Earlier brethren speculated on several topics, including the marital status of Jesus. Detractors take delight in searching out such speculations and trying to pass them off as the official Church position. Be that as it may, the opinion that Jesus was married, though held by several General Authorities, has not been accepted as doctrine, nor is it taught as doctrine by Church leaders today.

The idea that Jesus was married was taught, and still is taught by many others not of our faith, and they present a strong array of evidence in defense of their beliefs. For instance, William E. Phipps, a Presbyterian minister, wrote the book Was Jesus Married? He concludes with a resounding "yes" to the question.

Anti-Mormon critics who try to portray the concept that Jesus was married as Church doctrine have liule understanding of the canonization process of doctrine within the LDS Church. The procedure was demonstrated with the 1976 and 1978 additions to the Standard Works. They were presented to and sustained by the First Presidency and Council of the Twelve, then sustained by the entire membership of the Church in General Conference.

When anti-Mormon detractors allempt to represent the private views of past or present Latter-day Saints as being the doctrine of the Church, they immediately lose credibility with knowledgeable Church members who understand the Church's definitions of doctrine and recognize the necessity of the canonization process. They recognize that the designation of "doctrine" is not granted simply because of who said something, or where it was said, or in what book it was printed.

Read what President Joseph Fielding Smith explained on the subject:

It makes no difference what is written or what anyone has said, if what has been said is in conflict with what the Lord has revealed, we can set it aside. My words, and the teachings of any other member of the Church, high or low, if they do not square with the revelations, we need not accept them. Let us have this matter clear. We have accepted the four standard works as the measuring yardsticks, or balances, by which we measure every man's doctrine.
You cannot accept the books written by the authorities of the Church as standards in doctrine, only in so far as they accord with the revealed word in the standard works.
Every man who writes is responsible, not the Church, for what he writes. if Joseph Fielding Smith writes something which is out of harmony with the revelations, then every member of the Church is duty bound to reject it. If he writes that which is in perfect harmony with the revealed word of the Lord, then it should be accepted (Doctrines of Salvation, Vol.3, pp.203-04).