Commenting on Joseph Smith's plural marriages, Stewart Davenport writes that:
Focusing on expanded kinship
networks also helps answer the related question of “why so many?” With
thirty-seven Nauvoo plural wives, clearly Smith was not searching for a
romantic soul mate—an Eve to complement his Adam. Some of the marriages were
not even sexually consummated, and all of them were impersonal than intimate, a
network of wives rather than a collection of havens in a heartless world. (Stewart
Davenport, Sex and Sects: The Story of Mormon Polygamy, Shaker Celibacy, and
Oneida Complex Marriage [Charlottesville, Va.: University of Virginia
Press, 2022], 104, emphasis in bold added)
Unfortunately, Davenport references, favourably, George D. Smith’s
Nauvoo Polygamy, perhaps one of the worst books ever
written on polygamy during the Joseph Smith era. For a thorough refutation,
see:
Gregory L. Smith, Review
of George D. Smith's Nauvoo Polygamy, FARMS Review 20, no. 2
(2008): 37-123