“Unless the Lord Directs Otherwise:” Willard Richards and the Origins of Divine Reversal in Early Mormon Polygamy

Abstract

This study examines the role of Willard Richards in shaping the textual and theological development of early Latter-day Saint teachings concerning plural marriage and moral authority. Drawing on manuscript evidence from journals, letters, revelation drafts, and the Nauvoo-era Manuscript History of the Church, the paper traces the emergence of a theological framework that may be described as radical conditional morality or “divine reversal”—the claim that actions ordinarily considered sinful can become righteous when commanded by direct revelation. While Joseph Smith’s public sermons and revelations consistently affirm fixed moral prohibitions and emphasize strict sexual morality, reversal-based reasoning appears most clearly in texts mediated through Richards’s hand as scribe, editor, or historian. These include private correspondence, draft documents containing conditional clauses not appearing in, or later inserted into public versions, retrospective editorial insertions in Joseph Smith’s journal, and involvement in the preservation and public transmission of the 1843 plural marriage revelation. By comparing earlier contemporaneous records with later edited forms, the study argues that the conceptual system underlying later plural marriage theology was not publicly articulated in Joseph Smith’s verified teachings but emerged through processes of clerical mediation and retrospective textual harmonization. Rather than attributing intentional fabrication to Richards, the paper situates his role within a broader pattern of nineteenth-century documentary compilation in which scribes functioned as interpreters as well as recorders. The case of early Mormon polygamy therefore illustrates how theological developments can enter institutional memory through the custodial authority of those responsible for preserving and organizing the historical record.