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Show PRACTICAL POLYGAMY. 155 hurt ? Have they not the same privilege of being respected as honorable wives and mothers as any other women have? It is their own free will and choice to become wives of polvgamists, and why should they complain of having their own way? For our part we think polygamy is a mighty fine thing for the women, and we will tell you why. In the first place it insures every woman a husband, which monogamy does not; in the second place it gives them the privilege of getting a good husband, which monogamy frequently does not, the latter system granting to many only Hobson's choice ; in the third place, it gives a woman the privilege of having the man whom she would prefer of all others, if she can persuade him, and monogamy often pre vents such a desirable consummation. How, therefore, the women who are married to polygamists can be injured by it we cannot conceive."* In addition to the influence of the pulpit and press, the Legislature of the Territory, in its official capacity, Comes to the relief of polygamy. On the I3th of January they adopted a memorial to Congress, setting forth in a long pre amble the wrongs that have been done the people of Utah by the act of Congress of 1862 prohibiting polygamy, and claiming its repeal on the ground of its unconstitutionality, etc. No one knows better than Brigham Young the utter uselessness of such a memorial. But all such acts have their effects upon this fanatical people, f The result of this petition in the House of Representatives was the adoption of a report declaring polygamy to be a relic of heathenism and barbarism, and but prostitution by another name, and making it obligatory upon officers of the Government to rigidly enforce existing laws on the subject. Place these remarks alongside of such passages as I have quoted in a previous letter, and compare their teachings of to- day on the subject of marriage with the teachings of 1850, and can a sect so inconsistent, if there were not other things * Salt Lake Telegraphy Jan. 29, 1867. f Ibid. Jan. 31, 1867. |