Twelve Mormon Homes : Twelve Mormon homes visited in succession on a journey through Utah to Arizona.

Twelve Mormon Homes, page 070

teenth wives to somebody. It had been one of the accepted beliefs with which my mind was stocked before entering Utah, that every mother would be found to regret the birth of a daughter as a misfortune. This is not so. They honestly believe in the grand calling their theology assigns to women; "that of endow- , ing souls with tabernacles that they may accept redemption." Nowhere is the "sphere" of women, according to the gospel of Sarah Ellis, more fully recognized than in Utah; nowhere her "mission," according to Susan Anthony, more abhorred. And yet they vote ?41 True; but they do not take more interest in general politics than you do. If your husband, Charlotte, your father, brothers, and all the clergymen you know, approved of your voting, it would not strike you as an unfeminine proceed- ing. And if the matter on which your vote was required was one which might decide the question whether you were your hus- band's wife, and your children legitimate, you would be apt to entertain a determined opinion on the subject. Nobody thought us unfeminine for being absorbingly inter- ested in our national affairs during the war. The Utah women take a similar interest in the business of the world outside that concerns them; and pray over congressional debates as we prayed for our armies. 41W Y oming enacted woman suffrage, including the right to hold office, Decem- ber IO, 1869. Two months later, February 12, 1870, Utah Territory gave women the right to vote but not to hold ofice. Utah women actually voted on two occasions before Wyoming women voted in September 1870. The story of the woman suffrage movement in the West appears in T. A. Larson, "Woman Suffrage In Western America," Utah Historical Quarterly 38 (1970): 7-19. See also Thomas Alexander, "An Experiment In Progressive Legislation: The Granting of Woman Suffrage In Utah in 1870," Utah Historical Quarterly 38 (1970): 20-30. 70