Emma Smith often vacillated between accepting and rejecting polygamy. In our next conversation with Dr. Bill Smith we will talk about how she vacillated between these two extremes.
Bill: Like I said, she was up and down about it. At some point apparently in May 1843 she had accepted the idea at least in a limited way. Then later she becomes very negative about it. During this period when the revelation is given in July 12, 1843, she has become very, very negative about the idea.
We don’t know everything that happened with her, what she heard. She was in Relief Society, and you know how in small towns, Nauvoo was a relatively small town we would think of it so today. In that day it was a fairly large place, so you knew practically everybody and people talked about what they saw, who was doing what. So, the kind of knowledgebase that Emma had, we don’t know for sure but she probably had her finger on what was going on in the female population and the male population of Nauvoo.
Oliver Cowdery has been accused of practicing polygamy before he was authorized to do so. In our next conversation with Dr. Bill Smith we’ll address these rumors. Are they true?
Bill: That I think is wrong. I think it developed out of a story that happened because before Oliver left on his Lamanite mission to the borders of the Lamanites in Missouri, he was with Parley Pratt and a couple of other guys going to be missionaries out there to the Lamanites. They get commissioned by revelation to do this.
Before he leaves, he has asked Elizabeth Whitmer to marry him, so he is engaged to her. On the way through Ohio he meets another woman there, falls madly in love with her, asks her to marry him. That’s the extent of any Cowdery polygamy. That was a pretty big issue for a number of early Mormons. Some of his mission companions talk about this later. That was a big issue. He has a high council session about this thing. He repents. “I’m really going to marry Elizabeth.” This other woman was just a flight of fancy or something. But that’s the extent of it.
We will talk about Oliver’s accusation of Joseph’s dirty, nasty, filthy affair with Fanny Alger.
Bill: There is no evidence as far as I know of that. I think that Oliver and some other people were aware of the Alger affair…
What do you make of Oliver and Emma’s opposition to polygamy?
Wheat & Tares 
My admittedly haphazard study of early Mormon polygamy leads me to great sympathy with Emma. I tend to subscribe to the idea that Joseph attempted, at least in some measure, to deal with his sexual demons through polygamy. I’m not saying sex was the only driving factor in polygamy or even potentially the main driving factor (at least by the time we get to Nauvoo) but I can’t, for example, completely subscribe to Meg Stout’s “Faithful Joseph” narrative. I enjoyed her research, and while I agree that the lack of proven descendants from plural marriages is problematic, I don’t see it as a slam dunk that Joseph only had sex with Emma, though perhaps he didn’t swing quite as wide a lasso and some like to think. The comparison that leaps to mind is Elvis and Priscilla Presley. It can’t have been easy to be married to the King.
As for Oliver, this is the first I’ve read of any accusations of polygamy. I’m sure we’ll never know if he had a physical relationship with the other woman in Ohio, but based on his reaction to Joseph’s relationship with Fanny Alger, either he truly never practiced polygamy or he’s a huge hypocrite (which is certainly possible). You’d think such accusations would have been leveled at him had he indeed been a polygamist.
In any case, what a mess polygamy was and is.
I completely agree with “Not a Cougar”. I think Polygamy (along with Polyandry) are abominable and a scourge on the Church; both historically and now!
I think Bill does a good job laying out a case that any polygamy accusations against Oliver (1) are spurious, (2) meant to malign Oliver’s character (and elevate the Twelve.) I have tremendous respect for Oliver Cowdery.
Very interesting stuff. I had only recently learned of the accusations against Oliver regarding polygamy and wondered where they’d come from. I’ve always liked him too, so I’m glad they are unfounded.
The Article on Marriage, voted into the 1835 1st edition of the Doctrine and Covenants and authored (most agree) by Oliver Cowdery, refutes the practice of polygamy. And Emma, in all interviews after Nauvoo was abandoned (and her family remained) insisted that Joseph had only one wife; her.