* "I have discovered thus early (1852) that little deference is
paid to women. Repeatedly, in my long walk to our boarding house, I was
obliged to retreat back from the [street] crossing places and stand on
one side for men to cross over. There are said to be a great many of
the lower order of English here, and this rudeness, so unusual with
our countrymen, may proceed from them."—Mrs. Ferris. "Life among the
Mormons."
The system of plural marriages left its impress all over the home life of the territory. Many of the Mormon leaders, as we have seen, had more wives than one when they made their first trip across the plains, and the practice of polygamy, while denied on occasion, was not concealed from the time the settlement was made in the valley to the date of its public proclamation. In the early days, a man with more than one wife provided for them according to his means. Young began with quarters better than the average, but modest in their way, and finally occupied the big buildings which cost him many thousands of dollars. If a man with several wives had the means to do so, he would build a long, low dwelling, with an outside door for each wife, and thus house all under the same roof in a sort of separate barracks. When Gunnison wrote, in 1852, there were many instances in which more than one wife shared the same house when it contained only one apartment, but he said: "It is usual to board out the extra ones, who most frequently pay their own way by sewing, and other female employments." Mrs. Ferris wrote: "The mass of the dwellings are small, low, and hutlike. Some of them literally swarmed with women and children, and had an aspect of extreme want of neatness.... One family, in which there were two wives, was living in a small hut—three children very sick [with scarlet fever]—two beds and a cook-stove in the same room, creating the air of a pest-house."*
* "Life among the Mormons," pp. 111, 145.
Hyde, describing the city in 1857, thus enumerated the home accommodations of some of the leaders:—"A very pretty house on the east side was occupied by the late J. M. Grant and his five wives. A large barrack-like house on the corner is tenanted by Ezra T. Benson and his four ladies. A large but mean-looking house to the west was inhabited by the late Parley P. Pratt and his nine wives. In that long, dirty row of single rooms, half hidden by a very beautiful orchard and garden, lived Dr. Richard and his eleven wives. Wilford Woodruff and five wives reside in another large house still further west. O. Pratt and some four or five wives occupy an adjacent building. Looking toward the north, we espy a whole block covered with houses, barns, gardens, and orchards. In these dwell H. C. Kimball and his eighteen or twenty wives, their families and dependents."*
* "Mormonism," p. 34. The number of wives of the church leaders
decreased in later years. Beadle, giving the number of wives "supposed
to appertain to each" in 1882, credits President Taylor with four (three
having died), and the Apostles with an average of three each, Erastus
Snow having five, and four others only two each.
Horace Greeley, prejudiced as he was in favor of the Mormons when he visited Salt Lake City in 1859, was forced to observe:—"The degradation (or, if you please, the restriction) of woman to the single office of childbearing and its accessories is an inevitable consequence of the system here paramount. I have not observed a sign in the streets, an advertisement in the journals, of this Mormon metropolis, whereby a woman proposes to do anything whatever. No Mormon has ever cited to me his wife's or any woman's opinion on any subject; no Mormon woman has been introduced or spoken to me; and, though I have been asked to visit Mormons in their houses, no one has spoken of his wife (or wives) desiring to see me, or his desiring me to make her (or their) acquaintance, or voluntarily indicated the existence of such a being or beings."*
* "Overland journey," p. 217.
Woman's natural jealousy, and the suffering that a loving wife would endure when called upon to share her husband's affection and her home with other women, would seem to form a sort of natural check to polygamous marriages. But in Utah this check was overcome both by the absolute power of the priesthood over their flock, and by the adroit device of making polygamy not merely permissive, but essential to eternal salvation. That the many wives of even so exalted a prophet as Brigham Young could become rebellious is shown by the language employed by him in his discourse of September 21, 1856, of which the following will suffice as a specimen:—"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.'... I wish my women to understand that what I am going to say is for them, as well as all others, and I want those who are here to tell their sisters, yes, all the women in 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 till 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 all around me. I will set all at liberty. What, first wife too?' Yes, I will liberate you all. I know what my women will say; they will say, 'You can have as many women as you please, Brigham.' But I want to go somewhere and do something to get rid of the whiners... . Sisters, I am not joking."*
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. IV, p. 55.
Grant, on the same day, in connection with his presentation of the doctrine of blood atonement, declared that there was "scarcely a mother in Israel" who would not, if they could, "break asunder the cable of the Church in Christ; and they talk it to their husbands, to their daughters, and to their neighbors, and say that they have not seen a week's happiness since they became acquainted with that law, or since their husbands took a second wife."* The coarse and plain-spoken H. C. Kimball, in a discourse in the Tabernacle, November 9, 1856, thus defined the duty of polygamous wives, "It is the duty of a woman to be obedient to her husband, and, unless she is, I would not give a damn for all her queenly right or authority, nor for her either, if she will quarrel and lie about the work of God and the principles of plurality."**