The thread re: pioneer ancestry, how far back does it go.... started me pondering a few things.

Leaving the church was a lifting of a huge burden, 500 lb backpack, of guilt and shame.
The frustration, though, with all of the bullshite faith promoting stories... is becoming a problem for me.

I have some questions and facts I would like to discuss.

1. What do you think went through the minds of European converts when they arrived in America? Did they freak when they realized they had sold all of their earthly belongings and were now required to push a handcart across the plains and deserts, because Brigham Young &co was a cheap bastards?

2. How did the parents, but especially the fathers of young daughters snapped up by the poligs, REALLY feel about the forced sexual slavery of their loved ones?

3. For the dudes: how would you feel, if you were still a tbm, if polygamy was reinstated today? And more importantly, what would you do?

I am trying to settle these frustrations by looking at several different perspectives.

Do you all have any thoughts, answers or comments?

People were going much father and to much more remote places long before the LDS migrated to Salt Lake. Indeed at least two parties of pioneers had been through the Salt Lake area and continued on to California just the year before the LDS migration. Those two parties were looking for a shortcut, an alternative to the well used Oregon trail.

Many of the people traveling on were going to be in much more remote places than the Salt Lake. Salt Lake was just 5 days away from a major fort with a major trading post. Additional supplies were not out of reach for the LDS.

>>>1. What do you think went through the minds of European converts when they arrived in America? Did they freak when they realized they had sold all of their earthly belongings and were now required to push a handcart across the plains and deserts, because Brigham Young &co was a cheap bastards?<<<<

Yes, many of them did freak. Too expensive to go back. One of my Great Grandmothers made the journey and lost several family members along the way. Her brothers, who also made the journey, decided the whole thing was a huge hoax, and told her they would support her her whole life if she would please not marry polygamously. But she did, and so did her sister.

The two brothers? They started a bar in SLC. There was a thriving non-Mormon population from the beginning, and maybe some of the Mormons hit the bar too. After all, Porter Rockwell operated a tavern at point of the Mountain.

And then, if one was totally jaded, you could always move on to California. The church may or may not send hit men after you depending on how much damage they thought you might do.



>>>>2. How did the parents, but especially the fathers of young daughters snapped up by the poligs, REALLY feel about the forced sexual slavery of their loved ones?<<<<

The TBMs thought the sexual slavery (they did not think of it in those terms) would get their daughters into the highest degree of heaven, and their chief concern would be that their daughters marry a righteous man (in their opinion) and that the marriage would be performed by "one having authority."

Some men married their daughters to older men, in exchange for marrying one of the older man's daughters. BY for instance. I guess it was a way of male-bonding, marrying each other's daughters.

Not a happy situation. Divorces in polygamous situations were common. Just pay BY ten bucks per divorce. BY kept HIS wives in pin money with funds so generated.



>>>>3. For the dudes: how would you feel, if you were still a tbm, if polygamy was reinstated today? And more importantly, what would you do?<<<<

I am female, but I think most men would prefer to have one wife and a series of mistresses as opposed to plural wives. Of course, if one can discard a plural wife simply by abandoning her, then a plural wife amounts to a cast-off mistress.

My own ancestors took plural wives because they were TOLD to during the so-called reformation. Then when the feds, and eventually the church cracked down on polygamists, life got REAL strange. Talk about cognitive dissonance. The church would at some point in your married life punish you for doing the very thing they demanded of you years earlier.


>>>I am trying to settle these frustrations by looking at several different perspectives.

Do you all have any thoughts, answers or comments?<<<<

I think the best insight can be achieved by reading contemporary accounts such as Ann Eliza Webb, Mrs. Froiseth and good old "Tell it all" Fanny Stenhouse.

I have also read the story of Sarah Pratt. Orson's wife. Several times.

AMAZING woman. Stuck in Utah with a husband who didn't care, who would not support her, and who had to somehow raise her children in a culture she absolutely did not believe in.

She managed to get her views across to her children, while making it clear that this was the culture they had to live in until they were grown, and could leave, if necessary.

I think her husband, Orson Pratt, liked polygamy just fine. In fact he was the one that broke the news to the world, that yup, those rumors were true, and polygamy was indeed a part -- an important part -- of the Mormon religion. Orson thought polygamy was quite the celestial lifestyle.

Fanny Stenhouse, in her book "Tell it all" has an interesting account of the death of one of Orson's many, many wives.

Ok, I've been looking at my DH's family history and have been very curious about this one incident.

April 30, 1831 The first time Joseph and family came to Kirtland they lived with Isaac Morley, Lucy's father. Later "Father Morley" built a small house for them on his farm. The twins were born here [on April 30]. Lucy [Morley] and her elder sister kept house for Emma Smith while she was ill. Lucy Diantha Morley Allen reminiscence, "Joseph Smith, the Prophet," Young Woman's Journal 17: 537.

I've read enough about other girls that "helped out" at Joe's house. Later her younger sister (8 years younger, in 1831 LDM would be about 16, her younger sister, Cordelia Cox would have been about 8). In 1844 (Cordelia is now 21) this occurs:

"...In the spring of 1844, plural marriage was introduced to me by my parents from Joseph Smith, asking their consent and a request to me to be his wife. Imagine, if you can, my feeling, to be a plural wife. Something I never thought I could ever be. I knew nothing of such religion and could not accept it, neither did I then. I told Joseph I had a sweetheart; his name was Whiting, and I expected to marry him. He, however, was left by the wayside. He could not endure the persecutions and hardships. I told the Prophet I thought him a wonderful man and leader, but I wanted to marry my sweetheart.

After Joseph Smith's death, I was visited by some of his most intimate friends who knew of his request and explained to me this religion, counseling me to accept his wishes, for he now was gone and could do no more for himself. I accepted Joseph Smith's desire, and 27 January 1846, I was married to your father in the Nauvoo Temple. While still kneeling at the alter, my hand clasped in his and ready to become his third plural wife, Heber C. Kimball tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Cordelia, are you going to deprive the Prophet of his desire that you be his wife?" At that, Walter Cox said, "You may be sealed to the Prophet for eternity and I'll marry you for time." Walter was proxy for Joseph Smith, and I was sealed to him for eternity and to Walter for time. (One time when Cordelia told this story to her granddaughter, Mary Verona Cox, she said, "Verona, in eternity I want the man that was the father of my children and was a good husband and father. I lived with him and loved him.")

I want to bear my testimony, no matter by whom it is denied. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught and practiced polygamy, having five wives with whom I was acquainted. It was just as much a trial to us in those days as it would be to this people today..."

SOURCE: Autobiography of Cordelia Morley Cox. Retrieved from http://oscox.org/fwcox/cordeliaccox.html

My understanding is that Cordelia's father and his wife are "adopted to" (does that mean sealed to?) BY at the same time. There are also claims by Kerry Boren about Lucy DM being a polyg wife of JS also. But Kerry Boren seems to be a bit of an unreliable source, jailed for killing his wife and accused of several JS like actions. His sources sound pretty made up to me.

Anyway, all this has always really made me wonder about JS and what he did with LDM and her elder sister while they were taking care of Emma as she was trying to bear him twins. Did he try to get some new wives here or what?