Unpacking Polygamy: Joseph Smith's Polygamy, with Laurel Thatcher Ulrich & Patrick Mason

Today’s episode kicks off our five-part series Unpacking Polygamy—a deep dive into one of the most complex and sensitive topics in our church’s history. We hope you’ll listen to the full series, where you’ll hear from a variety of voices and perspectives that help illuminate this part of our shared story.

To start us off, we’re honored to bring together two remarkable thinkers. Patrick Mason is a historian, author, and Leonard J. Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University and co-host of Proclaim Peace, another Faith Matters network podcast. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich is a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, and professor emerita at Harvard University.

In this episode, Patrick and Laurel explore what we actually know—and how we know what we know—about Joseph Smith’s involvement in plural marriage, how the practice evolved in early Utah, and the theological, social, and gender dynamics that shaped it. Laurel also shares reflections from teaching a comparative polygamy course at Harvard, and considers how the echoes of plural marriage still reverberate today in our doctrine, culture, and hearts.

We’re so grateful to both Patrick and Laurel for their honesty, curiosity, and compassion.

You can find even more resources on this important topic on our website, faithmatters.org.

Find Laurel's groundbreaking book A House Full of Females on Bookshop.org or Amazon.

Listen to Sanctuary: Discovering the Temple on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Substack, or wherever you get your podcasts.