The people
Polygamy
30 to 40 wives, a 14 year old, other men’s wives, and public denials, all from the Church’s own essay.
The point in one sentence
Joseph Smith married between 30 and 40 women, including a 14 year old and at least a dozen already married to living husbands, hid most of it from Emma, and publicly denied it while doing it.
The numbers, from the Church's own Gospel Topics Essay
Not from a critic. From churchofjesuschrist.org.
Source: "Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo," Gospel Topics Essays
The exhibits
Every quote below is from the Church’s own Gospel Topics essay or its own canonized scripture, except the last, which is Joseph’s own recorded words.
Gospel Topics essay, "Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo," footnote 24
Church-published
What it establishes: The Church’s own count of Joseph’s wives, consistent with historian Todd Compton’s independently documented 33.
The essayThe same essay, on Fanny Alger
marriage dated to the mid-1830s
What it establishes: The first plural marriage, entered while he was married to Emma.
The essayThe same essay, on the youngest wife
Helen Mar Kimball
What it establishes: Joseph was 37. The essay elsewhere calls this "inappropriate by today’s standards."
The essayThe same essay, on polyandry
Nauvoo period
What it establishes: At least a dozen of his sealings were to women with living husbands.
The essayThe same essay, on Emma
Church-published
What it establishes: The Church concedes his own wife was kept unaware of some of the marriages.
The essayThe same essay, on why he proceeded
Church-published
What it establishes: The Church’s own account frames the practice as begun under threat, which is a coercion narrative in the founder’s own defense.
The essayDoctrine and Covenants 132:54, canonized scripture today
revelation recorded 1843
What it establishes: A revelation, in Joseph’s voice, threatening Emma with destruction if she refused plural marriage. It remains in the standard works, on the Church’s own scripture site, right now.
Read D&C 132Joseph Smith, public sermon, Nauvoo
May 26, 1844, five weeks before his death
What it establishes: A public denial of polygamy while he had 30 to 40 documented plural wives. Cited even by FAIR, the LDS apologetic organization.
The sermon transcript, BYUMeanwhile the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants, canonized scripture at the time, declared "we believe, that one man should have one wife," and stayed in print until 1876, the entire period plural marriage was being practiced in secret.
How it ended
June 7, 1844: the Nauvoo Expositor published sworn statements about the polygamy. Joseph, as mayor, ordered the press destroyed. That triggered his arrest and his killing at Carthage three weeks later. The Church's own page confirms this chain
The martyrdom story most members are taught leaves out what he was in jail for.
And it did not stop in 1890
The Church's essay documents 25 plural marriages performed between October 1890 and September 1903, after the Manifesto that supposedly ended it. That is why a Second Manifesto was needed in 1904.
When they say
"Helen Mar's marriage was for eternity only." Even FAIR says it presumably became a real marriage over time and admits it cannot be documented either way. The defense concedes the fact that matters.
"The denial was technically true under Illinois law." That is FAIR's argument, and it concedes the point. A statement crafted to be defensible on a technicality while misleading the membership is what the Church's essay means by "carefully worded denials."