Joseph Smith/Polygamy/Cochranites

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Did plural marriage originate with the "Cochranites"?

Important introductory material on plural marriage available here

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Questions

• Some wonder if the "Cochranites" influenced Joseph Smith or other Mormons to introduce plural marriage into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

To see citations to the critical sources for these claims, click here

Answer

There is no contemporaneous or late evidence that the Cochranites influenced LDS ideas about plural marriage. The little mention made of the Cochranites by Latter-day Saints was all negative.

Brain D. Hales has written an extensive essay on this claim. In it, he writes:

The interpretation that polygamy entered the Church in the 1830s through a Cochran connection is problematic because there is no contemporary evidence or even late recollections to support it. It appears that if polygamy was mentioned in Kirtland meetings, Church members undoubtedly would have condemned the practice and mentioned it in the journals and letters. The local press would have had a heyday exploiting such a controversial practice. Writers often point to the denials of polygamy from this period as evidence, but at that time, the Church was denying a lot of allegations. Oliver Cowdery wrote in the Messenger and Advocate in 1836: “It would be a Herculean task to point out the innumerable falsehoods and misrepresentations, sent out detrimental to this society. The tales of those days in which Witches were burnt, and the ridiculous inconsistencies of those who directed the building of the funeral pyre, could be no more absurd than the every-day tales, relative to the conduct and professions of the ‘Mormons.’” Proponents of Kirtland polygamy never quote the rumormongers because no such rumors have been found in private or published documents. Only the denials which they have distilled from longer lists of things Church leaders then denied are mentioned.^[1]

Readers should consult the entire essay for further details.

== Notes ==

1. [note]  Brian Hales, "A Review of Rock Waterman’s 'Why I’m Abandoning Polygamy'," rationalfaiths.com blog (24 September 2013).