menu_book Chapter 37

CHAPTER XXXVII. REALITIES OF POLYGAMIC LIFE. ORSON PRATT. THE STORY OF HIS YOUNG ENGLISH WIFE. I do not think that polygamic wives feel the anomalies and cruelties of the celestial order

half so keenly as the first wives, or they who never enter into it. The position of the plural wives, second, third, fourth, or twentieth, it matters not, is but a mockery after all, and in many respects they are more to be pitied than the first wives. The first wives have known if for only a little while a husband's love and care, but that

has never been felt by the second wives. They are, in fact, in many respects, little better than slaves, and if they are sensitive girls their position must be extremely painful, for they must realize at all times that they are receiving the attentions of another woman's husband. And in many instances they are even afraid to be seen speaking to their husband for fear

of bringing down the wrath of the first wife upon their heads. Wives who are not so sensitive assert their own rights and are defiant. I am well acquainted with a pretty young Welsh girl who was a second wife. Her husband had converted her to Mormonism while he was on a mission to Europe, and when they reached Salt Lake he married her.

I saw her first two years after her marriage when one day she came to me in the greatest distress. She asked me if I could give her some employment, and greatly surprised at the request, I asked her how she came to need anything to do, as I knew her husband could well afford to support her.

I have left my husband, she answered, for I could stand no longer the ill treatment that I received. I endured it until, as you see, my health is failing and I am broken-hearted. The creature I married has no manhood in him. He has allowed me to be treated like a slave, and has himself have starved me, and has acted

towards me with the greatest inhumanity. When I married him, she said, I was willing to make myself useful in the family, and I did so, but one thing after another was given me to do until I became a regular drudge. They would not have dared to treat a hired girl in the way they treated me. I was put into a miserable little back room, and was never allowed to see any of my friends.

I had to work early and late. When at last my position would not admit of my working quite so much, they punished me with all sorts of petty unkindnesses, and nearly starved me, giving me only a little flour or a few potatoes every day. At last, she continued, I went to Brother Brigham to know what I should do.

He sent for my husband and talked to him a long time, and he promised to do better if I would go back with him. Brother Brigham counseled me to do so and try him again, and I went. Soon after that, my babe was born, and then they treated me with worse unkindness. What do you mean by they, I asked?

I mean my husband and his wife, she replied. They did not seem to look upon me as a wife at all, and even in the coldest mornings, and immediately after my child was born, they used to make me get up first and light fires and prepare breakfast, and begin work generally, and I was only too glad if I escaped with a little fault-finding.

I stood it as long as I could because Brother Brigham had counseled me to do so, but now I have left them again and do not mean to return. This was the story of one poor girl's troubles. Now the man who did this is a good Mormon and in good standing in the church today. He is employed by the authorities and his poor young wife is now working for the Gentiles,

a much happier woman, if her face speaks truly, since her separation, although she has to support herself and child. She, like hundreds of other young girls, came to Utah without friend or relative, and this is how a good brother took care of her. But I must be permitted to relate a still more painful story, the story of a poor innocent

girl allured from her happy home in England by one of the most distinguished of the Mormon apostles, brought over by him to Utah as his wife, and there suffered to die in misery and neglect. The apostle Orson Pratt, who is called among the saints the champion of polygamy, a man who has devoted his life to Mormonism and whose writings have done more than the labors

of all the other apostles to win converts to polygamy, a man who on more than one occasion has boldly stood up against many of the absurdities and blasphemies of Brigham Young, a man upon account of his independence, Brigham has frowned, and who has consequently never attained to the wealth of his more obsequious brethren, a man who, in all the ordinary affairs of life, would command the respect of everyone around him.

This was the man who perpetrated the atrocious villainy which I am about to relate, and much against my own personal inclinations I feel compelled to tell the story, as it shows how shockingly this debasing system can pervert an otherwise upright mind. Orson Pratt married the young girl of whom I speak in Liverpool by special dispensation from Brigham Young, and her parents, themselves devout Mormons, thought that their daughter

was highly honored in becoming the wife of an apostle. She was very pretty and attractive, and for a time he paid great attention to her and brought her over to Utah as his bride. Arriving there, he utterly neglected her, and she experienced all the horrors of polygamic life.

The apostle was living in Salt Lake City. He had left his young wife and her children in Tewila, a place about forty miles distant. There they lived in a wretched little log cabin, the young mother supporting her little ones as best she could. When her last child was born she was suffering all the miseries of poverty, dependent entirely

upon the charity of her neighbors. At the time when most she needed the gentle sympathy of her husband's love, that husband never came to see her. One morning there was literally nothing in the house for herself and her children, who, knowing nothing of their mother's sufferings, cried to her for bread.

The poor mother quieted them with a promise that they should soon have something to eat, and then she went and begged a few potatoes from a neighbor, and upon these they subsisted for three days. She then took her children with her, for they were too young to be left alone. Her babe was only three weeks old, and she went round to see if she could get work of

any kind to do. In this she was not successful, and at length, worn out by continual anxiety and privation, and heartbroken by the neglect which she had experienced, she sank beneath a fever which promised very soon to prove fatal. For some time the neighbors nursed her, but they of course had their own families to attend

and could not give her quite all their time, and thus occasionally she was left alone. One evening, when such was the case, she got up in a state of delirium and barefooted, and almost destitute of clothing, took her children and wandered forth with them into the snow. The good people of Tewila went out over the prairie, anxious to find and bring back the

poor maniac, but for a long time their search was in vain. At last, not knowing whither she went, she wandered to the house of Brother Eli B. Kelsey, a vile apostate, as Brigham Young would call him, but known to everyone else, saint, apostate or gentile, as one of the best and kindest-hearted men that ever lived. In Brother Kelsey's house she and her little ones were kindly received by him and his

good wife, from whose lips I first heard this painful story, and their wants attended to. They were clothed and fed, and were then carried back to the log cabin which they called their home. Next day the Mormon bishop of Tewila assembled the people, and money was collected and sent to Salt Lake City, to Orson Pratt, begging him to come immediately if he wished to see

his wife alive. But the apostle did not come. At that time he was actually engaged in taking another bride, and he wanted to hear nothing of his dying wife. Then the good bishop sent a young man who rode all night to compel him immediately to

take the coach for Tewila, the young man paying his fare so that he might have no excuse. Then at last he came. Arrived at the little town where his poor wife lay dying, Orson conducted himself like the philosopher he professes to be. Before him stood the hovel within which were his deserted little ones, wailing, as if sensible

of the great loss of a mother's care which they would soon have to sustain. And there, on her dying bed, was that poor wife and mother tossing in wild delirium. But he, the cause of all that woe, passed by that wretched hovel and its death scene to the comfortable home of a well-to-do brother at whose house he first obtained his supper, and then calmly returning, entered the place where his wife was lying and for a moment

surveyed the scene. Then he quietly remarked to one of the sisters present, She has a good deal of fever. Another sister who stood by impulsively exclaimed, Good God, Brother Pratt, this is more than a fever, she is dying.

Oh, dear no, sister, he calmly replied, she will recover. It was evident, however, to all but Orson that his wife was dying, and that no earthly power could save her. The next day she was still raving, and it was told to me that in her wild frenzy she even attempted to strangle her babe.

Orson assayed to hold her, but she caught his gold chain and snapped it in two. His touch and the sight of the chain recalled her for a moment to her senses, and she said reproachfully, You are puffed up with pride, Orson, with your gold chain and rings, while you leave me and my babes to starve.

Poor little lambs, where are they? For a moment the yearning of a mother's heart for her children conquered the fever that tortured her mind, and she listened to her husband's attempted words of comfort, as he said, I am with you now, Eliza, and I will take care of you.

Steadily for a moment she looked up into his face, and with tears in her eyes, said mournfully, It is too late, Orson, it is too late. These were the last sane words which she uttered in this life, although she lingered on insensible. The next morning the Apostle Pratt resolved to leave for Salt Lake City and his young bride.

The bishop, however, called a council and summoned him to remain until his wife was dead. Nevertheless he did not wish to stay, and being an Apostle he overruled the council. At the last moment before his intended departure one of the sisters said, Brother Pratt, should she die, what shall we do with her?

Oh, she won't die, he replied. But should she, the sister urged, Then bury her with her children, he answered. After much solicitation he was prevailed upon to remain for a few hours, and the next morning his wife died.

The language of her last moments as she raved and tossed in mad delirium showed how terrible had been her mental agony, and how much she had suffered from this frightful system. But one might easily fill a large volume with stories quite as cruel as this. It is simply absurd to expect that it should be otherwise. Men and women can train and discipline their minds, they can crush out the affections of

their hearts, if they will, but no effort of man can change man's nature entirely, or root out altogether humanity from the soul. Women may endure, as that poor woman did, whose story I have just related, but they never can get perfectly adapted to the system of celestial marriage. The nearer they approach to its requirements, the further they recede from all that is held

good and noble in womanhood, and as for the men, they are brutalized by every effort which they make to conform with it. During the summer, about three years ago, a young-looking woman, very shabbily dressed, came frequently to my house with heavy baskets of fruit, which she entreated me to buy. One day she said, You do not remember me, Sister Stenhouse, I think, and I do not wonder

for I am so changed. I have to work very hard now, for all I have to live upon is what I can make by selling fruit or any little work that I can get my neighbors to give me to do. And if my husband could prevent even that, I believe he would. I am obliged to gather my fruit at night and hide it from him, and that is why I urged

you so to buy, for I never know when I may meet him. I was very much surprised at this, as her husband I knew was getting a good salary and appeared to be a most gentlemanly man. His first wife, I was aware, had left him. It was said on account of cruelty and neglect, and he had married this one just after her

arrival from England. I had every reason to believe that she had been a good wife to him and a mother to his motherless children, but he had taken another wife since he married her and had cruelly neglected this poor woman, leaving her, his first wife's children, to take care of. She said that he was again paying his addresses to another still, and she expected that he

would soon marry her. And yet this woman, his second wife, told me that all he had left for her and the children to live upon was a sack of bran and about fifty pounds of cornmeal. Everything else had been taken to the third wife, even to the best articles of furniture. She said, One evening I had been sitting in the porch in my rocking chair, when he came

in and remained about an hour. As soon as he left I went out to bring in the chair, and was just in time to see him carrying it off. I knew where he was going with it. I saw this poor woman frequently and bought her fruit often when I did not need it, for

it grieved me to see her carrying such heavy loads in her then delicate situation. After a time I lost sight of her, and then I heard that she was dead. One day her own daughter, for she was a widow when she married this man, came to me before leaving the city. I am going away to some friends, she said, for I will never live near that man.

He killed my mother, he kicked her so severely that she never recovered, and when her child was born they both died from the effects of the blows which she had received, and I hate him. Nothing was ever done to this man. His wife was his own property.

He is still regarded as a good Mormon, and when he went to Washington about two years ago, he took with him letters of recommendation from the leading men in the church. And the Washington papers spoke of him as being a very gentlemanly and intelligent man. I would give his name, but that I hardly think it would be fair to single him out from his brethren, of so many of whom I could tell just as shameful stories.

My Mormon friends, however, will know very well of whom I speak. Another first wife of one of the Mormon authorities told me how her husband whipped her because she would not consent to his stripping their home of everything that was either useful or handsome in order to furnish a house for his second wife. Finally, he shut her up while he took her entire parlor furniture away.

She was a fragile little woman and perfectly helpless when in the power of a strong man, and therefore was forced to submit, as there was no appeal to law in Utah. It is a very difficult thing for a woman after listening day after day to such tales of woe and misery, and knowing them to be true, to retain much respect for a polygamist, whoever he may be.

For my own part, I regard them all with such feelings of loathing, for I cannot forget my own sufferings, that I can hardly speak civilly of them, and would prefer never to speak to them. I know scores of ladies, married ladies, Mormon ladies, who in secret feel and speak just as I do upon this subject.

For many years past, the American elders have derived a rich harvest from Britain and Scandinavia. After the introduction of polygamy, an elder was seldom known to return from mission without bringing him one, two, and sometimes three young girls, or else arranging in some way for their emigration. The missionaries, however, preferred, whenever it was possible, to bring the girls with them,

for if they trusted them to the care of a brother returning before or after, he very frequently turned traitor and carried off the prize himself. The elders were not permitted to marry these extra wives while on, or returning from, a unless they had special permission from Brigham Young. But quite a number of the poor, weak brethren were so impulsive and so anxious to be married

that they could not wait for the ceremonies of the endowment house. One conscientious Swiss brother, named Lobach, who could find no one willing to take the responsibility of marrying him while crossing the plains, said that as he was an elder, he could just as well marry himself and be under no obligation to anybody, and he did so.

He had fallen in love with a little miss, a mere child, about one quarter of his own age. Many men have married wives and have brought them home before their first wives even knew that they were in love. They had not had the courage to introduce the subject, but believed that when the wife

found that it was done, and could not be undone, she would see the uselessness of feeling badly and would soon get over it. But no wife who has been thus treated ever did get over it. What can a man know of woman's nature who would dare to act thus towards her, and think that she would become reconciled to such treatment?

What strange ideas the Mormon men must have of woman's nature if they believe that women can submit to such treatment as this and still love them! What folly to think even of love! Can they not discover, if by nothing else by the changed manner, the almost cold indifference of those who were once gushing over with affection, whose winning and endearing ways captivated

their hearts, that something must be wrong, that love has ceased to exist in the hearts of their wives, and that a cold, stern sense of duty and righteous obligation has taken its place? It would be very wrong for me to say that there are no men who try to be just in the practice of polygamy, for I know many who try their very best to act impartially to

all their wives. But this is not really the result of their religion about which some of these men appear to care very little. I feel sure that if they are good men, notwithstanding the evil effects of Mormonism upon them, they would have been so much better men without it.

On the other hand, I have known men who, before they became Mormons, were reputed good husbands and fathers, but who afterwards became cold and harsh in their natures, cruel to their wives and neglectful to their children. It seemed as if they thought of nothing else but courting the girls and taking more wives, altogether regardless as to whether they could support them or not.

Some of the elders, finding that they might not marry plural wives before they reached have bound the foreign girls by solemn vows and covenants to marry them when they arrived in Salt Lake Valley, and the poor girls, believing that because these men were missionaries, all they said and did must be right, have often in fact, in almost every instance, to their own great injury, kept their covenants and married the men to whom they were vowed.

I have known personally and intimately several sisters who have in this way ruined their prospects and blighted the hopes of their whole lives, and sadder stories than theirs could not be told. My husband had again left Salt Lake City and had gone to the States, as we then called going east, for it was such a long journey that we felt ourselves altogether out of the

pale of civilization, for I could now, whenever I desired to do so, walk out or visit a friend without the constant dread of meeting him and his wife. It always humiliated me to see them together, although I believed that it was perfectly right that my husband should show attention to his other wife. It was not now jealousy that I felt. The day of jealous feeling was long past. I felt

disgusted and I was humbled at the sight of them. At one time, for nearly six months, I remained at home, never going further than my own garden, simply for the reason that I feared to meet her in the presence of any of my friends, particularly any of my gentile friends, or worse still, with them. I felt sure that, had we met, I should have tried to avoid them or have passed them by unnoticed, which would of course have been an insult

and would have caused remarks from strangers and ill-feeling, which of all things I felt most anxious to avoid. There is no privacy in a polygamic family where the wives live together, and very little indeed when they live in separate houses, for each wife finds pleasure in telling all the little weaknesses of the other wives to her own particular friends, and those particular

friends in turn tell their particular friends until in due course it becomes known to some kind-hearted busybody who considers it her duty to go to the wife whose foibles have thus been bandied about from one to the other, and tell her how shamefully she has been slandered. Then it is the poor husband's turn to hear the whole burden of trouble, never of course exaggerated in the least, and he is expected to make peace, if he can, among his numerous

wives. Perhaps all this fuss has been caused by the husband himself, he never intending it all the time. Not unlikely he gave a new dress or some article of wearing apparel to one wife or her children, and the others have noticed it. It may be that, perhaps, he did not think that the others needed it, and probably they did not, but that does not matter in

the least. Jealous wives do not stop to consider such a trifle as that. The poor man is told that he must be just and fair to all, and when he gives a dress to one, he must give dresses to the others also, whether he can afford it and they need it or not. These wives are links-eyed, and each one notices every article of clothing that the others wear, and no matter how economical one wife may be, or how extravagant another, the careful

one must never look better dressed than her less saving rival, or the husband will certainly be blamed for favoritism. After living in polygamy and observing all these things, I came to the conclusion that the men who tried to act justly were, after all, greatly to be pitied, and I had no doubt in my mind that many of them would be only too happy to be monogamic husbands once again.

At one time, I believed this of my own husband. He appeared to be annoyed when duty compelled him to leave my home and family circle and go to his other home. I have fancied that he had at last come to think that polygamy was a most unnatural condition of affairs, and that he would be very glad if it were not compulsory. Of course I drew my own conclusions, but I by and by found that they were somewhat premature. I had supposed that possibly his

young wife was not so attractive to him now as she had been, and this, I must confess, did not grieve me very much. But notwithstanding all that, so great had been my fanaticism that I had still remaining sufficient faith in the unholy practice to make me feel that if we expected ever to get a blessing from heaven through compliance with the celestial command, it was necessary that my husband should be just to his other wife and treat

her kindly and considerately. As I said before, from the moment when he first selected another wife, his society lost every charm for me, and therefore I was not so very generous after all when I urged him to spend as much time as he possibly could with Belinda. I felt that if I had lost everything in this life for polygamy, and if polygamy after all by any chance might turn out true, I might as well strive to get a little glory in the next

world. But after all, it was but a poor soulless attempt, and so miserable did I feel that I frequently wished that I could be completely annihilated after death. My husband's cares were also increasing, for his young wife had already presented him with three daughters. I presume if at any time she was cross at his long absences, the children were influenced by her spirit, and when my husband did visit her, his reception was probably either too

warm or too cool, and in any case more lively than suited his quiet tastes. He assured me that he never spoke an unkind word to her, but would listen to all she had to say in a meek and quiet spirit, feeling all the time that she was young and inexperienced. This, no doubt, was all very well, but what woman can bear to see a man listening quietly to all she has to say, when she herself is in anything but a calm state of mind? We like

men to feel what we say. I have known many husbands in polygamy who made it a practice not to say anything to their wives when they were recounting their wrongs, but preferred to get up and leave without a word, showing them no sympathy whatever, but teaching them, with all that cold indifference which in time chills the most loving heart, and silences the voice of affection forever, what their position really was. I have also heard husbands

say, I provide my wife with all she needs or can wish for, and surely she cannot suppose that I will allow her or any other woman to dictate to me as to what I should do with myself, or how I shall spend my time. I shall follow in the footsteps of Brother Brigham, and go where I please, and stay as long as I please, and come back when it suits me. The Mormon men are very much to blame in this respect. They take young, innocent girls from

the warm and happy influence of home, and after a few brief weeks of devotion, they leave them in the cold atmosphere of the world, to battle single-handed with new cares and new duties, to bear sickness and solitude with what courage they may, and thus, disconsolate and alone, go their way into the tangled mazes of life. This the Mormon husbands do, without a thought of the solemn vows they break, and the heavy responsibilities which they evade,

for they never for one moment reflect that if there is incompatibility, it results in most instances from the fact that they have acted worse than foolishly in choosing girls so young and inexperienced, that they could not possibly be fit companions for men who might in point of age have been their fathers, and even then have had a very fair margin of years to spare.