith patriarchal blessing to Caroline Cottam, 26 Mar. 1853, and his blessing to Elizabeth Bean, 16 May 1853, quoted in Bates, “Transformation of Charisma in the Mormon Church,” 281.

81. Woman's Exponent 13 (15 Sept. 1884): 61; Woman's Exponent 17 (15 Apr. 1889): 172; Clark, Messages of the First Presidency 4: 316; Newell, “Historical Relationship of Mormon Women and Priesthood,” 25.

82. The classic essay on this is Barbara Welter, “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860,” American Quarterly 18 (Summer 1966): 151-74, which she reprinted in her Dimity Convictions: The American Woman in the Nineteenth Century (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1976). For other views, see Carl N. Degler, At Odds: Women and the Family in America from the Revolution to the Present (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980); Mabel Collins Donnelly, The American Victorian Woman: The Myth and the Reality (Westport, CT: Greenwood-Praeger Press, 1986).

83. Woman's Exponent 7 (1 Nov. 1878): 86.

84. Joseph E. Taylor remarks in Salt Lake Stake historical minutes, 30 Jan. 1884, LDS archives.

85. Woman's Exponent 17 (1 Sept. 1888): 53, reprinted as Franklin D. Richards, “Women and the Priesthood” in Brian Stuy, Collected Discourses 5:16.

86. In 1842, Joseph Smith told Relief Society women about the tendency of Mormon men “to consider the lower offices in the Church dishonorable and to look with jealous eyes upon the standing of others—that it was the nonsense of the human heart . . .” This statement from the original Relief Society minutes of 28 April 1842 allowed the conclusion that the jealousy was also directed toward women. However, HC 4:603 removed even that possible interpretation by making an unacknowledged addition (emphasized here): “. . . with jealous eyes upon the standing of others who are called to preside over them; that it was the folly and nonsense of the human heart . . .”

87. Franklin D. Richards diary, 3 Apr. 1896, LDS archives; Journal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Mar. 1900, 1, Microforms, Marriott Library, University of Utah; Clark, Messages of the First Presidency, 4:314-17; Deseret News, 8 Apr. 1901, and response in Louisa L. Green Richards to Lorenzo Snow, 9 Apr. 1901, LDS archives.

88. Edward J. Wood diary, Sept. 1903, in Olive Wood Nielson, A Treasury of Edward J. Wood (Salt Lake City: Publishers Press, 1983), 290.

89. Joseph F. Smith to Nephi Pratt, 21 Dec. 1908, LDS archives; General Relief Society minutes, 17 Dec. 1909, LDS archives; Joseph F. Smith, Anthon H. Lund, and Charles W. Penrose circular letter, 3 Oct. 1914, in Newell, “A Gift Given,” 21-22, and Clark, Messages of the First Presidency, 4:312.

90. Gordon Irving, “The Law of Adoption: One Phase of the Development of the Mormon Concept of Salvation, 1830-1900,” Brigham Young University Studies 14 (Spring 1974): 291-314; D. Michael Quinn, “The Practice of Rebaptism at Nauvoo,” Brigham Young University Studies 18 (Winter 1978): 226-232; Thomas G. Alexander, “The Reconstruction of Mormon Doctrine: From Joseph Smith to Progressive Theology,” Sunstone 5 (July-Aug. 1980): 24-33; Grant Underwood, “Seminal versus Sesquicentennial Saints: A Look at Mormon Millennialism,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 14 (Spring 1981): 32-44; David John Buerger, “The Adam-God Doctrine,” and Blake Ostler, “The Idea of Pre-Existence in the Development of Mormon Thought,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 15 (Spring 1982): 14-58, 59-79; Grant Underwood, “Millenarianism and the Early Mormon Mind,” Journal of Mormon History 9 (1982): 41-51; Keith E. Norman, “How Long O Lord? The Delay of the Parousia in Mormonism,” Sunstone 8 (Jan.-Apr. 1983): 49-58; Jan Shipps, “The Principle Revoked: A Closer Look at the Demise of Plural Marriage,” Journal of Mormon History 11 (1984): 65-77; John Herren, Donald B. Lindsey, and Marylee Mason, “The Mormon Concept of Mother in Heaven: A Sociological Account of Its Origins and Development,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 23 (Dec. 1984): 396-411; Thomas G. Alexander, Mormonism in Transition: A History of the Latter-day Saints, 1890-1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985), 272-306; Boyd Kirkland, “The Development of the Mormon Doctrine of God,” Thomas G. Alexander, “The Reconstruction of Mormon Doctrine,” Vern G. Swanson, “The Development of the Concept of the Holy Ghost in Mormon Theology,” Linda P. Wilcox, “The Mormon Concept of a Mother in Heaven,” and Blake T. Ostler, “The Idea of Preexistence in Mormon Thought,” in Gary James Bergera, ed., Line Upon Line: Essays on Mormon Doctrine (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989); Thomas G. Alexander, “The Odyssey of a Latter-day Prophet: Wilford Woodruff and the Manifesto of 1890,” Journal of Mormon History 17 (1991): 169-206; B. Carmon Hardy, Solemn Covenant: The Mormon Polygamous Passage (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 338-40.

91. Presiding Bishopric minutes of meeting with First Presidency, 17 Dec. 1935, LDS archives.

92. Joseph Fielding Smith to Belle S. Spafford, Marianne C. Sharp, and Gertrude R. Garff, 29 July 1946, in Clark, Messages of the First Presidency, 4:314; also Derr, Cannon, Beecher, Women of Covenant, 220-21.

93. Martha A. Hickman to Louise Y. Robison, 28 Nov. 1935, LDS archives; Louise Y. Robison to Martha A. Hickman, 5 Dec. 1935, LDS archives; Newell, “A Gift Given,” 23, and Newell, “Gifts of the Spirit,” 133, 137.

94. Joseph Smith affirmed: “Respecting the females laying on hands . . . it is no sin for anybody to do it that has faith, or if the sick has [sic] faith to be heal'd by the administration.” See Nauvoo Relief Society minutes, 28 Apr. 1842; Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, 116; HC 4:604. For faith healings performed by women during the decade before they began receiving the priesthood endowment in 1843, see Evans, “Woman's Image in Authoritative Mormon Discourse,” 128-29.

95. “Firmage Threatened After Suggesting Priesthood for Women,” Salt Lake Tribune, 11 Mar. 1989, 1, 2.

96. Hartman Rector, Jr., a president of the First Quorum of the Seventy, to Mrs. Teddie Wood, 29 Aug. 1978, photocopy in MORMONS FOR ERA NEWSLETTER, Jan. 1981, 5, copy in Utah Women's Issues, 1970s-80s, Western Americana, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah; and quoted in Sonia Johnson, From Housewife to Heretic (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981), 138, and in Robert Gottlieb and Peter Wiley, America's Saints: The Rise of Mormon Power (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1984), 212. Gottlieb and Wiley mistakenly give 1979 as the date for Rector's statement which capitalized “Spider” in the original.

97. Boyd K. Packer, “Come All Ye Sons of God,” Ensign 13 (Aug. 1983): 68; Packer, “Eternal Marriage,” Speeches of the Year (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1970), 5.

98. Ensign 9 (Nov. 1979): 49, quoted in Ensign 22 (May 1992): 37.

99. Hugh W. Nibley, “Patriarchy and Matriarchy,” in Blueprints for Living: Perspectives for Latter-day Saint Women . . . Foreword by President Spencer W. Kimball (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1980), 48; reprinted without the foreword in The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Volume 1: Old Testament and Related Studies (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1986), 93.

100. Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, comp. Bruce R. McConkie, 3 vols. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1954-56), 3:178.

101. Joseph Fielding Smith, “Relief Society: An Aid to the Priesthood,” [delivered 8 Oct. 1958] Relief Society Magazine 46 (Jan. 1959): 4. Derr, Cannon, Beecher, Women of Covenant, 49, quote the first and last phrases cited here.

102. This discussion is an elaboration of John A. Widtsoe, Priesthood and Church Government in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “compiled under the direction of the Council of the Twelve” (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1965), 74-75, 78-79.

103. Joseph Smith taught: “All Priesthood is Melchizedek; but there are different portions or degrees of it.” See William Clayton's private book, 5 Jan. 1841, in Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 515; Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, 59; Joseph Fielding Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1938), 180.

104. HC 5:527; also statement of Charles W. Penrose in April 1921 Conference Report, 198.

105. Ensign 22 (May 1992): 36.

106. For recent essays on this prospect from different perspectives, see Hand Carre, “Women Retreat for Support, Strength,” Sunstone 13 (Oct. 1989): 46-48; Paul James Toscano, “Priesthood Concepts in the Book of Mormon: Insights on Church Leadership and Organization,” Sunstone 13 (Dec. 1989): 8-17 (esp. 14-17); Marie Cornwall, “Women: Changing Ideas and New Directions,” Sunstone 14 (June 1990): 53-55; Toscano and Toscano, Strangers in Paradox, 209-20; “Panel Discusses Praying to Mother in Heaven,” Sunstone 15 (Oct. 1991): 60-61. For first counselor Gordon B. Hinckley's response, see Ensign 21 (Nov. 1991): 100.

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