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Show qvtry VOL. NO. 1. Let every happy wife and mother who reads these lines give her sympathy , prayers and efforts to free her sisters from this degrading bondage . Let, all the womanhood of the country stand united for them. There is a pozver in combined enlightened sentiment and sympathy , before which every form of injustice and cruelty must finally go doivn. Harriet Beecher Stowe . Anti-Polygam- y Society of Utah. ' fpf t every Qfoman have ij er own 'Qusbaitd.i (or. 7: 2. an SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, APKIL, 1. To the Women of America: The Ladies' have fjis owt ARTICLE I. The saying who would be free themselves must strike the blow, is undoubtedly true in the majority of cases, yet the questions seem pertinent are all those in bondage so circumstanced that they can or will strike the blow, and if freedom is not to be theirs, except through their own courage and resistance must they forever remain in fetters? Had the abolition of slavery in the South depended entirely on the slaves striking for freedom, they would have remained in bondage until this day. There are at this time many women in Utah bound by a false theology, promulgated by men who claim to be a chosen and anointed priesthood; these men profess to receive instruction by inspiration from the Almighty Father, and appealing to the religious sentiment in woman, which is with many very strong and powerful, they induce them to believe that God requires them to practise the so called What system of plural marriage. crime has not been committed at the dictates of a misdirected conscience! Some of the most sincerelydevout and conscientious women have thus been imposed upon, blinded and deluded, led to believe that wrong is right and self sacrifice duty, and that the greater the sacrifice they make, the sorrows they endure, the mortifications and vexations they undergo as the results of this system, the greater will be their reward, the higher their exaltation in the future life. Thus believing, thus enduring, will these women ever strike the blow that is to break their bonds and free them from priestly dominion? I do not pretend to say that all the women who live in polygamous relations are such as these, no, there are a few who joined the Mormon church many years ago, and who are often the instruments of proselyting others, women whose fanaticism overbalances their intelligence and womanly instincts, and who seem to glory in their shame. The majority of the present supporters of the system are recruited from the old countries, where they occupied positions of servitude, with no expectations of any better condition. Arriving here, they enter families as domestics, but are soon made aware that they need not remain such, but may share the master of the house equally with the mistress. Very often they leave their homes with the promise of being married to the elders when they reach the valley, and in some cases the elders do not wait for that, but virtually take the young girls to wife there and get sealed after arriving in Utah. It is a well known fact that one prominent apostle did this more than once, and as well known that another Elder leaving two wives in Utah, married a young girl in Liverpool. His first wife afterward came to England and visited them, and in order to deceive the English saints, allowed herself to be passed as his sister. Women like these cannot be expected to make any efforts to abolish the system, but there are women who abhor polygamy in their inmost hearts, who feel they have been deeply wronged and deceived, but perhaps they are mothers and cannot support their children, if they throw off the yoke. Others shrink from the anathemas of the priesthood and the dread doom so fearfully pictured to them of the apostate. i These would rejoice if the cruel thing was done away with, and their sons and daughters who deeply feel their own and their mothers wrongs would also rejoice, but how can they, unaided, strike the blow? One of the provinces of the Ladies Society is to prepare the way for these to do something to aid in their Anti-Polyga- own liberation. . It took long years of agitation be- the party of the United States succeeded in abolishing that system which was a shame and disgrace to our country, but they did succeed at last! And the fore Anti-Slave- ry women who inaugurated the Society are determined to persevere and keep this subject agitated until it, like the other twin relic of barbarism shall no longer be a foul blot on our escutcheon as a nation, but shall also be a thing of the past. How this little band of noble, earnest, disinterested women came to form themselves into a permanent organization, their manner of work, and what they have already accomplished will be.told y in the columns of the Anti-Polyga- Anti-Polygam- Standard. f j an early number of the Standard we intend to commence the publication of a series of articles upon the effects of In polygamy, showing the physical, mental, and moral results of the system, as exemplified in some of the leading polygamous families of the Territory. The writer has made a thorough study of the subject at the request of a leading medical journal, and whose researches have been supplemented by experience among her own relatives. These articles should be read by every wife and mother in the country. The Beauties 1880. Price, 10 Cts. and declaring that she would never become the wife of her mother and The following was related by the wife of a noted. United States grandmothers husband. When we left I could not restrain my indigexplorer to a Gentile lady of this nation and I said, what a lovely city, who will vouch for its genuin-ess- . this is to make such beasts It is but one illustration of religion It is not the beauty of the Celestial order out of human creatures. religion, but the. lack of it that of marriage. Eds. makes them beasts, quietly rejoin-in- g While traveling in Southern my hostess, and you will find we came to a small settle- many cases as bad as this one if Utah, you ment where we were detained for a travel far in Utah. As I said beday or two by inclement Aveather. fore, the digger Indians were We found shelter in the humble, models of cleanliness and modesty but neat and hospitable home of a compared with this family, and as whose monogamist saint, family my friend had predicted I found.' hated polygamy, and through whose more like it as we traveled farther' influence we were permitted a South. But the sequel is still at some of the beastliness glance more horrible. About a afterthat characterizes the peculiar insti- ward we had occasion year to pass tution. Only a short distance from through that particular settlement the dwelling of my friendly enter- again, and for a day were the guests tainers, there stood a miserable of our former hostess. She told adobe hut, I could not conscientious- me that the young girl was really ly call it a house, where lived a sealed to her grandfather, being litsaint with three wives, all of whom erally forced into it by her own had families. My hostess made mother and grandmother under cirsome neighborly errand an excuse for paying them a visit and permit- cumstances so revolting that delicacy ted me to accompany her, but before forbids me from repeating them even going she made me acquainted to one of my own sex. Even in that with the relationship existing be- polygamic community the excitetween the three women who were ment was so great that talk was living with and had borne children had of lynching the degraded trio, to the same man. The first and second women were sisters, the lat- the man and the two elder women, ter had been a widow with onechild but the feeling soon passed over, when she married her sisters hus- and was eventually forgotten or band. When this child had grown only remenbered as an episode of to be about sixteen years old, her this peculiar religion. step father had also married her, but after a few months she left and Christian women of America, was sealed to another man as pluwhat do you think of a system ral wife by whom she had two children. Then he died, and she re- that has effected such a transformturned to her first husband bringing ation in a naturally devout and reher children with her, the eldest of ligious woman; so as to cause her to whom at the time I am speaking of avow, I have no belief in anything, was a girl about fifteen years old, no confidence in humanity, no faith and my informant stated for a fact in See religion, no hope in God. that the old wretch had thoughts of the article on fourth page, What marrying her too. When we entered the hut the scene that met Polygamy has done for Women. my eyes totally beggars description. The old sorrel war horse that was ridImagine, one low, smoky, filthy room serving as living room, and den by the late Judge Janies lb McKean, of Salt Lake City, during the Peninsular sleeping apartment for three women and their offspring, some of the lat- campaign, when he was colonel of the regiment of New York ter almost grown up, the majority Seventy-seven- th however being little children. 1 volunteers, died, a few days since, on the It could never have dreamed of such farm of Amos Hewitt, in Ballston. was over years of age, and owned dirt, rags and squalor. existing int a before thethirty war bvL. E. Smith, of Meehan- Christian country. I had seen no- icsville, who kept it as a riding horse and thing equal to it even among the presented it to Col. McKean, in 1861. digger Indians, in fact the latter X. Y. Evening Telegram. were quite civilized in comparison. But the worst of my story is yet to We trust our friends both East and come. The young girl of whom AVest will exert their inlluence to the ut my hostess had spoken as a probable most in obtaining a circulation for the bride of her grandfather, was sitting Standard among the in a corner sobbing and crying. Christian women of the United States. of cause the her Upon inquiring The articles in our paper will be written, we were told distress, quite frankly or the facts furnished by women who have that her grandmother had given had personal experience in the system, and her a severe castigation for speak- consequently may be relied upon as true ing disrespectfully about polygamy in every particular. of Polygamy. r . , c Anti-Polyga- my |
