When God commands a difficult task, He sometimes sends additional messengers to encourage His people to obey. Consistent with this pattern, Joseph told associates that an angel appeared to him three times between 1834 and 1842 and commanded him to proceed with plural marriage when he hesitated to move forward. During the third and final appearance, the angel came with a drawn sword, threatening Joseph with destruction unless he went forward and obeyed the commandment fully.

Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo.” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 1 Jan. 2016, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/plural-marriage-in-kirtland-and-nauvoo.

Further complicating the picture of Joseph Smith’s relationship with his young wives is the fact that Helen Mar Kimball Whitney experienced considerable pressure to consent to the marriage from both the Prophet and her own father, Elder Heber C. Kimball; she understood that her salvation and that of her family’s depended on her acquiescence. Because the most pertinent documents for the Whitney case were penned by Whitney herself, critics charge on the basis of the Saints’ own documentary record that Joseph Smith used his religious position to impose himself on innocent teens.

Fluhman, J. Spencer. “‘A Subject That Can Bear Investigation’: Anguish, Faith, and Joseph Smith’s Youngest Plural Wife,” Religious Studies Center.” "A Subject That Can Bear Investigation" | Religious Studies Center, 2011, https://rsc.byu.edu/no-weapon-shall-prosper/subject-can-bear-investigation.

To marry this old, well-proven, and sealed man, would not only secure her own salvation but that of her children; and if not to enjoy all the temporal happiness she might with the young man, she should enjoy more of the Spirit of God and secure eternal gain by suffering a present loss.

Hyde, John. “Chapter III: Practical Polygamy.” Mormonism Its Leaders and Designs, Fetridge, New York, NY, 1857, p. 72.