Joseph Smith married multiple wives and introduced the practice to close associates

The Lord's established law of marriage, according to Latter-day Saints, is monogamy, or the union of one man and one woman. One man and multiple women can be married in biblical times, as the Lord commanded some of His people to do. This commandment was given through God's prophets to some early members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and they received it and followed it.

Joseph Smith married multiple wives after receiving a revelation ordering him to do so and spreading the custom among his close friends. For Joseph and other Church members, this principle was one of the Restoration's most difficult tenets. Marriage between two people put their faith to the test and sparked opposition. The restoration of a biblical practice that was completely alien to Latter-day Saint sensibilities was initially met with little enthusiasm. But many later testified of intense spiritual encounters that gave them the strength to accept this practice and enabled them to get over their reservations.

Because participants were asked to maintain their anonymity, many details about the early usage of plural marriage are unknown. Early plural marriage has a scant historical record because there aren't many sources that provide specifics from the time, and later memories aren't always trustworthy. The practice of plural marriage by Joseph Smith and other early Latter-day Saints is discussed in several significant stories told by the Saints.