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Women of Mormonism
The Story of Polygamy
Chapter 1 - The Case Stated
THE WOMEN OF MORMONISM:
or
THE STORY OF POLYGAMY
As Told by the Victims Themselves.
Edited By
JENNIE ANDERSON FROISETH
Editor of the Anti-Polygamy Standard, Salt Lake City,
PUBLISHED BY
C.G.G. PAINE, DETROIT, MICH.
1886
Copyright, 1881 and 1882
By Jennie Anderson Froiseth
Polygamy as a Religion
- As a Social System - Address of the Gentile Women of Utah - Appeal of Mrs. Ann Eliza
Young - Design of this Work - Degrading Influence of Polygamy
[19] WHAT is your opinion of
Mormon polygamy as a religious tenet?" was asked of an eminent divine, upon his
return from a visit to Utah, where he had spent several weeks in investigating the system,
with eyes, ears, and heart wide open.
"It may be good enough for a certain class of men," was the
reply, "but for the women, it is a damnable doctrine. Religion was designed by the
Creator to satisfy that longing for infinite good and purity, which exists, in some
degree, in every human soul; its mission is to elevate and purify mankind, and a system
which tends to degrade any portion of humanity is but a libel upon the sacred name of
religion. The best resources of our language cannot supply me with strong enough terms in
which to [20] denounce this infamous doctrine of the Mormon creed ! "
"And how do you consider Mormon polygamy as a social
system?" was inquired of a philosopher, who ignored all creeds and dogmas, and
expressed belief in only what he termed "natural religion. "
"As a social system, it is a miserable failure," was the
answer, “because it is founded on the law of retrogression, which cannot be tolerated
in this advancing age. The corner-stone of polygamy is the degradation of woman, and it
can flourish only where she is regarded and treated as a slave. The question suggests
itself, Does this country intend going back to the conditions of semi-barbaric
civilization? For, whatever degrades woman, degrades man also. The future of our race
depends entirely upon the character and position of the women. If we make them slaves, how
can we expect that our children will be anything else than children of bondwomen, and
slaves, like their mothers? "
In the address issued by the Gentile women of Utah, to the women of
the United States, asking co-operation in measures for the suppression of this great crime
against nature and the law, there appeared the following statements: "considering all
our surroundings, polygamy has never taken such a degrading and debasing form in any
nation, or among any people above the condition of savages, as in Utah; and there are
facts which cannot be repeated, that reduce the system to the lowest form of indecency. It
is degrading to man and woman, [21] a curse to children, and destructive to the sacred
relations of family. That it should be practiced in the name and under the cloak of
religion, only adds to the enormity of the crime, and makes it more revolting to our
common Christian principles."
Mrs. Ann Eliza Young, in dedicating her book, "My Life in
Bondage," to the Mormon wives of Utah, says, “So long as God shall spare my
life, I shall pray and plead for your deliverance from the worse than Egyptian bondage in
which you arc held. Despised, maligned, and wronged; kept in gross ignorance of the great
world outside,-its pure creeds, its high aims, its generous motives,-you have been led to
believe that the noblest nation on earth is but a horde of miscreants, and that every one
outside of your own church is your enemy, and plotting your destruction."
In the closing chapter of the same work, Mrs. Young makes this
eloquent appeal for assistance to the women of America: "And you, happier women, you
to whom life has given of its best, and crowned right royally,-can you not help me? The
cry of my suffering and sorrowing sisters sweeps over the broad prairies, and asks you, as
I ask you now, Can you do nothing for us? Women's pens and women's voices pleaded
earnestly and pathetically for the abolition of slavery. Thousands of women, some of them
your country-women and your equals, in moral and intellectual worth, are held in a more
revolting slavery to-day. The system that blights every woman's life who enters it, ought
not to [22] remain a curse and a stain upon this nation any longer. It should be blotted
out so completely that even its foul memory should die! "
It is for the purpose of making another appeal to those happier women
of the United States, that the present work has been undertaken. We make another effort to
enlist the sympathy and co-operation of good women everywhere in the labors of that little
band of noble workers who have devoted their lives to the task of freeing our common
country from a most loathsome ulcer, of liberating their sex from the most degrading
bondage possible, and of inducing Congress to do something for the redemption of thousands
of women who are slaves in the heart of the Republic!
And theirs is as noble a work as was ever undertaken. For if to break
the fetters from the wrists of slaves was a worthy deed, how much more worthy is a
struggle to emancipate enslaved souls. If the women of the United States could only
realize that it is the sacred duty of every individual
woman throughout the length and breadth of the land to aid in this work of
enfranchisement, the evil would be of short duration. An active public sentiment would
soon be awakened against it, as irresistible as that which made the people furious against
slavery when their first dead were sent home from the war.
If the present volume is productive of no other result, it will at
least make the women of America better acquainted with the degraded position of the
deluded and down-trodden women of Mormonism, [23] and this in itself is one step in the
way of ameliorating their condition. It has often been asserted by those who were
interested in defeating legislation against the peculiar institution, that polygamy could
not be perpetuated except by the consent of the women, and if they are contented, who has
any right to interfere, especially when it is practiced as a religious belief ? It has
always been a favorite argument with Mormon enthusiasts in defense of this doctrine, that
their women are so much happier and more contented than women anywhere else in the world,
and for that reason they claim to have discovered the true sphere of woman. The true
nature of this "consent," how "contented " and how "much
happier" (?) they are, will be learned from these pages. We shall also show that
these enthusiastic defenders of woman's " true sphere " are those who in reality
hold their wives in about the same estimation that they do their cattle, and who show the
most indignation when outsiders call the poor slaves the deluded and down-trodden women of
Mormonism.
We reiterate the words deluded and down-trodden both indignantly and
sorrowfully, and we know they [24] cannot be gainsayed,-indignantly, that such an
expression should be applicable to any inhabitant of this, our boasted land of light and
liberty,-sorrowfully when we think of the many broken-hearted women now lying in the
dreary Mormon cemeteries, victims of this monstrous system of iniquity; and we know that
those words cannot be gainsayed, because they are truths which are self-evident to the
casual observer, as well as to the calm, dispassionate philosopher who has studied all
phases of the question, disregarding all prejudice,-truths which can be verified by all
those who have been identified with the delusion, but who have outlived it,-women whose
finer feelings and womanly instincts could not longer submit to the degradation into which
their superstition had led them.
The lives of some of these women have been more pathetic and full of
tragedy than any of which the tragic muse has ever sung. The sacrifice of Jephthah's
daughter, the immolation of the Hindoo widow, or the desolation of the lonely nun, who,
through a mistaken faith gives up her hopes of maternity, and surrenders the dream which
is innate in every woman's breast to sometime be the central figure in a happy home, is
not a feather in the balance when compared with the sacrifices made by some of these
women, and the sorrows endured by them in silence and alone. Is there not a whole volume
of tragedy expressed in these simple words of a wife who had been supplanted m her
husband's affections by another woman, "They say I am dying of consumption, but it is
only my heart that is wasting away ? "
Travelers and strangers in Utah have often asked the questions:
"What is the cause of the Mormon women being in such a degraded position ? Is
polygamy the entire cause of it ? " It may be here remarked that there is something
peculiar and almost indescribable about the majority of Mormon women.
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Rev. Walter Barrows
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[25] Even in Salt Lake City, where they adopt more of worldly
fashions than they do in the remoter settlements, there is little possibility of mistaking
them. Especially do the first wives seem to carry the signs of care and sorrow,-a mark of
Cain, as it were, which separates them from the rest of their kind. It is perceptible to
even the most transient visitors, and those who tarry for any length of time can readily
distinguish a Mormon woman from an outsider, though they have no personal acquaintance
with either.
We have studied the subject closely for years, and believe that we
understand it thoroughly. We have heard the stories of hundreds of the women themselves,
both good Mormons and apostates, which is perhaps the truest criterion by which to judge.
It is only a woman of marked courage and strength of character, that will acknowledge the
real extent of a delusion under which she has been laboring, especially when that delusion
has been accompanied by shame, and a despotism strong enough to intimidate and crush the
bravest spirit. That despotism has, no doubt, deterred a great many from giving full
expression to their feelings, but the testimony that has been given is strong, abundant,
and conclusive. And by this testimony we purpose to prove that what the divine said was
true, that polygamy is a damnable doctrine for women; that the philosopher understood the
system well when he declared it a miserable failure socially; that its cornerstone is
degradation to women and infamy to children; that its [26] annals are unequaled in
shameless crimes, and that the non-Mormon women fully appreciated the civil influences
that have made the Mormon women what they are when they wrote, "Polygamy has never
taken such a debasing form in any nation or among any people above the condition of
savages, as in Utah."
We also purpose to prove that it is a curse to children, and
destructive to the sacred relations of the family, and that those who practice it in the
name and under the cloak of religion are in reality those who have outlived every vestige
of pure religious feeling with which their natures might once have been endowed. By this
testimony of the women themselves, we also purpose to expose the arts by which women are
coerced into permitting their husbands to take other wives, to show the evil results of
the system so far as decency will permit, to exemplify how it destroys all that is manly,
honest, and chivalrous in man, degrading him to the level of a brute; how it completely
ruins all that is lovable and lovely in woman, and renders her either a dull, senseless,
sorrowful, heart-broken creature, who has no interest in life, and no hope beyond the
grave, or else makes of her a common virago; how it fosters all the worst passions of both
sexes, and makes them but a libel on God's image; how it corrupts childhood and youth; how
there is no respect nor honor shown to woman living or dead, but that she is simply
regarded as the slave of a lustful and tyrannical master. We shall show how polygamy, by
its lack [27] of family unity, is a foe to every household in Christendom, and subversive
of all those principles of truth and honor which promote the good of a people and which
are the crowning glory as well as the safeguard of the State. We shall .show the deceit
and treachery, the brutality, the complete demoralization, which everywhere characterize
the infamous institution which renders motherhood a disgrace, and brands with shame the
innocent foreheads f little children. We shall sketch the past as well as delineate the
present of the women of Mormonism, and show how they have been reduced to the position
they now occupy.
Non-Mormon women are very apt to say to those who have come out of
polygamy, and especially to those who had been Mormons at the time of its adoption as a
tenet of the church, “Why did you ever
submit to the infamous doctrine; why did you not leave the church, leave your husbands,
bring them to law, kill them, do anything rather than submit ? "
It is easy to ask these questions, if one is entirely unacquainted
with the complete and intricate machinery of the Mormon church, but it is more difficult
to explain why the women did not take any or all of these steps. But any one who
understands the system, would never make these inquiries. The longer a person lives in
Utah, the more convinced he will be that these women, whom outsiders often regard with
scorn and contempt, are deserving of their deepest sympathy and commiseration. Their scorn
and indignation should be directed against the [28] wicked and fanatical men, who have
been instrumental in ruining the lives of these women. And perhaps a little of their
indignation would not be misplaced, were it directed against our national lawmakers, who
have suffered this plague-spot to grow unchecked in the very heart of the most enlightened
and Christian country on the face of the globe. It will be well, too, for people to
understand that polygamy is not a local evil in the sense of being confined to Utah.
Polygamy is aggressive. Year by year it conquers new territory, and claims fresh victims.
There are Mormon colonies in Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, Washington, Arizona, and New
Mexico, and to all these colonies polygamy is carried by emigrants from Utah. If people
would only compare the area of country over which it is spreading with the area of New
England or the Middle States, they would perceive that Deseret, the kingdom that can never
be moved, a kingdom reared upon a foundation of lust and blood, is likely to become a
formidable power in future years, if its people are not soon taught the supremacy of the
national law
Next: CHAPTER II. THE ORIGIN OF POLYGAMY
Mormon Policy. - Joseph Smith. - Crusade against Women. - Special Revelation. -
Treatment of Those Who Rebelled Against the Doctrine. - Polygamy a Curse.
Return: INTRODUCTION AND TABLE OF CONTENTS
Return to the Cults
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