The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1882-05-24
poLYGAmY IN UTAH.
The Effect in the Past Of Adverse Liquidation
What isto be Expected Of the Edmunds Bill


If there be such an adverb, polygamy is
certainly not inferior to monogamy. In
deed, the cutlery against it is that it always
forced upon women ''in the name of re-
ligion.' Now, as a universal rule, this is
not true. At any rate one plural wife, a
near neighbor of mine to-day, tells me
she married her husband 'sfor love-" and
to judge from her conduct towards him
should certainly say she did. She, more
over and / have been told the same by
no. single woman of her acquaintance had
married "for religions sake or sefor duty's
sake" and what is more, they declare that
no woman ever could make a distasteful
marriage simply from pure piety. In de-
ference to their superior knowledge of the
female heart [ say nothing about this, but
| have not the least doubt that the charge
made against Mormons that they compel
women TO marry them for their own sell
fish ambition of greater glory IL heaven"
is shear nonsense. There are plenty of
elders who. have had mo- said them.
Whatever may have been true thirty years
ago-and there has not been single
trustworthy book written about Mormon
ism since 1S82-it is not true to-day that
the Church interferes with the domestic
relations of the people. When there is a
divorce the Church takes care that the
man does not turn his wife adrift without
provision, but as far as / have been able to
learn the authorities do not meddle in any
other way between man and woman, so
long, of course, as neither is a scandal to
the community. When scandal arises
the Church taxes prompt notice of it, and
the offender, if incorrigible, is next heard
of as 'tapostatiZing. or, in other words,
being turned out of Mormonism as unfis to
live in it. But once married into polyg
amy religion is all-powerful in reconciling
women to the sacrifices they have to make,
precisely in the same way that religion
reconciles the nun to the far more unnatu-
raj sacrifices which her church places to
her credit. The outward appearance of
piety in Mormon households is very
marked, and the prayers and graces
(Which to me seem unnecessarily fong) are
conspicuously tolerant and liberal in spirit.
Unlike every other religion in the world,
except Quakers and Buddhists, the Nor
mons damn nobody but pray for blessings
on all alike.
Polygamy, then, is really Very dull
affair. | am disappointed in it, | had ex-
pected to see men sitting with long whips
on fences swearing at their gangs of wives
at work in the fields. l expected every
now and then to hear of drunken saints
beating seven Or eight wives all at once,
and perhaps even to have seen the I'M
usual spectacle of house fullm of women
and children rushing screaming into
the street with one intoxicated husband
and father in pursuit. Everywhere else in
the world wife-beating is pastime more
or less INDUCED in cOram oublico. In Lon
don, at any rate, men so arrange their chas
tisemepts that you can hear the screams
from the street and see the wife run out of
the front door on to the sidewalk. In
Salt Lake City therefore it seemed only
reasonable to suppose that the amount of
the screaming would be increased in pro-
portion to the number of the wives, and
that eventually the ILL used family would
be seen pouring simultaneously out of
several doors and scattering over the prem
1ses with hideous ululation. Where are
the aged apostles who have so often been
described as going about in their swallow
tail coats counting each others daughters?
Where are the families of one man and ten
wives to be found taking the air together
that pictures have so often shown US? Of
course there are anomalies, and very OBJ
jectionable they are. Thus one young man
has married his half-aunt, another his half
sister, and three sisters have welded the
same man; but these instances are all ''his-
torical,' so to speak, and have been so often
trotted out by anti-Mormon book makers,
hoping to turn dollar or two out of their
'apostasy,'. that they are hard
y worth repeating Nor is it of any force
TO begin raking into the old suspicious as
70 Joseph Smiths infidelities towards the
Queen of Heaven, or of any use to remem-
Der what Mormons dead and gone used to
10.
What is polygamy like today? That
s the question that the public wishes to
have answered, and answered impartially |
Polygamy to-day, then, has settled down
INTO the most decorous and matter of fact |
system that is possible for such exceptional
domestic arrangements. In the first place |
It is not compulsory, as Mormon eaters"
pretend it is, although they have the fact |
before them of leading saints being
As a matter of fact, about |
,ne fourth of married Mormons are poly |
famous, and of these something less |
han per cent. are under forty years of |
lge. The bill of 1862 made little or no
Inference IN the annual average of plural
but during the last four years
here has been very sensible decrease.
The facts, then, prove first that polyga-
ny, though accepted accepted as doctrine
# the Church, is not generally acted upon
and why? For the best of reasons.
Either that the men cannot afford to keep
Up more than one establishment, or that
hey are too happy with one wife to care
0 marry a second, or that the first wife
efuses to allow any increase of the house
lo1d-all of which reasons show that
'olygamy is controlled by prudential and
domestic considerations and is not the
lind indiscrminate and unlicensed s'de-
'auchery" that untinking Mormon eaters"
ay 1t is also evident that the young
r Mormons are not so active in
marrying as the elder men were
t their age, for ten years ago
he proportions of polygamous Mormons
nder forty years of age was much greater,
which mag mean that the inaction of Con-
ress was gradually working towards the
nd which the Cu1lum bill thwarted By
sgislating against polygamy plural mar
ia4es increased-1S63 10 1866 being as
usy years in the Endowment House as
ny that ever preceded them-while by
citing polygamy severely alone monogamy
as been increasing.
Polygamy in fact, by the relaxation of
he regime, now that Brigham Young's
ersonal government has ceased has taken
IS place as an ordinary civil institution,
90 rials roc .,,,o tg,eca