Do Mormons practice polygamy as depicted in Heretic?

Do Mormons practice polygamy? In the Heretic movie, As Mr. Reed gets the sister missionaries in his sights, he begins to press them on their beliefs and pontificates on his secular worldview. At one point, he asks the sisters about their feelings regarding polygamy. 

In a recent national survey, 2/3^rds of Americans either thought that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints practiced polygamy or were unsure if they did. Even though the church officially banned polygamy or plural marriage, more than a century ago, the association between the two persists. That association, however, has historical merit. 

Joseph Smith Polygamy

The first president of the church, Joseph Smith, instituted the practice of polygamy among members of the faith according to a purported revelation he claimed to have received mandating the practice. Beginning in the early 1840s, many members of the church practiced polygamy until 1890 when the church began to formally wind down the practice, with the issuance of the “Manifesto.” The manifesto was a statement from the fourth church president, Wilford Woodruff, publicly ending the practice of plural marriage. It was eventually canonized as “Official Declaration 1” in the Doctrine and Covenants. 

Because Joseph Smith’s early practice of polygamy was sparsely documented, many have made incorrect assumptions about it. This is the case with Heretic. Mr. Reed makes multiple claims that are inaccurate based on historical evidence. First, he implies that Smith had an affair with a 16-year-old girl named Fanny Alger. The best available scholarly research maintains that she was 18 years old when she first engaged in a relationship with Smith. Fanny and her family joined the church in the early 1830s. She worked in the Smith household where she became acquainted with Joseph. The nature of their relationship is not fully known, although according to later reports, Smith “proposed marriage to Fanny with the help of Levi [Hancock, her uncle] and the approval of her parents.” Once all parties agreed, Levi performed the ceremony with the words Smith repeated to him. The relationship was short-lived but appears to be Smith’s first attempt at practicing polygamy. 

The End of Polygamy

Following Joseph Smith’s death, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints continued the practice of polygamy, openly doing so in Utah until federal laws prohibited it in the 1880s. During this time, polygamy provided many single women with opportunities for marriage, childbearing, and economic stability. Many Latter-day Saints believe that the practice helped fulfill a divine purpose, as described in The Book of Mormon (Jacob 2:27–30), to “raise up a righteous people.”

The formal end of plural marriage came with President Wilford Woodruff’s 1890 Manifesto, which directed members to cease the practice. This was reinforced by Joseph F. Smith through the Second Manifesto in 1904, firmly establishing monogamy as the standard for church members.