Polygamy and the Temple
Plural marriage, the priesthood and temple restriction on Black members, and the ordination of women are usually treated as three separate controversies in Mormon history. Each is an answer to the same underlying question, asked at a different moment: who may be sealed, to whom, and on what terms, inside the temple ordinance that Latter-day Saint theology treats as the mechanism of exaltation.
This entry maps that question across both major Latter Day Saint institutions, the LDS Church and the Community of Christ (RLDS), as three parallel chronologies rather than three unrelated topics.
Plural marriage began as a literal application of the same sealing ordinance later withheld from Black members and, in the LDS Church, still withheld from women in its priesthood offices. Each controversy concerns access to that one ordinance.
The mechanism
(eternal marriage)
and to whom
(1840s–1890)
(1850s–1978)
Each restriction and expansion below concerns access to the same ordinance: first who could be sealed to whom (plural marriage), then who could hold the priesthood required to perform or receive sealing at all (race), then who could hold the office required to preside over it (gender, in the LDS Church specifically).
Track one — LDS Church
Plural marriage introduced
Joseph Smith introduces plural marriage privately in Nauvoo. It is later canonized as Doctrine and Covenants Section 132, tied to the theology of eternal, exalting marriage.
Priesthood restriction and polygamy affirmed the same year
Brigham Young publicly articulates the priesthood and temple restriction on men of Black African descent the same year the church openly acknowledges its practice of plural marriage. Two access-to-sealing doctrines emerge in parallel.
The Manifesto
President Wilford Woodruff issues the Manifesto, later canonized as Official Declaration 1, ending new plural marriages in response to federal legal pressure. Woodruff describes the decision as revelation, framed around preserving the temples and priesthood rather than a change in underlying doctrine.
Official Declaration 2
President Spencer W. Kimball announces a revelation, received in the Salt Lake Temple, extending priesthood ordination and full temple ordinances, including sealing, to worthy men of all races. The declaration frames the change as opening temple blessings rather than priesthood alone.
Priesthood and presidency remain male-only
Women participate in temple ordinances, including their own endowment and sealing, but do not hold priesthood office or preside over the ordinance itself. Community of Christ has ordained women to priesthood office since 1984.
Track two — Community of Christ (RLDS)
Polygamy rejected at founding
The Reorganization forms explicitly rejecting plural marriage, denying for decades that Joseph Smith himself had practiced it and attributing the doctrine instead to Brigham Young. The RLDS Church is the only major Latter Day Saint branch to have never embraced polygamy in any form.
Priesthood opened to Black members
The RLDS Church agrees to ordain African American members to the priesthood, 113 years before the LDS Church's 1978 declaration. The decision was largely symbolic at the time: the Reorganization had no Black members yet, and actual ordinations and full inclusion developed unevenly over subsequent decades.
Women ordained to priesthood
President Wallace B. Smith presents Section 156, calling for the ordination of women to priesthood office. The decision causes significant internal division. Dissenting members form independent Restoration branches that continue to reject women's ordination today.
Historicity ruled a matter of conscience
President Stephen M. Veazey rules a motion to formally reaffirm the Book of Mormon's historicity out of order, stating belief in the text is not a test of church membership: a separate but related loosening of doctrinal requirement.
Reading the tracks side by side
| Question | LDS Church | Community of Christ |
|---|---|---|
| Polygamy | Practiced 1840s–1890, ended under federal legal pressure, framed as revelation (Woodruff) | Never adopted. Rejected at founding as a defining break from the Utah church. |
| Race & priesthood | Restricted 1852–1978, opened by revelation under Kimball, tied explicitly to temple sealing access | Opened in 1865, over a century earlier, though full practical inclusion developed gradually |
| Women & priesthood | Women participate in temple ordinances but do not hold priesthood office as of this entry | Ordained since 1984, under Wallace B. Smith, a direct descendant of Joseph Smith Jr. |
Community of Christ moved first and independently on race and gender, while retaining its founding rejection of polygamy throughout. The LDS Church moved latest on all three, but frames each change consistently as the same kind of event: a revelation received in the temple, extending access to the same ordinance. The asymmetry in timing is itself the finding — neither institution's sequence was inevitable, and each chose which restriction to keep and which to lift first.
See also
Sources
- "1890 Manifesto," Wilford Woodruff Papers Foundation; Official Declaration 1, churchofjesuschrist.org.
- "Official Declaration 2," churchofjesuschrist.org, on Spencer W. Kimball's 1978 revelation.
- "Race and the Priesthood," Gospel Topics Essays, churchofjesuschrist.org.
- "Making Sense of the Church's History on Race," Faith Matters, on the 1852 concurrence of the priesthood restriction and public acknowledgment of polygamy.
- Roger Launius, "The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints/Community of Christ and African American Members," on the 1865 priesthood decision.
- "The LDS Church and Community of Christ: Clearer Differences, Closer Friends," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, on RLDS non-adoption of polygamy and the 1984 women's ordination.
- "Comparison of the Community of Christ and the LDS Church," Wikipedia, on Wallace B. Smith and Section 156.