Feelings

As far as polygamy goes, my focus as of late is to try to understand how it felt - especially for the women - and most especially for my women.. That's a really hard thing to do with so many factors coming into play. Marriage fulfilled different needs in those days than it does now. It was more about survival, procreation, and a division of labor than it was about true love; however, I believe love did play a significant part in it, especially in young marriages. Subsequent marriages after the death of a spouse was probably a different story. Men needed a woman to care for the children after the death of a wife and women needed a breadwinner after the death of a husband. As long as they were compatible and willing to play by the spoken and unspoken rules, it probably worked out just fine.

Polygamy wasn't about love. Not at all. One argument by the leaders of the church in promoting polygamy included the fact that it increased man's capacity for love as he learned to love multiple women. Sorry, I'm not buying it. Maybe it did increase the capacity for men, specifically, to love, but it destroyed any love women would otherwise have for their husbands.

The more I read of women's individual stories and try to understand their lived experiences, the more I'm convinced that's true. The only way a woman could survive plural marriage was to eliminate love for her husband from the equation. Zina Diantha Huntington (polygamous wife to Joseph Smith and then later to Brigham Young), when interviewed by a journalist from the New York World in 1869, drew a distinction between romantic love and plural marriage. She reported that the successful polygamous wife, "must regard her husband with indifference, and wits no other feeling than that of reverence, for love we regard as a false sentiment; a feeling which should have no existence in polygamy."

So how could polygamy have come from God? How can it be part of God's plan? And how can it possibly be eternal?

I simply cannot reconcile a Mother in Heaven, a loving Heavenly Father, and a "plan of happiness" with eternal polygamy. A mother wouldn't allow it, a loving God wouldn't create it, and it sucked the happiness right out of every woman enmeshed in it. Many of us who have been involved in the church for decades have been taught to put it on the shelf and just believe that, somehow, we'll be miraculously changed in the afterlife. We will suddenly be brought to realize just how great it is and we will be endowed with the capacity to embrace eternal plural marriage with open arms. I'm not buying it. Not anymore. And if it were true, why the constant admonitions to repent and improve and 'be more Christ-like" if we can simply be instantaneously changed into something we're not? That's double talk. That doesn't work on me anymore.

Using all the research William Hartley did to write the book which my distant cousin commissioned (here), he also wrote a piece that focused exclusively on the John Christenson family for the Utah Historical Quarterly in 1983, "Childhood in Gunnison, Utah" (here). His stated purpose in writing the piece was as follows:

This group biography gives a case study of the rearing of a first American generation by immigrant parents, of a family's persistent involvement in three decades of a Mormon village's history, and of life-course events as they affected youths in the first post-pioneer generation. It offers a case study, too, of a normal polygamous family — one husband and two wives — that was not of the elite or of the pitiable types that seem to attract historians' attention.

I found his commentary on the relationship between the two wives quite interesting. He wrote:

The two wives, after Johanna established during her first months in the marriage that she was not Christena's servant, got along well with each other. Both family tradition and historical evidence establish that the three parents, during the child-bearing years, functioned together harmoniously.

That's it. End of story. Are we left to believe it was all peaches and cream? Roses blooming beneath their feet? But we should understand that he only expressed his opinion on how the women "functioned" and not how they "felt". Those are two very different things. And, it's equally important, I believe, to note that HE focused only on function. A woman writer, myself included, would probably have taken a much different approach and come to very different conclusions.

The church tells its own version of the affect plural marriage had on the women of the church. The stories and accounts that are repeated in church-produced sources, which are few, indicate that although it was a difficult sacrifice, it came from an inspired prophet of God and the women ubiquitously defended the practice both publicly and privately. The church's recently published Daughters in My Kingdom (here) contains a total of 9 paragraphs discussing plural marriage. It quotes "one Latter-day Saint woman" as she publicly defended "Celestial Marriage". The footnote led me to the actual source (here) as reported in the Millennial Star. Mrs. Levi Riter wasn't named as the source, possibly because she was not well known nor prominent in the church, neither were the resolutions outlined that were declared in that very same gathering. The resolutions dealt with abuse of government power, denial of civil and religious liberty, violation of constitutional rights, and this:

Resolved. - That we acknowledge the institutions of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as the only reliable safeguard of female virtue and innocence and the only sure protection against the fearful sin of prostitution and its attendant evils now prevalent abroad and as such we are and shall be united with our brethren in sustaining them against each and every encroachment.

Wait, what?  I thought it was to "build the Kingdom of God" on earth and exalt worthy, Priesthood-holding men throughout all eternity. But the women are publicly declaring that it's sole purpose was to safeguard virtue and control prostitution. Why? Because men inherently need multiple sex partners they can't be expected to control themselves, and the best way to accommodate them is to give them multiple wives so they don't have to look for sex outside of marriage? Really?

My point here is that there is a lot more to the story than the church wants us to know. In fact, it's pretty clear they want it tucked away on that high shelf, just out of reach, where we're not tempted to take it down and begin to explore all the controversies that have been kept hidden for so long. And frankly, we'll never know everything. Volumes have been written on the subject from every angle possible. And there is so much more to be written.

Based on our own worldview and preconceived notions, we'll believe what we want to believe, interpret everything to match our own long-held beliefs, pick and choose what we want to defend, and reject the evidence that creates too much cognitive dissonance. Even the highly educated scholars and historians can't always agree on the motivations, intricacies, and chain of events surrounding Mormon polygamy.

We do have some journals in which women wrote their most innermost feelings concerning polygamy. We have a few books as well, though, many active church members would probably discard those accounts since they were written by "apostates". Just because they stopped believing in the doctrine shouldn't automatically discount their feelings. Often, though, we are left to read between the lines.

In the following example, we know that a number of women living in polygamy were unhappy, else why would Brigham need to address all the unhappy women? The way he chose to deal with them and their feelings might surprise you.

Then again, it might not.

From a sermon by Brigham Young (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 4., pp. 55-57; also printed in Deseret News, Vol. 6, pp. 235=236):

Now for my proposition; it is more particularly for my sisters, as it is frequently happening that women say they are unhappy. Men will say, ‘My wife, though a most excellent woman, has not seen a happy day since I took my second wife, ‘No, not a happy day for a year,’ says one; and another has not seen a happy day for five years. It is said that women are tied down and abused: that they are misused and have not the liberty they ought to have; that many of them are wading through a perfect flood of tears…

I wish my own women to understand that what I am going to say is for them as well as others, and I want those who are here to tell their sisters, yes, all the women of this community, and then write it back to the States, and do as you please with it. I am going to give you from this time to the 6th day of October next, for reflection, that you may determine whether you wish to stay with your husbands or not, and then I am going to set every woman at liberty and say to them, Now go your way, my women with the rest, go your way. And my wives have got to do one of two things; either round up their shoulders to endure the afflictions of this world, and live their religion, or they may leave, for I will not have them about me. I will go into heaven alone, rather than have scratching and fighting around me. I will set all at liberty. “What, first wife too?” Yes, I will liberate you all.

I wish my women, and brother Kimball’s and brother Grant’s to leave, and every woman in this Territory, or else say in their hearts that they will embrace the Gospel - the whole of it….say to your wives, ‘Take all that I have and be set at liberty; but if you stay with me you shall comply with the law of God, and that too without any murmuring and whining. You must fulfil the law of God in every respect, and round up your shoulders to walk up to the mark without any grunting. Now recollect that two weeks from to morrow I am going to set you at liberty. But the first wife will say, ‘It is hard, for I have lived with my husband twenty years, or thirty, and have raised a family of children for him, and it is a great trial to me for him to have more women;’ then I say it is time that you gave him up to other women who will bear children. If my wife had borne me all the children that she ever would bare, the celestial law would teach me to take young women that would have children….

 Sisters, I am not joking, I do not throw out my proposition to banter your feelings, to see whether you will leave your husbands, all or any of you. But I know that there is no cessation to the everlasting whining of many of the women in this territory; I am satisfied that this is the case. And if the women will turn from the commandments of God and continue to despise the order of heaven, I will pray that the curse of the Almighty may be close to their heals, and that it may be following them all the day long….

Prepare yourselves for two weeks from to morrow; and I will tell you now, that if you will tarry with your husbands, after I have set you free, you must bow down to it, and submit yourselves to the celestial law. You may go where you please, after two weeks from to-morrow; but, remember, that I will not hear any more of this whining.

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