I know about Joe and Patty & Sylvia Sessions. Stenhouse also mentions the practice, and there's a reference in a bio on Orson Pratt that I found on MormonThink.

I haven't been able to find demographic sources, though, about the actual incidence of this practice. Does anyone know of such a reference?

Much obliged, as always.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/10/2014 06:24AM by rt.

I just read about a man who married a woman and then her daughters. The story is printed in a soft cover history of San Pete County, Utah. My cousin has recently moved to Mt. Pleasant and she received this book as a Christmas present, so the book is currently in print. I don't recall the name of the man, nor in which community he lived. He made the comment that he was lucky because his MIL was his wife.

Levi Savage married a widow with two daughters. He subsequently married the two daughters. Before he did all this he had gone on a mission to India (big failure that) gone all the way around the world without purse or scrip and married Eliza Ann Webb's aunt, who died before he married the widow with the two daughters. Quite a life.

If the purpose of marriage is not to find a mate for this life, but to become sealed to someone who will secure your eternal salvation then it makes a kind of sense. Marrying your wife's daughters (hopefully by another man) will mean everyone gets to spend eternity together.

Years ago, there was a notorious incident in Utah that ended up with an FBI agent and a polygamist getting killed. I forget the name of the family just now.

But there was a polygamist named Adam Swapp involved who married a mother and her daughter.

Again, it is all about what your definition of marriage is. Marriage has different meanings in different cultures, but in some parts of Mormon Country it means this is how a woman gets into heaven.

When you think about it, it makes getting into heaven (for a woman) so easy -- all you have to do is marry the right man, and if the right man becomes the wrong man you can always marry someone else. And it doesn't even matter if the right man is already married, because the right man can marry as often as he pleases.

Simple as that.

My great grandfather married three sisters.