In another instance, a well-known man in Salt Lake City, who has several wives and married daughters, married a young girl of fifteen years of age whom his wife had adopted and brought up as her own.
Quite a number of the leading Mormons have wives in the various settlements; and this is very convenient to them if they have to travel much. If the wives are old and experienced, as wives who are sent into the country generally are, they can then look after and manage a farm; and if they have growing boys, the farm can be worked upon a very economical plan. The younger wives in the city can be supplied from them with all the butter, cheese, vegetables, &c., that they require. It takes considerable shrewdness to manage women in such a way as to turn all their abilities to good account and to make them profitable.
Let me ask the good brethren who read this to act for once impartially, and try to put themselves in a woman’s place; and let me for their benefit draw a little picture for them to contemplate.
It is evening, and the family are all assembled in their pleasant home—a home made happy by the kind and thoughtful care of a loving father. Peace and tranquillity dwell in every heart, and the father is happy in being surrounded by his children, to whom he is fondly attached. He listens to the prattle of the little ones, or the music and songs of the elder children; and for a time he is forgetful of everything save the happiness of the hour.
Suddenly his wife, the mother of his children, whom he dearly loves, rises from her seat beside the fire and retires to her own apartment. There she arranges her toilet with irreproachable care, sees that every straying curl is in its place, and gives every touch to her appearance which she thinks is likely to render her attractive in the eyes of a man. She now descends the stairs, ready to leave the home of this, her first husband, for she is going to see her second husband, or some young man to whom she has taken a fancy, and who she thinks would be suitable for a third. She kisses her children good-bye, and is about to take an affectionate farewell of their father, when she suddenly discovers that he is not looking happy. “What is the matter now?” she says; “is not your home a pleasant one? have I not taken pains to train your children in a proper manner, and have I not remained an hour longer than usual with you? What folly it is for you to be moping in this way! this is not the way to live our religion, if we expect to get the blessing of God. You know very well it is very painful for me to leave you and my children; but we must be obedient to the commands of God, and I owe attentions to my other husband as well as to you!”
Can any man be supposed who would for a moment endure such an outrage upon decency and common sense, such a violation of all that is sacred in the human heart? And yet this is only reversing the case; and just as any Mormon man can suppose he would feel, if the wife he loved were to act in the way I have described, so do Mormon wives feel, only as much more acutely, as women are more sensitive in their affections than men.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF POLYGAMY—MARRIAGE AND BAPTISM FOR THE DEAD.
My life was now one continued series of deceptions, as was also that of my husband, and we began habitually to wear the mask when in each other’s presence.