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Polygamy:
Past and Present
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Brigham Young: Prophet, Governor, General and Polygamist |
Between the year 1852 when Brigham Young admitted to the world that Mormons really did preach and practice plural marriage, and the year of the Manifesto, 1890, “celestial marriage” [polygamy] was the hub of Mormonism around which all other doctrines revolved. Contemporary Mormon fundamentalists have continued that scenario. |
In addition to the marrying of many women, “materialism”
was the driving force of Nineteenth Century Mormonism.
It was an era where the Mormon religion embraced all functions
of life - economics, politics, entertainment, finance and morality,
which at the time was not all bad.
The first few years in the Great Basin was a matter of
survival. Church and
state joined forces to build up the kingdom of God.
Building up the kingdom of god meant gathering people – people to occupy the land, develop the land and finance the development with their labor and tithes. Brigham said he could build up the kingdom faster with plural marriage than the missionaries could by converting new members. So he induced the territorial legislature to pass a law making it permissible to marry a twelve year old girl.
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No
one knows the actual number of Joseph Smith’s wives.
Todd Compton in his excellent book, In Sacred Loneliness,
accounted for thirty-three. Other
authors claim there were many more.
Joseph
Smith gathered and wed his plural wives in secret.
It was called “spiritual wifism.”
He attempted to confine the practice to his inner circle but
rumors leaked out.
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Joseph
conveniently received a revelation “commanding” him to do what he
had already been vigorously doing. Prominent historians
believe that the revelation was produced to appease his first wife,
Emma, and some of the other concerned ladies.
Other authors, mainly Mormon apologists, contend that there was
a revelation before the revelation, excusing Joseph of promiscuity
before the “published revelation,” but none has been produced. Had Mark Hoffman not been sentenced to prison,
maybe he would have found it.
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Joseph Smith: |
When
the leading brethren were accused of practicing polygamy they flatly
denied it and declared with much pomp and indignation that no such
thing was happening in Mormonism, and that a system as degrading as
polygamy must be authored from the “outer reaches” and “deeper
depths.”
So
how did Joseph Smith acquire his plural wives?
Much the same way as Tom Green acquired his wives
– from the daughters of his friends, widows, from the estranged
wives of other men and from the wives of his friends. Of Joseph’s 33 wives, 12 were polyandrous marriages –
meaning, that these women lived with both Joseph and their temporal
husbands, sometimes bearing children to both men.
Joseph
already had 27 wives when he received the “revelation” July 12,
1843. Eleven wives were between ages 14 and 20 when he married them.
This was Mormonism at the fountainhead, supposedly at its best.
It
was righteous eroticism that got the martyred prophet into trouble,
i.e. the coveting of other men’s women? History has revealed that Joseph wanted Nancy, Sydney
Rigdon’s pretty, seventeen year old daughter, but she didn’t want
him. While Orson Hyde was
on a mission he married his wife.
When the outraged Orson found out, he apostatized, then
reconsidered and came back into the fold, becoming a zealot polygamist
himself.
Joseph’s
ultimate downfall was his attempt to add the comely wife of William
Law to his harem. When
Law found out he vowed to expose Joseph’s debauchery and created the
Nauvoo Expositor for that purpose. After the first edition, Joseph, who was the mayor of Nauvoo,
passed a law declaring the Expositor a public nuisance and ordered the
presses destroyed. That
one event, more than any other, led to Joseph’s martyrdom.
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Polygamy in Low Life-The Poor Mans Family
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I
intend to include at least two chapters of “polygamy past and
present” in Tom Green: The Polygamist Who Talked His Way Into
Prison. Much of what Tom
has done, marrying mother and daughter, stepdaughters, little girls
just entering puberty, was done more frequently under Brigham
Young’s reign.
In
researching for a novel that takes place in the Utah Territory during
the 1860s I purchased several first and second edition, rare books
written in the Nineteenth Century:
"Wife
No 19", by Ann Eliza Young, Brigham’s twenty-seventh
wife, "Life
In Utah" and "Western Wilds", by J. A.
Beadle, a gentile writer who arrived in Utah in 1868.
One
of the most revealing exposé's on Mormonism was written by Elder John
Hyde, "Mormonism, It’s Leaders and Designs", 1857.
Hyde, no relation to Apostle Orson Hyde, was an English
convert. After he
apostatized he returned to England.
C.
V. [Catherine] Waite arrived in Utah 1862 with her brother, Judge
Waite. She wrote, "The
Mormon Prophet". Each
of these authors accentuated a different phase of Mormonism. Waite’s book centered on politics.
Fanny
Stenhouse wrote "Tell
It All". Her
husband, T.B.H. Stenhouse, newspaper publisher and historian wrote
"The Rocky Mountain Saints".
Both apostatized over the corruption of Brigham’s economics,
politics and polygamist morality, and are excellent reading.
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"Tell It All",
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"Fifteen
Years Among The Mormons", 1860, written by Nelson Winch Green, is
a narrative of Mary Ettie V. Smith.
Nettie was the wife of a Danite and according to her narrative,
she was used by Brigham Young to set up the robbery and murder of
gentiles passing through the territory.
There
are many reprints of books authored by Nineteenth Century anti-Mormon
and pro-Mormon writers. "The
Women of Mormondom", 1857, and "Life
of Joseph The Prophet", by Edward W. Tullidge, the
first editor of The Salt Lake Tribune.
Then there is "The
Confessions of John D. Lee", by himself.
"The History of The
Saints", by John C. Bennett.
Anyone remotely familiar with Mormon history knows about John
C. Bennett, the one time good buddy of Joseph Smith.
"Brigham’s
Destroying Angels", by the chief of the Danites, Bill
Hickman should be a must reading for all Mormon history buffs.
And
then there are many excellent history books written by contemporary
authors. "In
Sacred Loneliness, The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith", Todd
Compton. "Orrin
Porter Rockwell", by Harold Schindler.
"No Man Knows My
History", by Fawn W. Brodie.
"The Twenty-Seventh Wife", by Irving Wallace.
"Great Basin Kingdom", Leonard J. Arrington.
"The Mormon
Hierarchy" by D. Michael Quinn.
These
are just a few of the many books that are available but not found in
the Deseret Book Store. The
Utah Territory was as wild and bloody as any territory of the Old
West. It’s unique
history, I believe, has been obscured by well-meaning historians and
journalists bent upon not offending the LDS Church.
There
is another side of Brigham Young that these authors have captured, a
very human, monarchial, ruthless, greedy, materialistic Brigham Young.
God’s kingdom was Brigham’s kingdom.
The Mormon church was Brigham’s church.
Church money was Brigham’s money.
It is said he died one of the richest men in the United States
and hated to see anyone else beside him make a dollar.
He had his hands in every kind of business including the making
of whiskey and selling it through ZCMI,
"Church" Store--Must Be
Right |
If
all of the above authors are believed, then Mormon polygamy and
Brigham morality can be summed up by the following quote from
Alexander Pope:
Vice
is a monster of so frightful mien,
As
to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet
soon too oft, familiar with her face,
We
first endure, then pity, then embrace.
| Books
authored by John R. Llewellyn: * Murder of a Prophet * Tears of a Teenager: When Parents Convert to Polygamy * POLYGAMY UNDER ATTACK:: From Tom Green to Brian David Mitchell |
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