Scott Woodward:
Plural marriage, a form of religious polygamy, or polygyny to be technical, is one of the most controversial and faith-challenging aspects of the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was difficult when it was first introduced in the early church, and, although it was discontinued over 130 years ago, it is still a difficult issue to reckon with for many, both within and outside of the church. So why was it introduced into the church in the first place? When did Joseph Smith first learn that this practice would be restored? Why did he delay practicing it? How did he and others who were asked to live it initially respond? And what were the four theological reasons given by the Lord in the Doctrine and Covenants to justify the practice of plural marriage? On today’s episode of Church History Matters, we explore the best sources to answer these and related questions. And while we realize that learning the answers to these questions may not fully remove one’s wrestle with this issue, we believe it can sure help. I’m Scott Woodward, a managing director at Scripture Central, and my co-host is Casey Griffiths, also a managing director at Scripture Central. And today Casey and I dive into our first episode in this series dealing with plural marriage. Now, let’s get into it.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Well, welcome, everybody. I’m Casey Griffiths.

Scott Woodward:
And I’m Scott Woodward.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
This is a series of discussions we’re having about some special issues in church history, and today we’re starting one of the most controversial issues in the history of the church, that is, plural marriage.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so, Scott, why don’t you start us off a little bit about plural marriage and why this seems to be something that comes up a lot and why it can be difficult for some people.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Well, you know, I found that it’s kind of a hard topic to discuss because I feel like we’re kind of uncomfortable with our polygamous past, you know what I mean? It’s been over 120 years since plural marriage was legal in the church, right? But it’s still the brunt of jokes of anti-LDS material. It’s easy, kind of low-hanging fruit. You know, sometimes I liken it to if religion is like TNT and sex is like fire, you know, when you put sex and religion together, it’s bound to be an explosive topic.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
There’s just too many examples in history where religion has been the pretext for sexual misconduct, you know?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And so I think people are rightfully suspicious from the get-go on a topic like this, and there’s just so much spin and innuendo about it. And so we don’t know how to talk about it comfortably. So we’re going to try to do that today, and during this series, over the next several episodes, to just try to talk about it, go right to the heart of the matter, and dig into it in a respectful, scholarly, historically faithful way.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That’s what we’re trying to do, and I always tell my students, “If you feel weird about plural marriage, you’re supposed to feel weird about it.”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Good job. You’re normal.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. It’s not a commandment for us. It hasn’t been for over a century.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And it’s something that we’re forbidden to practice. And so, you know, if you’re praying to know if plural marriage is right for you, you’re asking the wrong question. What you have to do is contextualize it and go back to the time when it was practiced and look at the evidence of if they did this for spiritual reasons and if the Lord was telling them it was right for them. So there’s a little weirdness just built into the fact that our church emphasizes chastity and fidelity so much, and they did emphasize chastity and fidelity back then, but it was a different marriage system and that—I’m going to pull the old “The past is a foreign country” card and say that even a culture that happened in the same place where most of us live but happened over a century ago is going to be very, very different from the culture we live in right now.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. And if anything, more conservative sexually, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
This practice of polygamy is revolting to their sensitivities, their cultural sensitivities at that time, much like it is still today, but if we could magnify that even more in that day.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Boy. Yeah. Anything beyond man-woman marriage, traditional marriage, was looked at with suspicion in that day for sure.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, and we should point out that Latter-day Saints weren’t the only ones with unconventional marriage practices. There was the Oneida Community¹ and a couple other people, but it seems like we were the largest and received the most attention in the 19th century. Yeah, and exactly like you pointed out, any Latter-day Saint that’s had interactions with someone usually has to, at some point, answer questions about plural marriage, “How many moms do you have?” or “Does your family practice plural marriage?” There was an episode of an HBO show that was broadcast that had innuendo about Mormons, Latter-day Saints, having more than one wife.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So if this is really sensational, and we’ve got to separate sort of myth from the actual facts, where are the sources that a person would go to start understanding the factual practice of plural marriage?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. And that’s—I think that’s the right question because it’s such a volatile issue, sensitive issue. There’s so much spin and innuendo about it. It’s hard to find solid, trustworthy resources on the topic. The first place you’d probably want to start is the church’s Gospel Topics essays. They have, I think, three different essays on this topic, different time periods, and we’ll—we’ll hit on some of that.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And there’s—there’s kind of a general overview of plural marriage.

Scott Woodward:
Yep.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And then they have sub-essays of Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo, Plural Marriage in Utah, and the end of plural marriage.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So you can do a—a shallow dive and just read the plural marriage essay, or you can do a deep dive, and it’s probably around 25 pages or so.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
If you explore in depth each one of those eras, where would you go once you’ve read the Gospel Topics essays?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Then my favorite source, I think he’s a trusted source, is Brian Hales. He’s done so much great work with this.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
So the two websites I’d recommend are josephsmithspolygamy.org and mormonpolygamydocuments.org, which is also a compilation of Brian Hales. So the first one, josephsmithspolygamy.org, is Brian and his wife, Laura. They’ve done a great job going through the history of plural marriage. They’ve got biographies on every one of Joseph Smith’s confirmed polygamous wives. It uses as the primary sources those who were involved, like Joseph Smith’s wives and others who Joseph Smith taught the practice to. Anytime you’re doing history that—I mean, the closer you can get to the original source, the better.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And so they’ve done a nice, kind of curated job on josephsmithspolygamy.org. But if you want to get to, like, all the raw sources, that’s what he’s done over on mormonpolygamydocuments.org. And my understanding, he paid Don Bradley $50,000 to be his research assistant, to just go out and find every stinking document out there on Joseph Smith’s polygamy: good, bad, incriminating, whatever he could find. And that’s all now available for free on mormonpolygamydocuments.org. You can go look at everything. And so I just love Brian’s transparency. His scholarship has been awesome on this. And so those are the two sources I was thinking of.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, and if you’re not internet-savvy, there’s also a three volume work called Joseph Smith’s Polygamy. There’s two volumes that cover the history and one volume that covers the theology. And again, these are excellently written, expertly sourced.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And one of the things that I really appreciate about those books and those websites is that a lot of times our explanations for plural marriage come from men.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I remember, you know, the first time I breached the topic, I was sharing quotes from Brigham Young and John Taylor and church leaders. They’ve gone out of their way to find the voices of women.

Scott Woodward:
Yes.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
People like Eliza R. Snow or Lucy Walker or Helen Mar Kimball and why they entered into it.

Scott Woodward:
That’s right. Yeah, I think the best sources out there on Joseph Smith’s practice of polygamy would be his wives.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
It doesn’t get better than that. You don’t get more to the source than those who Joseph married, and yeah. That’s what the Hales do a good job of is quoting from the wives.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. These are conservative, Victorian people who sometimes don’t want to go there. But they were also anxious to help people understand that they weren’t coerced into this system, and to help people understand its real origins, and so, you know, sometimes it’s best to just skip the middle man and go straight to one of those sites, like you pointed out, and read the words of the actual people that participated in it.

Scott Woodward:
Yes.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So that you can get a feel for what was actually happening.

Scott Woodward:
Amen.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
We’ve got a basic feel for sources, so let’s dive into it, and maybe let’s start talking about the origins of plural marriage. So in the Doctrine and Covenants, section 132 is the section that explains plural marriage. One of the things the section heading says is that that revelation itself was given in 1843 but that plural marriage and the principle surrounding it may have been known as early as 1831.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Why do we fix 1831 as the date when plural marriage may have first been revealed?

Scott Woodward:
There’s a couple late sources that we have on that. I’ll just share an example: Orson Pratt, he said, “Lyman Johnson, who was very familiar with Joseph at this early date, Joseph living at his father’s house,” So this is when Joseph Smith was living in Hiram, Ohio at the John Johnson home. So “Lyman Johnson … told me,” Orson Pratt says, “that Joseph had made known to him as early as 1831, that plural marriage was a correct principle. Joseph declared to Lyman that God had revealed it to him, but that the time had not come to teach or practice it in the church, but that the time would come.”² So that’s an interesting source, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That’s Orson Pratt learning it from Lyman Johnson, who heard it from Joseph Smith. So it’s a thirdhand account, but he fixes as early as 1831.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But we also have another corroborating source here, Joseph B. Noble, a friend of Joseph Smith, he said that the prophet Joseph Smith told him “that the doctrine of celestial marriage was revealed to him while he was engaged on the work of translation of the scriptures. But when the communication was first made, the Lord stated that the time for the practice of that principle had not yet arrived.”³ So we actually know that in 1831, in February and March of 1831, Joseph would’ve been working on the book of Genesis still, in his Bible translation project. And it would’ve been during that time period where he would’ve encountered the accounts of polygamous patriarchs like Abraham in Genesis 16, where he marries Hagar a few chapters later. Genesis 29 we’ve got Jacob marrying Rachel and Leah, later Zilpah and Bilhah. During that kind of early biblical translation work, this would’ve agitated the question in Joseph’s mind.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And that’s what Joseph B. Noble says.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And the timing lines up perfectly.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Joseph Smith finishes translating the Book of Mormon, and then, in 1830, commences on his next project, which is to translate the Bible, and this is also the most fruitful period for revelation. This is when most of the Doctrine and Covenants is received. We’re talking, oh, just about everything from section 29 up to 100 or so is linked in some way to this biblical translation project.

Scott Woodward:
That’s right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so 1831 hits a lot of the right marks. You’ve got these two external sources, and we’ve got dates because we have the manuscripts of the Joseph Smith translation that say this was around the time he’s studying the Book of Genesis. So one thing to keep in mind is that Joseph Smith very much takes seriously everything that he finds in the scriptures. And if you’re studying the Book of Genesis, the Old Testament in general, you’re going to run across plural marriage and have to maybe grapple with the consequences of that.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, and that’s exactly what Joseph was doing. That’s—as you read Section 132 today, the first few verses are about that. He actually specifically asks about Abraham, right? Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David. He actually mentioned some by name, and from there flows the response and the revelation.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. The other thing that we’ve got to add on here, too, is that 1831 is really early. Speculatively the earliest plural wife is around 1836-37. The practice itself isn’t really fully initiated among church members until almost a full decade later.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So are there indications there that Joseph Smith was struggling—

Scott Woodward:
Oh man.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—with this—

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That he may have had a hard time accepting it just like everybody else did later on?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. When Joseph first learns about this, and let’s be transparent about our sources here: What I’m about to share comes from Joseph Smith’s wives. This is one instance where it’s very helpful to have what Joseph told his wives about this. For instance, Lucy Walker, she said that when Joseph first learned about this, I’ll use her words, “He had his doubts about it, for he debated it in his own mind.” Eliza R. Snow, another wife of Joseph’s, said that Joseph was afraid to teach it, afraid to promulgate it. She also said that, and this is a good one, she said, it was in a “private interview [with my brother, Lorenzo Snow] that the prophet Joseph unbosomed his heart, and described the trying mental ordeal he experienced in overcoming the repugnance of his feelings, the natural result of the force of education and social custom, relative to the introduction of plural marriage.“ Joseph is talking to some of those he trusts the most and telling them how much of a wrestle this was for him to overcome the repugnance of his feelings.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
She goes on, “He knew the voice of God—he knew the commandment of the Almighty to him was to go forward—to set the example, and establish Celestial plural marriage. He knew that he had not only his own prejudices and prepossessions to combat and to overcome, but those of the whole Christian world stared him in the face.”⁴ So when he learned the truthfulness of this principle, when God first revealed that to him in response to his biblical translation work, this was not an easy thing for him to accept. I mean, he was wrestling mightily here, it sounds like.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. One of the prominent stories that emerges from the people that he confides in is that he was sort of told, “You’re going to do this, or you’re going to be removed from your calling.”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Another source that we’ve got here is Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, who’s pretty well known to church members: She’s the little girl that saves the manuscript to the Doctrine and Covenants, runs in the field, the moment most of us have heard of, but she becomes a key player in later church history. She said an angel came to him, and the last time he came with a drawn sword in his hand.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
“Joseph said he talked to him soberly about it and told him it was an abomination and quoted scripture to him. He said In the Book of Mormon it was an abomination. [Joseph said] the angel came to me three times between the years of 1834 and 1842 and said I was to obey the principle or he would slay me.”⁵ And that is strong stuff. And apparently a lot of people have sort of borne a similar testimony that Joseph Smith had related that story to them.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Either, like, he’d be removed from his position or he’d be outright slain if he didn’t obey this principle.

Scott Woodward:
Can we just talk about the fact that he, like, scripture debated the angel?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. That takes moxie, right?

Scott Woodward:
He quotes—

Casey Paul Griffiths:
You’ve got an angel there, and you’re like, “Well, have you read Jacob 2” or something.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. “Come on. Don’t you know about Jacob 2? He calls it an abomination in there, man. Come on, angel. Don’t you know your scriptures?” That is so awesome.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But Mary, I mean, Mary’s not the only person that shares this story.

Scott Woodward:
No.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I think if you look at the sources, there’s somewhat around 20 people or so that relate some version of that story.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, here’s another one. Erastus Snow. He’s Lorenzo Snow‘s cousin, and he said that the angel accused Joseph of “Being neglectful in the discharges of his duties regarding this principle.” After the—the angel had taught and encouraged him and commanded him to go forward, and Joseph deferred and hesitated. And so he says that the angel now accuses him of being neglectful in the discharge of his duties. And he said that Joseph had to plead on his knees before the angel for his life. Another one from Benjamin F. Johnson, a close friend of Joseph, he says “Joseph waited,” right? This is super uncharacteristic of Joseph Smith to wait and defer on keeping a commandment, right? You know, what’s the story? When—after he got tarred and feathered February of 1832 at the Johnson Farm he said to Sydney Rigdon, “I think it’s time to go to Missouri.” He’d been—hesitated a little bit to go to Missouri, but after that happened, he said, “I made this my motto: When the Lord commands, do it.”⁶

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
But not on plural marriage. This one, he uncharacteristically resisted and deferred and delayed. So Benjamin F. Johnson said that Joseph “waited until an angel with a drawn sword stood before him and declared that if he longer delayed fulfilling that command, he would slay him.”⁷ So there’s, yeah, another account of not just, you’ll be dropped from your calling, but you will be killed.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Removed from this Earth.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Another account says he’ll be destroyed.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. That’s Eliza R. Snow, right? I’ve got that quote. “The prophet hesitated and deferred from time to time until an angel of God stood by him with a drawn sword and told them that unless he moved forward and established plural marriage, his priesthood would be taken from him and he should be destroyed. This testimony, he not only bore to my brother,” that’s Lorenzo Snow, “but … to others.”⁸ So there is a period of hesitancy, and that might explain the years—he knows about this in 1831.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But it’s much, much later that the practice is begun.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. And we’ll talk about in our next episode, his first plural marriage, which is likely 1834-36 in Kirtland. You know, that’s not going to go super well. Just a little spoiler alert there. But yeah, then he’s not going to do anything until 1841. And so, yeah, this is a, like you say, about a decade from the time he first learns about it until he fully embraces and lives in earnest. One more quote from Helen Mar Kimball Smith, another wife of Joseph. She said, “Had it not been for the fear of [God’s] displeasure, Joseph would have shrunk from the undertaking and would’ve continued silent, as he did for years until an angel of the Lord threatened to slay him. If he did not reveal and establish this celestial principle,”⁹ and then she says, “Joseph put off the dreaded day as long as he dared.”¹⁰ I feel for him.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
You know, from all the eyewitnesses that were involved in this, Joseph was, at the end of the day, a reluctant polygamist. I think we could say it like that.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
He’s reluctant. He’s hesitant, but he does it at the instigation of God and a threatening angel.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Now, beyond all this just “God commanded it,” there is kind of a rationale behind it, too.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
A lot of times if we talk about why plural marriage was put in place, because that’s probably the most common question is to just say, “Why?”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, why?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
We’ll sometimes defer and say, “I don’t know.” Or I’ve often heard people give maybe faulty explanations, things like, “Hey, there were more women in the church than there were men.” We don’t really have evidence that that’s the case at that point in time. Or that they were crossing the plains and it was more difficult to find good husbands or things like that.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. There’s more righteous women than men. That one’s a—

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, there’ll be more women in the Celestial Kingdom than men, that kind of thing.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Rather than diving into those, I think the best approach is probably just to go to Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants, where the Lord in revelation clearly gives several reasons for why this is supposed to happen. So let’s talk a little bit about the origin of Section 132, which comes in the summer of 1843. Tell us what you know about the origins of Section 132.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, so this is going to come as a result of Hyrum Smith wanting to help Joseph Smith persuade his own wife, Emma Smith, to get a stronger testimony of plural marriage. She was very resistant, very hesitant about this. It, in a lot of ways, strained their marriage, and I think we’ll talk about this in depth in future episodes. But in an effort to help persuade Emma Smith, Hyrum asked Joseph to just write it down.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And he would take it to Emma and read it to her. And that would certainly help persuade her that this really is God’s will and there’s nothing to be concerned about here. And then we could say that Hyrum was pretty naive in thinking that, but that, as I understand it, is kind of the—the upshot of the story. What would you add to that?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Well, the source on the origin of Section 132 is a man named William Clayton.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Most church members know him as the guy that composed “Come, Come Ye Saints,” but he’s this English convert who’s acting as Joseph Smith’s secretary in Nauvoo, and he’s the one that describes the scene. He says Joseph and Hyrum came into Joseph Smith’s office in the Red Brick Store, and they were discussing the principle of plural marriage. And Hyrum at a certain point says, “If you’ll write down the revelation, I’ll go and read it to Emma, and it will convince her.” And Joseph basically says, “You don’t know Emma as well as I do.” And that’s one thing that I would emphasize is this is a scene from a marriage where they’ve probably been having conversations about this for years and years. And Joseph seemed to feel like, “I don’t think that’s going to convince her alone,” but Hyrum said, “I think I can convince her.” Then there’s a couple other interesting things that Clayton adds. Like, he says, “Hyrum requested Joseph Smith to get the Urim and Thummim to write the revelation.”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Joseph said, “I know the principles of the revelation well enough that I can dictate it without the Urim and Thummim.” Then he dictates section 132, which is an incredibly long and complex document. Clayton says he dictated it, and then he had William read the whole thing back to him, pronounced it correct. But then one interesting thing here is that Joseph also says, “I could have added much more on the subject, but what I have to say is sufficient for right now.”¹¹ So Section 132 is kind of an introduction.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And it’s also a private conversation that unfortunately is our best document on the theology behind plural marriage, but it’s very much intended for an audience of one.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Even if it does eventually end up in the Doctrine and Covenants.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, this is to Emma.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. But within that, and Hyrum takes it and reads it to Emma, and she still struggles with it. We’re going to talk about that a little bit later on.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
For anybody that’s curious, I would say do a careful reading of Section 132. But also keep in mind that part of the revelation is sort of a general explanation of eternal marriage and plural marriage, and part of the revelation is addressed specifically to Emma Smith. And so it’s got to be read within context or it can be really difficult to deal with.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
There’s four clear reasons given. Brian Hales helps us kind of identify these four reasons. So let’s dive in. Number one reason, and you can find this in verses 34, 36, 50-51, is that this was intended to be a trial, a trial intended to test and try the Saints, and the Lord even invokes the name of Abraham, kind of the patron saint of all major trials.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
To describe what they’re going through.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, he couches plural marriage within the Abrahamic sacrifice motif, doesn’t he?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
He talks about Hagar. He was commanded to take Hagar as a wife. And then he says Abraham was also commanded to sacrifice his son, even though the commandment is “thou shall not kill,” kind of bringing up this idea that, “Listen, plural marriage is the kind of thing that it’s only right when God commands it.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And so it’s very similar to Abraham’s test, I think, in a lot of different ways, right? It looks wrong from an outsider’s perspective, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
Kill your son? What the heck is wrong with you, right? Are you mental? It offends our sensitivities deeply. It brings our loyalties into conflict.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
I mean, Isaac was Sarah’s son too, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And so loyalty to Sarah versus loyalty to God, there’s that strong tension. It requires your love of God to transcend your love of everything else. You know, at the end of the day, it requires us to trust God, right? That’s the nature of an Abrahamic test.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And that’s reason number one. He mentions it there in verse, what did you say, 34-36?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm. 34, 36, 50-51 are where Abraham’s name is invoked to use it, and—

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
We should say, and we’ve touched on this earlier, this was a severe trial not only for Joseph but for the people introduced to it.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Brigham Young is kind of the poster child, right, for plural marriage.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
He says at the time Joseph revealed the doctrine, “It was the first time in my life that I had desired the grave, and I could hardly get over it for a long time. … When I saw a funeral, I felt to envy the corpse in its situation and … regret that I was not in the coffin. …And I have had to examine myself, from that day to this, and watch my faith, and carefully meditate, lest I should be found desiring the grave more than I ought to do.”¹² We don’t think of Brigham Young as the sort of person that was wavering, but he says this was a severe trial for him.

Scott Woodward:
Like, that’s borderline—he’s kind of saying he was having suicidal thoughts, if I’m not misreading that, I mean, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
I mean this, this doctrine gave him some serious pause and some desire for the grave. Wow. Yeah. Should we do another one? I’ve got another one.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
John Taylor. He’s so good. He said, “I had always entertained strict ideas of virtue, and I felt as a married man that this was … an appalling thing to do. The idea of going and asking a young lady to be married to me when I already had a wife!” He said, “It was a thing calculated to stir up feelings from the innermost depths of the human soul. I had always entertained the strictest regard of chastity. … [hence] nothing but a knowledge of God, and the revelations of God, and the truth of them, could have induced me to embrace such a principle as this.”¹³ I see really clearly in that quote from John Taylor that Abrahamic sacrifice principle. “Here’s a thing that goes against my feelings. Everything about it is revolting to me, and it’s only the knowledge that I have that it’s from God that induces me to embrace this principle.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
He will embrace it, and he’ll have several wives.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And not just prominent people like John Taylor. Lucy Walker, who’s one of Joseph Smith’s plural wives, she said, “Every feeling of my soul revolted against it. Said I, ‘The same God who sent this message is the being I’ve worshiped from early childhood, and he must manifest his will to me.’”¹⁴ Joseph Smith basically assures her he will manifest his will, and she gains a testimony of it, but I don’t think anybody that entered into plural marriage in Nauvoo did so without extreme hesitancy, and—

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
They, they use the language again and again of an extreme test, an Abrahamic test, to describe it.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And one thing I might add, too, is it’s still a test for members of the church.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Like it’s still probably the number one most difficult issue in the history of the church that people have to grapple with.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, I mean, you get backed up to a wall on this one, and you just really have to ask, “Would God really command his prophet to do this?” And that troubles many today. And like you started out with earlier in saying that “If you’re bothered by plural marriage, then that’s good,” you know? Welcome to the club. It’s actually a pretty faithful club—

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
That was bothered by this, starting with Joseph Smith. He’s the captain of not feeling very good about this principle.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Eliza R. Snow, John Taylor. All of Joseph Smith’s plural wives, that whole first generation wrestled with this deeply, and so if you—yeah, if you struggle with this, welcome to the club. It’s meant to do that, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
You know, one of Joseph wives, Helen Mar Kimball, she said that Joseph told her this, and I think this is still true today, she said that Joseph said, “The practice of this principle would be the hardest trial the Saints would ever have to test their faith.”¹⁵

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm.

Scott Woodward:
I think that’s prophetic. I think that’s true. There are kind of even different camps in the church. I’ve noticed there’s some people that just really want Joseph to have been wrong about this. They really want to say, well, you know, prophets can make mistakes. I think this was an error, you know?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And boy, I—I sympathize with their feelings that they don’t want to get behind a prophet who was really pushing this and that it was really from God. But that’s the first reason that D&C 132 introduces, is this will be a test. This will be a trial. This will reach into your heart. This will tug your heartstrings deeply.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
It did it for them there when they had to live it, and I think it still does that today for sure.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. OK, so reason number one: it’s an Abrahamic trial.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Reason number two, and you can find this one around verses 40 and 45, is the early Saints definitely tied plural marriage back to the restoration of all things.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
They’re taking everything seriously that’s in the scriptures. Benjamin Johnson says it was the ancient order of plural marriage. Helen Mar Kimball said Joseph “astonished his hearers by preaching on the restoration of all things, and said … as it was anciently with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, so would it be again.”¹⁶

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So it’s ancient, basically. It’s them bringing back something that existed anciently. They take everything in the scriptures seriously.

Scott Woodward:
Yep. Part of the restoration of all things that was clearly articulated there, verse 40 and 45, that Joseph has the keys to do that and that this would be one of the things that would be brought back as part of the Restoration.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, and one thing that struck me, especially in a recent rereading of the Doctrine and Covenants is how seriously they take everything in the scriptures.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Not everything was brought back, like animal sacrifice, but—

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
There’s several places in the Doctrine and Covenants where they’re asking serious questions about the Mosaic system of sacrifices and if it needs to come back. It seems like they don’t, because the Book of Mormon says it’s not necessary, but plural marriage is one of those things where if Israel practiced it, we need to take a serious look at that.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And see if it’s cultural or if it’s theological.

Scott Woodward:
Should it become part of the restitution of all things? That Acts 3 phrase that they took very seriously.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Number three, you’re going to find around Section 63 [correction: Section 132 Verse 63] of the Doctrine and Covenants, and this is one that I think is fairly intuitive. The language is “to multiply and replenish the earth.”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The Lord tells them that part of the reason why he’s initiating the system is to multiply and replenish, to bring a lot of spirits to earth, to these good families that are going to nurture and help them along the way.

Scott Woodward:
So that’s D&C 132, verse 63, you said, correct?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And that’s the one exception that the Book of Mormon offers, too, right? In Jacob chapter 2, which it seems like this was the chapter Joseph quoted to the angel, right, where he says, “Hey, it says right here that plural marriage is an abomination,” right? People, some of the Nephites were trying to justify plural marriage by quoting about David and Solomon in the Old Testament, and Jacob chastises them and says knock it off, right? “This is an abomination.” So if Joseph quoted that verse, the angel could have said back to Joseph, “Just keep reading, Joseph. There is an exception here.” Verse 30, right? Verse 27 of Jacob chapter 2 says, “For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife.” Right? There it is. There’s the standard.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
But in verse 30, he says, “For if I will, saith the Lord of hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people,” to do something else besides the monogamy standard. “Otherwise they shall hearken unto these things,” that is the one-man-one-wife rule. And so, yeah, multiply and replenish is a key reason for plural marriage.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And that text in Jacob, and another passage in the Doctrine and Covenants in section 49, seems to indicate that monogamy is the rule. The standard is the word you use.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Plural marriage is the exception. In Jacob 2 the Lord says, “Yeah, if I need that to be done, I’ll command it.” That’s the reason he gives is to raise up seed unto him. In a lot of my classes this point is as simple as saying, “Hey, raise your hand if you’re descended from someone that practiced plural marriage.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And I teach in the pioneer corridor, you know, in Utah. There’s a fairly high number of students who raised their hand. My wife is a descendant of Heber C. Kimball, who was the most prominent polygamist in the history of the church. Any commandment that gets Elizabeth Ottley here to Earth, I’m going to be OK with. And that seems to be one of the expressly stated purposes in the revelation.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. In the gospel topics essay on the Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo, there’s a line that says “A substantial number of today’s members descend through faithful Latter-day Saints who practiced plural marriage.” It’d be interesting to know what that number is exactly. I don’t think anyone’s ever crunched that number. I don’t know if we have the data to do that, but—

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The Heber C. Kimball Family Association, which my wife is part of by default, is 25,000 people now.

Scott Woodward:
Geez. Yeah, so you can just ask, “Did it work?” Yes.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It does seem like in that sense it did the job.

Scott Woodward:
Check. It did that very well. Did it provide an Abrahamic test? Yes. Yes.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
Did it restore all things? Well, it restored that thing for sure.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
So, so far it’s checking all the boxes, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Reason four is probably the most complicated one.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And maybe we need to give a little bit of time to explain it, but the rationale given in section 132 was that it was also given so that everybody would have an opportunity to experience marriage, especially faithful women. So let’s talk a little bit about the logic behind that. Can you go into that?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. So I think the key verses would be verses 16-20, and then verse 63. So the idea here is that—well, verses 16-20 lay out the standard that everyone needs to be sealed in an eternal marriage in order to obtain the highest kingdom of heaven.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And that brings up the question, well, what about those women who don’t have the opportunity to marry in this life? Or what about those who are married to non-believers?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And for women in that situation, plural marriage solves that. That’s what verse 63 is then going to bring in, so verses 16-20 talk about everyone needs to be married in the new and everlasting covenant in order to obtain the highest heaven. Now, that could be monogamy. That’s going to be monogamy for most people, but there are people who are in a situation where that doesn’t make sense. That doesn’t fit their current scenario. At least, this is the thinking back in the 1830s and ’40s with this. And so, yeah, plural marriage would solve that. Brigham Young’s sister, just an example, she’s 55 years old. Her name’s Fanny Young, I think this is the last plural wife that Joseph Smith takes. She’s talking with Joseph and Brigham Young. She talks about how she would love in the next life just to be a ministering angel. She’s OK if she’s never married for eternity or whatever. And Joseph Smith rebuked her, and he said, “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know that you would be happy not in a married situation.” He said, “I’ll marry you right now. I’ll marry you to help take care of that.” And she accepts his proposal, and Joseph has Brigham Young do the ceremony right there.¹⁷ You know, I say for anyone who thinks that Joseph Smith is just in this for, you know, some lustful reasons, you have to ponder on that episode. 55-year-old Fanny Young. That makes no sense at all in terms of being motivated by libido and lust. But it makes all the sense in the world when it’s understood through the lens of what Section 132 is talking about. Every woman needs to be, and every man needs to be, sealed in an eternal marriage.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. One interesting wrinkle here is we quote Section 131, which doesn’t say you have to enter into marriage. It says you have to enter into this order of the priesthood.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And then there’s brackets, “meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage.”

Scott Woodward:
Correct.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I think we should point out that someone like Fanny Young didn’t have a physical relationship with Joseph Smith.

Scott Woodward:
Oh.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And someone like Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner didn’t either.

Scott Woodward:
Correct.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I talk a lot about Mary because she is buried in my mom’s hometown. I’ve been to her grave in Minersville, Utah. Mary was wed to a guy named Adam Lightner, who’s buried right next to her and is by all measures a great guy. But Adam was not a church member, and he did not ever join the church. And so Mary was sealed to Joseph—there was no physical relationship—so that she would be able to enter into that order of the priesthood, be able to obtain the blessings of exaltation. And a fair number of Joseph Smith’s plural wives fit into that category.

Scott Woodward:
Correct.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That was kind of a unique practice in Nauvoo, but it was something that happened.

Scott Woodward:
And that’s why it’s so important, I think, just to reemphasize looking at all of this in context, right? In the context of Joseph Smith’s theology, marriage without having any sexual relation makes all the sense in the world. Outside of that context, outside of this theology, outside of reason number four that D&C 132 is underlining, makes no sense.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Joseph is true to the theology of section 132. All four reasons.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
There are women that he did have sexual relationships with, and we’ll—we’ll talk about them in future episodes, but for Joseph, that was not necessary.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
Certainly for multiply and replenish the Earth, that would be necessary, but—

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
That’s only one of the reasons for plural marriage and not the only reason.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. It seems like the primary reason, based on Section 132, is to create this extended family relationship, where you’re not just connected to someone, with them being your friend, you’re sealed together. And I think it’s crucial to understand that in the mind of the early saints, they’re creating not just eternal families but the eternal family, the group of people that will be connected through these ordinances of the priesthood and go back into God’s presence because of them.

Scott Woodward:
That’s right. So theological context matters.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. So let’s just review our main points here.

Scott Woodward:
Okay.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Number one, Joseph Smith knows about this fairly early on, 1831, which is a year after the church is organized. Number two, he struggles with this. He’s not unusual.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Even to the point of arguing with an angel about this, he struggled.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Like we said, that takes moxie.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The best sources to study this would be the revelation itself, rather than speculating about demography or anything like that. Read section 132, which, again, not a lot of us have done carefully. We need to and take that seriously.

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And then any other points you wanna underline or hit here, Scott?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. And then next to section 132, which is, I think, our earliest plural marriage document, by the way—so that comes in chronology, earliest, and then after that, I think, yeah, then the testimonies of Joseph Smith’s wives, his own wives, need to be taken seriously. And when you’re trying to understand Joseph Smith’s motives, his practice and his uprightness, his virtue as a man, nobody would know about that more than his wives.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And from everything we can tell, Joseph Smith was motivated by his theology, motivated by what he was learning from God and from the angel. This was a test of faithfulness for him and the Saints who had to practice it and for us today. It’s still a test, in some ways. This was part of the restoration of all things. Multiply and replenish. It worked for many. We’ll talk about Joseph Smith himself later in future episodes, but others definitely. This was—like you said, Heber C. Kimball is a great example of that. It worked.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And it was a way to provide a path for women who did not have a conventional eternal marriage to be able to be exalted according to the principles of section 132. So that’s the theology. That’s the initial kind of beginning of all this, and I think when you keep this all in the original context, it might still try you, but without all the spin and innuendo put into it, I think it’s manageable. It’s bearable. At least it is for me.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I agree. It’s still difficult, but it’s one of those things you can wrap your head around with a little effort and study.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So this is just our first episode on this. We’re going to do a couple more where we talk more about the history of plural marriage, including a little bit more about how it was initiated in Nauvoo. We’re going to talk about how it was actually practiced during that 50-year period in the 19th century when it’s practiced by the larger church, and then some of the most interesting information is about how and why plural marriage ended within the church and how that came to be. So join us again, and we’re going to continue to do a deep dive into plural marriage. You got the basics today, but we’re going to go much, much deeper in future episodes.

Scott Woodward:
Thank you for listening to this episode of Church History Matters. Next week we continue this series by diving into the details of Joseph Smith’s own trial-and-error approach to personally living the practice of plural marriage, including an initial colossal failure in the 1830s followed by his 1840s efforts involving some creative, non-sexual, eternity-only and dynastic sealings, and also some time-and-eternity sealings, which involved at least some sexuality. We’ll also discuss what we know about any children Joseph may have had with these other wives. Today’s episode was produced by Zander Sturgill, edited by Scott Woodward and Nick Galieti, with show notes and transcript by Gabe Davis. Church History Matters is a podcast of Scripture Central, a nonprofit which exists to help build enduring faith in Jesus Christ by making Latter-day Saint scripture and church history accessible, comprehensible, and defensible to people everywhere. For more resources to enhance your gospel study, go to scripturecentral.org where everything is available for free because of the generous donations of people like you. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us.

1. “The Oneida Community was a Perfectionist communal society dedicated to living as one family and to sharing all property, work, and love,” according to a publication by Virginia Commonwealth University. “The Oneida community believed strongly in a system of free love known as complex marriage, where any member was free to have sex with any other who consented.” For more information, read their article here.

2. History of the Church, Volume 5, page xxxi.

3. “Historical Record”, Vol. 6:232-233; by Andrew Jensen; c. November 1831. Comments by Joseph B. Noble at quarterly Stake conference held at Centreville, Davis Co., Utah, June 11, 1883. See the full quote in this document.

4. Eliza R. Snow, Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow, 70. (As recorded in LDS Collector’s Library [2005])

5. Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner Smith, “Remarks” at Brigham Young University, April 14. 1905, Vault MSS 363, fd. 6, 2-3. See the full quote and others at this webpage.]

6. History of the Church, 2:170; from “History of the Church” (manuscript), book B-1, p. 558, Church Archives, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

7. Johnson, Benjamin F. “Letter to George F. Gibbs.” 1903.]

8. Eliza R. Snow, Biography of Lorenzo Snow, 69. See the quote at this webpage.

9. Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, Why We Practice Plural Marriage (Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1884), 53. See the quote at this webpage.

10. Jeni Broberg Holzapfel and Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, eds., A Woman’s View: Helen Mar Whitney’s Reminiscences of Early Church History (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Religious Studies Center, 1997), 142. See the quote at this webpage.

11. William Clayton Statement, 1874, Ms 3423, folder 1, images 30–36. Read the excerpt at this webpage.

12. Brigham Young, in Journal of Discourses, 3:266.

13. BH Roberts, The Life of John Taylor, page 100. See the quote and others at this webpage.

14. Lyman Omer Littlefield, Reminiscences of Latter-day Saints: Giving an Account of Much Individual Suffering Endured for Religious Conscience (Logan: Utah Journal Co, 1888), 46–48. See this quote and others at this webpage.

15. Holzapfel and Richard Holzapfel, eds., A Woman’s View, 140. See this quote and others at this webpage.

16. Helen Mar Whitney, Plural Marriage as Taught by the Prophet Joseph: A Reply to Joseph Smith [III], Editor of the Lamoni Iowa “Herald,” (Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1882), 11; see also Jeni Broberg Holzapfel and Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, eds., A Woman’s View: Helen Mar Whitney’s Reminiscences of Early Church History (Provo, Utah: Bookcraft, 1992), 142–43. See also Joseph A. Kelting, “Affidavit,” March 1, 1894, images 11–16a; see also Kelting, “Statement,” Juvenile Instructor 29 (May 1, 1894): 289–90. See this quote and others at this webpage.

17. Brigham Young, in Journal of Discourses, 16:166–67 (August 31, 1873). Find the full excerpt at this webpage.