Page 85 of The Confidant
He’d probably courted other girls when he was younger, but since those had never been anything serious and had been before Samuel knew he was a High Priest, it was normal for those relationships to never be talked about.
“But you just said that she was only hisfirstwife?” I asked, picking up on the way Xander had worded things.
“Yes…” He looked at me carefully, like he wasn’t sure how to continue. After a moment, he shrugged and said, “But I found out, through this journal and from a few other sources, that he had several wives after her. Or I guessSpiritual Partners, as they were called.”
“He had other wives?” I scrunched up my nose, not believing what Xander was trying to say.
I mean, did Xander actually expect me to believe something like that? Was this just some kind of weird joke?
But Xander nodded and said, “It’s hard to know the exact number because there aren’t records of everything from back then.” He turned a few pages in the journal, and after seeming to read one of the entries for a moment, he pointed to a sentence and said, “But since he wrote about it himself, it seems pretty legit. Just read this…”
I looked down at the paragraph and read the words that said:And despite much tribulation and prayers to the Lord, I followed his command and took Flora Wadsworth to be my first spiritual partner.
My eyes widened, and I read over the sentence again.
The handwriting did look old, and it did mention spiritual partners, but…there was no way this was actually legit. They would have said something about it in church if it was.
My dad would have at least said something to me about it since reading the scriptures and studying the church was his job.
“Are you sure this is one of Samuel’s actual journals?” I asked. “Because I just don’t know how he could have been married to anyone besides Melissa when no one ever talks about it at church.”
“I’m pretty sure this is an actual journal of his,” Xander said, gently turning a few pages. “There are quite a few of his revelations written down in here, too, which have been documented to go along with the time period as well.”
“So you believe that he had a few spiritual partners to go along with Melissa?” I asked, still waiting for the punchline.
“I’ve read several books about this by church historians,” Xander said. “And there are about twenty-seven women that the different experts have all agreed as being his actual spiritual partners.”
“T-twenty-seven women?” I stuttered, completely shocked. “Like, he was married to almost thirty different women?”
I’d heard of that happening in other cultures and religions before. But Xander was saying Samuel Williams did that?
In the United States during the 1800’s?
“They weren’t legally married,” Xander said. “It was against the law by the time God revealed the practice.”
“But they…acted like they were married? They were—” I paused, not sure how to word my question since I always felt uncomfortable talking about this. “Like, he had intimate relationships with these women?”
“We can’t be sure how intimate each relationship was,” Xander said. “But yes, he is assumed to have been the father of Lucinda Beaman’s first child. And Sylvia Kingsley’s second child because the son looked so much more like Samuel than her first husband.”
“Did her first husband die right before she got pregnant?” Was that why it had been a question of whose child it was?
“No.” Xander shook his head. “Her first husband was still alive. But he was sent on a mission to Europe during that time.”
“Huh?”
“Samuel took spiritual partners who had living husbands. It’s called polyandry.” Xander furrowed his brow, his eyes searching mine. “You’ve really never heard about any of this? I thought your dad would have told you at least something by now.”
“My dad never said anything…” I shook my head, confused.
“That’s interesting that he’s taking so long,” Xander said. Then, as if talking to himself, he mumbled, “Which doesn’t leave us with very much time.”
I was about to ask him what he meant by that when he picked up the book again and offered it to me. “Here, you can actually borrow this if you want to learn more about it.”
“Oh, um...” I stepped back. “I don’t know if I should.”
It could be some kind of forgery, and I didn’t want to get any lies in my head. It could lead me down the path of doubt, which wouldn’t be good.
But instead of being deterred, he held the journal out to me again and said, “It’s actually a pretty interesting read.”
