Before he discussed the doctrine
with Joseph Bates Noble and his family, Joseph Smith had thought about
polygamy, at least on and off, for more than a decade. When he dictated the Book
of Mormon, the text prohibited polygamy, with one loophole. Men could take additional
wives if God commanded them to do so in order to “raise up seed,” to cause his
people to reproduce more quickly. Joseph may have thought more about the possibility
of multiple wives during or after his relationship with Fanny Alger in
Kirtland. By 1835, moreover, he was teaching that Latter-day Saint marriages
could persist “forever” instead of only “till death.” Proxy baptism underscore
the potential eternity of family bonds. Polygamy enabled Joseph, and eventually
other men, to expand those families and thus broaden those eternal bonds. (John
G. Turner, Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet [New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2025], 255)