earth and another man for heaven. It may not be
common ; but it occurs in more than one family ;
it gives occasion for some strife ; and the humbler
Saint has less protection againt abuse of such
an order than he would like to enjoy. Young
is here the lord of all. If the Prophet says to
an elder, "Take her," the woman will be taken,
whether for good or evil. Often, I am told,
these second and superior nuptials are made in
secret, in the recesses of the endowment-house,
with the help of two or three confidential chiefs.
No notice of them is given ; it is doubtful whether
any record of them is kept. What man, then,
with a pretty wife, can feel sure that her virtue
will not be tempted by his elders into forming



330 NEW AMERICA.

that strange, indefinite relation for another world
with a husband of superior rank in the church?
The office of priest, of prophet, of seer, has in
every country a peculiar charm for women ; what
curates are in London, abbes in Paris, mollahs in
Cairo, gosains in Benares, these elders and apostles
are in Utah ; with the added grace of a personal
power to advance their female votaries to the
highest of celestial thrones. Except the guru of
Bombay, no priest on earth has so large a power of
acting on every weakness of the female heart as a
Mormon bishop at Salt Lake. Who shall assure
the humbler Saint that priests possessing so much
power in heaven and on earth wiU never, in these
secret sealings for eternity, violate his right, outrage
his honour, as a married man ?

Another familiarity, not less strange, which
the Mormons have introduced into these delicate
relations of husband and wife, is that of sealing a
living person to the dead.

The marriage .for time is an affair of earth, and
must be contracted between a living man and a
living woman ; but the marriage for eternity, being
an affair of heaven, may be contracted, say these
Saints, with either the living or the dead ; provided
always that it be a real engagement of the persons,



SEALING. 331

sanctioned by the Prophet, and solemnised in the
proper form. In any case it must be a genuine
union ; a true marriage, in the canonical sense, and
according to the written law ; not a Platonic rite,
an attachment of souls, which would bind the two
parties together in a mystical bond only. There
comes the rub. How can a woman be united in
this carnal conjunction to a man in his grave ? By
the machinery of substitution, say the Saints.

Substitution ! Can there be such a thing in
marriage as either one man, or one woman, standing
in the place of another ? Young has declared it.
The Hebrews had a glimmering sense of some
such dogma, when they bade the younger brother
perform a brother s part ; and are not all the
Saints one family in the sight of God? Among
the Hebrews, this rule of taking a brother s widow
to wife was an exception to general laws ; and in
the Arab legislation of Mohammed, it was put
away as a remnant of polyandry, a thing abomi
nable and unclean. No settled people has ever
gone back to that rule of a pastoral tribe. But
Young, who has no fear of science, deals in auda
cious originality with this and with every other
question of female right. A woman may choose
her own bridegroom of the skies, but, like the man



332 NEW AMERICA.

who would take a second wife, the woman who
desires to marry a dead husband, can do it in no
other way than on Young s intercession and by his
consent. Say, that a girl of erratic fancy takes into
her head the notion that she would like to become
one of the heavenly queens of a departed saint ;
nothing easier, should her freak of imagination
jump with the Prophet s humour. Young is her
only judge, his yea or nay her measure of right
and wrong. By a religious act, he can seal her to
the dead man, whom she has chosen to be her own
lord and king in heaven ; by the same act he can
give her a substitute on earth from among his
elders and apostles ; should her beauty tempt his
eye, he may accept for himself the office of proxy
for her departed saint.

In the Tabernacle I have been shown two ladies
who are sealed to Young by proxy as the wives
of Joseph ; the Prophet himself tells me there are
many more ; and of these two I can testify that
their relations to him are the same as those of
any other mortal wives. They are the mothers of
children who bear his name. Two of the young
ladies whom we saw on the stage, Sister Zina
and Sister Emily, are daughters of women who
profess to be Joseph s widows. About the story



SEALING. 833

of all these ladies there is an atmosphere of doubt,
of mystery, which we can hardly pierce. Two of
them live under Brigham s roof; a third lives in a
cottage before his gate; a fourth is said to live
with her daughter at Cotton Wood Canyon.

My own impression is, that while some of the
old ladies may have been sealed to the Prophet as
his spiritual wives only, these younger women elected
him to be their lord and king years after his death.

Joseph is the favourite bridegroom of the skies.
Perhaps it is in nature, that if women are allowed
to choose their spouses, they should select the
occupants of thrones ; certain it is that many
Mormon ladies yearn towards the bosom of Joseph,
not poetically, as their Christian sisters speak of
lying in the bosom of Abraham, but potentially,
as the Hindoo votary of Krishna languishes for her
darling god. Young, it is said, keeps all such con
verts to himself; the dead Prophet s dignity being
so high that none save his successor in the temple
is considered worthy to be his substitute in the
harem. Beauties whom Joseph never saw in the
flesh, who were infants and Gentiles when the
riots of Carthage took place, are now sealed to
him for eternity and are bearing children in his
name.



334 NEW AMERICA.

Except the yearning of Hindoo women towards
their darling idol, there is perhaps no madness of
the earth so strange as this erotic passion of the
female Saints for the dead. A lady of New York
was smitten by an uncontrollable desire to be
come a wife to the murdered Prophet. She made
her way to Salt Lake, threw herself at Brigham s
feet, and prayed with a genuine fervour to be
sealed to him in Joseph s name. Young did not
want her ; his harem was full ; his time was occu
pied ; he put her off with words ; he sent her
away; but the ardour of her passion was too hot
to damp, too strong to stem. She took him by
assault, and he at length gave way; after sealing
her to Joseph for eternity, he accepted towards
her the office of substitute in time, and carried
her to his house.

On the other side, the Mormons affect to have
such power over spirits as to be able to seal the
dead to the living. Elder Stenhouse tells me that
he has one dead wife, who was sealed to him, by her
own entreaty, after her death. He had known this
young lady very well; he described her as beau
tiful and charming; she had captivated his fancy;
and in due time, had she lived, he might have
proposed to make her his wife. While he was



SEALING. 335

absent from Salt Lake City on a mission, she fell
sick and died ; on her death-bed she expressed an
ardent wish to be sealed to him for eternity, that
she might share the glories of his celestial throne.
Young made no objection to her suit ; and on
Stenhouse s return from Europe to Salt Lake the
rite was performed, in the presence of Brigham
and others, his first wife standing proxy for the
dead girl, both at the altar and afterwards. He
counts the lost beauty as one of his wives ; be
lieving that she will reign with him in heaven.



336 NEW AMERICA.



CHAPTER XXXII.

WOMAN AT SALT LAKE.

AND what, as regards the woman herself, is the
visi, issue of this strange experiment in social
and family life ?

During our fifteen dayd residence among the
Saints, we have had as many opportunities afforded
us for forming a judgment on this question as
have ever been given to Gentile travellers. We
have seen the President and some of the apostles
daily ; we have been received into many Mormon
houses, and introduced to nearly all the leading
Saints ; we have dined at their tables ; we have
chatted with their wives ; we have romped and
played with their children. The feelings which we
have gained as to the effect of Mormon life on
the character and position of woman, are the
growth of care, of study, and experience ; and
our friends at Salt Lake, we hope, while they



WOMAN AT SALT LAKE 337

will differ very strongly from our views, will not
refuse to credit us with candour and good faith.

If you listen to the elders only, you would fancy
that the idea of a plurality of wives excites in the
female breast the wildest fanaticism. They tell
you that a Mormon preacher, dwelling on the
examples of Sarai and of Eachel, finds his most
willing listeners on the female benches. They
say that a ladies club was formed at Nauvoo to
foster polygamy, and to make it the fashion that
mothers preach it to their daughters ; th; poet
esses praise it. They ask you to believe that the
first wife, being head of the harem, takes upon
herself to seek out and court the prettiest girls ;
only too proud and happy when she can bring
a new Hagar, a new Bilhah, to her husband s
arms.

This male version of the facts is certainly
supported by such female writers as Belinda
Pratt.

In my opinion, Mormonisrn is not a religion
for woman. I will not say that it degrades her,
for the term degradation is open to abuse ; but it
certainly lowers her, according to our Gentile
ideas, in the social scale. In fact, woman is not
in society here at all. The long blank walls, the
VOL. i. z



338 NEW AMERICA.

embowered cottages, the empty windows, door
ways, arid verandahs, all suggest to an English
eye something of the jealousy, the seclusion, the
subordination of a Moslem harem, rather than the
gaiety and freedom of a Christian home. Men
rarely see each other at home, still more rarely in
the company of their wives. Seclusion seems to
be a fashion wherever polygamy is the law. Now,
by itself, and apart from all doctrines and mo
ralities, the habit of secluding women from society
must tend to dim their sight and dull their hear
ing ; for if conversation quickens men, it still more
quickens women ; and we can roundly say, after
experience in many households at Salt Lake,
that these Mormon ladies have lost the practice
and the power of taking part, even in such light
talk as animates a dinner-table and a drawing-
room. We have met with only one exception
to this rule ; that of a lady who had been upon
the stage. In some houses, the wives of our hosts,
with babies in their arms, ran about the rooms,
fetching in champagne, drawing corks, carrying
cake and fruit, lighting matches, iceing water, while
the men were lolling in chairs, putting their feet
out of window, smoking cigars, and tossing off
beakers of wine. (KB. Abstinence from wine and



WOMAN AT SALT LAKE. 339

tobacco is recommended by Young and taught in
the Mormon schools ; but we found cigars in many
houses, and wine in all, except in the hotels!)
The ladies, as a rule, are plainly, not to say poorly,
dressed; with no bright colours, no gay flounces
and furbelows. They are very quiet and subdued
in manner, with what appeared to us an unnatural
calm ; as if all dash, all sportiveness, all life, had
been preached out of them. They seldom smiled,
except with a wan and wearied look ; and though
they are all of English race, we have never heard
them laugh with the bright merriment of our
English girls.

They know very little, and feel an interest in
very few things. I assume that they are all great
at nursing, and I know that many of them are
clever at drying and preserving fruit. But they
are habitually shy and reserved, as though they
were afraid lest your bold opinion on a sunset, on
a water-course, or a mountain-range, should be
considered by their lords as a dangerous intrusion
on the sanctities of domestic life. While you are in
the house, they are brought into the public room as
children are with us ; they come in for a moment,
curtsey and shake hands ; then drop out again, as
though they felt themselves in company rather

z2



340 NEW AMERICA.

out of place. I have never seen this sort of shy
ness among grown women, except in a Syrian tent.
Anything like the ease and bearing of an English
lady is not to be found in Salt Lake, even among
the households of the rich. Here, no woman
reigns. Here, no woman hints by her manner
that she is mistress of her own house. She does
not always sit at table ; and when she occupies a
place beside her lord, it is not at the head, but on
one of the lower seats. In fact, her life does not
seem to lie in the parlour and the dining-room, so
much as in the nursery, the kitchen, the laundry,
and the fruit-shed.

The grace, the play, the freedom of a young
English lady, are quite unknown to her Mormon
sister. Only when the subject of a plurality of
wives has been under consideration between host
and guest, have I ever seen a Mormon lady s face
grow bright, and then it was to look a sentiment,
to hint an opinion the reverse of those maintained
by Belinda Pratt.

I am convinced that the practice of marrying a
plurality of wives is not popular with the female
Saints. Besides what I have seen and heard
from Mormon wives, themselves living in poly
gamous families, I have talked, alone and freely,



WOMAN AT SALT LAKE. 341

with eight or nine different girls, all of whom have
lived at Salt Lake for two or three years. They
are undoubted Mormons, who have made many
sacrifices for their religion ; but after seeing the
family life of their fellow-Saints, they have one and
all become firmly hostile to polygamy. Two or
three of these girls are pretty, and might have
been married in a month. They have been
courted very much, and one of them has re
ceived no less than seven offers. Some of her
lovers are old and rich, some young and poor,
with their fortunes still to seek. The old fellows
have already got their houses full of wives, and
she will not fall into the train as either a fifth
or a fifteenth spouse ; the young men being true
Saints, will not promise to confine themselves for
ever to their earliest vows, and so she refuses to
wed any of them. All these girls prefer to remain
single, to live a life of labour and dependence
as servants, chambermaids, milliners, charwomen,
to a life of comparative ease and leisure in the
harem of a Mormon bishop.

It is a common belief, gathered in a great
measure from the famous letter on plurality by
Belinda Pratt, that the Mormon Sarai is willing
to seek out, and ea^er to bestow, any number of



342 NEW AMERICA.

Hagars on her lord. More than one Saint has told
me that this is true, as a rule, though he admits
there may be exceptions in so far as the Mormon
Sarai falls short of her high calling. My experience
lies among the exceptions solely. Some wives may
be good enough to undertake this office. I have
never found one who would own it, even in the
presence of her husband, arid when the occasion
might have been held to warrant a little feminine
fibbing. Every lady to whom I have put this
question flushed into denial, though with that
caged and broken courage which seems to cha
racterise every Mormon wife. " Court a new wife
for him ! " said one lady ; " no woman could do
that ; and no woman would submit to be courted
by a woman."

The process of taking either a second or a six^
teenth wife is the same in all cases. " I will tell
you," said a Mormon elder, " how we do these
things in our order. For example, I have two
wives living, and one wife dead. I am thinking of
taking another, as I can well afford the expense,
and a man is not much respected in the church
who has less than three wives. Well, I fix my
mind on a young lady, and consider within myself
whether it is the will of God that I should seek



WOMAN AT SALT LAKE. 343

her. If I feel, in my own heart, that it would be
right to try, I speak to my bishop, who advises and
approves, as he shall see fit ; on which I go to the
President, who will consider whether I am a good
man and a worthy husband, capable of ruling my
little household, keeping peace among my wives,
bringing up my children in the fear of God ; and
if I am found worthy, in his sight, of the blessing,
I shall obtain permission to go on with the chase.
Then I lay the whole matter of my desire, my
permission and my choice, before my first wife, as
head of my house, and take her counsel as to the
young lady s habits, character, and accomplish
ments. Perhaps I may speak with my second
wife ; perhaps not ; since it is not so much her
business as it is that of my first wife ; besides which
my first wife is older in years, has seen more of
life, and is much more of a friend to me than the
second. An objection on the first wife s part would
have great weight with me ; I should not care
much for what the second either said or thought.
Supposing all to go well, I should next have a talk
with the young lady s father ; and if he consented
to my suit, I should then address the young lady
herself."

" But before you take all these pains to get her,"



344 NEW AMERICA.

I asked, " would you not have tried to be sure
of your ground with the lady herself ? Would you
not have courted her and won her good will before
taking all these persons into your. trust ?"

" No," answered the elder, " I should think
that wrong. In our society we are strict. I
should have seen the girl, in the theatre, in the
tabernacle, in the social hall ; I should have talked
with her, danced with her, walked about with her,
and in these ways ascertained her merits and
guessed her inclinations ; but I should not have
made love to her, in your sense of the word, got
up an understanding with her, and entered into a
private and personal engagement of the affections.
These affairs are not of earth, but of heaven, and with
us they must follow the order of God s kingdom and
church."

This elder s two wives live in separate houses,
and seldom see each other. While w r e have been
at Salt Lake, a child of the second wife has fallen
sick ; there has been much trouble in the house ;
and we have heard the first wdfe, at whose cottage
we were dining, say she would go and pay the
second wife a visit. The elder would not hear of
such a thing ; and he was certainly right, as the
sickness was supposed to be diphtheria, and she



WOMAN AT SALT LAKE. 345

had a brood of little folks playing about her knees.
Still the manner of her proposal told us that she
was not in the habit of daily intercourse with her
sister-wife.

It is an open question in Utah whether it is
better for a plural household to be gathered under
one roof or not. Young sets the example of unity,
so far at least as his actual wives and children are
concerned. A few old ladies, who have been
sealed to him for heaven, whether in his ow r n
name or in that of Joseph, dwell in cottages apart ;
but the dozen women, who share his couch, who
are the mothers of his children, live in one block
close together, dine at one table, and join in the
family prayers. Taylor, the apostle, keeps his
families in separate cottages and orchards ; tw T o of
his wives only live in his principal house ; the rest
have tenements of their own. Every man is free
to arrange his household as he likes ; so long as he
avoids contention, and promotes the public peace.

"How wdll you arrange your visits, when you
have w r on and sealed your new wife?" Tasked my
friendly and communicative elder ; " shall you
adopt the Oriental custom of equal justice and
attention to the ladies laid down by Moses and by
Mohammed ? "



346 NEW AMERICA.

" By heaven, sir," lie answered, with a flush of
scorn, " no man shall tell me what to do, except
" giving the initials of his name.

" You mean you will do as you like ? "

" That s just it"

And such, I believe, is the universal habit of
thought in this city and in this church. Man is
king, and woman has no rights. She has, in fact,
no recognised place in creation, other than that of
a servant and companion of her lord. Man is
master, woman is slave. I cannot wonder that
girls who remember their English homes should
shrink from marriage in this strange community,
even though they have accepted the doctrine of
Young, that plurality is the law of heaven and
of God. " I believe it s right," said to me a
rosy English damsel, who has been three years in
Utah, " and I think it is good for those who like it ;
but it is not good for me, and I will not have it."

" But if Young should command you ? "

" He won t ! " said the girl with a toss of her
golden curls, " and if he were to do so, I would not.
A girl can please herself whether she marries or
not ; and I, for one, will never go into a house
where there is another wife."

" Do the wives dislike it ? "



WOMAN AT SALT LAKE. 347

" Some don t, most do. They take it for their
religion ; I can t say any woman likes it. Some
women live very comfortably together ; not many ;
most have their tiffs and quarrels, though their
husbands may never know of them. No woman
likes to see a new wife come into the house."

A Saint would tell you that such a damsel as
my rosy friend is only half a Mormon yet ; he
would probably ask you to reject such evidence as
trumpery and temporary ; and plead that you can
have no fair means of judging such an institution
as polygamy, until you are able to study its effects
in the fourth and fifth generation !

Meantime, the judgment which we have formed
about it from what we have seen and heard may
be expressed in a few words. It finds a new place
for woman, which is not the place she occupies in
the society of England and the United States. It
transfers her from the drawing-room to the
kitchen, and when it finds her in the nursery it
locks her in it. We may call such a change a
degradation; the Mormons call it a reformation.
We do not say that any of these Mormon ladies
have been made worse in their moralities and their
spiritualities by the change; probably they have
not; but in everything that concerns their grace,



348 NEW AMERICA.

order, rank, and representation in society, they are
unquestionably lowered, according to our standards.
Male Saints declare that in this city women have
become more domestic, wifely, motherly, than they
are among the Gentiles ; and that what they
have lost in show, in brilliancy, in accomplish
ment, they have gained in virtue and in service.
To me, the very best women appear to be little
more than domestic drudges, never rising into the
rank of real friends and companions of their lords.
Taylor s daughters waited on us at table ; two
pretty, elegant, English-looking girls. We should
have preferred -standing behind their chairs and
helping them to dainties of fowl and cake ; but the
Mormon, like the Moslem, keeps a heavy hand on
his female folks. Women at Salt Lake are made
to keep their place. A girl must address her
father as " Sir,"* and she would hardly presume to
sit down in his presence until she had received his
orders.

" Women," said Young to me, " will be more
easily saved than men. They have not sense
enough to go far wrong. Men have more know
ledge and more power ; therefore they can go more
quickly and more certainly to hell."



WOMAN AT SALT LAKE. 349

The Mormon creed appears to be that woman
is not worth damnation.

In the Mormon heaven, men, on account of
their sins, may stop short in the stage of angels ;
but women, whatever their offences, are all to
become the wives of gods.



NEW AMERICA.



CHAPTEE XXXIII.

THE REPUBLICAN PLATFORM.

" WE mean to put that business of the Mormons
through," says a New England politician ; " we
have done a bigger job than that in the South ;
and we shall now fix up things in Salt Lake
City."

" Do you mean by force ? " asks an English
traveller.

" Well, that is one of our planks. The Eepub-
lican Platform pledges us to crush those Saints."

This conversation, passing across the hospitable
board of a renowned publicist in Philadelphia,
draws towards itself from all sides the criticism
of a distinguished company of lawyers and politi
cians ; most of them members of Congress ; all of
them soldiers of the Eepublican phalanx.

" Do you hold," says the English guest ; " you
as a writer and thinker, your party, as the re-



THE REPUBLICAN PLATFORM. 351

preservatives of American thought and might, that
in a country where speech is free and tolerance wide,
it would be right to employ force against ideas