[Joseph Fielding]
I often preach to my wife and endeavor to inspire her with faith. Her mind has been troubled at some things in the Church, the subject of spiritual wives so much talked about at this time, and other things, an expression of Elder Lyman Wight's that if a woman complained of being insulted by any man, she ought to be set down as a strumpet, on the ground that no man would do it unless she gave him some liberty. This she knew to be a false notion from her own experience. In this she is correct. The expression of Brother Wight was spoken publicly in our hearing and she thinks it hard if a female is to be insulted as she has been and to have no redress. I take it as an instance of man's weakness to hold forth such a sentiment and for the elders to smile at it is no proof of their approval of it, but I see nothing in all that is going on that troubles me at all. ...
I tell my wife I mean to hold on to the truth at any cost and the greatest cost would be to lose her, but her unbelief shall not stop us. I feel as though I can in spite of this bear her along.
[Joseph Fielding, Diary (1843-1846), Church Archives in "They Might Have Known That He Was Not a Fallen Prophet"--The Nauvoo Journal of Joseph Fielding," transcribed and edited by Andrew F. Ehat, BYU Studies 19 (Winter 1979), http://www.boap.org/LDS/Early-Saints/JFielding.html]
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