Reasons for Joseph Smith's Polygamy:

Plural Marriage Produces Healthier Parents and Offspring?

One argument advanced between 1852 and 1890 involves the assertion that polygamy produces healthier parents and offspring than monogamy.[1] Church Elder Orson Spencer wrote in an 1853 pamphlet promoting plural marriage: “Do not startle, sir, if I should tell you that monogamy, or the one wife system, adopted throughout Christendom, is a very defective system. It does not answer the demands of society, and it is altogether inferior to the Patriarchal system of polygamy, as introduced by God himself.”[2]

In 1870, Brigham Young argued: “Talk about polygamy! There is no true philosopher on the face of the earth but what will admit that such a system, properly carried out according to the order of heaven, is far superior to monogamy for the raising of healthy, robust children! A person possessing a moderate knowledge of physiology, or who has paid attention to his own nature and the nature of the gentler sex, can readily understand this.”[3] Heber C. Kimball proposed an even more novel justification:

I would not be afraid to promise a man who is sixty years of age, if he will take the counsel of brother Brigham and his brethren, that he will renew his age. I have noticed that a man who has but one wife, and is inclined to that doctrine, soon begins to wither and dry up, while a man who goes into plurality looks fresh, young, and sprightly. Why is this? Because God loves that man, and because he honors His work and word. Some of you may not believe this; but I not only believe it--I also know it. For a man of God to be confined to one woman is small business; for it is as much as we can do now to keep up under the burdens we have to carry; and I do not know what we should do if we had only one wife apiece.[4]

Heber Kimball acknowledged that the described benefits were not a result of polygamy itself, but came from God’s “love” and “honor” that He granted due to obedience. However, Latter-day Saint polygamists sometimes asserted that having more wives made the participants younger and more virile.

It appears some Utah polygamists were motivated to believe these benefits of plural marriage, but science has yet to validate them. Regardless, they seem to have little relationship to Joseph Smith’s theology supporting polygamy.

[1] See for example, [no author], "Plurality of Wives -- Physiologically and Socially," Millennial Star, 28 (June 2, 1866) 341, which claims that sexual relations during pregnancy robs "the future mother of that vigor which should nourish her embryonic offspring, and giving intensified sensual desires to that offspring…" Accordingly, polygamy provides other wives for sexual relations thus assisting the husband in maintaining continence with pregnant wives. See also Charles W. Penrose "Physical Regeneration," Millennial Star, 29 (August 10, 1867) 498. See also B. Carmon Hardy, Doing the Works of Abraham: Mormon Polygamy, Its Origin, Practice, and Demise, Norman, Oklahoma: Arthur H. Clark, 2007, 91.

[2] Orson Spencer, Patriarchal Order or Plurality of Wives!, Liverpool, 1853, 7. This was a letter to the Reverend William Crowel and was included in later editions of Spencer's Letters Exhibiting the Most Prominent Doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints… Salt Lake City: Deseret News Co., 1889, 7.

[3] Brigham Young, April 17, 1870, Journal of Discourses, 13:317.

[4] Heber C. Kimball, April 6, 1857, Journal of Discourses, 5:22.