The written record that Joseph Smith, Jr. left does not condone polygamy or the practice thereof. We choose to believe the primary witness of Joseph Smith himself that he did not take any spiritual or polygamist wives. This is attested to by those closest to him, his wife and immediate family.

 

In the scriptures and doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ as restored through Joseph Smith, Jr. continued in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS) and preserved in Restoration Branches staying true to the doctrine of both, there is no justification or special conditions for the practice of multiple wives to one man, in this life or the next. When God moved to populate or repopulate the earth through Adam and Eve or Noah and his family, he did so through monogamy. Anything else is an abomination and perversion of God’s design and pattern for mankind in marital relations.

 

In the revelation from God received by Jason W. Briggs on November 18, 1851, the catalyst for the Reorganization, God declares about the doctrine of polygamy, “they have wholly forsaken my law, and given themselves to all manner of uncleanness, and prostituted my law and the keys of power entrusted [sic] to them, to the lusts of the flesh, and have run greedily in the way of adultery…(it) is not of me, but is the doctrine of Baalam. And I command you to denounce it and proclaim against it.” Thus it has been the mission of the RLDS church since its inception to “denounce” and “proclaim” against polygamy.

 

Joseph Smith III, the prophet and president of the RLDS church from 1860-1914, was plain and outspoken in his denunciation of polygamy as evidenced by his memoirs published as Joseph Smith III and the Restoration (1952, Herald House).

I was contending against it and denouncing it (polygamy) as a principle foreign to the law of God and distinctly contrary to the instructions and intentions of the laws of the United States. My position was that, whether it originated with Joseph Smith or any other teacher of the church, in his lifetime or subsequently, the doctrine was false, its practice erroneous and degrading, and its acceptance wholly unwarranted by any law of God as revealed in either ancient or modern times…I argued it from a moral standpoint of right and wrong…I firmly expected to continue fighting along this line and maintaining this position so long as I lived, presenting these opinions whenever and wherever opportunity should offer. (p. 321).

 

Joseph Smith III’s father, Joseph Smith Jr., has been charged with the origination of polygamy within the Church established through him by God in 1830. This is an issue which cannot be addressed adequately in this response, but a thorough and comprehensive answer to this issue can be found in the three volumes Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy authored by Richard and Pamela Price and found online at https://restorationbookstore.org/pages/joseph-smith-fought-polygamy-online or at the Restoration Bookstore in Independence, MO. The preface of the second volume summarizes the position we take, in that, “the records published during his (J. Smith, Jr.’s) lifetime show him to have continually contended against plural marriage, spiritual wifery, and polygamy in every form by preaching, testifying, and writing against those doctrines and those who were practicing and advocating them.”

 

Joseph Smith III spent his life defending his father’s reputation and firmly believed that he did not practice polygamy. He visited the Salt Lake Valley in Utah four times in his life (1885,1888, 1889, and 1905) preaching and ministering to LDS and RLDS members. He interviewed individuals who claimed to have knowledge of his father’s polygamist practices and found no substantial evidence to support those claims. Before uniting with the RLDS church Joseph Smith III was a lawyer, and he utilized that knowledge in his research. A report of those interviews can be found in his above mentioned memoirs. Joseph Smith III never found convincing evidence that his father was the source of the polygamy doctrine or engaged in its practice.

…in referring to the alleged connection between my father and the theory of polygamous marriage as held by the Utah Church…I asserted that I had no personal knowledge about that matter myself, and had never found or questioned one who had; that no evidence in support of that claim had ever been placed within my reach or had come under my observation which was sufficiently good and sound to be acknowledged as proof; and that my mother had distinctly denied knowledge on her part of such alleged connection. (Joseph Smith III and the Restoration, p. 428)

 

Joseph Smith III also received spiritual proof of his father’s innocence regarding polygamy in a vision he had in 1883.

I suddenly found myself, after my evening devotions, in a room where my mother was. It is just as literal and real to me as I see you people this afternoon. It was a two-story house such as we frequently see, about six-teen by twenty-four, without a division in the center; upon the one side at the end was her stove, and right over at the other side was her table, and next (to) the door to the right was the chair where I sat. Mother had just got her dishes done and had wrung out her dish cloth and hung up her pan against the wall as you women folks do, you know, and she had taken her side comb out of her hair and combed her hair as they did in the old-fashioned way. She took some hair down on either side of her face and rolled it up and stuck a pin through it – you’ve seen it done, many of you. She took off her apron that she had been using and put on a clean one, drew the white handkerchief like some of you used to wear, across her breast and sat down on the chair and said to me,

‘Now Joseph, your father is here and you can ask him the questions that you have been asking me, to see whether I have been telling you the truth or not.’

Now, remember, mother died as I told you a while ago, aged seventy-four, with all the marks of age upon her; and as she sat in that chair she was as I remember her to have been when she was about thirty-five years of age. All that she seemed to have lost was restored to her. I did not mark it at the time, but when she spoke of my father, I turned to the left and there, on an old-fashioned settee, I saw my father. In my estimation father presented an appearance more matured than when I saw him last; he was an older man, such as he might have been had he lived to be forty-two. That is my understanding of it. I turned and asked him the question,

‘Father, do you know what mother and I have been talking about?’

He said, ‘Yes, my son, I do.’

‘Are you prepared to answer the question whether she has told me the truth or not?’

‘I am.’

‘What is your answer?’

‘You may depend upon it that your mother has told you nothing but the truth.’ (Infallible Proofs – Alvin Knisley, 1930, p. 67).

 

Edmund C. Briggs, an Apostle of the RLDS church, records Emma’s conviction about her husband’s, Joseph Smith Jr.’s, involvement in polygamy in his book Early History of the Reorganization – https://www.centerplace.org/library/books/earlyhistoryofthereorganization.htm#9

 

Briggs documents his interactions with Emma Smith, who was known for condemning polygamy and denying her husband’s involvement in it.

I remained in Nauvoo and vicinity until the fall of 1857; worked a part of the time for Joseph on his farm…I became quite well acquainted with the Smith family…Joseph was always cheerful, very respectful to his mother…Sister Emma was an exceptionally good woman, whom everybody spoke of as an example worthy of imitation. In fact, the whole family were esteemed by all people who knew them as good, worthy citizens above reproach, having the reputation of being strictly moral and temperate in all things…

 

She spoke so endearingly of Joseph, in confidence, tears filling her eyes, that I could see she reverenced his very memory, and had full faith in Joseph’s inspiration as a prophet of God, and she always denied to me in the most emphatic language that he taught or practiced polygamy. Again, she said several times in conversation with me that the Utah Mormons had by their acts, since the death of her husband, made true all the slanders and vile things charged against the Church.

 

I was also present when my brother, Jason Briggs, asked Sister Emma in relation to the purported revelation on polygamy, published by Orson Pratt in 1852, and she again denied that her husband ever taught polygamy, or that she ever burned any manuscript of a revelation purporting to favor polygamy, and that ‘the statement that I burned the original of the copy Brigham Young claimed to have, is false, and made out of whole cloth, and not true in any particular.’ My brother was quite particular in his inquiry, when she said, ‘I never saw anything purporting to be a revelation authorizing polygamy until I saw it in the Seer, published by Orson Pratt.’ Several were present at the time, and I shall never forget the candid manner of her expression when she, without a single hesitancy, with honesty and truthfulness marking her countenance. (Early History of the Reorganization – Apostle E.C. Briggs, p. 88)

 

The invasion of the Church of Jesus Christ, restored in 1830, by the sin of plural marriage or polygamy was an attempt by the adversary to overthrow the work of God. This work was not frustrated but preserved by the saints of the Reorganization, which has always maintained that polygamy is not of God but of the devil. Joseph Smith Jr’s grandson, Elbert A. Smith, who served in the RLDS Presidency and as presiding Patriarch expresses the position held by Restoration Branches best in a sermon in 1921.

I say I do not believe that Joseph Smith was a polygamist; but if evidence is ever unearthed to prove that he was, so that no one can deny it, it will not change my faith in the least, for the simple reason that I was not baptized into Joseph Smith; I was baptized into Jesus Christ. If I am ever convinced that Joseph Smith was a polygamist it will not change my course in the least. Certainly, I will not take that for my gospel, as it is a poor message to preach to a dying world. I will go right on preaching the fundamental gospel principles.(Zion Builders Sermon (1921)– Elbert A Smith, p.112)