Polygamy and polyandry

Most members who grew up in the twentieth century knew that Brigham Young had many wives and that the practice ended in 1890. Far fewer knew that Joseph Smith started it, how he started it, or with whom. The 2011 survey found polygamy tied with the Book of Abraham as the most damaging specific historical issue, and the trend analysis found it was the second fastest-rising reason overall.

The details are what matter. Polygamy in the abstract is something members had already accepted. What they had not been told was that the founder married women who were already married to other men, that he married girls of fourteen and sixteen, that he did it without his wife's knowledge, that he denied it in public until his death, and that several of the marriages were preceded by promises of eternal reward for the woman's family or by the account of an angel threatening him with a sword if he refused.

Women rated this reason significantly higher than men, and their written comments explain why. The doctrine is not only history: Doctrine and Covenants 132 is still scripture, a widower may still be sealed to a second wife for eternity while a widow may not, and many women described realizing that the heaven they had been promised included sharing their husband. "I want to know what justifies polygamy," one respondent wrote. "I have to share my husband but he doesn't have to share me."

The Church published two essays on the subject in late 2014 that confirm nearly every item on the list below. Respondents in 2011 had learned it from other sources; the question the essays could not answer was why it had taken so long.