Riplakish Did Have Many Wives and Concubines

“The Jaredites of the Book of Mormon arose a century or so after the Flood. It is possible, though by no means certain, that at least some in the early colony were polygynists (the brother of Jared had 22 sons and daughters [Ether 6:20]). In any event, polygyny was definitely practiced in the first half of their approximately two-thousand-year-plus history. One of their earlier kings, Riplakish, was not unlike the later Solomon. He burdened his people with heavy taxes, built numerous large buildings with forced labor, had ’many wives and concubines ... [and] did afflict the people with his whoredoms and abominations’ (Ether 10:5-7). Jaredite polygyny, was not restricted to royalty. Moroni recorded that in the final fratricidal war of the Jaredites every man kept his sword in hand ‘in the defence of his property and his own life and of his wives and children’ (Ether 14:2).” (Rodney Turner, Book of Mormon Symposium Series, Jacob – Words of Mormon, edited by PR Cheesman, MS Nyman, and CD Tate, Jr., 1988, p. 280)