|THIS is the form of the oath required of voters in Utah under the new
law:
Territory of Utah, County of Salt Lake. I ------------ being first duly
sworn (or affirmed), depose and say that I am over twenty-one years of
age, and have resided in the territory of Utah for six months, and in
the precinct of ---------- one month immediately preceding the date
thereof, and (if a male) am a native born or naturalized (as the case
may be) citizen of the United States and a tax payer in this territory.
(Or, if a female) I am native born, or naturalized, or the widow or
daughter (as the case may be) of a native born or naturalized citizen of
the United States. And I do further solemnly swear (or affirm) that I
am not a bigamist or polygamist; that I am not a violater of the laws of
the United States prohibiting bigamy or polygamy; that I do not live or
cohabit with more than one woman in the marriage relation, nor does any
relation exist between me and any woman which has been entered into or
continued in violation of said laws of the United States, prohibiting
bigamy or polygamy, (and if a woman) that I am not the wife of a
polygamist, nor have I entered into any relation with any man in
violation of the laws of the United States concerning polygamy or
bigamy.
Subscribed and sworn to before me this ------ day of ----------, 1882.
Registration Officer ---------- Precinct.
It will be seen that at the next election some of the brethren and
sisters in Zion will be disfranchised unless they do some pretty tall
swearing. This is a terrible state of affairs, and the whole civilized
world will feel badly to know that some of our people are going to be
left out in the cold, cold world with no voice and no vote just because
they have been too zealous in the wedlock business.
Matrimony is a glorious thing, but it can be overdone. A man can become
a victim to the nuptial habit just the same as he can the opium habit.
It then assumes entire control over him, and he has to be chained up
or paralyzed with a club, or he would marry all creation. This law,
therefore, is salutary in its operations. It is intended as a gentle
check on those who have allowed themselves to become matrimony's
maniacs. If we marry one of the daughters of a family, and are happy
over it, is that any reason why we should marry the other daughters and
the old lady and the colored cook? We think not. It is natural for man
to acquire railroads and promissory notes and houses and lands, but he
should not undertake to acquire a corner on the wife trade.
Hence we say the law is just and must be permitted to take its course,
even though it may disfranchise many of the most prominent pelicans of
the Mormon church. Matrimony in Utah has been allowed to run riot, as
it were. The cruel and relentless hand of this hydra-headed monster has
been laid upon the youngest and the fairest of the Mormon people.
Matrimony has broken out there in a large family in some instances, and
has not even spared the widowed and toothless mother. It generally seeks
its prey among the youngest and fairest, but in Utah it has not spared
even the old and the infirm. Like a cruel epidemic, it has at first
raked in the blooming maidens of Mormondom and at last spotted the
lantern jawed dregs of foreign female emigration. In one community, this
great scourge entered and took all the women under forty-five, and then
got into a block where there were nineteen old women who didn't average
a tooth apiece, and swept them away like a cyclone.
People who do not know anything of this great evil, can have no
knowledge of it. Those who have not investigated this question have
certainly failed to look into it. We cannot find out about this question
without ascertaining something of it.