Show bible marriage harriage should be tolerated aa A remarked before we should to mormon polygamy it cannot in this enlightened age absorb abo the female element to such an extent as to produce female scarcity as oriental polygamy did in tile the early age of the world at present the tendency all over the world is to an excess of fema females lesat at an adult ae age the tendency of a dense deme population remarks a newspaper writer urging the necessity of malan maian making 1 women self gelf supporting cris is to m make ake the female sex preponderate and we must roust find something to do with tho the surplus women if we look at foreign countries bosee wo seo that under the ago age of fifteen the tho males exceed the females but that beyond fifteen the females preponderate and so on until ninety in sixteen foreign nations tilla this holds good in england ED the ratio of females to males is three to two whilo while in france where the people are longer lodger lived than othere other european european nations it is even greater when we get up to the gray haired era of life we find in eranee france between 50 and 60 a female excess of between 09 00 anti and 70 it becomes between 70 and 89 80 and and over 80 of course these fl figures ures to 10 not apply to the united states in massachusetts the women are nearly in excess while in connecticut they are and the same ratio runs through new hampshire and rhode island in vt vermont and maine dlaine the men are in surplus ur plus pius while leNew new york yori shows more mom women than men to be accounted for by the crowded condition of new now york city which alone shows nearly in excess while tile the open countries coundrie coun trie s have a pre preponderance oli oti derance of men in some territories as much as twenty to one it is shown that the tendency of the tiie female sex is ia to outnumber out number tile other As we grow in civilization wo we must therefore expect this to take place and it is proper that we should meet the problem now and so decide it that wo may inay have no trouble in tho the future from the foregoing 0 figures it will bo be seen we can stand considerable polygamy without making a scarcity of women in this country there is not a particle of danger that this old marriage system if tolerated would absorb the tho female element to any great degree american women are as a rule toos too smart inart to marry marny a man whose social and religious belief would allow him to take a plurality of wives and fewer still would marry one who had already a dozen hangin hanging at his elbows wig and coat tall tati tail tall if you find one now and then who wilo would rather thus marry marry and have a piece of a husband than to go through life without with zut aut any any no obstacle should be interposed to prevent this choice if there bo be a poor girl here and and there who would rather than make shirts for a pittance receive a fraction of affection and comfortable support your interference may send her to a more deamoral demoralizing azin school than the hearth of a mormon elder polygamy is better than prostitution if there be any one who would rather marry a fraction of a man than to go 0 through life childless it is a c choice olee oleo that does not concern us it is none of our business she may find that happiness nessin in the possession of an affectionate child and of companion wives to relieve her of tho the conjugal drudgery of matrimony that tha t she sho could neither find in single ilfe lire nor monogamy the educated prejudice in the minds of the people against polygamy if culled called in question is satisfied to defend itself in misrepresentation and anc denunciation which amounts to nothing when you arrive at the hard T pan an beneath the dregs so far as the effects of polygamy upon our national welfare are aro concerned there is nothing yet to show that they aro are damaging the mormons cormons have never hurt us save in our imaginations true we have struck at them once or twice and they have employed sufficient force to resist the blow but we can hardly strike at any body of people on this continent who have not the pluck to resist we do not grow cowards on american so soil As to their thein material prosperity the round sound table commenting on these people and a book about them remarks winve we aie ate thus driven by the tiye inexorable logic of facts to admit the possibility that given certain bertain natural conditions the conditions of area physical requisitions and noninterference interference non from without which are precisely rec ree isely those which have hate att attended enild our own national life a society may thrive progress increase accumulate all the material essentials of modern civilization under a system which in in every leading characteristic is diametrically opposite to our own we are forced to acknowledge that neither social nor political equality neither universal suffrage nor enforced monogamy aro are indispensable prerequisites to the tile diffusion of education the enjoyment of happiness ne 9 9 or even to tile the solidity of tile the state slate relatively speaking the mormons cormons have done in in the tile enumerated particulars as much in their thirty years as aa the collective nation has achieved in its ninety and abstractly ly considered wo we have no more right to predict the failure of their system from internal causes than thail th wil that of the republic itself so far as ab comparison between their chief city and our own in respect of cleanliness order temperance thrift and judicious expenditure may inay go 90 wo we are certainly at a disadvantage audit and aud it cannot be denied that if there be all an explanation of so intricate a problem which can save the credit of our own usages and vitiate the force of the saints paints example it is certainly not an obvious one many suppose that polygamy is prohibited by the new testament but such was not the opinion of martin luther and a synod of six reformers who were called upon to decide the question in a certain case they held says Nie nin nichols hols hois that the gospels nowhere in express terms commanded monogamy and tha polygamy had been practiced practised by the highest dignitaries of the church the same writer remarks 11 polygamy continued in the christian church until a comparatively recent period and was allowed by byli uther luther and the fathers of the protestant reformation as it also is to this day under certain circumstances by our boards of foreign missions 11 X why in prescribing marriage should one system be forced upon such a variety of people any more than one religion il all AH mankind with the exception of a few ascetics must in view of physiological si sl teaching acknowledge the necessity of sexual association for the healt health hand and happiness of the race but does it follow that all should be compelled to accept one system for the regulation of this as especially should courts of law keep out of families and families out of courts of law if any way cabbe ean can be invented to manage these things otherwise the ancient romans komans never wera were so orderly in their marriage 0 relations as when they kept hept law out of the family the creader greader will remember that at that time when no divorces were said to have taken place fora fona for a pernod period of five hundred years those people thought the family hearth was too sacred for public tribunals they did not think that N legislation should touch the independence pen peu dence of the family nor confine by legal restraints the ties which natural affection had for formed ined they pursued in their affectionate relations the even tenor of their way and if they encountered difficulties a family tribunal could not settle the censor was called in and this officer acted on no rules of law jaw but simply on principles of equity e judity as he understood them under u er this arrangement as rome swallowed up one nation afterman after another she took in those in which polygamy was practiced practised and it is a favorable commentary upon her system as it then existed that her sexual morality did not show ah any y marked indications of breaking down until they began to adopt greek law for the governance of the family we want a secretary of marriage whose duties it shall shail beto be to hinves investigate tir ate the various systems of marriage which have been practiced practised from rom the earliest period study impartially their effects upon the peoples living under them make annual reports of the same for tho enlighten en enlightenment lighte n of present generations in order that they may profit by the experience peni penh per Fer lence ence of the human family in past ages this report to be accompanied with such recommendations as may be thought bt b I 1 calculated to contribute to the I 1 happiness tappi ap ness nesa and moral and physical improvement of the people k polygamy should be tolerated expressly by national c consent on sent we have among our christian missionaries the exam example P le of colem toleration in respect to poly amic amle marriage they iii ill nind find nd that many of the people among whom they arm amm laboring in cannot be restrained from having baving a plurality of wives and consequently ly and I 1 think very wisely they let the marriage guestion question alone if thoe people are heathen we have any number of them among us and you need not go to utah nay you need not leave the limits of manhattan island to fand them many of them achieve what the world calls greatness and when they die long obituaries extol their virtues some of those who are casting stones at the mormons cormons would break their own windows if they leveled their missiles atthe at the nearest domiciles domiciled domi ciles wherein polygamy adultery is practised practiced the tiie mormons cormons Mor dior mons indeed are better than this class of assailants for they do not morally degrade their women butyok may ask why legalize poly pY polygamy gamy simply that women may better be the wives wives than tho the mi stresses of men one of the early christian emperors offered rewards to those who wilo would marry their concubines it is vain to say eay that you will yet banish baulsh the mistress or that you will blot out prostitution the religious world has been working at it most vehemently and with an army of strong men and strong women for at least live hundred years and christianity has been pitted against it for nearly nineteen hundred years and to use the language of a western orator where are aro we now bow where are we driffin drift in to enone the lc system is nearly as old as the chev worl orl ori dand daud the ic system is nearly 2500 years old and the society makers mabers bave have certain ay lanot not yet attained any aby very gratl gratifying ry results in their efforts alper at perfecting feekin the tho morality health and hap happiness pig n ess of the people living jiving under them we need I 1 repeat again the inventive and progressive spirit of the age directed to the discovery of means whereby the human family may be wholesomely governed in their sexual relations so governed indeed that natures institutes Institute 4 and individual rights jaymot may not be disregarded while all that relates to the moral and religious weil well being of every individual may be made still more perceptibly operative home talk 1 |