THE CRISIS OF A LIFE—ENTERING INTO POLYGAMY.
To face p. 296.
I was bewildered and almost beside myself, and yet I had to hide my feelings. Hope was for ever banished from my life. To whom could I look for sympathy among those who were around me? They were most of them men who had ruthlessly wrecked the lives and lacerated the hearts of hundreds of women before my turn came, and the sight of an unhappy wife was so common in their experience that it was more likely to awaken their anger than their pity. I felt this instinctively, and I resolved that they should never know how much my poor heart was torn. My husband, it is true, was there. My husband! Was he not now the husband of another woman, and therefore no longer belonging to me? I knew that I never could overcome my early teaching sufficiently to feel that this was right, though such was my wretched fanaticism that I mentally and verbally assented to it. I felt that now I stood alone—our union was severed, there could never be any copartnership between that other wife and myself—no, never! Salvation or no salvation, it was impossible that I could ever love her. From that day I began to hide all my sorrows from my husband, and it was but very seldom that I uttered a word of discontent, and when I expressed what I felt, it was in anger; but never in sorrow seeking sympathy.
I remember when we returned home—that home which had now lost its charm, for the young wife was to live there—my husband said to me: “You have been very brave, but it is not so hard to bear, after all, is it?” I had hidden my feelings so well that he really thought that I was indifferent. But during the remainder of the day, how I watched their looks and noticed every word! To me their tender tones were daggers, piercing my heart and filling me with a desire to revenge myself upon the father of my children. Oh, what fanatics we Mormon women have been ever to have believed for a single moment that a just and loving Father and God would have given a command that in almost every instance has produced such fearful results upon those who should have been happy wives and mothers, and consequently upon their children! Indeed, even then it made me feel that there was no justice in heaven, if this love which is the best part of woman’s nature—this love that we had always believed was a part of divinity itself—this principle, without which there would be nothing worth living for—if this was to be our greatest curse, and the woman who showed herself most actuated by this gentle influence was to be the greatest victim.
I felt that day that if I could not get away by myself alone and give expression to my overcharged feelings, I should certainly lose my reason. I was utterly miserable. It was only in the dead of night, in my own chamber, that I gave way to the terrible anguish that was consuming me. God and my own soul can alone bear witness to what I suffered in that time of woe. That night was to me such as even the most God-forsaken might pray never to know; and morning dawned without my having for a moment closed my eyes.
CHAPTER XXXII.
DOMESTIC ARRANGEMENTS OF THE SAINTS:—POLYGAMY FROM A WOMAN’S STANDPOINT.
I was now to realize personally, in my own home life, what Polygamy actually was. Hitherto I had observed how other women suffered, and how other men treated their wives; but now the painful reality had come to my own door, and I was to experience the effects of the system upon myself, and, instead of noting the conduct of other men, I should be able to observe the change which Polygamy might work in my own husband.