In this article on marriage the
following sentences occurs:
“Inasmuch as this Church of Christ has
been reproached with the crime of formication and polygamy, we declare that we
believe that one man should have one wife, and one woman but one husband except
in the case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again.”
From this it is evident that as early
at least as 1835 a charge of polygamy was made against the Church. Why was that
the case unless the subject of “polygamy” had been mooted within the Church? Is
it not evident that some one to whom the Prophet had codified the knowledge of
the revelation he had received concerning the rightfulness of plural marriage—under
certain circumstances—had unwisely made some statement concerning this matter?
Again, in May 1836, in Missouri, in a
series of questions asked and answered through the Elder’s Journal, the
following occurs:
“Do the Mormon s believe in having
more wives than one?”
To which the answer is given;
“No, not at the same time.”
This again represents the belief of
the saints at that time, unenlightened as they then were by the revelation received
by their Prophet. But again, why this question unless there had been some agitation
of the subject? Had some one before the time had come for making known this
doctrine to the Church, again unwisely referred to the knowledge which had been
revealed to the Prophet some seven years earlier? (Raymond T. Bailey, “Emma Hale: Wife of the Prophet
Joseph Smith” [MA Thesis; BYU, April, 1952], 58)
