domestic arrangements of the saints:—polygamy from a woman’s standpoint.
i was now to realize personally, in my own home life, what polygamy actually was. hitherto i had observed how other women suffered, and how other men treated their wives; but now the painful reality had come to my own door, and i was to experience the effects of the system upon myself, and, instead of noting the conduct of other men, i should be able to observe the change which polygamy might work in my own husband.
how little do the mormon men know what it is in the truest sense to have a wife, though they have so many “wives” after their own fashion! almost imperceptibly to the husband, and even to the wife herself, a barrier rises between them from the very day that he marries another woman. it matters not how much she believes in the doctrine of plural marriage, or how willing she may be to submit to it, the fact remains the same. the estrangement begins by her trying to hide from him all her secret sorrows; for she feels that what has been done cannot be undone now, and she says: “i cannot change it; neither would i if i could, because it is the will of god, and i must bear it; besides, what good will it do to worry my husband with all my feelings? he cannot help me; and is he not another woman’s husband?” then comes, perhaps, the painful thought, “i have no longer any desire to confide in him.” or it may be that she detects some familiarity between her husband and the other wife; and she feels bitterly towards both, for, strive as she may, human nature cannot be altogether crushed out.
that was a time of great misery to me, much as i tried to control my feelings. day by day i strove to hide from my heart even the knowledge of my own unhappiness; and when i could no longer endure, i would lock myself in my room and give vent to the anguish that was consuming me. i realized, however, that this continual conflict of feeling was unfitting[300] me for my duties. everything was becoming a trial to me. i could not bear to be spoken to; the prattle of my children, that had always been so dear to me, was now discordant to my feelings; and all their little questionings were irksome. i determined that this should no longer be the case; i would battle with my own heart; i would henceforth devote my whole life—worthless as that life appeared to have become—to the welfare of my little ones. this was a conclusion that hundreds of wretched mormon wives have arrived at; and when this is the case, there is some hope for them. but many give way to despair, and go down broken-hearted to their graves.
how terribly these mormon men deceive themselves! when peace, or rather quiet, reigns in their homes, they think that the spirit of god is there. but it is not so. it is a calm not like the gentle silence of sleep, but as the painful stillness of death—the death of the heart’s best affection and all that is worth calling love. all true love has fled, and indifference has taken its place. the very children feel it. what do they, what can they, care about their father, whom they so seldom see?
some wives, afraid of creating a prejudice against themselves and of being forsaken altogether, deceive their husbands, and make them believe that they are satisfied. it must be admitted that, in acting thus, these wives are not always actuated by a fear of losing the society or love of their husbands, for, in polygamy, love dies a natural death; but it is galling to a woman’s pride to have it said that she has been cast off for another. then, too—and some women would consider this the most important reason of all—the best provision is usually made for the home where the husband stops most frequently; and the wife, if not for her own sake, at least for her children’s, will be anxious to have a well-provided house. this is only natural. the “divine” plan has always been worked out in a very human way.
when a man has several wives, there is, of course, no necessity for him to stay with an unhappy or mopish one, as he can always find a more pleasant reception elsewhere. men who can really believe that women are satisfied and happy under such a system must be entirely ignorant of human nature.
when a man has more than one wife, his affections must of necessity be divided; he really has no home in the truest sense of the word; his houses are simply boarding-places. should he have all his wives in one house, as is often the case, they are then all slaves to the system; each one is watching the[301] others, and they know it—trying to discover something that can be secretly told to the husband to draw away his affections from the rest. what more miserable position could be imagined?
there is, however, no fixed principle regulating mormon men in the management of their families; every one is at liberty to do as he thinks best, and scarcely two families are governed alike. when salt lake city was first settled, the people had to live as best they could, and a man was glad to get even one roof under which he and all his wives might be sheltered. now, when the husband is wealthy, he generally provides separate homes for his wives. some wealthy men, however, still have all their wives and families together.
i have in my mind, as i write, a very prominent mormon, who has half-a-dozen wives; and he divides his time among them after this fashion. the first week he stays with the first wife; the next week he is with the second; then he goes back to the first. the fourth week he passes with the third wife; then he returns for another week to the first. and thus he continues to give one week to the first wife, and the next to one of the other five in turn, until he has blessed them all with his presence. now, it would at a casual glance appear that this first wife has by far the largest share of her husband’s society; but if the truth must be told, it must be admitted that the husband is not quite so generous as he appears. the last wife of this good man is a young and pretty girl, and she lives with the first wife, and thus his devotion to the latter is rewarded by the presence of the former. each of the other wives has one week of his society and attentions in every eleven—about five weeks apiece of companionship with their husband in the course of a whole year. other men with the same number of wives pass constantly between one house and another; they can never be found when wanted; their lives are one eternal round, and they may be said to have no real abiding place.
in every settlement in utah, long, low-roofed houses may be seen with a row of doors and windows alternating. even in salt lake city, much as it has changed of late years, such houses may still be found. to every door and window there is, of course, a wife; and the furniture of her room consists of a bed, three chairs, and a table. then, if the man is a very devout mormon and wishes to increase his kingdom by adding another wife to the inhabitants of the long many-doored house, a waggon-box is so arranged as to form a sleeping apartment[302] for the new comer; or, what is more likely, one of the old wives is put into the waggon-box, and the new one takes her place.
a house with two wings is rather a favourite style with those men, who, to silence their conscience and the priesthood, conclude to take “just one extra wife,” and no more. the wives, with their children, occupy, respectively, each a wing; and the entrance-door opens into a parlour, which serves as a reception-room for both families. the husband in this case spends a week on one side of the house and a week on the other, alternately; and thus, by an impartial division of his attentions, he preserves peace in his family. a man who is comfortably off can, of course, arrange his domestic affairs so as to avoid, as far as is possible, the inconveniences of the system, but a poor man is forced to submit to circumstances. many men have entered into polygamy, with two, three, and even four wives, all, with their children, living together under one roof—in one room—in the most disgraceful and barbarous manner; but even for this the leaders were really more to blame than the poor deluded men themselves; for the command to “build up the kingdom!—build up the kingdom!”—in other words, take many wives and raise up large families—has been so constantly and imperatively insisted upon that good sense and propriety have at last been entirely overlooked.
polygamy in low life—the poor man’s family.
polygamy in high life—the prophet’s mansion.
to face p. 302.
in a very large house, with many wives, there is greater safety and peace for the husband than in a small house with only two wives. when there are only two apartments, the husband, if not in one, is supposed to be in the other, and the neglected wife frequently expresses her opinion of her rival in the opposite room in very powerful language. scenes may be witnessed in such households which are too shocking to disclose. brigham young was conscious of this when he said he “would stand no more fighting and scratching around him”; and yet, in the face of all this, he dares to tell the people that this is the “order of celestial marriage.” with many wives living together in a large house there are many advantages. the whereabouts of the husband is not so easily discovered, and the unhappy or jealous wife is at a loss to know upon whom to vent her ire. on this account even men with small means prefer to have three wives instead of two, as each wife, not knowing which of the other two she ought to hate the most, divides her jealousy. it takes, however, a wise man to know how to live in polygamy, so as to balance all the conflicting[303] interests and obtain a little peace, if happiness is out of the question.
where the husband is a rich man and has abundant wealth wherewith to supply the wants of his numerous wives and children, and to furnish all the necessary accommodation that a growing family demands, much of the jealousy and ill-feeling inseparable from polygamy can, to a certain extent, be avoided.
it would be quite impossible, with any regard to propriety, to relate all the horrible results of this disgraceful system. it has debased the minds and degraded the lives of good and honest men and women, while those who naturally had a tendency towards evil have become a hundred times worse. marriages have been contracted between the nearest relatives; and old men tottering on the brink of the grave have been united to little girls scarcely in their teens; while unnatural alliances of every description, which in any other community would be regarded with disgust and abhorrence, are here entered into in the name of god, and under the sanction of a “revelation” supposed to proceed from the pure and holy saviour.
i was much shocked and disgusted when first i went to utah, to find a man whom under other circumstances i had known in london, living with two sisters whom he had married in the manner i have just described, and, strange as it may appear, it was not with them a matter of necessity. when i knew the husband in europe, i considered him a man of education and refinement; but i certainly was mistaken, for no man whose nature was at all sensitive would have lived as he did. his wives, too, who had been considered highly respectable english girls, were not ashamed of their degraded position; they professed to believe in bringing the world back to its primitive purity and innocence.
it is quite a common thing in utah for a man to marry two and even three sisters. i was well acquainted with one man who married his half-sister, and i know several who have married mother and daughter. i know also another man who married a widow with several children; and, when one of the girls had grown into her teens, he insisted on marrying her also, having first by some means won her affections. the mother, however, was much opposed to this marriage, and finally gave up her husband entirely to her daughter; and to this very day the daughter bears children to her step-father, living as wife in the same house with her mother!
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in another instance, a well-known man in salt lake city, who has several wives and married daughters, married a young girl of fifteen years of age whom his wife had adopted and brought up as her own.
quite a number of the leading mormons have wives in the various settlements; and this is very convenient to them if they have to travel much. if the wives are old and experienced, as wives who are sent into the country generally are, they can then look after and manage a farm; and if they have growing boys, the farm can be worked upon a very economical plan. the younger wives in the city can be supplied from them with all the butter, cheese, vegetables, &c., that they require. it takes considerable shrewdness to manage women in such a way as to turn all their abilities to good account and to make them profitable.
let me ask the good brethren who read this to act for once impartially, and try to put themselves in a woman’s place; and let me for their benefit draw a little picture for them to contemplate.
it is evening, and the family are all assembled in their pleasant home—a home made happy by the kind and thoughtful care of a loving father. peace and tranquillity dwell in every heart, and the father is happy in being surrounded by his children, to whom he is fondly attached. he listens to the prattle of the little ones, or the music and songs of the elder children; and for a time he is forgetful of everything save the happiness of the hour.
suddenly his wife, the mother of his children, whom he dearly loves, rises from her seat beside the fire and retires to her own apartment. there she arranges her toilet with irreproachable care, sees that every straying curl is in its place, and gives every touch to her appearance which she thinks is likely to render her attractive in the eyes of a man. she now descends the stairs, ready to leave the home of this, her first husband, for she is going to see her second husband, or some young man to whom she has taken a fancy, and who she thinks would be suitable for a third. she kisses her children good-bye, and is about to take an affectionate farewell of their father, when she suddenly discovers that he is not looking happy. “what is the matter now?” she says; “is not your home a pleasant one? have i not taken pains to train your children in a proper manner, and have i not remained an hour longer than usual with you? what folly it is for you to be moping in this way! this is not the way to live our religion,[305] if we expect to get the blessing of god. you know very well it is very painful for me to leave you and my children; but we must be obedient to the commands of god, and i owe attentions to my other husband as well as to you!”
can any man be supposed who would for a moment endure such an outrage upon decency and common sense, such a violation of all that is sacred in the human heart? and yet this is only reversing the case; and just as any mormon man can suppose he would feel, if the wife he loved were to act in the way i have described, so do mormon wives feel, only as much more acutely, as women are more sensitive in their affections than men.
