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Show PRACTICAL POLYGAMY. 149 Bishop's limit), and that four of her previous husbands were then living in the city. Ten years have passed since Mr. Hyde wrote, and she may have still further multiplied her divorces at this date. Frequent application for divorce, for the most trivial im aginary causes had so annoyed the President that he deter mined upon a plan to diminish the number, and at the same time add to the receipts of his office. Of this Mr. Hyde speaks as follows : " So common did the applications for divorce become, that in 1854, Brigham had to impose a price to be paid in cash ( then very scarce) upon all bills. He charged ten dollars if married for time, and fifty dollars if sealed for eternity. The money went mostly to the clerk. Not a few amusing scenes occurred where parties who came for divorces had to return and live together because they could not raise money enough between them to pay for the ' bill.' It had the desired effect ; it decreased the applications." When a Mormon woman marries a Gentile, and be comes dissatisfied with her new lord, even though she has violated the law of the church, and may have been cut off from fellowship with the Saints, a divorce is readily ob tained upon the slightest pretext. I know of two instances of this kind where divorces were granted for desertion of the husbands, when they were only temporarily absent, and one of them for a few days, at Fort Bridger. The hus bands suspected nothing when they left, and returned rather surprised to find their former spouses joined to others. One of the husbands was an upright, intelligent and very worthy young man, who had been married but a short time. From what I learned of the character of the woman, he might congratulate himself in getting rid of her as he did. As a result of their " peculiar institution," I believe that adultery is more common among the Mormons than any class of people in the country, since the suppression of free-love societies. This may be regarded as a very bold decla ration in the face of their assumed unexampled virtue. Public prostitution, does not exist in the territory, and to |
