The revelation commanding polygamy was not announced to the LDS Church as a whole until 1852, eight years after the death of Joseph Smith. It was not until 1876 that it was added to the Doctrine and Covenants and assigned the section number 132. Up until that time, though, there was another revelation (numbered 101 in the 1835 edition and 109 in the 1854 edition) which flatly denied that polygamy was practiced among Mormons, stating:

. . . Inasmuch as this church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication and polygamy; we declare that we believe that one man should have one wife; and one woman but one husband, except in the case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again.

This revelation was dropped from the Doctrine and Covenants when the section commanding polygamy was added. Therefore, there existed a forty-five year gap between the receipt of the polygamy revelation and its inclusion in the doctrinal canon. During twenty-one years of that time, too, the church was denying publicly that they had anything to do with the practice of polygamy.

It is easy to see why many Mormons don’t delve too deeply into the history of Section 132, and if they do, why they want to avoid the issue altogether. Utah Mormons maintain that Joseph Smith introduced the doctrine of polygamy before his death, which doctrine was brought to fruition under the auspices of his successor, Brigham Young. The average member of the Community of Christ (formerly known as the Reorganized Church) would deny that the Prophet Joseph ever even thought of the doctrine because he denied it so vehemently before his death. Others, like Isaac Sheen, said that Joseph did indeed preach and practice polygamy, but that he “repented of his connection” with it, claiming that it was of the devil.

For more information, see The Mormon Mirage 3rd Edition:  A Former Member Looks at the Mormon Church Today(Zondervan, 2009). Also available as an audiobook and as an expanded-text E-book for Nook, Kindle and other reading devices.