A few years back I was sorting through the family genelogical records, and came across information on a great-grandmother. While most of my family heritage is Reorganized LDS, this lady was a real Utah Mormon -- living in Idaho in the 1890s.
She begged her husband to take another wife.
Why?
Because her LDS Church leaders told her that she MUST do that. She was "counseled" that her place in the highest realm of the Celestial Kingdom could not be granted, unless her husband had more women sealed to him.
Think about that message for a moment.
It is like having your boss tell you that you must elevate some other guy into your own work position, if you expect to remain working for the Company at all.
It is like being told that you must give up your life preserver to a rival, if you want to stay on the Titanic.
So, the woman did as she was counseled, and became just one of three or four intimate partners to her husband.
What kind of a "church" would treat its vulnerable members in such a despicable way?
I shut the "Book of Remberance" up, threw it in the closet, and haven't looked at the lady's biography since...
Many had separate houses and lived alone with their kids receiving care packages by horse once a month or so. If they needed something they would mail a letter to their husbands telling them so. Some of them probably never had sex but once in a blue moon. There was only so much sperm to go around. As far as finding them, they would make friends with a father who had a good looking daughter and they would make a deal. Or they would go to England and bring some back under false premise. Some wouldn't even call their husbands by name. They would just say "he" or "him". Many wives wouldn't even show up for their husband's funerals. I sometimes wonder when I look at Warren Jeff's wives, where did the older ones go? We're they killed or sent away for having wrinkles?
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2012 04:54PM by suckafoo.
guynoirprivateeye Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- ... > I wanna know: where were these 'men' finding all > those single / unattached women? ...
In the case I looked into -- they were shipped over from England and Wales in the second half of the 19th century, sometimes three or four young gals to a converted family.
Once they arrived in Great Salt Lake City, the unmarried female converts generally ended up being "sealed" to some local elder within a year or so.
That process left a number of unmarried Mormon men in the lower ranks of LDS society in Utah and southern Idaho. Some of those guys found a wife. In one case I looked into the bachelor had to settle for one of the "cast-offs" from the polygamist who employed him on his ranch -- but at least he found somebody to do his cooking and cleaning.
After the 1860s the federal government got involved, to the point that (I think) polygamy began to taper off, and by the end (late 1880s) I suppose that only one LDS man in ten was still looking for additional wives.
"Brethren, I want you to understand that it is not to be as it has been heretofore. The brother missionaries have been in the habit of picking out the prettiest women for themselves before they get here, and bringing on the ugly ones for us; hereafter you have to bring them all here before taking any of them, and let us all have a fair shake."
- Apostle Heber C. Kimball, The Lion of the Lord, New York, 1969, pp.129-30.
I thought there was some pecking order among the women. There was the first, the prettiest, the best to bang, good cook, laundry women, most fertile, most pain in my butt. I think there were households that worked smoothly and others that had a lot of contention.
I think women were just a step above slaves in those days. Something you own. And it wasn't like they could just jump into their car and use the credit card to get out of Utah. Many of these people were literally stuck in their situation.
It sounded like this women was applying mormon logic and trying to secure her eternal salvation.
redpill Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- ... > It sounded like this women was applying mormon > logic and trying to secure her eternal salvation.
I only have some vague family traditions to go on -- so my conclusions may be wrong. But here is what I found:
The lady in question later regretted having begged her husband to take more wives. She complained over the sad situation, and hoped that there would be some way to restore the family's previous monogamy.
The local Bishop then told her, that it was her own unrighteousness which had caused the situation -- and that if she had "held fast to the rod of iron" her husband could have made it into the Celestial Kingdom with just a couple of wives (instead of four).
The story may be inaccurate -- but it sounds believeable to me. The woman was frightened into polygamy, and then blamed for the entire situation, having come about due to her "unworthiness." She asked for more wives, and so she had no right to complain, after making that decision. I doubt she ever wanted it in the first place -- she was simply frightened into compliance by "the elders."
I had another Mormon ancestor, who simply abandoned his extra two wives, once the US Government's Poland Act went into force in the early 1870s. The abandoned wives were both recent English converts, shipped to America without a penny in their pockets, and without friends or family to help them. I have no idea what happened to them -- they simply disappeared from history, c. 1874.
baura Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Now, sisters, list to what I say: ...
I'm positive that Brigham Young could have rounded up 10,000 "spiritual wives" in Utah, and sent them to Washington, D.C. on the Union Pacfic, each one carrying a poster demanding that polygamy be legal in the U.S. Territories.
Perhaps he even did that -- I can't recall.
Jefferson Davis probably could have assembled 100,000 ragged "cotton workers" demanding less food and longer field hours.
Such is the power of the powerful; and such is the weakness of the weak.
pkdfan2 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > So she did. ...
I can picture a 19th century LDS Bishop giving that counsel to the wife of an apostate or a gentile -- perhaps even to the wife of a member who had not paid his tithing for a while.
But I doubt that such female empowerment was common in LDS ranks back in the "good old days."
Give enough women that much independence, and the power of the prieshood would be in danger.
How many LDS wives actually voted DIFFERENTLY than their husbands, in the much-touted "female liberation" of Wyoming and Utah? Truth was, that there were very few Gentile women, and they were generally not inclined to vote in elections: while nearly all Mormon women of voting age were married and subject to the domination of their husbands.
My MIL tells of an ancestor who married a Native American (Lamanite) woman as a second wife. From what she says, he was looked down at for choosing her. From studying the history, I always have wondered if he was trying to be righteous in that he was making the Lamanites more "white and delightsome" and it racially backfired on him. The Lamanite wife ended up dying (can't remember why) very close to the time that a newborn of the first wife dies. The Lamanite appears to the husband in a dream with the baby and assures him she will care for it.
I really wish I could talk to each one of them and find out just what they really thought about the marriage. Also if I could really understand the context of the time, place and characters.
I remember you 15 years ago in the battles on alt.religion.mormon with RandyJordan, Duwayne Anderson, Russell McGregor, Kerry Shirts et al, and you always seemed to harbor some residual belief in Mormonism, I believe you claimed to be RLDS or thereabouts. I could never figure it out. Have fully seen the light now? Anyway, your websites have been an excellent resource over the years. Thanks
bishop Rick Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I remember you 15 years ago in the battles on > alt.religion.mormon with RandyJordan, Duwayne > Anderson, Russell McGregor, Kerry Shirts et al, > and you always seemed to harbor some residual > belief in Mormonism, I believe you claimed to be > RLDS or thereabouts. I could never figure it out. > Have fully seen the light now? Anyway, your > websites have been an excellent resource over the > years. Thanks
Well, this thread probably isn't the appropriate forum for me to get into a deep discussion of such things. In 2001 (I think it was) I asked that my name be removed from the Community of Christ membership rolls.
Heritage-wise, I'm still very much RLDS -- but I'd be hard-pressed to be able to locate a branch of that group that I'd fit into today. Probably in Iowa or Missouri there are still a few congregations that I could happily fellowship with -- but not where I live now.
I suppose I'll die a Restorationist -- not that I profess such a "restoration" to have taken place in 1829-30 -- but in the sense that I'd very much support returning to the religion practiced by the very first followers of Jesus.
Mormonism (in its many guises) has turned out to be a false promise for such a religious restoration -- although the RLDS version of the movement was perhaps the most benign.
But how can you make more children to furnish bodies for so they can come to earth when sperm is in short supply? I never thought about the sperm amount being a problem. I always wondered how these polygamist guys have enough money!! Most can barely support one wife and that is if the wife works too.
enoughenoch19 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > But how can you make more children to furnish > bodies for so they can come to earth when sperm is > in short supply? ...
I suppose that argument only works well when the qualifier of "righteous" sperm is applied.
"Brother Brigham and Brother Heber have 'righteous' sperm -- but so few of the members really hold fast to the rod of iron, that we cannot be sure whether they will remain faithful..."