MARRIAGE FOR THE DEAD—ENTERING INTO POLYGAMY—THE NEW WIFE.
The following evening I went round again to the house, to gaze once more
at the form of my dear friend. She was lying in her coffin, dressed for
the grave, and I looked at her long and tenderly as she rested sleeping
there. Her features were peaceful and natural as if in slumber; an
expression of calm tranquillity hovered around her countenance, and
in the repose of death she seemed almost happy. Poor girl! her life
had been short indeed, and she had known but little pleasure; but I
believed that she was now beyond the reach of earthly sorrow and earthly
disappointment, happy in that land where suffering and tears are all
unknown. “There shall be no night there,” the Lord of that other life had
said. Sorrow and sighing shall flee away from that bright and glorious
land; and the grief and pain, which on earth are the portion of so many
tried and weary hearts, shall find no entrance into that eternal rest
which our Father in heaven has prepared for us beyond the floods of death.
Oh, better far! I thought, it is that thus she should pass away. True,
she has seen but little of life, and has not tasted many of its joys;
but, as a compensation, how much has she been spared! She was so gentle
and so sensitive, so unfit to battle with the stern realities of
existence, that I felt she had gained rather than lost in being taken
away in the morning of her life.
I now expected very soon to be called upon to undergo the most painful
ordeal that any wife can be required to pass through: I was to give my
husband another wife—such is the sacrifice demanded of every Mormon woman.
The thought of doing this was worse than death to me. I felt injured,
humiliated and degraded by it, and yet I still tried to believe that it
was the will of God, and must therefore be right. To me, this outrage
upon all the purest feelings of womanhood seemed more like the will of
men—men of the basest and most unholy passions. It was repulsive to me in
whatever form it was presented, but still I reproached my own rebellious
heart for feeling so, for I had been told that the ways of the Lord were
past finding out, and, however unlike Him this Revelation might appear,
we Mormon women had been taught that it was our duty to bend our wills
and to suffer in unquestioning and uncomplaining silence.
As the time approached, I felt like a condemned criminal awaiting the day
of execution. A sense of apprehension, a dread of coming evil, was ever
present to my mind, and everything appeared to me through the medium of
my griefs. To a certain extent, my husband also suffered, for it would be
impossible, I think, for any man to see his wife suffering so intensely
without feeling for her, and I sometimes believed that his sympathy for
me was so great, that, if he had dared, he would even then have refused
to obey the counsel of the Priesthood.
Then, too, he had a little trouble of his own, for he began to realize
that this innovation upon the sanctity of our home would make a great
change in his future—his freedom would be gone.
However gratifying it may be to a man’s feelings to know that there is
no limit to his privileges, and that he is always at liberty—no matter
how many wives he may already possess—to fall in love with every pretty
girl he meets, and marry her if she consents; yet every intelligent man
must be conscious that it can be no easy matter to keep peace between
many wives in one house, and that, if he wishes to act rightly by all, he
must train himself to be scrupulously just, never showing any partiality
in look or deed, or even by a word. There are many such men among the
Mormons. They are conscientious and good men, who try to live their
religion, but who at the same time desire to act kindly towards their
wives. My husband began to realize the great responsibility that he was
about to take upon himself, and, seeing his thoughtful and troubled look,
I tried to hide my own feelings; for every true wife knows that nothing
so powerfully arouses a woman to struggle with her own sorrows as the
knowledge that her husband is unhappy.
The dreaded day at length arrived, the day which for so long, and
with such painful forebodings, I had anticipated. I had spent a very
wakeful and unhappy night, and felt very sick and nervous, for I was
about to become a mother, and my health was anything but strong. I
hardly felt as if I should have courage to go through that day. I was,
however, compelled to nerve myself to the task, and I began to make my
preparations for going to the Endowment House. The only thing that gave
me strength was the thought that my husband had consented that I should
go through the ceremony of being married to him that day for Carrie; for
even then I supposed that those who would be married in heaven must first
be married on earth, and that, too, by those who had received authority
from on high.
Ever since I had first embraced Mormonism I had been entirely cut off
from Gentile society, although living in the Gentile world. Abroad, and
also when in New York, the cares of a family kept me very much at home,
and the continual state of apprehension in which I was rendered me averse
to visiting among friends. Thus it was that I never conversed freely with
any one who could have informed me truthfully of the origin of Mormonism,
and consequently I brooded over my religion as a melancholy fact; but,
though with moments of weakness and wavering, I never thoroughly doubted
its divine origin. The terrible sacrifice which was about to be required
of me might, I thought, be painful to make, but it was no less the will
of God. I must submit, whatever the effort might cost me.
The morning was bright and lovely—a morning calculated to inspire happy
hopes and pleasant feelings; but to me it brought nothing but fear and
trembling. Even the innocent prattle of my children annoyed me, and they,
not knowing how deeply I was suffering, looked at me with wonder in
their eyes. Oh, I thought, surely my husband will at length comprehend
the greatness of the love I bear him? surely he will now appreciate the
sacrifice I make for his sake and for my religion? Even now, if I did
not know that he believes this doctrine to be true, and he would feel
condemned if, through any opposition of mine, he were not allowed to
practise it, I would at the last moment dash this bitter cup from my lips
and take my chance of the consequences in a future state!
Utterly cast down and broken-hearted, I felt almost as if the Lord
Himself had forsaken me, and there was no one to whom I could look for
aid. I could not go to my husband in that hour for sympathy; for I well
knew that his thoughts must be with his intended bride, and that my
sorrows would only trouble him at a time when he must desire to be at
peace. Besides which, I was too proud to plead for love at a shrine
that I felt should rightfully be all my own. And then, too, I knew not
but what he might tell _her_ of my feelings; and it would be too great a
humiliation for me should she think me jealous of the position which she
now occupied, and her influence over my husband.
With such feelings I went to the Endowment House. There at the altar I
was to give proof of my obedience and of my faith in my religion, by
placing the hand of the new wife in that of my husband. The thought was
almost madness. To have followed my husband to the grave would have been
a terrible blow to me, but to live to see him the husband of another
woman was something that seemed to me beyond endurance. Notwithstanding
every effort of faith, doubts would arise, and in bitterest anguish I
thought—this is more like the work of cruel man than of God. Why should
man have this power over woman, and she so helpless? Surely a just and
impartial God can have nothing to do with this! There was a darkness
before my eyes, and, struggle as I might, I could see no ray of light—no
glimmering of hope.
First, my husband was married to Miss Pratt; and then to me for Carrie!
Thus I fulfilled my pledge to my departed friend. I had found, before
going to the Endowment House, that I could not have Carrie sealed to my
husband next to me, for Belinda had objected, and her mother had appealed
to Brigham Young about it. They told me that he had said that the living
had claims before the dead, although my own feelings would have led me
to think otherwise. Brigham Young performed the ceremony. He sat at the
end of the altar and we three knelt down—my husband on one side, and Miss
Pratt and myself on the other. Speaking to me, Brigham Young asked: “Are
you willing to give this woman to your husband to be his lawful wife for
time and for all eternity? If you are, you will signify it by placing her
right hand within the right hand of your husband.”
I did so; but what words can describe my feelings? The anguish of a whole
lifetime was crowded into that one single moment. The painful meaning
of those words, “for all eternity,” withered my soul, and the unending
contract which my husband had made with another woman was practically a
divorce from me. I had now laid everything upon the altar of sacrifice,
for I had given away my husband. What more could the Lord require of me
that I was not prepared to do?
[Illustration: THE CRISIS OF A LIFE—ENTERING INTO POLYGAMY.
_To face p. 296._]
I was bewildered and almost beside myself, and yet I had to hide my
feelings. Hope was for ever banished from my life. To whom could I
look for sympathy among those who were around me? They were most of
them men who had ruthlessly wrecked the lives and lacerated the hearts
of hundreds of women before my turn came, and the sight of an unhappy
wife was so common in their experience that it was more likely to awaken
their anger than their pity. I felt this instinctively, and I resolved
that they should never know how much my poor heart was torn. My husband,
it is true, was there. _My_ husband! Was he not now the husband of
another woman, and therefore no longer belonging to me? I knew that I
never could overcome my early teaching sufficiently to _feel_ that this
was right, though such was my wretched fanaticism that I mentally and
verbally assented to it. I felt that now I stood alone—our union was
severed, there could never be any copartnership between that other wife
and myself—no, never! Salvation or no salvation, it was impossible that I
could ever love her. From that day I began to hide all my sorrows from my
husband, and it was but very seldom that I uttered a word of discontent,
and when I expressed what I felt, it was in anger; but never in sorrow
seeking sympathy.
I remember when we returned home—that home which had now lost its charm,
for the young wife was to live there—my husband said to me: “You have
been very brave, but it is not so hard to bear, after all, is it?” I had
hidden my feelings so well that he really thought that I was indifferent.
But during the remainder of the day, how I watched their looks and
noticed every word! To me their tender tones were daggers, piercing my
heart and filling me with a desire to revenge myself upon the father of
my children. Oh, what fanatics we Mormon women have been ever to have
believed for a single moment that a just and loving Father and God would
have given a command that in almost every instance has produced such
fearful results upon those who should have been happy wives and mothers,
and consequently upon their children! Indeed, even then it made me feel
that there was no justice in heaven, if this love which is the best part
of woman’s nature—this love that we had always believed was a part of
divinity itself—this principle, without which there would be nothing
worth living for—if this was to be our greatest curse, and the woman
who showed herself most actuated by this gentle influence was to be the
greatest victim.
I felt that day that if I could not get away by myself alone and give
expression to my overcharged feelings, I should certainly lose my reason.
I was utterly miserable. It was only in the dead of night, in my own
chamber, that I gave way to the terrible anguish that was consuming me.
God and my own soul can alone bear witness to what I suffered in that
time of woe. That night was to me such as even the most God-forsaken
might pray never to know; and morning dawned without my having for a
moment closed my eyes.