| OCR Text |
Show I42 PRACTICAL POLYGAMY. favored Christians might learn a lesson of true piety and resignation from it. How numerous this class of women are I can form no idea. It is rarely the case that one is so situated that she dare converse on the subject with a Gentile. Such meek ness, I imagine, is not the rule, and only here and there you find those sweet, simple, amiable dispositions, that are more divine than human, whether in an honest member of a cor rupt sect, or the angel- like wife of a Christian missionary doing good to the destitute and suffering around her. The tendency of Mormonism without polygamy is not to en courage such piety, and with polygamy it is to root it out, and even destroy the natural gentler traits of character. Jealousy is the one great cause of unhappiness among the wives of a polygamist. There are other incidental causes constantly arising, sufficient in themselves to mar the happiness of an angel on earth, but jealousy is the worm that gnaws at the vitals of their social life. Often it exists to such an extent that the several wives of a Mor mon have to be furnished separate quarters, and in some instances they are furnished homes in different parts of the country. One individual I know has his wives separated about thirty miles, and another keeps one wife eighty miles from the other four. Mr. Greeley mentions, in his lecture on the Mormons, one family where two or mare wives lived together m the same house, and would not speak to each other. The first wife is almost universally regarded by the hus band with more favor than the others, which immediately gives rise to that dreaded passion, and at an early day she secures the ill- will of her " sisters." This favoritism may be observed in Brigham's conduct toward Amelia, his last wife, and from him down through all the gradations of po-lygamists. The first wife, more than intermediate ones, is jealous of attentions to the last; but in this respect there is no great difference between them, they all unite in the feel ing. A lady not long ago informed me that she had visit ed a house in the city where there were three wives. The |
