menu_book Chapter 30

CHAPTER XXX. THE EXPERIENCE OF THE FIRST. I did not presume to ask my husband what it was that he had to talk about with Carrie's friend, but I instinctively felt what it might be, and I was so much troubled in mind that I thought I would never go to see her again.

By that time I had learned, as every Mormon wife does learn, never to ask questions. The wife of a saint never dares to ask her husband whether he is going or when he will return. She is not expected to know or care what business her husband may have on hand when he leaves evening after making a most elaborate toile, with frequent admiration of himself in the

mirror. If the poor wife feels that she must say something to give vent to her overwrought feelings, she simply asks in a conscious, guilty way, when he will be home again, wishing too often in her secret heart that he might say never. Her duty is to be silent and unobservant.

And though some poor women have, when their outraged feelings were overcharged, inadvertently betrayed curiosity respecting the movements of the absent ones, they have soon been sternly taught their duty, and those loving husbands have given them good cause to repent of their inquisitiveness. And who can blame these disconsolate, lonely women if thus they feel?

Where religion alone is to blame, it has been the destruction of that sweet confidence which should exist between husband and wife, and it has divided hearts and interests which should inseparably have been forever one. This slowly but no less painfully I was beginning to understand. However earnestly I might try to combat the idea, my life was wretched with one continual

fear of what I might see or hear of my husband. I tried to drive away such thoughts, and I called to mind all the acts of kindness and devotion which he had shown whose love my heart held dear. Sometimes arguing with myself I said, No, my husband will not deceive me. No matter what other men may do or be with their wives, my husband will be frank and

true with me. So I thought then, but I was destined to realize in my own experience how utterly impossible it is for any man, no matter how honest and truthful he may naturally be, to practice polygamy without becoming a hypocrite, and the more he loves his wife the greater hypocrite he will become, trying to deceive her with the foolish notion that half his cruelty is

done in attempting to spare her feelings. Up to this time I had been able, with some effort, to banish those doubts which would, against my will, intrude upon my mind. I had schooled myself to believe that when it was really necessary my husband would frankly and freely speak to me about that subject which was ever uppermost in my heart, and

I knew my own nature sufficiently well to feel sure that I could grapple with any difficulty if once I looked it boldly in the face. All that I feared was deception on my husband's part. That I felt would be more than I could endure. In the whole course of our married life hitherto I had never known him to deceive me, and even

although influenced by the counsel of the elders, he thought of bringing to our home another wife, I well knew that he sympathized with me, for he knew the deep, deep sorrow that the dread alone of polygamy had for years brought to my heart, and he might well be apprehensive of what the practical reality would be. At a later period I knew that he fell into that error common among Mormon men of keeping

it from their wives until all was settled. This was not the kind of treatment calculated to inspire me with confidence. It may suit some natures, but I doubt even that. Men frequently imagine that they understand a woman's nature better than she does herself, and acting upon this belief and full of good intentions, they err most fatally.

My husband thought that he was acting kindly to me when he said nothing of all that transpired between him and Carrie, but when I saw the visits of Carrie's lady friend so frequently repeated, I began to suspect the truth and was much troubled. I was, however, too proud to question him on the subject at the risk of getting an evasive and it was evident that the two persons most intimately interested in the matter intended

that I should be kept in the dark. I saw through all this, and it did not tend either to restore my peace of mind or to make me more pleasant in my intercourse with Carrie or my husband. In their conduct I could see nothing but deception, however good their intentions might be, and I felt that they were treating me as a child.

The thought was very painful to me, and it was only with a great effort that I suppressed it. In fact, I dared not think, but when doubts and fears crowded themselves upon my mind so that I was compelled to give them utterance, I would lock myself in my room or wander away to some lonely spot and there vent my feelings in indignant words.

At other times I did think over the wrongs which polygamy inflicted until my feelings were almost beyond endurance. Then in those moments of anguish I would prostrate myself in humility and repentance before the Lord and would plead for strength to endure and submit to His will. Then again I would pace the room, my soul filled with rebellion and heartfelt curses

against a system which had so withered and blighted all my life and had taken forever the sunshine out of my existence, forever. Ah, how those words lingered in my thoughts, how they chilled my heart and left me utterly without hope, for we were told that eternity would be but a repetition of this life on earth.

Polygamy we were taught was to be practiced in eternity. It was to be the celestial order of heaven. It was an eternal law. But if it was so loathsome now, how should I ever be reconciled to and happy in it? Then too we were told by the elders that we should have no other heaven than that which

we began on earth, and I was at a loss to conjecture what sort of a heaven mine would be. It may appear strange that such absurdities should ever seriously have found a place in my mind, but when one at starting accepts a system as true, however absurd that system may be, and learns to regard all that is connected with it as beyond the shadow of a doubt, after

years of discipline the mind is ready to receive almost anything that may be offered to it from the same source, in my own case I was so convinced that however reason might object, all that we were taught was true, that I was utterly without hope, and would have felt happy could I have believed that death was annihilation. Of earthly happiness I had given up all expectation.

These painful feelings, of course, had a marked effect upon my daily life. I grew weary, and my health failed. I became thin, and my features were marked with care and anxiety. When people came to see me I said little to them, and their very presence I felt irksome. Mechanically I went through the daily routine of duty, but my heart was in nothing that

I did. I dared not even trust myself to speak to anyone, for fear of becoming the subject of conversation and attracting the attention of the authorities, which was not at all desirable, for the position of a rebellious woman in those days was anything but pleasant. I stood alone.

Upon my husband I looked with suspicion. My children were too young to understand me. Carrie, whom I had taken to my heart, to whom I had confided my sorrows, whose own welfare had been so dear to me, had, as I thought, turned against me, like an adder, and there was no one in whom I could trust.

It seemed to me too cruel for Carrie to treat me so, and yet I could not doubt that she was acting unfaithfully towards me. Lived by my children, living under the same roof with my husband, my heart was nevertheless filled with a sense of utter loneliness and desolation. There was no one in whom I could confide, to whom I might tell my sorrows, and from

whose counsel or strength I might derive comfort. I dared not even go and lay my griefs before God, for I had been led to believe that all my suffering was caused by an arbitrary decree which he willed to be enforced. How false a notion of that loving Heavenly Father, whose tender care is so manifestly shown in his gentle dealings with the weakest of his creatures!

It was now about six months since Carrie left my house, and I was under the impression that all that time certain well-intentioned sisters had been doing all they could to bring about a marriage between her and my husband. Her health, however, was so bad that sometimes for weeks together she did not leave her room. At the time, of course, I knew nothing of this, but I afterwards heard of it.

When I called upon her, which I did when I found that she was too ill to come to see me, I thought she was greatly changed in her manner. But when I thought of her lonely position my heart warmed towards her, and I forgot all my suspicions. Certainly I wanted to ask her one plain question relative to my husband, but my pride would

not allow me to speak to her on that subject unless she first mentioned it to me. One day I thought that she was about to make a confession. Talking indifferently of ordinary matters, she suddenly said, I am surprised you ever wish to see me. But when I asked her why, expecting that she would now explain what had so long troubled

me, she answered evasively, and nothing more was said. I shall always believe that I myself was not the only person interested at that time about Carrie's feelings. There are some of the sisters who, strange as it may seem, spend their lives in promoting the practice of polygamy.

When once these good sisters have set their hearts to get a man a second wife, they do not let a trifle discourage them. If they do not succeed with one girl, they try with another, and it is seldom that they fail of meeting with their reward. In Carrie at this time they found a subject of peculiar interest.

If her failing health put an end, for a time, to all thoughts of her own marriage, that was no reason why my husband should not select a second wife elsewhere. Poor victim! He of course had no pleasure or interest in the matter. His religion alone compelled him.

He suffered as much as I did. To look round on all the young and pretty girls he knew, to select one, and pay his court to her, was painful enough, I dare venture to assert. But he seemed to bear it very well, indeed, and the revelation appeared to agree with him nicely.

With Carrie's absence from our house, the rumors about her which had troubled me so much somewhat subsided. Nothing could silence the secret apprehension which continually held my soul in dread. But the fear of my young friend's influence, once removed, I was comparatively at peace. It was, however, but the lull before the storm.

I soon learned that in losing Carrie I did not lose polygamy, and from about that time husband's desire to sustain his brethren in the performance of their duty and his wish to act as they did, especially in reference to the celestial order of heaven. Just at that time, the moral bill for the suppression of polygamy was presented to Congress and all true Mormons were made to feel that it was their duty to stand by their leader.

And though in itself they might see nothing desirable in polygamy, yet, if they had not already multiplied wives, it was their duty to do so without any delay. A man with polygamy upon his mind was then a creature which I did not understand and which I had not fully studied. Some years later, when I had a little more experience in Mormonism, I discovered several

never failing signs by which one might know when a man wished to take another wife. He would suddenly awaken to a sense of his duties. He would have serious misgivings as to whether the Lord would pardon his neglect in not living up to his privileges. He would become very religious and would attend to his meetings, his testimony meetings, singing

and all sorts of other meetings which seemed just then to be very numerous and in various other ways he would show his anxiety to live up to his religion. He would thus be frequently absent from home, which of course he deeply regrets as he loves dearly the society of his wife and children. Perhaps poor simple soul thinks that he is becoming unusually loving and affectionate,

for he used not at one time to express much sorrow at leaving her alone for a few hours, and she thinks how happy she ought to feel that such a change has come over her husband, although to be sure he was always as good as most of the other Mormon men. My husband was a good and consistent Mormon and very much like the rest of his brethren in these matters, and the brethren, knowing themselves how he felt, sympathized with him

and urged him on, and by every means in their power, aided him in his noble attempts to carry out the commands of God. One evening, when he came home, he seemed preoccupied as if some matter of importance were troubling his mind. This set me to thinking, too, I saw that he wanted to say something to me, and I waited

patiently. I am going to the ball, he presently remarked, and I am going alone, for Brother Brigham wishes to meet me there. I knew at once what was passing in his mind, and dared not question him. He went and saw Brigham.

What passed between them I do not know, but when my husband returned he intimated to me that it had been arranged that he should take another wife. The idea that some day another wife would be added to our household was ever present in my mind, but somehow, when the fact was placed before me in so many unmistakable words, my heart sank within me, and I shrank from the realization that our home was at last

to be desecrated by the foul presence of polygamy. The very effort which my husband made to break the news gently to me made my heart more rebellious. What intelligence could be more terrible to an affectionate wife, the mother of a family, than this? In my girlhood, as the reader knows, I had forsaken all for the sake of my husband and

his religion. We had toiled together and suffered together. For fifteen long years our interests and our affections had been one and inseparable. Nothing but the fear of polygamy had ever come between my husband and myself, but for that horrible apprehension and that unhappy feeling which it occasioned, no wedded pair

could have been more truly united than my husband and myself, but that, certainly, only that, had cast a shadow over the bliss of our domestic life. Our little ones, a mutual care, had grown up around us, they had occupied all of our thoughts and all our attention, and in them our own love seemed to be renewed. They were now, at least the elder ones, fast ripening into manhood and womanhood and gave

promise that they would be the glory and blessing of our old age. Our home was never disturbed by any of those petty dissensions and divided interests which make so many families unhappy. When in the evening we gathered round our peaceful fireside, in the pleasant interchange of thought, in intelligent conversation and domestic amusements, and in little loving

courtesies, we realized, as far as could be realized in this imperfect state, the meaning of that household expression, a little heaven upon earth. But now all this was to be changed. Let a Gentile mother think how she would feel if she heard her children talk of father taking another wife. Let her think what it would be if another woman, however good and pure she might be, were brought home to take her

place in the family circle, to divide with her her husband's affections, to come, after years of undivided love, between herself and him who had so long been all in all to her. And yet all this I felt, and oh, much, much more than I could ever express, for who can tell in words the deepest bitterness which the heart too sadly feels? Everything around me changed. Every one I met reminded me of the miserable idea which

had taken possession of my thoughts. All that before had seemed so bright and beautiful now revolted me, and my soul itself seemed filled with unavailing and unnatural hatred. I hated Mormonism, I hated the Revelation, I hated myself and I hated my husband. All that had been influenced by or in contact with the detested and the accursed thing I utterly abhorred. My woman's soul within me made me feel that I should gladly stand aloof

from that degrading horror and shake even from my clothes the touch of anyone or anything that had been polluted by any connection with it. Almost fainting, now that the truth came home to me in all its startling reality, I asked my husband when he proposed to take his second wife. Immediately he replied, that is to say as soon as I can.

We were silent for some time. My mind was troubled. Had I been able to consider the whole affair as an outrage upon humanity in general, and an insult to my sex in particular, I should have replied with scorn and defiance. Had I implicitly believed in the divinity of the Revelation, I should have bowed my head in meek submission. But I did neither of these. The feelings of my heart naturally led me to hate with the most perfect hatred

the very mention of the word polygamy. While at the same time I still believed or tried to make myself believe that the Revelation was from God and must therefore be obeyed. Such was the strange and contradictory position in which I was placed. I tried to reason with myself. My husband and the elders had taught me that the fault was not in Mormonism, but in my early Gentile training. And I believed them, and thought

that all the inconsistencies which I had heard of or seen in Brigham Young and the other prominent men should be attributed to the weakness of human nature and not to the system. Still doubts would suggest themselves, only however to be immediately suppressed, for it was by slow degrees that the truth dawned upon my mind. It was only natural that I should hesitate. I was a wife and a mother, and I could not consult my own wishes or desires.

It was my duty, I knew, to do what was right, at whatever cost to my own feelings, and I dared not think of open rebellion. Had I then rebelled, I must have renounced all that in life I held dearest, husband, children, all. I knew my husband's devotion to the faith, and that he would not hesitate to make any sacrifice for it. He would even glory in giving up what most men hold dearest for the sake of the Church, and we had both

been taught that whosoever forsook husband or wife for the sake of the Church, it should be accounted to them for righteousness. I saw around me daily and hourly the effects of this teaching upon the unfortunate wives and children, but I nevertheless strove how painfully none but myself could tell, to banish from my mind every doubt and to esteem the natural questioning of my heart a sin. Are you not satisfied that it is right for me

to take another wife, my husband asked? I have never yet really doubted that the revelation was from God, I replied, for I cannot believe that any man would be so blasphemous and wicked as to set forth such a revelation in God's name unless he received it as he said he did. If it is from God, of course, you are right to obey it, but if I were to consult my own feelings, I would never consent to live in polygamy, I would rather risk salvation and

tell the Lord that he had placed upon me a burden heavier than I was able to bear, and that I regarded him as a hard taskmaster. But when the salvation of my husband and children to say nothing of my own is at stake, my wishes and happiness go for nothing, and I can only consent. From that moment I felt like a condemned criminal for whom there was not a shadow of hope or a chance of escape. Could I possibly have looked upon the sacred obligations of

marriage as lightly as Mormonism taught me to regard them? I believe I should have broken every tie and risked the consequences. But I had vowed to be faithful unto death, and if this second marriage was for my husband's welfare and for the salvation of us and our children, I resolved to make the effort to subdue my rebellious heart, or die in the attempt. For the first time in my life I thanked God that I was not a man, and that the salvation

of my family did not depend upon me, for if fifty revelations had commanded it, I could not have taken the responsibility of withering one loving, trusting heart. I felt that if such laws were given to us, our woman's nature ought to have been adapted to them, so that submission to them might be as much a pleasure to us as it was to the men, and that we might at least feel that we were justly dealt with. Not long after this my husband brought me

a message from Eliza R. Snow. She wanted me to take tea with her, and he urged me to accept the invitation. I did not want to go, for I knew too well her object in sending for me. She had been talking with my husband about me, I felt sure, and that was how she came to send the message by him. I went, however, and as I anticipated she wanted to talk with me about polygamy, and to try to convince me that it was for our best interests that

my husband should take another wife, and that it was quite time he did so. I told her that he was not yet in a position to do so. We have quite a family, I said, and I think he should at least be allowed to wait until he has accumulated a little before he embarrasses himself with new responsibilities. And where would the kingdom of God be, she asked, if we all talked this way? Let your

husband take more wives, and let them help him, and you will feel blessed in keeping the commands of God. There would be no good in my husband taking another wife, I said, while I feel as I do now. To be acceptable to the Lord a sacrifice should be made willingly, and in a proper spirit, and I do not think that under present circumstances it is proper for him to do this thing. Let him be the judge of that, she replied, do not seek to control

him. He alone is responsible, and therefore let him do as he thinks best. But, I said, he himself does not want another wife yet. But I spoke with hesitation, for my heart misgave me. You are mistaken, she answered. Your husband is a very good man, and desires to live his religion, and it is a great grief to him to know that you feel as you do, and you really

must try to overcome your opposition. If you had a loaf of bread to make, and you made it, and it was pronounced good, do you think it would be of the slightest consequence what feelings agitated your mind while you were making it, so long as it was well made? So it is with the Lord. He does not care with what feelings you give your husband another wife, so long as you do so. This was a miserable attempt at reasoning, to say nothing of its

falsity. And notwithstanding all she said, I still felt that no blessing would even attend an unwilling sacrifice, and I told her so. She spoke to me very kindly, however, and tried to encourage me, and suggested that Carrie would be a very proper person for my husband to marry. I had now no longer any doubt in my mind that it had all been arranged, and that opposition on my part would be all in vain. I was indignant at this, for I believed

that, as the revelation itself said, I, the first wife, ought first to have been consulted. This however I subsequently found was as false as the system itself. I believed that I was the victim of a conspiracy, and I did not intend to submit without giving them some trouble. I returned home, pondering over what had been said to me, with a feeling of intense weariness oppressing my heart. I did not know what to think. It appeared to me that everyone

had determined that Carrie should be my husband's second wife, and I now believed, with my talkative friend, that Brigham Young had certainly intended it from the beginning. I felt that I would rather that he should marry almost anyone else than her, for I felt certain that I should hate any woman whom he might marry, no matter how much I might have loved her before. But my heart was soon relieved of its trouble respecting poor Carrie, for as I before mentioned,

her failing health forbade all thoughts of marriage, and my husband after a short time never spoke to me about her. The real cause of my distress, however, was by no means removed. It was determined, without appeal, that my husband should, notwithstanding any impediment to the contrary, take another wife, whoever that chosen one might be. My apprehensions, therefore, were not removed. They were only turned in another direction.