Religion & the law: the Mormon experience in the nineteenth century

The Mormon cases present a fascinating study of diversity and conformity in the nineteenth century United States. From their beginning the Mormons were a gathered people. Almost immediately, from the time of the origin in New York, the Mormons challenged national and state legal systems to protect or at least tolerate their idiosyncracies. Mormon belief and practice came to include communal economics, theocratic government, and most challenging and offensive of all to the larger national community, a radically different marital and social practice -- polygamous marriage.