Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants

Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants is the 1843 revelation that made plural marriage a sacred covenant in Joseph Smith’s church and gave the practice lasting scriptural authority. Its force lies not only in its rules for marriage and exaltation, but also in the circumstances of its creation: Joseph dictated it amid conflict with Emma Smith, and its later status became a test of whether a church could abandon a practice without revoking the revelation that commanded it.

Scriptural Status and Doctrine

The revelation was canonized as Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants, one of Mormonism’s primary scriptural texts. Joseph Smith taught that plural marriage was among the most sacred doctrines revealed to humanity and connected obedience to it with the possibility of attaining the fullness of exaltation after death. The revelation warned that those to whom the law had been revealed were required to obey it, and that rejecting the covenant could bar them from divine glory. Marriage was thus framed not simply as a social arrangement, but as a condition of religious belonging and eternal destiny.

The text also set out an asymmetrical standard. It authorized a man to take additional wives under the law while treating the women joined to him as belonging to him; a woman’s relationship with another man, by contrast, was condemned. Its warning to Emma Smith named her directly and commanded her to remain with Joseph Smith, threatening destruction if she refused. The revelation therefore combined a claim of divine authority with rules that concentrated marital power in men and imposed severe spiritual consequences on women who resisted.

The Revelation’s Creation in Nauvoo

Section 132 was written during a period of rapid theological change in Nauvoo. Joseph Smith had introduced other teachings and practices, including proxy baptism for the dead and temple endowment rituals, but the plural-marriage revelation was kept secret. He formally dictated it on July 12, 1843; it was not publicly acknowledged until 1852, eight years after his death.

The immediate circumstances involved Emma Smith’s opposition to Joseph’s other marriages. She had been married to him since 1827 and objected to sharing her husband with additional wives. Joseph’s brother, Hyrum Smith, urged him to put the teaching in writing, believing he could use the revelation to persuade Emma of its truth. Joseph doubted that Hyrum understood Emma’s views, but agreed. The document repeatedly addressed her, and Hyrum delivered the ten-page revelation to her after Joseph dictated it.

It did not secure Emma’s consent. She rejected the revelation and remained opposed to Joseph’s plural marriages. Joseph continued taking wives, but made no further effort to win her agreement. The episode reveals a central tension in the text’s history: a document presented as divine law was also produced in the midst of a particular domestic conflict, with the stated aim of compelling acceptance from the wife most directly affected by its rules.

From Secret Teaching to Public Conflict

Between 1840 and 1844, Joseph Smith was instructed, according to the account, to marry about forty women. Some were very young; fourteen-year-old Helen Mar Kimball later described being told that her family’s salvation depended on her compliance. The revelation itself had been kept from public view while plural marriage was practiced among people close to Joseph. By 1844, some members of his inner circle knew of both the marriages and the secret text, but not all accepted the doctrine.

The teaching became entangled with broader conflict over Joseph’s authority and the direction of his church. Section 132 nearly shattered the church and contributed to the crisis surrounding Joseph Smith’s murder in 1844. Its significance outlasted that immediate upheaval: under Brigham Young, the Saints migrated to the Great Basin and publicly embraced plural marriage, provoking opposition from Americans who regarded the practice as an affront to prevailing social norms. Federal pressure eventually led the church to announce its abandonment of plural marriage in 1890. The revelation, however, remained part of the church’s scripture.

The Dispute over Whether the Law Ended

For Mormon fundamentalists, the continuing scriptural presence of Section 132 is evidence that the 1890 Manifesto did not revoke the doctrine. They argue that the Manifesto suspended plural marriage under political pressure rather than cancelling the commandment itself. In their view, the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints compromised a sacred principle to secure acceptance in American society; they claim instead to preserve the original teaching.

Fundamentalists draw support from a separate revelation attributed to John Taylor, received on September 26, 1886, while he was hiding from federal officers seeking to prosecute cohabitation. Taylor had asked whether Joseph Smith’s earlier revelation should be abandoned. The answer, as recorded in the account, was that commandments remained binding unless revoked by God or his authority, and that the law of plural marriage had not been revoked. This later revelation did not replace Section 132; it became an argument for reading it as still in force.

Section 132 is also cited alongside Section 85, which promises that a figure described as one mighty and strong will set the house of God in order. Some fundamentalists believe that this figure is already among them and will restore the church and Joseph Smith’s teaching. The pairing links the marriage revelation to expectations of future religious correction, extending its significance beyond household practice to claims about who holds legitimate authority over the church.

Continuing Significance

The revelation’s afterlife exposes the difference between ending a practice and resolving its scriptural basis. The mainstream church publicly rejected plural marriage and later urged authorities to prosecute those who continued it, while fundamentalists treated the still-canonical Section 132 as proof that the underlying covenant remained binding. The same text could therefore serve as a record of an abandoned policy for one community and as a charter for religious continuity and dissent for another.

Its language also shows how religious authority can govern intimate relationships through claims about salvation, obedience, and divine sanction. Section 132 placed plural marriage within an eternal framework, but its historical creation involved secrecy, resistance, and unequal power between husbands and wives. Those features help explain why it remained more than a statement of doctrine: it became a fault line over revelation, church authority, political compromise, and the right to define what fidelity to a religious past requires.