Reasons for Joseph Smith's Polygamy:

Publicity Value?

An intriguing viewpoint was offered by B. H. Roberts, one of the Seven Presidents of the Seventy in the Utah Church in 1930:

[A] possible reason mentioned as justifying the introduction of plural marriage into the New Dispensation is the publicity value of it. Of course, it would be insufferable to mention such a thing if the principle itself were not true and pure and good and necessary to be established for completeness to the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times. But plural marriage being all that is here said of it, I see nothing amiss in referring to it as possessed of a certain publicity value to the whole work of God. And I know of no single thing in the New Dispensation that has done so much to keep that dispensation and its major message before the world as this same principle of plural marriage and the practice of it by the church. It has kept the message well - nigh constantly before men; through the press, daily, weekly and monthly. It has been the incentive to the multiplication of books on "Mormonism" ad libitum. It has kept the New Dispensation before state legislatures and congress-house and senate. Before successive United States presidents and their cabinets. Before state and territorial courts; and time and again before the supreme court of the United States, and through that court has attracted the attention of leaders of thought in all the world.[1]

Elder Roberts seems to suggest that negative publicity is better than no publicity. Whether it truly benefited the Church’s missionary efforts is unclear.

[1] Brigham H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 6 vols. Salt Lake City: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1930, 6:227-28.