Plural Marriage

At one time in its early history, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints endorsed and practiced a form of polygamy called "plural marriage," but this is no longer the case. Today (and for the past century) members of the Church who engage in multiple marriage relationships are excommunicated.

Joseph Smith secretly introduced plural marriage among a limited number of Church members in the 1830s. The practice was more widespread, but still secret, during the Church's Nauvoo period in the early 1840s. The practice caused schisms within the Church both before and after the death of Joseph Smith. Those Saints who followed Brigham Young and the Quorum of the Twelve westward in the mid 1840s had accepted the practice of plural marriage, while those who remained behind and eventually formed several off-shoot churches did not accept the practice. The Church officially and publically announced the practice of plural marriage in 1852. Over the next four decades the Mormons were the targets of severe persecution, political campaings, and legal proceedings to try to erradicate the practice. The Church attempted to counter the anti-Church efforts, under the belief that God had commanded the practice and the United States was built upon the principle that religious practice should be protected.

During the late 1880s the number of plural marriages countenanced by the Church decreased. In October 1890 the President of the Church, Wilford Woodruff, announced the cessation of plural marriage. The announcement of this revelation has come to be known as The Manifesto, and is included in current Church scriptures as Official Declaration—1. The initiation of new plural marriages continued infrequently and sporadically in the Church for another fourteen years, until President Joseph F. Smith issued what is commonly known as the "second manifesto" in April 1904. It was at that time that the policy of excommunicating anyone practicing plural marriage was instituted.