How old were you when you first learned JS practiced polyandry?
 

This is informatio was never disclosed through official channels for me. It was discovered through a BYU research assistant in my mid twenties, after having served a mission.

Here is a website fairly detailed.

http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/

Can you be more specific? I'm confused. I thought you were using polyandry to describe JS having sexual relationship with more than one woman. But polyandry means a woman having more than one man. Are you referring to that JS taught and encouraged polyandry?

I remember asking my dad about polygamy when I was around deacon age. He went into pretty specific detail about Brigham Young, Joseph Smith and even Fanny Alger. I've always thought that everybody knew about it.

I think I was about 10 when my older brother found out and interrogated my dad over the dinner table about it. So it was never a big mystery. That coupled with the fact that our family history is a little heavy on the polygamy side made it a pretty open topic of conversation at our house.

I think that may be his point. Some of Josephs wives were already married.

Same here. Polygamy was part of my family history, so when I learned that church leaders practiced it, I was neither shocked nor concerned.

Well, we know now Joseph Smith had 33 wives. Some of these wives were married when they also married JS, and he had sexual relations with them.

Fanny Alger was his first plural wife. And she was the cute Laurel that Emma got ticked over.

I knew by the time I was 12 (if not earlier) that Joseph Smith and other church leaders practiced polygamy.

As for the claim that Joseph Smith was having intimate relations with women that were simultaneously married to someone else, I hadn't heard that claim until a few years ago.

Well, as a nonMormon I had heard about Brigham Young and his wives, but the Chuch didn't tell much about JS's 33 wives. And no mention was ever made of the eleven husbands, who shared Joseph's wives.

I doubt that was much of a dinner topic.

Bushman confirms that sexual relations probably occurred with several of the polyandrous wives.

Meaning to read Bushman's bio but failing to do so, what does Bushman offer in the way of commentary on this?