Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1885-11-18
PoLYGAMY AND UNLAWFUL CoHAB
Judge Powers Defines the Grimes
Pretty Clearly i'm His charge TO
the Grand Jury Yesterday.

yesterday Judge Powers impaneled
and charged the Grand Jury of the First
District Court, at Ogden, and the follow.
ing extracts are taken from his charge tC
that body:
1t will be your duty to inquire whether
/ any of the laws of the United States have
been violated. 1t is my duty to charge
YOU specifically to make due and diligent
| inquiry whether the laws of your
country relative to polygamy and unlaw-
| ful cohabitation are being infringed in
this district. I therefore charge you to
investigate this matter. For years the
laws relative to the marriage relation
have been set at defiance in this Terri
tory. This is fact of such common
notoriety that the court is bound to take
/ judicial knowledge of it. But this state
of affairs cannot be allowed longer to
exist.
THE GOVERNMENT is IN EARNEST.
The laws of the land must be enforced
and guilty parties taught that, if they
continue in their evil course, they must
pay the penalty. People must learn that
the law can no more be violated with i'm
punity in Utah than it can be in the
States. They must understand that the
great moral sentiment of the nation is
opposed to plural marriage. The sooner
they learn the lesson, that they must
learn sooner or later, that the law must
be obeyed, and that Utah is portion of
the United States, the better it will be
for all. 1t is strange that any will pursue
the path that the people of this Territory
seem determined to take. Here, amid
these mountains, natures great treasure
vaults, enclosing valleys so fertile that
they need only to be ''tickled with the
hoe in the spring-time to laugh with the
harvest in autumn" could be framed an
intelligent, enterprising State. Some day
this will be done, but it will not be until
our people learn to love their country,
learn to obey its laws, and learn to
reverence
THAT GREAT INSTITUTION OF CIVILIZATION,
THE HOME,
With its wife and mother, revered and
honored by the husband and father. The
laws relative to the marriage relation,
which the court expects your aid i'm en-
forcing, are just laws, and are constitu-
tional laws. Aswas said by the Supreme
Court of the United States: "no legisla-
ton can be supposed more wholesome
and necessary in the founding of a free.
self-governing commonwealth, fit to take
rank among the coordinate States of the
Union. than that which seeks to estab-
lish it upon the basis OF the idea Of the
family as consisting in and springing from
the union for life of one man and one
woman in the holy estate of matrimony,
the sure foundation of all that is stable
and noble in our civilization; the best
guaranty of that reverent morality which
is the source of all benefcent progress in
all social and political improvement.
THE CRIME OF BIGAMY OR PoLYGAMY
Consists in entering into bigamous or
polygamous marriage. The offense is
complete when any person who has a
husband or wife living marries another.
1t is also complete when any man
simultaneously, or on the same day, mar
ries more than one woman. This, how
ever, does not apply to any person by
reason of any former marriage, whose
husband or wife by such marriage has
been absent for five successive years, and
is believed by such person to be dead,
nor to any person by reason of any
former marriage which shall have been
dissolved by valid decree of a competent
court, on the ground of nullity of the
relation
In this Territory
THERE is NO LAW REGULATING MARRIAGE.
No form or ceremony is required, and
no record of marriage is kept. Marriage
is LETT as it was at common law. There
need be no witnesses present. Ii the
parties are competent to contract, all that |
is essential is a present agreement. The |
marriage is complete when there is full,
Tree and mutual consent of parties capa-
bic of contracting. Proof that parties
have treated each other as husband and |
wife, have lived together as such, and
have held each other out to the world as
such, is sufficient to enable court or iury
70 lind that at some previous time the
parties did, as fact, consent to be mar
led, and as fact agree to be husband
md wife. The mode of life, the holding
tut, the declarations or admissions of the
and the like, are circumstantial
evidence from which the fact of marriage
nay be inferred
THE oFFENsE OF coHAB1TATIoN
S complete when a man, to all outward
is living or associating with
more than one woman as his wife. To
onsttute the ofense it is not necessary
hat 1T be shown that the parties indulge
4 sexual intercourse. The intention of
ne law-maklng power, in enacting the
aw against Capitalization and polygamy,
las to protect homogeneous marriage bv
rombltlng all other marriage, whether I
by ceremony. or by conduct /.
nd circumstances alone.
An Indictment may be found against a :
IAN guilty of cohabitation for every day,
other distinct interval of time, during
hich he offends. Each day that a man
'hablts with more than one woman. asI
ave defined the word "cohabit," is a il
stinct and separate violation of the law. n
nd is liable to punishment for each sep !,
ate offense. A grand jury is vested
lih very large discretion in limiting the e
me within which series of acts may be C
legged as constituting single offense. 6
has been argued by some that if a a
and jury r
IN FIND AN INDICTMENT FOR EACH DAY :,
hat man cohabits with more than one 8
oman, they can find an Indictment for n
Oh hour or each minute. The learned +
wyers who have raised this point-and |;
ey are not members of the bar-haye W
obably forgotten that the law takes no d
,fr.ar ~ -.