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Back in December 2023, TLC's Sister Wives Look Back: How It Started special revealed intimate details about the formation of the Brown family as Meri, Janelle, and Christine shared memories of their early relationships with Kody Brown. The episode featured never-before-discussed aspects of their marriages from the early 1990s.
The Sister Wives Look Back: How It Started special mixed archival footage from their early marriage years with present-day interviews, showing the former wives watching and responding to clips from when their relationships began. In one of the confessional footages, Janelle was even seen stating,
"I just see our relationship continuing to be very involved with each other, I see that until we die."
The special traced how this plural family formed through spiritual and legal marriages years before their 2010 television debut, with each wife explaining their path to joining the family.
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Sister Wives Look Back at 1990s courtships with Kody Brown
Meri and Kody's early connection
The foundations of the Brown family emerged in 1989 at a church gathering where Kody met his first wife, Meri, through his sister, Christy. During their initial meeting, 18-year-old Meri felt drawn to Kody's engaging personality and found comfort in their conversations. Their courtship progressed over six months with strict religious guidelines that prohibited physical contact before marriage.
In April 1990, they married legally, both committed to building a plural family. Meri brought extensive knowledge of polygamous life from her upbringing with 27 siblings. While watching old footage in the Sister Wives Look Back: How It Started special, Meri addressed Kody's early declarations of love.
"Looking at the things he was saying about me, like 'I didn't know I was in love with you for this reason,' it's like yeah, you did," she reflected in her interview.
Janelle's path to the Brown family
The family structure grew more complex when Janelle met Kody in 1989 during his relationship with Meri. Janelle was married to Meri's brother Adam Barber at the time. Adding to the problems, Janelle's mother had married Kody's father, creating an unexpected step-family dynamic before any romantic involvement.
After ending her two-year marriage to Adam in 1990, Janelle maintained connections with the Brown family. She attended Kody and Meri's wedding ceremony that year. In the Sister Wives Look Back: How It Started special, Janelle described her early friendship with Kody.
"Kody and I were always very good friends, so we had a lot of discussion, a lot of companionship. I mean at this point, I didn't perceive that changing. Kody and I's strongest foundation was that we were friends, I mean really, truly, we were very good friends."
Their relationship developed around shared intellectual interests and spiritual beliefs. After just one formal date, they married in a spiritual ceremony in 1993.
Christine's path to joining the family
Christine met Kody and Meri through her sister Wendy in the early 1990s when she was 19. She formed a friendship with Meri first before any romantic involvement with Kody began. The initial dynamic shifted when Kody and Meri pursued a courtship with another potential wife Christine had introduced to them.
Christine stepped back temporarily from the family when they continued courting the woman she felt was too young. After Kody and Meri ended that courtship, Kody helped Christine process emotions about her parents' divorce, which rekindled their connection. Following a six-week courtship, Christine and Kody married spiritually in 1994.
Early family life revelations
The newly formed plural family welcomed their first children in quick succession. Janelle's eldest son, Logan, arrived in 1994. The following year brought two additions—Christine's daughter, Aspyn, and Meri's child, Leon. Christine reflected on the early days of their marriage in the Sister Wives Look Back: How It Started special.
"Some downs were really low, some ups were really high. And that was a high. It was definitely a high, it was great. We were probably getting along for a couple of weeks there."
The Sister Wives Look Back: How It Started special provided insights into these formative years, with each wife sharing their perspective on building their unconventional family. The three marriages lasted nearly three decades before ending—Christine departed in 2021, while Janelle and Meri announced their separations in late 2022.
As of December 2024, Kody is living with his fourth wife, Robyn Brown. Both were legally married in 2014.
Fans can catch current standings of these storylines in new episodes of Sister Wives on TLC.
