I think it indicates she liked the guy. Seriously, people marry outside of faith all the time. However, considering Mormon belief's about the afterlife (referring to old school Mormons), it would seem odd since that would screw up the whole celestial thingy. I'm not Mormon .

Can you blame her? Here's a guy going around making up religions claiming to be the "messiah" maybe? Then he forces this poor 14 year old girl I'm sure, Emma into marriage and does disgusting vile acts with her behind closed doors. He finally dies, so she bolts to someone that's sane. And of COURSE I'm not a Mormon.

lol..the founders wife left the first chance she got...well doesnt that just about say it all

EX-mormon. I can't blame her. She married a guy who at the very least appreciated a woman his own age. It's amazing how much of the "sour grapes" mentality the Morg present when the evidence doesn't reinforce their delusions.

No, I do not agree. I would consider it highly doubtful that Emma would have married Joseph in the first place if "...in her heart she had scorned Joseph Smith's mission from the beginning." She knew of his claims while they were courting. Her father never approved of Joseph because of this. So, had she not believed him, I doubt that she would have allowed the relation to progress that far in the first place. Add to this the fact that she was instrumental in getting Joseph III set up as leader of the RLDS church and I think that it is quite clear that she did believe in Joseph's prophetic calling. She may not have liked some of the things that he did, but she did believe. - I am LDS.

Emma's last spoken word was "Joseph." Emma believed in Joseph's prophetic calling until the very end. Besides, she was already sealed to Joseph, so she didn't need another eternal husband. I am LdS.

OK, after considering everyone's answer and after doing my own research, it's my turn . . . SHORT ANSWER: No, I do not agree since the Historical Record doesn't support this assertion. And I am a non-LDS Mormon Studies Scholar (specializing in History and Culture). LONG ANSWER: Emma's motivation in marrying Lewis Bidamon is really only know to herself. However, it's clear that he loved her passionately and she loved him. Just consider these citations from the letters that they exchanged after Bidamon left to prospect for gold in California: Lewis to Emma: "Dear Emma ofttimes me mind hovers around the[e] and in amagination [I] press the[e] tenderly to my bosom O my Love if I could only here from you and know that you was well and the family and you was injoying your Selfs it would ease this akeing hart. . . . Be cherefull Dear, if we live the day will arive where we will again meet and press each other to our congenial brests." Emma to Lewis: my dear Lewis I have scarsley enjoyed any good thing since you left home in constant terrifying apprehension that you might be suffering for the most common comforts of life, I have never been weary, without thinking that you might be more so. I never have felt the want of food without fearing that you might be almost . . . starving, and l have never been thirsty without feeling my heart sicken . . . that perhaps you were sinking faint and famished . . . but now the anxieties are over and some may think that I might be content, but I am not, neither can I be until you are within my grasp, then, and not, till then shall I be free from fears for your safety. . . . I think you should be . . . cauotious of the Mormons for I believe they intend that I shall not enjoy anything. . . . I can tell you they are capable of an infamous ingratitude. . . . They think that you occupy a situation here that you have no business to . . . it is explained by Babbit that you had no right to marty me, and. . . I had no right [to marry] you. . . . When, O! When can I begin to think about you coming home. Lewis to Emma: Oh my dear Emma that I could press you to my lonsoem hart. . . . I doo not like California it affords no charms for me and especly in the absense of hir and only hir that can make me happy. . . . Give my warmest affections to the children and all inquireing friends and curses to my enmeys. As Valeen Tippetts Avery and Linda King Newell said so well: "Perhaps the controversy which has surrounded Lewis Bidamon was inevitable. No man could have stepped into the place Joseph Smith occupied without being unfavorably compared to the Prophet. For the most part, RLDS historians and writers simply ignored Lewis Bidamon’s existence, thereby damning him with faint, or no, praise. LDS writers have found most accessible those letters written about him after Brigham Young’s public condemnation of Emma, letters which were often written (and interpreted) in support of Brigham’s personal fury. Vilification of Lewis Bidamon easily became a subtle means of establishing that something must have been wrong with Emma Smith." (Excerpted from "Lewis C. Bidamon, Stepchild of Mormondom" by Valeen Tippetts Avery and Linda King Newell; http://byustudies.byu.edu/shop/pdfsrc/19.3AveryNewell.pdf) As for Emma's stance toward Joseph Smith, Fawn Brodie probably said it best regarding Emma Smith's motives in not following Brigham Young west, staying in Nauvoo and later marrying the "gentile" Major Lewis Bidamon: "There is no evidence that Emma scorned anything but Brigham Young, whom after Joseph's death she came to fear and despise. She clung to certain relics of her husband's memory, such as his manuscript translation of the Bible, with a superstitious reverence. "I have often thought," she wrote to her son when he took the pages away for printing, "the reason why our house did not burn down when it has been so often on fire was because of them, and I still feel a sacredness attached to them." ("No Man Knows My History, Second Edition", p. 399) Hardly, the words of a woman trying to forget her murdered husband or discredit his giftings! Further, if she scorned Joseph Smith's mission from the beginning why did she not only elope with him but help him in the translation of the Book of Mormon? Finally, there's probably no greater evidence that Emma Smith believed in Joseph Smiths divine calling to her grave than her 1879 "Last Testimony" in which she stated: "Q.-What of the truth of Mormonism? A.-I know Mormonism to be the truth; and believe the church to have been established by divine direction. I have complete faith in it. In writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us." ("History of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" p. 356; http://www.centerplace.org/history/ch/v3ch18.htm) IMAGES: - Lewis Bidamon with the Four Surviving Sons of Joseph and Emma Smith. - Late period photographs of Emma Smith, most dates are unknown but are believed to have been taken after the death of Joseph Smith.