Latter-day Saints believe that monogamy—the
marriage of one man and one woman—is the
Lord’s standing law of marriage.
In biblical times, the Lord commanded some
of His people to practice plural marriage—the
marriage of one man and more than one woman.
Some early members of The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints also received
and obeyed this commandment given through
God’s prophets.
After receiving a revelation commanding him
to practice plural marriage, Joseph Smith
married multiple wives and introduced the
practice to close associates.
This principle was among the most challenging
aspects of the Restoration—for Joseph personally
and for other Church members.
Plural marriage tested faith and provoked
controversy and opposition.
Few Latter-day Saints initially welcomed the
restoration of a biblical practice entirely
foreign to their sensibilities.
But many later testified of powerful spiritual
experiences that helped them overcome their
hesitation and gave them courage to accept
this practice.
Although the Lord commanded the adoption—and
later the cessation—of plural marriage in
the latter days, He did not give exact instructions
on how to obey the commandment.
Significant social and cultural changes often
include misunderstandings and difficulties.
Church leaders and members experienced these
challenges as they heeded the command to practice
plural marriage and again later as they worked
to discontinue it after Church President Wilford
Woodruff issued an inspired statement known
as the Manifesto in 1890, which led to the
end of plural marriage in the Church.
Through it all, Church leaders and members
sought to follow God’s will.
Many details about the early practice of plural
marriage are unknown.
Plural marriage was introduced among the early
Saints incrementally, and participants were
asked to keep their actions confidential.
They did not discuss their experiences publicly
or in writing until after the Latter-day Saints
had moved to Utah and Church leaders had publicly
acknowledged the practice.
The historical record of early plural marriage
is therefore thin: few records of the time
provide details, and later reminiscences are
not always reliable.
Some ambiguity will always accompany our knowledge
about this issue.
Like the participants, we “see through a
glass, darkly” and are asked to walk by
faith.
The Beginnings of Plural Marriage in the Church
The revelation on plural marriage was not
written down until 1843, but its early verses
suggest that part of it emerged from Joseph
Smith’s study of the Old Testament in 1831.
People who knew Joseph well later stated he
received the revelation about that time.
The revelation, recorded in Doctrine and Covenants
132, states that Joseph prayed to know why
God justified Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses,
David, and Solomon in having many wives.
The Lord responded that He had commanded them
to enter into the practice.
Latter-day Saints understood that they were
living in the latter days, in what the revelations
called the “dispensation of the fulness
of times.”Ancient principles—such as prophets,
priesthood, and temples—would be restored
to the earth.
Plural marriage was one of those ancient principles.
Polygamy had been permitted for millennia
in many cultures and religions, but, with
few exceptions, was rejected in Western cultures.
In Joseph Smith’s time, monogamy was the
only legal form of marriage in the United
States.
Joseph knew the practice of plural marriage
would stir up public ire.
After receiving the commandment, he taught
a few associates about it, but he did not
spread this teaching widely in the 1830s.
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.
Fragmentary evidence suggests that Joseph
Smith acted on the angel’s first command
by marrying a plural wife, Fanny Alger, in
Kirtland, Ohio, in the mid-1830s.
Several Latter-day Saints who had lived in
Kirtland reported decades later that Joseph
Smith had married Alger, who lived and worked
in the Smith household, after he had obtained
her consent and that of her parents.
Little is known about this marriage, and nothing
is known about the conversations between Joseph
and Emma regarding Alger.
After the marriage with Alger ended in separation,
Joseph seems to have set the subject of plural
marriage aside until after the Church moved
to Nauvoo, Illinois.
Plural Marriage and Eternal Marriage
The same revelation that taught of plural
marriage was part of a larger revelation given
to Joseph Smith—that marriage could last
beyond death and that eternal marriage was
essential to inheriting the fulness that God
desires for His children.
As early as 1840, Joseph Smith privately taught
Apostle Parley P. Pratt that the “heavenly
order” allowed Pratt and his wife to be
together “for time and all eternity.”Joseph
also taught that men like Pratt—who had
remarried following the death of his first
wife—could be married (or sealed) to their
wives for eternity, under the proper conditions.
The sealing of husband and wife for eternity
was made possible by the restoration of priesthood
keys and ordinances.
On April 3, 1836, the Old Testament prophet
Elijah appeared to Joseph Smith and Oliver
Cowdery in the Kirtland Temple and restored
the priesthood keys necessary to perform ordinances
for the living and the dead, including sealing
families together.
Marriages performed by priesthood authority
could link loved ones to each other for eternity,
on condition of righteousness; marriages performed
without this authority would end at death.
Marriage performed by priesthood authority
meant that the procreation of children and
perpetuation of families would continue into
the eternities.
Joseph Smith’s revelation on marriage declared
that the “continuation of the seeds forever
and ever” helped to fulfill God’s purposes
for His children.
This promise was given to all couples who
were married by priesthood authority and were
faithful to their covenants.
Plural Marriage in Nauvoo
For much of Western history, family “interest”—economic,
political, and social considerations—dominated
the choice of spouse.
Parents had the power to arrange marriages
or forestall unions of which they disapproved.
By the late 1700s, romance and personal choice
began to rival these traditional motives and
practices.
By Joseph Smith’s time, many couples insisted
on marrying for love, as he and Emma did when
they eloped against her parents’ wishes.
Latter-day Saints’ motives for plural marriage
were often more religious than economic or
romantic.
Besides the desire to be obedient, a strong
incentive was the hope of living in God’s
presence with family members.
In the revelation on marriage, the Lord promised
participants “crowns of eternal lives”
and “exaltation in the eternal worlds.”
Men and women, parents and children, ancestors
and progeny were to be “sealed” to each
other—their commitment lasting into the
eternities, consistent with Jesus’s promise
that priesthood ordinances performed on earth
could be “bound in heaven.”
The first plural marriage in Nauvoo took place
when Louisa Beaman and Joseph Smith were sealed
in April 1841.
Joseph married many additional wives and authorized
other Latter-day Saints to practice plural
marriage.
The practice spread slowly at first.
By June 1844, when Joseph died, approximately
29 men and 50 women had entered into plural
marriage, in addition to Joseph and his wives.
When the Saints entered the Salt Lake Valley
in 1847, at least 196 men and 521 women had
entered into plural marriages.
Participants in these early plural marriages
pledged to keep their involvement confidential,
though they anticipated a time when the practice
would be publicly acknowledged.
Nevertheless, rumors spread.
A few men unscrupulously used these rumors
to seduce women to join them in an unauthorized
practice sometimes referred to as “spiritual
wifery.”
When this was discovered, the men were cut
off from the Church.
The rumors prompted members and leaders to
issue carefully worded denials that denounced
spiritual wifery and polygamy but were silent
about what Joseph Smith and others saw as
divinely mandated “celestial” plural marriage.
In the denials, “polygamy” was understood
to mean the marriage of one man to more than
one woman but without Church sanction.
The statements emphasized that the Church
practiced no marital law other than monogamy
while implicitly leaving open the possibility
that individuals, under direction of God’s
living prophet, might do so.
Joseph Smith and Plural Marriage
During the era in which plural marriage was
practiced, Latter-day Saints distinguished
between sealings for time and eternity and
sealings for eternity only.
Sealings for time and eternity included commitments
and relationships during this life, generally
including the possibility of sexual relations.
Eternity-only sealings indicated relationships
in the next life alone.
Evidence indicates that Joseph Smith participated
in both types of sealings.
The exact number of women to whom he was sealed
in his lifetime is unknown because the evidence
is fragmentary.
Some of the women who were sealed to Joseph
Smith later testified that their marriages
were for time and eternity, while others indicated
that their relationships were for eternity
alone.
Most of those sealed to Joseph Smith were
between 20 and 40 years of age at the time
of their sealing to him.
The oldest, Fanny Young, was 56 years old.
The youngest was Helen Mar Kimball, daughter
of Joseph’s close friends Heber C. and Vilate
Murray Kimball, who was sealed to Joseph several
months before her 15th birthday.
Marriage at such an age, inappropriate by
today’s standards, was legal in that era,
and some women married in their mid-teens.
Helen Mar Kimball spoke of her sealing to
Joseph as being “for eternity alone,”
suggesting that the relationship did not involve
sexual relations.
After Joseph’s death, Helen remarried and
became an articulate defender of him and of
plural marriage.
Following his marriage to Louisa Beaman and
before he married other single women, Joseph
Smith was sealed to a number of women who
were already married.
Neither these women nor Joseph explained much
about these sealings, though several women
said they were for eternity alone.
Other women left no records, making it unknown
whether their sealings were for time and eternity
or were for eternity alone.
There are several possible explanations for
this practice.
These sealings may have provided a way to
create an eternal bond or link between Joseph’s
family and other families within the Church.
These ties extended both vertically, from
parent to child, and horizontally, from one
family to another.
Today such eternal bonds are achieved through
the temple marriages of individuals who are
also sealed to their own birth families, in
this way linking families together.
Joseph Smith’s sealings to women already
married may have been an early version of
linking one family to another.
In Nauvoo, most if not all of the first husbands
seem to have continued living in the same
household with their wives during Joseph’s
lifetime, and complaints about these sealings
with Joseph Smith are virtually absent from
the documentary record.
These sealings may also be explained by Joseph’s
reluctance to enter plural marriage because
of the sorrow it would bring to his wife Emma.
He may have believed that sealings to married
women would comply with the Lord’s command
without requiring him to have normal marriage
relationships.
This could explain why, according to Lorenzo
Snow, the angel reprimanded Joseph for having
“demurred” on plural marriage even after
he had entered into the practice.
After this rebuke, according to this interpretation,
Joseph returned primarily to sealings with
single women.
Another possibility is that, in an era when
life spans were shorter than they are today,
faithful women felt an urgency to be sealed
by priesthood authority.
Several of these women were married either
to non-Mormons or former Mormons, and more
than one of the women later expressed unhappiness
in their present marriages.
Living in a time when divorce was difficult
to obtain, these women may have believed a
sealing to Joseph Smith would give them blessings
they might not otherwise receive in the next
life.
The women who united with Joseph Smith in
plural marriage risked reputation and self-respect
in being associated with a principle so foreign
to their culture and so easily misunderstood
by others.
“I made a greater sacrifice than to give
my life,” said Zina Huntington Jacobs, “for
I never anticipated again to be looked upon
as an honorable woman.”
Nevertheless, she wrote, “I searched the
scripture & by humble prayer to my Heavenly
Father I obtained a testimony for myself.”
After Joseph’s death, most of the women
sealed to him moved to Utah with the Saints,
remained faithful Church members, and defended
both plural marriage and Joseph.
Joseph and Emma
Plural marriage was difficult for all involved.
For Joseph Smith’s wife Emma, it was an
excruciating ordeal.
Records of Emma’s reactions to plural marriage
are sparse; she left no firsthand accounts,
making it impossible to reconstruct her thoughts.
Joseph and Emma loved and respected each other
deeply.
After he had entered into plural marriage,
he poured out his feelings in his journal
for his “beloved Emma,” whom he described
as “undaunted, firm and unwavering, unchangeable,
affectionate Emma.”
After Joseph’s death, Emma kept a lock of
his hair in a locket she wore around her neck.
Emma approved, at least for a time, of four
of Joseph Smith’s plural marriages in Nauvoo,
and she accepted all four of those wives into
her household.
She may have approved of other marriages as
well.
But Emma likely did not know about all of
Joseph’s sealings.
She vacillated in her view of plural marriage,
at some points supporting it and at other
times denouncing it.
In the summer of 1843, Joseph Smith dictated
the revelation on marriage, a lengthy and
complex text containing both glorious promises
and stern warnings, some directed at Emma.
The revelation instructed women and men that
they must obey God’s law and commands in
order to receive the fulness of His glory.
The revelation on marriage required that a
wife give her consent before her husband could
enter into plural marriage.
Nevertheless, toward the end of the revelation,
the Lord said that if the first wife “receive
not this law”—the command to practice
plural marriage—the husband would be “exempt
from the law of Sarah,” presumably the requirement
that the husband gain the consent of the first
wife before marrying additional women.
After Emma opposed plural marriage, Joseph
was placed in an agonizing dilemma, forced
to choose between the will of God and the
will of his beloved Emma.
He may have thought Emma’s rejection of
plural marriage exempted him from the law
of Sarah.
Her decision to “receive not this law”
permitted him to marry additional wives without
her consent.
Because of Joseph’s early death and Emma’s
decision to remain in Nauvoo and not discuss
plural marriage after the Church moved west,
many aspects of their story remain known only
to the two of them.
Trial and Spiritual Witness
Years later in Utah, participants in Nauvoo
plural marriage discussed their motives for
entering into the practice.
God declared in the Book of Mormon that monogamy
was the standard; at times, however, He commanded
plural marriage so His people could “raise
up seed unto [Him].”
Plural marriage did result in an increased
number of children born to believing parents.
Some Saints also saw plural marriage as a
redemptive process of sacrifice and spiritual
refinement.
According to Helen Mar Kimball, Joseph Smith
stated that “the practice of this principle
would be the hardest trial the Saints would
ever have to test their faith.”
Though it was one of the “severest” trials
of her life, she testified that it had also
been “one of the greatest blessings.”
Her father, Heber C. Kimball, agreed.
“I never felt more sorrowful,” he said
of the moment he learned of plural marriage
in 1841.
“I wept days.
… I had a good wife.
I was satisfied.”
The decision to accept such a wrenching trial
usually came only after earnest prayer and
intense soul-searching.
Brigham Young said that, upon learning of
plural marriage, “it was the first time
in my life that I had desired the grave.”
“I had to pray unceasingly,” he said,
“and I had to exercise faith and the Lord
revealed to me the truth of it and that satisfied
me.”
Heber C. Kimball found comfort only after
his wife Vilate had a visionary experience
attesting to the rightness of plural marriage.
“She told me,” Vilate’s daughter later
recalled, “she never saw so happy a man
as father was when she described the vision
and told him she was satisfied and knew it
was from God.”
Lucy Walker recalled her inner turmoil when
Joseph Smith invited her to become his wife.
“Every feeling of my soul revolted against
it,” she wrote.
Yet, after several restless nights on her
knees in prayer, she found relief as her room
“filled with a holy influence” akin to
“brilliant sunshine.”
She said, “My soul was filled with a calm
sweet peace that I never knew,” and “supreme
happiness took possession of my whole being.”
Not all had such experiences.
Some Latter-day Saints rejected the principle
of plural marriage and left the Church, while
others declined to enter the practice but
remained faithful.
Nevertheless, for many women and men, initial
revulsion and anguish was followed by struggle,
resolution, and ultimately, light and peace.
Sacred experiences enabled the Saints to move
forward in faith.
Conclusion
The challenge of introducing a principle as
controversial as plural marriage is almost
impossible to overstate.
A spiritual witness of its truthfulness allowed
Joseph Smith and other Latter-day Saints to
accept this principle.
Difficult as it was, the introduction of plural
marriage in Nauvoo did indeed “raise up
seed” unto God.
A substantial number of today’s members
descend through faithful Latter-day Saints
who practiced plural marriage.
Church members no longer practice plural marriage.
Consistent with Joseph Smith’s teachings,
the Church permits a man whose wife has died
to be sealed to another woman when he remarries.
Moreover, members are permitted to perform
ordinances on behalf of deceased men and women
who married more than once on earth, sealing
them to all of the spouses to whom they were
legally married.
The precise nature of these relationships
in the next life is not known, and many family
relationships will be sorted out in the life
to come.
Latter-day Saints are encouraged to trust
in our wise Heavenly Father, who loves His
children and does all things for their growth
and salvation.
