David Snell’s New Video on Polygamy in Utah

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

You seem to forget that Utah had the most liberal divorce laws in favor of women, was the first state or territory that gave women the right the vote, and had strong women go to Washington DC to defend the practices of their religion.

But.... OK.

They had liberal divorce laws from the 1850s to 1878. After that they were relatively normal. Utah was behind the curve in modernizing divorce law with “no fault” rules. I also suspect that without plural marriage the laws wouldn’t have been so liberal.

Utah was not the first territory or state to grant women suffrage. New Jersey (weirdly) was. This was in the late 1700s where their first state constitution gave voting rights to women who met the property requirements. Admittedly the property requirements were high and could realistically only be met by widows and heiresses since if the woman was married the property was his. This was done away with within a few decades where voting was explicitly tied to being a man and the property requirements were being lowered to allow more people to vote as part of the wave to give the federal and state governments greater legitimacy.

The first territory to give women the right to vote was Wyoming. Utah granted the same rights shortly afterwards. Elections were held in Utah before Wyoming so (assuming you ignore New Jersey’s short-lived and limited suffrage) Wyoming territory was first to grant women the right to vote and Utah was the first to have women actually vote.

I am glad Utah did this but it is disingenuous to suggest that this was done because the territorial government (and the Church) thought women should be voting on their own merits. Some did but the Church needed a voting bloc to oppose the Liberal Party (an anti-Mormon party) and wanted to counteract the votes of a lot of the non-Mormon immigrants in Utah who were very often unmarried. On a more national level there was support for giving women in Utah the right to vote hoping they would oppose polygamy. They mostly didn’t. Then Congress passed the Edmunds-Tucker act which was aimed to break at least some of the church’s political power and which removed the right to vote from all women in the territory. Women got the right to vote back when Utah became a state. Utah was one of the first states to grant women’s suffrage.

In general Utah’s record on granting suffrage is mixed. Early to grant it to women but really slow to remove laws preventing Native Americans from voting.

Sending women to testify before Congress and meet with legislators to try to make plural marriage seem more palatable was a good PR move and they were very sincere but it doesn’t mean latter-day saints were deeply invested in women’s rights in general.

[Calm]

12 hours ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

I think they simply selected the most important teachings and principles, instead of the speculations and less important elements of their discourses

They actually made a point of saying they were selecting teachings relevant to us today in at least one of the books (haven’t looked at all the intros to see if mentioned elsewhere yet; my memory said it was also included in some announcement material, but I was a ward librarian at the time and read every instruction I could get my hands on, so might not have been generally available…or my memory may be filling in a gap), which would end up with both the most important to us teachings and principles and if one wasn’t aware of the selection process, would make it appear like past prophets taught only what we taught for the most part.

Quote

Teachings for Our Day

This book deals with teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith that have application to our day. For example, this book does not discuss such topics as the Prophet’s teachings regarding the law of consecration as applied to stewardship of property. The Lord withdrew this law from the Church because the Saints were not prepared to live it (see D&C 119, section heading). This book also does not discuss plural marriage. The doctrines and principles relating to plural marriage were revealed to Joseph Smith as early as 1831. The Prophet taught the doctrine of plural marriage, and a number of such marriages were performed during his lifetime. Over the next several decades, under the direction of the Church Presidents who succeeded Joseph Smith, a significant number of Church members entered into plural marriages. In 1890, President Wilford Woodruff issued the Manifesto, which discontinued plural marriage in the Church (see Official Declaration 1). The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints no longer practices plural marriage.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/teachings-joseph-smith/introduction?lang=eng

John Taylor’s is less explicit, but I think still presents the “chosen for relevance to us” point imo:

Quote

For discussion in Sunday meetings. This book is the text for Melchizedek Priesthood quorum and Relief Society Sunday meetings. Elder Dallin H. Oaks taught that the books in the series Teachings of Presidents of the Church “contain doctrine and principles. They are rich and relevant to the needs of our day, and they are superb for teaching and discussion.” Teachers should focus on the content of the text and related scriptures and should apply these teachings to circumstances with which class members will be familiar.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/teachings-john-taylor/introduction?lang=eng

The Brigham Young manual was the first one published and they took several wrongs steps there, imo.  They made a big deal of preserving the original writing and then removed references to plural wives without saying that they were doing that.  They did say the teachings were meant to help us in our everyday lives, but I think you have to read between the lines some to get the implication (inference even maybe?) that the teachings were chosen primarily because they relate to our current every day lives.  One who was not familiar with what Brigham taught could assume his teachings were limited to what was included.  I think one needs to be at least vaguely familiar with what Brigham taught to figure out they were selecting for relevance as well as avoiding controversy (knowing about plural marriage could be enough, but if that or other controversial teachings were the only other teachings one was aware of, I can see that the assumption the limitation of teachings was solely about avoiding controversies could be easily made…but such an assumption would be incorrect imo, though avoiding controversy among members  is definitely one of the reasons as they direct the teacher to do so).

Quote

Lessons should help class members see how gospel principles apply to daily living.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/teachings-brigham-young/introduction?lang=eng

Edited September 4, 2025 by Calm

[Calm]

4 hours ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

You seem to forget that Utah had the most liberal divorce laws in favor of women, was the first state or territory that gave women the right the vote, and had strong women go to Washington DC to defend the practices of their religion.

But.... OK.

And why did they have those?  

[Calm]

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

also suspect that without plural marriage the laws wouldn’t have been so liberal.

They weren’t that liberal for men even if liberal for women as far as I am aware (Brigham was known to turn down men’s request, but he would not have been involved I am guessing in purely civil marriages of nonmembers who came to Utah to get a divorce).  Anyone have info on that?

Quite practical because I expect less women (and parents of younger women) would have been willing to risk a plural marriage if they didn’t see a possible out (I can see life as almost unbearable loneliness if one not only had accepted one would be sharing one’s husband through eternity, but one also hated that husband so there was nothing to look forward to in that relationship).

Edited September 4, 2025 by Calm

[ZealouslyStriving]

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

They had liberal divorce laws from the 1850s to 1878. After that they were relatively normal. Utah was behind the curve in modernizing divorce law with “no fault” rules. I also suspect that without plural marriage the laws wouldn’t have been so liberal.

Utah was not the first territory or state to grant women suffrage. New Jersey (weirdly) was. This was in the late 1700s where their first state constitution gave voting rights to women who met the property requirements. Admittedly the property requirements were high and could realistically only be met by widows and heiresses since if the woman was married the property was his. This was done away with within a few decades where voting was explicitly tied to being a man and the property requirements were being lowered to allow more people to vote as part of the wave to give the federal and state governments greater legitimacy.

The first territory to give women the right to vote was Wyoming. Utah granted the same rights shortly afterwards. Elections were held in Utah before Wyoming so (assuming you ignore New Jersey’s short-lived and limited suffrage) Wyoming territory was first to grant women the right to vote and Utah was the first to have women actually vote.

I am glad Utah did this but it is disingenuous to suggest that this was done because the territorial government (and the Church) thought women should be voting on their own merits. Some did but the Church needed a voting bloc to oppose the Liberal Party (an anti-Mormon party) and wanted to counteract the votes of a lot of the non-Mormon immigrants in Utah who were very often unmarried. On a more national level there was support for giving women in Utah the right to vote hoping they would oppose polygamy. They mostly didn’t. Then Congress passed the Edmunds-Tucker act which was aimed to break at least some of the church’s political power and which removed the right to vote from all women in the territory. Women got the right to vote back when Utah became a state. Utah was one of the first states to grant women’s suffrage.

In general Utah’s record on granting suffrage is mixed. Early to grant it to women but really slow to remove laws preventing Native Americans from voting.

Sending women to testify before Congress and meet with legislators to try to make plural marriage seem more palatable was a good PR move and they were very sincere but it doesn’t mean latter-day saints were deeply invested in women’s rights in general.

So what your saying is that women in Utah had it fairly good for the times, even when run by The Terrible Ones.

Didn't Brigham also encourage young women to pursue education and teach that almost any job a man could do a woman could do also?

The terrible caveman caricature of early Utah leaders is a farce worthy of rejection.

Edited September 4, 2025 by ZealouslyStriving

[Calm]

43 minutes ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

The terrible caveman caricature of early Utah leaders is a farce worthy of rejection.

I wouldn’t call leaders in general cavemen, they had a range of opinions for one thing.  Most I would say were not pro women rights for the purpose of giving women a better life because they saw them as equal to men though.  It was more of a practical ‘good for everyone’ attitude, imo.

Married women were granted the right to keep and control their own property in 1872.  According to wiki, 29 states had passed something similar by 1865, so Utah was hardly cutting edge here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Married_Women's_Property_Acts_in_the_United_States

Utah was apparently the first state to have a permanent statute that accepted women as jurors.

https://www.utahwomenshistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/UT-Womens-Rights_-Timeline.docx

AI’s response for early Utah custody rights…will try to look for something more credible later (never trust AI, it should be treated as the beginning of research only at most).  It looks like Utah was good generally speaking.  Given plural marriage and liberal divorce laws, it makes sense to tie children as much to their mother as father.  Glad to see ten year old and older children were consulted on who they wanted to stay with.

Quote

In early Utah (territorial period), while the traditional legal framework often favored fathers, a liberal divorce law and broad judicial discretion allowed mothers to retain custody of their children. A key distinction was that children over ten could choose their "custodial parent". This approach offered more flexibility than other regions, enabling both parents to negotiate custody and allowing women to maintain their children's care, particularly when fathers were absent or unfit. 

Early Utah Custody Dynamics 

Father's Rights vs. Flexibility:

While fathers were typically seen as the legal guardians, Utah's early territorial laws granted courts significant leeway in child custody decisions.

Mother's Custody:

Women could and often did maintain custody of their children in divorce cases.

Child's Choice:

A unique aspect of early Utah law was the provision allowing children aged 10 and older to express their choice of custodial parent.

Negotiated Agreements:

Courts allowed divorcing spouses to negotiate and agree upon custody arrangements.

Liberal Divorce Law:

Utah had one of the most liberal divorce laws among U.S. states and territories at the time, which contributed to its unique approach to custody during this period.

Best Interests Standard:

Though not yet fully developed, this early flexibility in allowing mothers to keep children, and even children to choose, laid a foundation for the later "best interests of the child" standard.

 

Edited September 4, 2025 by Calm

[The Nehor]

23 minutes ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

So what your saying is that women in Utah had it fairly good for the times, even when run by The Terrible Ones.

Didn't Brigham also encourage young women to pursue education and teach that almost any job a man could do a woman could do also?

The terrible caveman caricature of early Utah leaders is a farce worthy of rejection.

If the woman was in a position in which a divorce wouldn’t be potentially ruinous then yes, it is an advantage.

Which is why women in Utah during Brigham Young’s time were all becoming doctors and lawyers and scientists. He said some semi-progressive things about women’s education but I am not going to find them for you.

The terrible caveman caricatures and the enlightened ‘ahead of their time’ beacon of gender respect/equality caricatures can burn next to each other.

[Calm]

What I find interesting is the contrast between Heber C Kimball’s letters to his first wife, Vilate Kimball, and the way he talks about women as wives later on.  I would have to study him more to be confident in my judgment, but it does look concerning to me that plural marriage did not contribute to a greater respect for women for Heber, but potentially a lesser one.  Or he could have just had a neutral or negative opinion of women in general and saw Vilate as an exception.   My total speculation is that his emotional needs were fully satisfied for him with his very close and committed relationship with Vilate.  He had no need to work to make as great of a connection or even more than a casual connection with other wives.  He therefore probably married not for reasons of love or affection, but for the eternal blessings he would receive…which could further distance him emotionally from his later wives.  I could be completely off track though as I am not familiar with any personal correspondence with his other wives.

When Vilate died, Heber said “I shall not be long after her”.  He died the following year.  According to the site I shall link to in a bit (writing on my phone, reading on my IPad) he always referred to her as the love of his youth.***  Helen, their daughter, also has a very positive view of their relationship.

Perhaps he was so committed to her, he had little emotion to spare for his other wives. As I said above, I have read nothing about his relationship with them from their POV.  Has anyone here?

***https://latterdaylight.com/58690-2/

Added:  wiki has him marrying 43 women, but with many of those purely caretaking (wonder what that actually amounted to in terms of him helping them).

I need to find a good site with easy access to bios about his wives.  This is one for Ruth Amelia Reese, but says nothing about their relationship beside they had two sons and she made his clothes.  Sounds like the extended family loved and respected her.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=4457492824335024&id=286571298093885&set=a.624344554316556

Edited September 4, 2025 by Calm

[The Nehor]

22 hours ago, Calm said:

What I find interesting is the contrast between Heber C Kimball’s letters to his first wife, Vilate Kimball, and the way he talks about women as wives later on.  I would have to study him more to be confident in my judgment, but it does look concerning to me that plural marriage did not contribute to a greater respect for women for Heber, but potentially a lesser one.  Or he could have just had a neutral or negative opinion of women in general and saw Vilate as an exception.   My total speculation is that his emotional needs were fully satisfied for him with his very close and committed relationship with Vilate.  He had no need to work to make as great of a connection or even more than a casual connection with other wives.  He therefore probably married not for reasons of love or affection, but for the eternal blessings he would receive…which could further distance him emotionally from his later wives.  I could be completely off track though as I am not familiar with any personal correspondence with his other wives.

When Vilate died, Heber said “I shall not be long after her”.  He died the following year.  According to the site I shall link to in a bit (writing on my phone, reading on my IPad) he always referred to her as the love of his youth.***  Helen, their daughter, also has a very positive view of their relationship.

Perhaps he was so committed to her, he had little emotion to spare for his other wives. As I said above, I have read nothing about his relationship with them from their POV.  Has anyone here?

***https://latterdaylight.com/58690-2/

Added:  wiki has him marrying 43 women, but with many of those purely caretaking (wonder what that actually amounted to in terms of him helping them).

I need to find a good site with easy access to bios about his wives.  This is one for Ruth Amelia Reese, but says nothing about their relationship beside they had two sons and she made his clothes.  Sounds like the extended family loved and respected her.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=4457492824335024&id=286571298093885&set=a.624344554316556

There is this old piece from Sunstone: https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/095-10-13.pdf

From what I have read it seems Heber had an affectionate relationship with his wife but not a romantic or particularly loving one at least in his early letters. When he entered plural marriage he was much more effusive but it is not clear if this was a change in their relationship or compensating for his new wives.

From what I have read he tended to be more distant with his other wives and much more practical. Could be attempts to protect Vilate’s feelings or not being comfortable with them or any number of things. I feel a bit bad for them.

Edited September 5, 2025 by The Nehor

[Tacenda]

On 9/2/2025 at 8:02 AM, stelf said:

Remember several years ago when 3rd hour was dedicated to studying teaching of the presidents of the church and we had those nice curated books that made it seem like all past prophets just taught things that we are ok with today? Yeah, me too. I hate that the more I learn about past church leaders the more I am convinced they were terrible people.

It's really sad, IMO. That RS changed to being taught the same things the men were learning during RS/PH time. We had had culture lessons along with so many other types of lessons geared toward women and then change change change, were relegated to have these books to study the presidents of the church each year. Too bad we didn't do that with the RS presidents. Oh well, such is life in the male dominated churches everywhere.

Edited September 9, 2025 by Tacenda

[Devobah]

5 hours ago, Tacenda said:

It's really sad, IMO. That RS changed to being taught the same things the men were learning during RS/PH time. We had had culture lessons along with so many other types of lessons geared toward women and then change change change, were relegated to have these books to study the presidents of the church each year. Too bad we didn't do that with the RS presidents. Oh well, such is life in the male dominated churches everywhere.

I think it would be cool to get to a point where you could “Teachings of Women in the Church”. I think that if you just did relief society presidency you wouldn’t have enough. It would be interesting though. 

[bluebell]

2 minutes ago, Devobah said:

I think it would be cool to get to a point where you could “Teachings of Women in the Church”. I think that if you just did relief society presidency you wouldn’t have enough. It would be interesting though. 

Most members don't know this, because they don't ever look around in the Gospel Library app, but if you are on the home page and you click on the Adults tab, it will take you to another page, where the top option is another tab labeled "Women".  Click on that tab, and scroll almost to the bottom.  

There you will find At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses by Latter-day Saint Women.

There is definitely enough content to do Teachings of the Women of the Church, I just don't think we ever will due to our new focus on the Come Follow Him manuals.  Which is ok, but it's sad that such a great opportunity was missed in the past.

[Tacenda]

14 minutes ago, Devobah said:

I think it would be cool to get to a point where you could “Teachings of Women in the Church”. I think that if you just did relief society presidency you wouldn’t have enough. It would be interesting though. 

Very good point. Such as the plural wives of the prophets. Have we had lessons on Emma? No need to answer, a question for anyone that knows. Or I could Google.

[Devobah]

10 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Most members don't know this, because they don't ever look around in the Gospel Library app, but if you are on the home page and you click on the Adults tab, it will take you to another page, where the top option is another tab labeled "Women".  Click on that tab, and scroll almost to the bottom.  

There you will find At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses by Latter-day Saint Women.

There is definitely enough content to do Teachings of the Women of the Church, I just don't think we ever will due to our new focus on the Come Follow Him manuals.  Which is ok, but it's sad that such a great opportunity was missed in the past.

Oh I knew about it but I think that just studying that every year would eventually get bland. At least with “Teachings of the Presidents of the Church” you could go through what each church president taught. Perhaps you could build from “Women at the Pulpit” though.

[Devobah]

3 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Very good point. Such as the plural wives of the prophets. Have we had lessons on Emma? No need to answer, a question for anyone that knows. Or I could Google.

I would have loved a biography a for Emma. That would be pretty cool. We don’t have too many things though. I’m happy to be corrected. 
 

edit to add: I know we have a few that are out there with about 5 seconds googling. They seem to be overshadowed by “Mormon Enigma” though. 

Edited September 9, 2025 by Devobah

[bluebell]

3 minutes ago, Devobah said:

Oh I knew about it but I think that just studying that every year would eventually get bland. At least with “Teachings of the Presidents of the Church” you could go through what each church president taught. Perhaps you could build from “Women at the Pulpit” though.

It would take a while to get through 185 years, but maybe you could have group them by topic? I don’t know.

[ZealouslyStriving]

15 hours ago, Tacenda said:

It's really sad, IMO. That RS changed to being taught the same things the men were learning during RS/PH time. We had had culture lessons along with so many other types of lessons geared toward women and then change change change, were relegated to have these books to study the presidents of the church each year. Too bad we didn't do that with the RS presidents. Oh well, such is life in the male dominated churches everywhere.

There is no reason the discussion leader (teacher) couldn't find quotes by former Relief Society leaders that would fit the topic alluded to in the (now) talk being discussed in the class- the Gospel Library App is amazing.

[Tacenda]

9 hours ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

There is no reason the discussion leader (teacher) couldn't find quotes by former Relief Society leaders that would fit the topic alluded to in the (now) talk being discussed in the class- the Gospel Library App is amazing.

I am so impressed with the women leaders throughout history in the church, and remember them from long ago and hopefully women don't lose their position even more, as they did when the PH took charge of the RS organization. I hope for it to be returned, if that's even possible with the generation gap of young women or women not really knowing what women held at one time.