# Wife No. 19/Chapter 28
### CHAPTER XXVIII.
#### HOW BRIGHAM YOUNG FORCED ME TO MARRY HIM.

* Brigham's Offer of Marriage.
* I Think the Prophet Too Old.
* My Parents are Delighted with the Honor.
* They Try to Persuade Me.
* I am Very Obstinate.
* Arguing the Matter.
* How Brigham Found Means to Influence Me.
* My Brothers get into Trouble.
* The Prophet and the Telegraph-Poles.
* He Takes a Nice Little Contract.
* Then Sells it to His Son.
* Bishop Sharp Makes a Few Dollars Out of It.
* My Brother Engages in the Work.
* He Becomes Involved in Debts and Difficulties.
* Brigham Threatens to Cut Him Off for Dishonesty.
* My Mother Tries to Excuse Him.
* Hemmed In on All Sides, I Determine to Make One Last Appeal.
* I Fail, and Consent to Marry Him.
A Crushing Blow. — Brigham Wishes to Marry Me. ROSE to my feet shocked beyond expression.
I looked from my father to my mother, hoping that they were merely jesting with me; for I had no idea that what they told me could be true; it was too monstrous an absurdity. But the expression of their faces did not reassure me. I saw that they were in earnest; that it was true; and I burst out into a passionate fit of weeping.
My mother came to me, and took my hand and caressed it in her own, and my father tried to reassure me.
​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/459 ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/460 ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/461 ​He told Brigham how averse I was; and he only laughed, and said I should get over it, if I only had time. He would not give me up, but he would not hasten matters; he would leave me in my parents' hands, and he hoped they would induce me to listen favorably to his proposals. The last remark was made with a peculiar emphasis and a sinister smile, which every Saint who had had dealings with him knew very well, and whose meaning they also knew. It meant, "Do as I command you, or suffer the weight of my displeasure." He sent a message to me, which, though seemingly kind, contained a covert threat; and I began to feel the chains tightening around me already. I felt sure that I could not free myself, but I would struggle to the end.
Thus began a year of anguish and torture. I fought against my fate in every possible way. Brigham was equally persistent, and he tried in every way to win me, a willing bride, before he attempted to coerce me. He told my parents, and myself, too, that he had always had great interest in me, and had intended to propose for me so soon Chauncey G. Webb.["My Father."] as I was old enough; that when he sent for me to the theatre, and proposed my being at the Lion House, it was that I might become familiar with the place and its inmates, and so not feel strange when he should bring me there as a wife. It had been his intention to have proposed for me then; but he had just married Amelia, and it had made such a hue-and-cry among the Gentiles, especially as he had taken her directly in the face of the late congressional law against polygamy, that he did not think it ​wise to add another to the list just then; so he said nothing of his intentions, and before he knew anything of my engagement, I was ready to be married. It was a great shock to him; but as matters had gone so far, and as he was in such a questionable position before the government, he thought it best not to interfere, as he most assuredly would, had he known my intentions earlier. Now I was free, and he was at liberty to tell me, what he had wanted to tell me long before, that he loved me.
Finding that this declaration of affection failed to move me, he tried another tack. He asked my father if a house and a thousand dollars a year would make me comfortable, as he wished to settle something on me when I married him, taking for granted that I should do so.
My mother and father both favored his suit, and labored with me to induce me to view it in the same light. Brigham was our spiritual guide; it might be that in refusing Eliza C. Webb[My Mother.] him I should lose all hopes of future salvation. That was my mother's plea. My father's was, that Brigham was able to hurt him pecuniarily. And then came my oldest brother, who added his influence in Brigham's favor by telling me that Brigham had it in his power to ruin him, and was very angry with him, and had threatened to "cut him off from the church," which was, to a person in his position, the very worst thing that could happen.
The trouble between them was of Brigham's own making, and I will give it, as briefly as I can, to show how. Brigham managed to get everything out of his people ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/464 ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/465 ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/466 ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/467 ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/468 ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/469 ​and cheated, Brigham Young," said she, quickly. "I wonder how you would like to have one of your sons cut off from the church, and treated in the manner in which you have treated Gilbert."
"I should think it perfectly right if one of my boys had done wrong and needed punishment." Yet it is well known that there are no more unprincipled men in the Territory than his eldest sons; but there never have been the slightest signs of their being disfellowshipped.
After a still more spirited contest with my mother, the Prophet took his departure in a great rage, saying he should see if "Gilbert would pay his Gentile debts in preference to paying the brethren."
All this was for the purpose of influencing me, and I saw that I must yield. There was nothing but ruin in store for us if I persisted in my refusal. The loss of property was by no means so dreadful a thing to my brother — brought up to believe that there was no salvation outside of Mormonism ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/471 ​Page:Wife No 19.djvu/472