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Women’s voices matter, and so does understanding their circumstances and their growth over time. If we want to really hear women, we need to look at the differences between their public statements and their private sentiments, and consider what influences and pressures they were facing. We also need to contrast their earlier, less experienced statements with their later statements, made after their beliefs had been shaped by painful experience.
Links
Phoebe Woodruff:
Admiral Jeremiah Denton blinks T-O-R-T-U-R-E
Mary Jane Mount Tanner Autobiography
Emmeline Wells Diaries:
Link 1 | Link 2 | Link 3
Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to 132 Problems revisiting Mormon Polygamy, where we explore the scriptural and theological case for plural marriage. As always, I recommend listening to these episodes in order, or at least going through and searching the different topics that when when questions may arise, because most likely I’ve already done an episode on it. My name is Michelle Stone, and this is episode 36, which will be part two of the testimonies of women. In this episode, we will look at the differences between what women believed when they were young and naive and inexperienced compared to how those beliefs sometimes changed over the years of living with experience. We will also look at the differences between women’s public statements and their private sentiments, so we can try to get further to get closer to the truth through the testimonies of women. Thank you for joining us as we take a deep dive into the murky waters of Mormon polygamy. I want to again thank all of those who have so generously contributed to this podcast. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your help, and I want to also invite anyone who feels Able or inclined to um donate. I would very much appreciate your support as well. So, OK, so this one has been a struggle for me. I’ve actually, this is my second attempt recording the entire thing, so let’s hope that I feel better about it this time. There’s just so much information to include that it’s hard to know what to cut out and what to include, so I’m going to do my best, but I even struggled knowing what to call this one because there are two main. Topics that I want to cover. One is learning by sad experience, which I guess I am talking about sort of my own experience of being rather naive and ignorant, and then coming to a different, you know, coming to a different understanding with experience. I want to trace that story in some women’s lives. But what I really wanted to call it as well was public versus private sentiment. Because that is a very important thing to look at. So we’re going to look in depth at that as well to try to, um, again, OK, so I should also clarify this is part two of three that we will be doing on um the the testimonies of women because there’s so much to include in so many different perspectives that we need to bring. I think it is a challenging topic because I want to elevate the voices of women, right? We want to believe women. The problem we have there is that we can’t just take a single thing a woman says out of context or in a vacuum and use that to proclaim truth. I think that that does a great disservice to the women who women whose experiences we want to understand, right? So while these are complicated topics, my rule of thumb is going to be that when we are searching for truth, more information is always better than less information, right? So instead of, I feel like insisting that we just take certain things that women said because they go along with our own agenda, right? I think that that is not really Um, doing justice to these women instead of doing that, I think that we should try to gain as much understanding as we can about these women. We should take the time to consider the context of their words. We should look at the situations that they were living in, the power that was being exerted in their lives, the beliefs that were shaping their perceptions and the motivations behind. Their words and actions. So that’s what I really want to try to do in this episode as we talk about more ways to understand women’s voices and share more examples. Another challenge we have is that we want to believe the testimonies of women, right? But we have to ask which women because
[00:03:56] this really this Interesting period of early Utah that we’re going to look at look at was the women versus the women, right? It was the Mormon women versus the non-Mormon women living in Utah and um both of them were going up against each other. It’s just fascinating. I don’t want to call it a girl fight because that’s demeaning. It’s way more profound than that. But um it’s, it’s just such a cool time period to look at, and we need to listen to the testimonies and the voices of all of the women, not just select a few little things from a few little women and pretend that that’s how we can find truth. So first, before we go on, so I um I’m going to be more careful to not make promises. right? We are going to do another, um, a third part on the testimonies of women, and I’m planning to do that next, but I, I didn’t plan on doing two episodes in between part one and part two that we’re doing now. So we’re finally doing part two, but I hope you’ll remember, um, it probably was episode 33 where we talked about the great indignation. Um, yes, and that meeting that they had in that episode, so that was part one of women of the testimonies of women, and I guess in a way episode 34 could have been part two because it was um Jenny Anderson Frey and the anti-polygamy Society. So those were the the that was the other side, right? Testimonies of women that were opposing polygamy. So, um, so I didn’t call that part two, but in a way maybe it was. So, um, anyway, I, I loved a comment that somebody made about that episode 33 because I didn’t explain it quite as well as I wanted to. And so I want to recap what this was written by T Hatz and I want to thank T Hatz for this comment. I know that’s not your real name, but thank you for this excellent comment. It says, I think the most important takeaway from this episode is that the women of Utah were given the incredible opportunity to discuss whatever they wished at a time when polygamy specifically was the topic on everyone’s minds. The country was listening. This was their moment to bear repeated forceful testimony of the truthfulness of celestial marriage, and the result was a handful of single sentences spread out over many, many talks. See, that’s what I didn’t, I, I realized I pulled out the little tiny pieces where they did talk specifically about polygamy, but I didn’t give the the whole context of all of, of how little that really was in the scope of the entire meeting. So I’m glad that this comment pointed that out. This was their moment to gather every righteous happy polygamist wife to the proverbial microphone and let her show the world just what they were missing out on, and they only found a couple women. The silence on the topic speaks much, much more loudly than the fiveish minutes or of so-called testimony. So that, that was, um, I thought a great comment to sum up what I should have made the how I should have better made the point in episode 33 about the great indignation. Really, it seems to me the main thing these women are doing is defending their community, as I said before, right? Polygamy just happened to be what their community was doing, but their testimonies in those meetings weren’t based in in in polygamy. So the first thing I want to talk about in this episode now is a meeting, well,
[00:07:05] two meetings that happened 9 years after the great indignation meeting. So right, to go back over the timeline, the Civil War happened, then some some um they were going to start implementing some polygamy laws again in 1869, so they had the great indignation in 1870. And that really calmed it down and the Congress didn’t move on that, so it stayed silent. And then the Kerry Owen case happened in 1878. You’ll remember if you listen to the Jenny Anderson, Jenny Anderson Froy episode. um Carrie Owen was the girl that was brought from England without being told that her that her fiance was engaged to two other women. That big mess she ended up on. Non finding non-Mormon women somehow on the tragic day of her wedding, and that’s what ignited the non-Mormon women to say, hey, no, no, we’re paying attention to this. This is not cool. What’s happening in Utah, right? So it started it again. So they held the anti-polygamy rally and what is amazing. Is that only um was it a week or two weeks later, so the anti-polygamy rally was November 7th of 1878, and the, the Mormon women held a meeting to answer that only a week later about on November 16, 1878. So I was able to try. Do this this pamphlet is called Mormon Women on Plural Marriage, and it’s the transcript of that meeting that was sent out in a similar way as the anti-polygamy meeting. They sent letters everywhere, so the, the Mormon women tried to answer with this fascinating, fascinating exchange to see what’s happening right now. So I want to read just a few snippets. This is quite similar in many ways to the anti, I mean to the great indignation meeting. It had many of the same speakers and again they’re going over all of the wrongs they have already incurred and go and focusing more on, hey, you’ve already persecuted us and we are American citizens. And have the right to believe like they repeat again and again that um that there should be no laws made regarding religion, right? So they, the, um, that that that’s the main focus. But there is, I would say, a bit more focus on polygamy in this, in this meeting because it is an answer to the anti-polygamy rally. So there’s a little bit more, but it has many of the Speakers, Eliza Snow and um Zy um Zy Young and um it goes on there are just a couple of little snippets that I want to read. I have so many things that I want to go into that are not going to spend a ton of time on this. But like I said, this was at the vault at BYU and did I say that or did I say that the last time? And They, they were willing to send me copies if I just paid a little bit for them. So if anyone’s interested in this meeting, you can get those notes at the vault at the BYU Harold B. Lee library. So I was so glad to be able to find this cause it seems like a treasure. Um, I’m going to read just a little snippet from the fourth speaker who was, um, Margaret T. Smoot. And I just thought this little Snippet near the end of her speech was interesting. She, she is one who did speak quite a bit about polygamy,
[00:10:17] she said, but let me say that as far as our situation is concerned, we are in the hands of God, and as has often been said, so I will say, if this work is of God, it will stand despite all efforts to the contrary, and if of man it must fall. So that’s interesting, right? That’s what they said. So again, I just find that maybe we should pay attention to what they said cause that was, as she said repeatedly said, if it, if it’s of God, it will stand and you can’t end it, and if it’s not of God, it will fall and it fell, right? So maybe that’s an important thing to consider. She did go on to say, but I do not use the word if, as though in doubt about it, as though in doubt about it, because I know and you know my. Sisters that it is of God. So when we’re talking about the things that these women said, right? Like, I think that if they looked at it a few decades later, they might have a different story to tell or a different testimony. They were really caught up in the need of the day and the moment of the day. And from what I have seen this, um, meeting was organized actually. So we’re going to, I’m going to read a few of these quotes and then I’m gonna talk a little bit more more about this meeting. But it was actually organized apparently by George Q. Cannon. He assigned the speakers and the topics, and he sat on the stand. So, um, you know, so these women were doing what they were assigned to do. There’s 11 talk I want to read. This is kind of the most important part of this episode. In my opinion, so I really hope you’ll be able to hear this. So, Phoebe Woodruff was the first wife of Wilfred Woodruff, and all of the information we have is that she, like other women, Suffered in polygamy and hated polygamy. And so um she though was the main speaker in this meeting. She was um she was the second to last speaker, so she gave her talk and then there was a musical number and then um Emmeline B. Wells gave us gave some short comments at the end and another musical number. So really, Phoebe Woodruff seems to have been the main speaker and I want to, I hope you’ll indulge me. I hope this will be useful to you. I want to read her entire talk because then I want to give some of the very important context that it needs to be understood with it. So this is Phoebe Woodruff. My sisters, I can say that I stand before you as a witness of the truthfulness of the doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It has been upwards of 40 years since my first acquaintance with these doctrines, and this people and the prophet Joseph Smith. I knew him to be an honorable, virtuous, and pure man, and his brother Hiram also. They strove as much. They could to bless the saints and the people of this generation by teaching of truth and by teaching of true and righteous principles. If my memory serves me rightly, the prophet was arrested 40 times accused of crimes, but nothing was ever proven against him. And after laboring until he was 38 years of age, he with his brother Hyrum was murdered and for what, for teaching the gospel of. Jesus as revealed, as revealed to him from the heavens of which the whole world was in ignorance. And when those wicked men committed this act,
[00:13:31] they knew not that they had killed the best friend they had upon the earth. So you can see again how much focus this follows the pattern. Most of the focus is on the martyrdom and the crossing the plains and all of the sufferings that had happened. Um, however, that deed must be accounted for. Justice and judgment will take their place. I was brought up to regard strictly the principles of morality, and when the order of celestial marriage was introduced into the church, I thought it the most heinous thing I ever heard of, and I opposed it to the full to the utmost of my power, thinking I was doing right. But I began to consider and reflect, and I learned that it came through the prophet of God. I regarded it in an in an earnest light. And therefore I went to God, my heavenly Father, and inquired of Him of the truth of this doctrine. He made it manifest to me as plainly as I could have wished that it was that it was of Him. And that it came as a principle, sorry, I’m having to turn the page, that it came as a principle of salvation to the women of the to the women of this generation. If I am proud of anything in this world, it is that I accepted the principle of plural marriage and remained among the people called the Mormons and am numbered with them today. I am acquainted with their doctrine, and I declare to this large congregation, and I would that I could do so to the whole world, that they teach the principles of truth and righteousness of virtue and purity. Such principles will harm no one. Then why are we so persecuted? To answer briefly. Because these principles are of God who has set his hand again to establish his name in the earth by introducing these very principles which the adverse which the adversary cannot and will never overthrow, and those who present this principle and those who persecute this principle will suffer for it. Sure. I can say truly that I am satisfied for one, and I don’t guess at it, nor nor is it because someone has told me. But it is because of the spirit of God has borne testimony to me of the truth of this work and of its truthfulness and of its truthfulness I am a witness. Then why are the people, why are people opposed to it? It is because they do not know it and because they do not, they do not seek to know it to know it. There is but one way that anybody can find out the truth of our doctrines, and that is by going to God, the author, the God, the author of them. And all humility and honesty of heart asking him in the name of Jesus whether they have whether they are of him or of man. Man, I have heard that a lot from women in particular as I have been doing this work. To those who have come among us and who are endeavoring to put down the principle of plural marriage, I would say that for one, I thank you for your good intentions in trying to suppress what you think is wrong, but let me say to you, and I now speak the sentiments of by far the larger part of this congregation, bestow your sympathy upon those who need it and go to the large. Cities of our land and reclaim your poor fallen sisters, they need it. We don’t, and we ask to be let alone. We are perfectly able to stand on our own foundation by the help of our Father in heaven, and let me tell you that he is at the helm. He will see us safely through and will bless all those who seek to honor and protect virtue. And those who do it not will meet justice. Beware then you injure not the innocent, for you injure not the innocent, for justice awaits, for justice awaits all that shall be found guilty in doing so as sure as God lives. So that was her powerful speech, right? The thing that we need to be aware of is. Phoebe Woodruff, a conversation that she had with a friend. So this was reported in, um, let’s, I can’t, oh, I’ll have to find, I will find the link and give you the link to this to this resource.
[00:17:26] But, um, in her in let’s see, they quoted a bit of what she said and then it says this 2 or 3 days after that meeting, an old friend of Mrs. Woodruff said, How is it, Sister Woodruff, that you have changed your views so suddenly about polygamy. I thought you hated and loathed loathed the institution. I have heard you curse it scores of times even more strongly than I myself have done, and I, my understanding is that it was quite well known that Phoebe Woodruff strongly opposed polygamy. She didn’t hide her feelings very much about it when she was talking to other sisters. So this was not something that was, you know, I think that this probably surprised many people. It’s just that this friend reported this conversation. Witness Mrs. Woodruff’s reply. This is quoting her, I have not changed. I loathe the unclean thing with all the strength of my nature, but sister, I have suffered all that a woman can endure. I am old and helpless, and I would rather stand up any way, anywhere, and say anything commanded of me than to be turned out of my home in my old age, which I should most assuredly be if I refuse to obey counsel. So, um, I think that’s important context to bring to the sermon that Phoebe Woodruff gave that we could say that Phoebe Woodruff was forced to give, right? I think it’s so interesting to look at all of the times when, you know, I think of. Admiral, oh, I can’t remember his name. He was the admiral and he was taken hostage and was forced to send a message saying that he was being well treated and in it he did the Morse code blinking that’s that spelled out torture, right? I think that instead of just listening and going, oh, he’s fine, we should look at the context of what their situation was when they were giving these testimonies, right? She says in that that she knows of God. That is true. She was told what she had to say, and she was a helpless old woman with no recourse and no option except to obey counsel, and that’s how I would say how beaten down she had become. And so, um, I, I don’t think like I think that it’s good to look at this meeting, right? But I don’t think we can take it out of context. There were other reports of um other speakers in this meeting. Let’s see. Um, OK, here, here’s one. So Zane Young is quoted. She was the 3rd Relief Society president and married to Henry B. Jacobs, but apparently also Brigham Young, if you recall, I’ve talked about her a little. It’s really confusing because she was sealed to, well, she wasn’t sealed to her husband, but was sealed to Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, apparently really confusing. But um she, she gave a speech and but she’s quoted to quoted to have said, the principle of our holy religion that is assailed is 10, this is, this is from her speech.
[00:20:31] The principle of our holy religion that is assailed is one that lies deep in my heart, but she said to a friend, polygamy is hell is hell. The hearts of the women who live it are full of hell. So we see the difference between their public. Statements and their private sentiments, right? And it is not fair of us to only listen to their public statements and ignore their private sentiments because that’s what really lets us know who they are and what they experienced, right? So we have to take their public statements in context. Um, there were other reports about the statements made in this meeting, and I, I don’t want to say here I am. I take issue with people accusing me of calling these women liars. I think that is so completely unfair. These women were not fully autonomous. They were so the next episode we’re gonna look at it a little more what what could have been going on with some of these women. But I just want to say it is completely unfair to call these women liars. We know that polygamy involved lying, period. Whatever version we choose to believe about Joseph Smith or about the other leaders. There was lying. There was lying involved by someone or other, right? Either either Joseph Smith was lying about it, or the later leaders were lying about what Joseph Smith did, or there was lying, and yet we explain that away with words like carefully worded deny. phrases like that to justify. And, and we say, well, Joseph had to lie because they were persecuting him and he had to keep a secret. Well, you know what, these women, Phoebe Woodruff was being threatened to be homeless in the Utah winter as an old woman. And so we’re going to call her a liar and hold her accountable while we excuse the other leaders. I just, I refuse to do that. I think that we owe it to these women to look at what was really happening in their lives. So OK, I want to go back now and talk about um a few other things. So that, that was, I, I hope that you guys got the full weight of that meeting and the later reports and the private versus the public sentiment because I think it is so critically important. So, um, OK, that was the anti-polygamy and the polygamy rally, and I also want to look at You know, one thing about this meeting, so the thing that inspired the anti-polygamy rally was the Karen Owen case, right, the Caroline Owen case, Carry Owen case. Nothing at all was acknowledged or said if, if this rally had been. Women or church leaders, men saying we are aware of this situation. This is what we’re doing to help, this is what we’re doing to prevent this kind of thing from happening in the future. That would be a completely different thing, right? But they completely ignored it. They didn’t even acknowledge the case, this one specific case that ignited all of this,
[00:23:32] and then they continue to go on and say there’s no suffering of the women in Utah and. That is really interesting because if we look at the motivations, right, and which women we should believe, the women that were the Jenny Anderson and the Voice and the other women didn’t really have their own horse in the race, right? They were seeing what they considered to be atrocities that they needed to help end, just like People got involved in wanting to end slavery. It was the same energy that was contributing to this. However, the Mormon women were in a very different situation where they were very constrained in what they were allowed to say. And so I think the thing that’s interesting here is that there is something about polygamy that trains people to not see women, honestly, to not see the suffering of women. It makes it invisible. Just like it’s just fascinating. I’m hoping I can explain it well. Jacob chapter 2 explains the reason for the complete prohibition and condemnation of polygamy, and it’s the suffering of women. And yet that polygamist mindset makes it so we can’t even see what Jacob is saying. The, the like we read verse 30 out of context, the one that we pretend is the loophole and we ignore everything about the suffering of women. Isn’t that interesting, right? And then. Here we have women standing up defending their their community but completely blind to the suffering of women like it whether it’s willfully blind or just blind out of necessity to prevent cognitive dissonance. I don’t know. I’m sure there was a variety of things happening. But I think it’s really important to recognize that polygamy blinds us to women and to the experiences of suffering of women. 132 absolutely does that, but God, as revealed throughout Scripture, but most particularly in Jacob chapter 2, God is not blind to the suffering of women, and he thinks it’s extremely important. So I think we should look at that and I think it should be important to us too. We have to stop ignoring what these situations were for women. So, OK, that was the meetings that I wanted to talk about and um I do, OK, so we’re going to, oh I have so many things I want to say, but let me just go into this a little bit. So. These, I will acknowledge the great indignation and this meeting, the Mormon Women on plural marriage meeting. These are not comprehensive of everything that was said by women about polygamy at all. So there’s a lot more we’re going to cover. I’m saving some of those testimonies for the next episode, but I will say that while you can find statements like they made here, um. Well, you can no, you can only find statements like they made there in their public writings and speeches at least so far, but you can find statements of belief in their private journals and diaries, I think. But what I have not found are any statements of women either in these public meetings or in their private journals or conversations, any statements, um, I would say in favor of polygamy, meaning. Saying that it was that it made them happy, that it was a happy way to live,
[00:26:51] that it brought them joy or peace or that it filled them with the spirit of God, I haven’t been able to find any statements of, um, women saying that they were inspired with enlightenment or understanding or, you know, explaining to them why this doctrine was good and was of God, of how it was eternal and ennobling or. Godly or divine in any way. I can’t, I can’t find anything like that. Instead, the testimonies are statements, the testimonies of women in these meetings and In their writings are. Rehashed versions of what they had been taught, right? And then statements of I believe. Um, they, they were just being told, like I think when God reveals something to me, it comes with, with enlightenment, with intelligence, right, with Understanding, it’s like, oh, aha, I see, I understand, and I can try to put it into words to explain it to someone else, right? That is completely lacking from any of the women’s testimonies of polygamy, either public or private. All they can do is just say they believe what they had been taught, and I think that it’s important to recognize like. I love Alma 32, where he talks about planting the seed, right? I want to read verse 28. He says, now we will compare the word unto a seed. Now if you give place that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed or a good seed, if you do not cast it out by your unbelief that you will resist the spirit of the Lord, behold. It will begin to swell within your breasts, and when you feel these swelling motions, you will begin to say within yourselves, it must needs be that this is a good seed or that the word is good, for it bring it beginneth to enlarge my soul. Yeah, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yeah, it beginneth to be delicious to me. That is my experience with God. That is how truth comes, right? And I would argue vehemently that these women planted the seed of polygamy. They believed, they believed, believed, believed what they were being told, but those seeds did not grow to bear these swelling motions and these fruit and enlighten their understanding and begin to be delicious to them. Quite the opposite. They, they did not have those experiences. The seeds shriveled. Those who did believe in polygamy saw it as a cross that they had to bear. They thought this is what God requires of me, so I will do the best I can. That is what there is solid evidence of throughout all of the writings and the journals and the and. Conversations of women is the loneliness, the heartache, the confusion, pain, and sorrow. So, um, it’s really interesting to look into that and consider it to, I mean, I mean compare it to how the seed grows, right? The really interesting thing is to see the few cases we have of women who did allow themselves, maybe they couldn’t prevent themselves from
[00:30:02] Using their own discernment from applying their own independent critical thought to their experiences and seeing how truth did begin to grow in their hearts and in their souls. I’m going to share a couple of those of those examples that Certainly has been my example. Part of the problem I have with taking these certain some testimonies of women and claiming their truth is like I used to bear solid testimony of polygamy. I completely, absolutely, 100% believed in it. And I thought it was just, I thought I had a testimony of truth. It wasn’t until I began to actually study and learn more that I learned that I was completely ignorant and completely naive. And since that time. Has the truth grown, and I have received so much more understanding and intelligence and the truthfulness of God’s establishment of marriage with one man and one woman that has borne the fruit that Alma talked about. That is the seed that has grown. So, um, I would hate someone to take my testimony from before I had learned as much as I have and use that to say, look, Michelle Stone is bearing witness of polygamy, right? Like we are doing to some of these women. I think that we owe it to them to look at their words in context. So, OK, I want to talk, uh, now, we’ve talked about those meetings. Let’s see if this is where I wanted to go next. Yes, I think we have just one more thing to talk about. And um that is. Two wonderful books that I, I found a letter, well, I found excerpts from a letter that I was able to read, and in the letter, I’m gonna quote that letter in a minute. He talked about two books, so I looked up these books and I feel like I have just found a gold mine. So the other thing I want to talk about, focus on in this episode is learning by experience, right? Because that is interesting to find women. Who were willing to set aside traditions in the search for truth, right? So, um, the first book I’m going to look at is called um A Fragment, and it’s the auto autobiography of Mary Jane Mount Tanner. So, and I have it on, you can find it digitally, so I’ll include the link below, um, because you can read it online. I don’t have a hard copy of it. Um, she was, I, oh, let’s see, I thought I had her information. Um, yes, she was the first wife of Myron Tanner, and this book is taken from her, her diaries and letters written between 1872 and 1885, and it was published into a book in 1980. And I just have to say, I am so thankful. I think it was the OC Tanner Foundation that published both of these books and and and what a gift it is, cause both of these books were just written for their descendants, for their children and grandchildren. But um we now have access to them because they were published and I am so thankful because I think they’re so important. So the other book that I’m going to go into, which is actually my favorite is called A Mormon Mother,
[00:33:08] also by a tanner. It was written by Annie Clark Tanner. She was the 2nd wife of 6 wives of Joseph, Mary and Tanner. So this book I would like to um read quite a bit on and actually, so sadly I have not been able to read these entire books. I’ve only been able to peruse them because Uh, I do so much better with audiobooks cause I can be doing dishes or laundry or, you know, running while I’m, while I’m listening to them and I just have a hard time sitting down and reading like I want to when I’m reading, when I’m sitting and working, it’s working on the podcast, right? So. Um, but I want to read these books, so I had the idea, and will you guys tell me either in the comments or feel free to email, um, it’s 132problems@gmail.com, 123132 problems@gmail.com. Would anyone be interested in doing a book group, maybe specifically on this book, we could do the other one as well, but I would love to have a book discussion. I think that would be so fun and maybe we could organize that and maybe release it as a special episode. So just comment and if people are interested, then maybe we can choose this book for anyone who’s interested in it, and we could do that cause I think it would be great. So, um, let me know what you think and, um, and then we will see if that’s going to happen or not. So, um, Anyway, and cause I really, everything I’ve proved from this, like I just want to spend a full hour reading excerpts from this book to help you understand this woman, but, um, I won’t take that much time. So I’m just gonna share a couple of things to, again, show the difference between the public sentiments and the actual experience, right? And, um, and then. With Annie Clark Tanner, she is someone who was truly willing to learn from her experience and it is profound what she shares. So her insights and her introspection. So I’m gonna talk a little bit about her. First, I just want to go a little bit over Mary Jane. Mount Tanner. I hope it’s Mary Tanner and Annie Tanner, so forgive me if I get a little bit confused, but Mary Tanner, this so Marjorie Ward um was involved in the publication of her book and she wrote the introduction and the notes. So I’m just gonna read a few things that she wrote. So this is from the introduction. Although she meaning um Mary, um Mary Tanner, although she vigorously defended polygamy, the relationship within her own family was not even a tolerable one. The situation between Myron and his second wife Anne deteriorated to the point that Anne’s children were removed from her care. So, you remember the episode I did with my mom where I talked about my great great grandmother who, um, her children were taken away from her. So this one. These stories are hard. They’re hard, right? So I’ll just tell you a little bit. So, um,
[00:36:01] Myron Tanner was the bishop. Mary Jane was the relief Society president. Um, they, the, the, so they were, I want to say, well, they had, um, oh man, I have to, I didn’t write it all down. They were much older and Ann Crosby, the second wife, she was a fatherless convert in England. So like so many stories. So she, um, she emigrated to Utah all on her own by herself. She was either 18 or 19. Um, she had an older sister and a mother who were both either, um, her mother was, I think, a widow and her sister was either a widow or left her husband, and they emigrated a few years later. But, um, but Anne came on her own, and within less than 6 months of being in Utah, she was married off to A 40 year old to the 40 year old Myron, right? So there was another one of these difficult stories. And so um this is what was included in the journal by the first wife by Mary Jane. May 19, 1866. A change was made in our family by Myron marrying another wife. She was an English girl named Anne Crosby. Of this, I will say but little. It is a heart history of which pen and ink can never trace. It was a great trial, but I believed it to be a true principle and summoned up all my fortitude to brave to bear it bravely. So, um, that’s what she wrote. This is in the footnotes by Marjorie Ward. A few, a few years before writing this in her autobiography regarding Myron’s plural wife, Mary Jane wrote a great deal regarding polygamy to her aunt, defending the practice with the arguments and propaganda advocated by the hierarchy of the Mormon Church. In sharp contrast are the letters. She wrote concerning her personal relationship in the in the system, not a happy situation. So again, that’s the contrast and the naivety versus the experience, right? She wrote letters to her aunt defending polygamy after experiencing it, she wrote very different letters. And so, um, so it’s really painful and, and that was her situation as the first wife. The situation with Anne, I would say was, um. It was extraordinarily difficult. So, um, I’m just gonna let’s see, I’ll I’ll just, I’ll just read a few little excerpts. We need to read the whole book. So again, this is the book that’s available online. So she wrote this, I have lived 15 years in polygamy, which is a severe trial to our fallen nature, but God has sustained me and I feel to rejoice that I am counted worthy to suffer for Christ’s sake. That I may receive a glory and exaltation in the celestial kingdom of God. So that’s really interesting, right? That was a common mindset of these women to get themselves through it.
[00:38:57] I would guess it’s probably common among polygamists today as well, the idea that I will suffer through this life, so I will have glory in the next life. There’s a account which book did I read this and maybe in a Mormon mother that I read this that. There was a young polygamist mother and she, um, you know, because these women weren’t provided for, weren’t cared for very often. That was very often the case, and she was scrubbing the um the house of an of a non-Mormon couple and she said to them, I’m scrubbing your floors or toilets. I can’t remember which it was. I’m scrubbing your floors in this life, but in the next life you will be scrubbing mine because, you know, she expected to be exalted and to have all of them be her servants, and it’s just such a I, I think an unfortunate, I, I, I think an eternal perspective is essential, right? And it is so important. But I think that’s a strange and unfortunate twisting of it to have it be like my life can be awful here cause I’m going to be superior in the next life. I don’t think that’s what we should be going for with an eternal perspective in my opinion, right? And so, anyway, so that was a common sentiment that they had. And then um this is an excerpt from a letter that she sent, this isn’t. As, as, as strong as it gets, but it’s the one I found for her. She wrote, um, this is November 4th, 1883. I had half a notion not to send this, this petty letter, but I guess there is no great harm in it if you will not let anybody see it. I feel kind of bad that we’re reading it. Myron has had trouble for several years with his other wife. She has taken such a course that he has not lived with her for for over 2 years. Finally, she has gone so bad that he has taken his children from her. So, um, his children, right? And the sad thing is we can’t really know what the situation is. Sure, maybe Anne was just a horrible, a horrible mother, a horrible person, right? But we also can have some sympathy for her and look at her in her situation and make, you know, like, I know that my great great grandmother was kicked out and her children were taken from her and the same things were said, and I don’t believe it. So, um, I think it’s just hard to have different, right, like some ways I’m raised my children, some people may be appalled by it and vice versa. We, we are allowed to be ourselves and to raise our children in our way without having someone have the power to disapprove of us to this extent, so. I just want to tell you a little bit about Anne. She had 8 children. She’s the second wife. Three of those children died. She lost a 16 month old girl who died 2 months before a baby boy was born, so she was 7 months pregnant and lost her 16 month old. And that baby boy that was born died at 11 months old, and she also lost an 11 year old girl to diphtheria. So, um.
[00:41:47] And anything that I read, there was no sympathy expressed toward her. There was no talk about how they nurtured and cared for her through these experiences that I could find. All I could see was judgment against her, and um, I don’t want to be hard on the first wife on Mary Jane, right, because her situation is intolerable, and I think Anne’s situation was intolerable, so. Um, at the time that this letter was written, which I’m gonna read a little bit more from, um, at the time she had Anne had living a 16 year old girl, a 15-year-old boy, an eight-year-old boy who also would die a few years later after he was taken away from her, a 5 year old boy and a 3-year-old boy, um. Ah, sorry, so this is what Mary Jane wrote about those children. Some people want two of the boys, nice folks with no children of their own, and I guess he will let them raise them, for I do not want to be tied to such a large family. But I am willing to do all that is right. I shall probably keep the youngest, um, so you know that’s how they’re just dishing out like she doesn’t want to be burdened by all the children, but the youngest ones are cute, so I’ll keep them, but I’ll give them to them and give the like he, well, he, the husband is making the decisions, right? And They’re separating these siblings, separating this family and doing it in this way. I just think it’s, it’s so sad and so tragic. Um, here is another thing that was written by Marjorie and the in the notes. As time progressed, Mary Jane became more vitriolic in her comments concerning Anne, especially as Anne attempted to secure a divorce a divorce from Myron, which I will add she was never able to secure. She never was able to divorce him. He took her children and she was forced to stay married to him, at least, however, marriage polygamous marriage looked in Utah, um, continuing, um, let’s see. According to Mary Jane, it is a shame that such a woman should have had children. She has none living with her now, so that was, that was that story. So this woman, Mary Jane, bore valiant solemn testimony of polygamy. Right? And then she began to live it, and her sentiments changed from her experience. And I think we need to take that whole story into consideration, right? And now I want to read some, some excerpts from this. I’m, I’m sorry if it’s backward for you. It’s called a Mormon Mother. And I just, this is from the library, but I bought my copy on Amazon. I want to read a little bit about Annie Clark before we dig in, because reading it, you can tell she is just, she, uh, like I love her, she’s brilliant. But um here’s a description.
[00:44:23] Here in its fifth printing is a remarkably frank retelling of a life marked by authentic piety, courage, devotion, hard work, and an almost obsessive sense of duty. But it was a life that was robbed of any sense of material security, of normal relationships, and perhaps most cruel of all that was endured. Without romance and companionship. And um that explains it pretty well. So she was described as Carl G. Mazer as the most brilliant student in her class. She was just recognized as very, very gifted and she really prioritized and valued education. So when one of her professors, who she really admired and looked up to, he and his wife were unable to have children. That really, this was in the day when polygamy was being pushed still, right? So she became his second wife willingly thinking that would mean that they would value education and, you know, all of the things that she valued and her life turned out very differently. Her husband ended up with 6 wives eventually and um. There are stories that I’m wanting to share. She one of the things that became the thing that became their biggest difference is that she saw her children as her responsibility and she wanted to do all she could to help her children develop and gain an education and learn and grow and her husband saw. Her children, their children, as, um, how they were useful to him, right? So, and she repeatedly was not allowed to, he didn’t like explanations. He didn’t like, like he just wanted to say it and have it be done. He didn’t want to hear anything else. Um, oh man, there’s so many stories I wanted to share, but, but, um, I’ll let me, let me think of a couple. Um, she talks about Her 9 year old son, her oldest when he was 9, he was sent away to be a farmhand at a ranch, so he was sent to basically work to bring an income in. Her husband did that and she wasn’t allowed to have an opinion. She talks about crying about the little fellow and wondering how homesick he was and worrying about him and wanting something so different for him, you know, so it’s not just about. Obedience is about your ability to be a mother. Um, she had little twin girls, and at 1.3 of her children contracted measles, and she was sick and she had no help and she had no power to make decisions. She couldn’t call the doctor that she wanted, and the doctor that was sent, she felt was awful and um anyway she she just had no power over her family, so. She says, I, so after her little girl died, one of her twins died, and she says, I was not permitted to discuss this great sorrow with Mr. Tanner. Unpleasant experiences or even misunderstandings, he said, were better dismissed from the mind, so, um. After Lea died, that’s her little 3 year old, I made the remark that it was a great responsibility to be a father as well as a mother,
[00:47:28] kind of saying, hey, you have some responsibility here with your children. I knew better at that, at, um, let’s see what she says. Um, obedience was, uh, but she said she knew better by now to just blame things on God because we have some power in our lives. It’s kind of one of the themes that I’ve sensed in this book is that we need to not just blame everything on God, but take feel empowered to make of our lives what they can be as well, and I really like that. So. Um, she said obedience was such a strong factor in the original Norman philosophy. Obedience to the priesthood, to the authorities of the church, and to one’s husband was paramount, paramount. My husband and I were both the product of the ideal of our religion that man is superior to woman and that he should be obeyed. Some men loved the old tradition that man has a right to rule over woman. I didn’t dare to disobey my husband when my lovely twin girl was so sick, for fear I would lose her. Her death wasn’t so. She was afraid that if she was disobedient to her husband, her baby would die. It was when her baby died that I think when and she saw that it was in part because she had been obedient because she hadn’t been able to get her her little girl the care that she needed, um. Her death was a needless tragedy which was a price to be paid for the tradition of that day. It was his right to command. It was my duty to obey. Consequently, there was not so much outward discord, so they got along because of that. And when disaster came as a result of this blind blind obedience, we had to accept it. Um, I’m going to turn to a couple of different parts. Um, this is where she’s beginning to begin to question polygamy as she’s seeing her experience compared to her and. And watching her mother’s experience, who is also the second wife, and she’s beginning to open her mind a little bit, but she says until now I had never dared to question the propriety of the principle or analyze its ethics. In fact, I had never before looked at it objectively. We were taught that it was divine, that we should never say anything against it. If one did not approve the principle, it was the advice of the authorities of the church that nothing be said about it. So, um, she talks about how she had always just been used to looking for the good in it, to thinking about how, um, her children would have noble parentage and um that it would make, make them such good people by overcoming all of the hardships and and they the sociality of it, she, you know, there the children had more siblings and she had sister wives. She said that she You know, spent so much time thinking in those ways. So then she starts to think, why was I so speculating? Was all this argument necessary to support the principle because it was a never ending problem that we were struggling with, trying with all our might to recognize in it some good. So, um, anyway, she, she, she admits this, I rejoice because I did not want when she, this is about when the manifesto was issued by President Woodruff in 1890, she says, I rejoiced because I did not want anyone to have the miserable experience that had been mine. There are a few more little things I’ll read. One Sunday morning, as my husband and I stood on the front porch of our home together, he informed me that he would not come to Farmington to see us anymore.
[00:50:39] There had been no previous differences between us except the children’s education to which no reference had recently been made, so the statement was a great shock to me. She talked about how hard it was to not plead her case, to not explain, but she knew he hated that. So long years of polygamy had taught her to hold her tongue and just accept it, um, but that it never occurred to her that he would no longer help provide. And he, it says, as he stepped from the porch to the walk, he turned to add, you must look to your brothers for help, which meant that he would no longer contribute. She said that she still had 6 children at home. She had 6 sons, um. And That they never, they never spoke about it again. She talks quite a bit about how difficult it was to raise children by her own, her 6 sons. She talks about how. As teenagers, when they sometimes would get into fistfights and how helpless she felt, one of her sons, um, got into trouble one day and did something that a neighbor was getting after about and the only thing she could say is, well, I am alone and, um, you know, really hard, so. It is true that at the beginning of the church men left their wives destitute while they filled missions. They increased their families while they devoted themselves to public work, so they, um, brought other wives home from their missions. The mothers frequently had the responsibility of rearing the children almost alone and, in addition, helped a good deal in the church activities. Mister Tanner. To the spirit of the day told me that his priesthood came first and then his family, and when they say that it it had profound meaning for these women. So this is near the end. I’m skipping over everything like there’s so much here, and this is where she, the chapter is called Comments on Experience. So it’s her retrospective, her looking back and kind of analyzing in her introspective way, analyzing her experience and polygamy. Let’s see where I wanted to read right here some of her thoughts comparing polygamy to monogamy, she says, I have I have observed monogamy. The husband and why I, um, did I read that right? As I have observed monogamy, the husband and wife rearing a family have a common interest. They are a team working together for the advantages of the children. In polygamy, the man’s interests are scattered. 2, he may be influenced by members of his other family or families. It’s so interesting to me that she had to observe by watching monogamous families and see that they were a team raising their family together. She had to like see that, and that was foreign to her. I can’t even imagine because that is such a beautiful description of my husband and I as a team working together to raise our children, you know. Um, let’s see, in polygamy, the man’s interests are scattered. 2, he may be influenced by members of his other family or families. He would need to be almost a superhuman man to help each wife equally with the problems of rearing a family and to resist the biased influence of other family members. Hence, the wife in polygamy does not feel the security that I imagine monogamous women feel, and a husband could scarcely assume the same responsibility of a plural wife’s happiness or welfare.
[00:53:50] As monogamous marriage makes possible. Oh, so, um, she says at one time I had been a good follower. Now I began to have opinions of my own. No doubt this change came as a result of experience, as we’re talking about experience. I became disillusioned too as to the superiority of man’s judgment over woman’s. She had to learn to trust herself. She was this brilliant woman, but, um, just a few little more parts. Companionship between husband and wife and polygamy could not be so close as in monogamy. There was more independence on both sides in polygamy to illustrate, if things did not go just right for the husband in one home, he could go to another. The wife whom he who he leaves behind is of course brokenhearted. She would frequently blame herself and resolve never to have that experience repeated, but she may nevertheless be aware of a great weakness on the part of her husband. She has so much more to say, and um. This is anyway, I hope that I hope I want to encourage all of us to read this book and it’s interesting too, because in some in many ways, polygamy was so hard for the men by the end. Her husband, he had 6 wives, but he dies alone, um, with really no relationships because he just. You know, couldn’t keep it up, I guess, and um it was, it was this like it’s just sad because this beautiful professor, this man who could have been such a good husband to one wife was really destroyed by polygamy as well. So. Anyway, that’s the story of a Mormon mother that I’ve read some excerpts from. So now I want to read this letter that I found that turned me on to both of these books. So this was written by George S. Tanner. He was a prominent church educator. He was the director of seminaries, I believe in Idaho. He also, when he retired, he became, uh, well, he was always a historian, but he wrote several books and articles and, um, contributed to many histories and. He himself was raised in polygamy, and so this is what he wrote in a letter to a relative. He said, I do not agree that a large number of the polygamists were eminently successful. It is one thing to get accurate facts from a journal like that of Mary Jane Mount, the first one we read, and quite something else to get slanted material from someone trying to defend polygamy, so from these meetings or from the public statements. In addition to what Mary Jane said in her journal, I happen to have a copy of a long letter she wrote to Mrs. H. H. Bancroft about the same time in which she stoutly defends polygamy and tells what a good thing it is for the women to live under that plan. Is that hard to believe? So while she’s writing these hard things, she’s also defending polygamy. Um, I doubt there is a woman in the church who was in any way connected with polygamy who was not heart sick just as Mary Jane expressed it. They would not admit it in public because of their loyalty to the church and their brothers and sisters, but deep down inside they all felt like Annie Clark and Mary Jane Mount, those two books. This is a subject I know a great deal. About my father was a polygamist as good as the general run, probably no better, but he was just as good. But he was just not able to keep harmony in the family. In all my research, where when you are able to get all the way to the bottom, you will find heartaches. The women try to be brave,
[00:57:16] but no woman is able to share a husband whom she loves with one or more other women, and the 2nd and 3rd wives have even a harder time. And I want to correct that. I, I disagree with this idea of sharing. It’s not about being selfish and not sharing. It’s about the sanctity of that relationship, being a team like it discussed, having the closeness, working together, growing together, cooperating together, that is all destroyed. It’s not about being unwilling to share, it’s about that relationship, not being able to survive without loyalty, without monogamy and fidelity, which is what God ordained, right? So. I, I would change that one word, but he says, and the 2nd and 3rd wives have an even harder time. Only a very only a few of the women involved in polygamy asked for a divorce simply because it was not a popular thing to do. Convention would not allow it, but I can show you journal after journal when a wife is talking from her heart as Mary Jane did. That they felt about like Mary Jane. Many of them even more bitter and in that he includes Annie Annie Tanner. So that is uh the son of polygamy really looking at it and saying, I guess the same thing I’m trying to say is that. The difference between the public where they felt the obligation to be loyal. They also were told that this was necessary, so they were trying to speak with faith, right? When you’re talking to your children, you’re not going to tell them all of your doubts and your fears, and you’re you’re going to testify of the good things, right? When you usually when you bear your testimony and sacrament meaning, it’s not in your place of deepest doubt, it’s when those things have been kind of resolved or when you put a happy, uh, a faithful face on it and um. And there’s, there’s, you know, both are important. I just think that we need to acknowledge and recognize that these women were saying different things in public than they were in private and they were saying different things in public than they were experiencing in their lives and that many of them did learn from their experience that monogamy. I ordained of God, and that polygamy did not bring joy. So, um, I, the one other example that I can talk about the difference between the public statements and the private experiences and learning. The and learning through experience is who we’ve spoken about before, Emmeline Wells, so she kept extensive diaries. She um was the one that wrote in the, um, you know, she spoke in this meeting and she also was the um editor of the exponent for years and years and years, but if you read her diaries, um. It’s, it tells such a different story. So I just peruse through if you can search her diaries, I’ll put the link below and you can search the word husband and you just. It just will break your heart, you know, and um, here are just a couple of little examples. My husband came. My heart gave one great bound toward him. Oh, how enthusiastically I love him truly and devotedly. If he could only feel towards me any degree as I do toward him, how happy it would make me. So we talked, she talks about how that evening they had a conversation and shared some reminiscences and.
[01:00:28] She said that it was, we had never had so striking an interview and um it left a deep impression upon her, so that was really interesting that, you know, that was the first time they had had that kind of closeness and they had children together and, you know. And then, um, and she was one of the fortunate ones because she was provided for at least to some extent. Well, well, I’ll read this part. She, um, here, here’s another 10, her daughter M, she says, M came up at noon and said how sick she was, and I went home with her immediately. She was very ill indeed, and I felt quite alarmed about her. She continued very ill all the afternoon and night. I have not been well myself for some time. I was very lonely in regard to myself and her both as it seemed really as if I had no one to comfort me or to lean upon in such times. Many women of my temperament have a husband whose attentions are at such times comforting while I have no one, and, um, she says she would rather suffer agonies in her feelings than to say even one word to her husband about her need of sympathy because that just wasn’t. Their relationship and then um then this was just another interesting one where she says, I feel very sad indeed my husband’s affairs are very complicated indeed and we are obliged to practice the most rigid economy. It says that she had all kinds of problems that morning to try to work out, so I guess her accounts were in a mess because her budget was cut without her knowing it. I am determined to train my girls to habits of independence so that they never need to trust blindly but understand for themselves and have sufficient energy of purpose to carry out plans for their own welfare and happiness. So she, her experience taught her to not be dependent, to not, you know, that she needed to be independent, which is hard for a mother to do, but, you know, that like that’s part of the purpose of marriage and so. Again, there are so many things I want to say, but I do hope that at least the picture has come through of how important it is to listen to the complete story of women and not just take some of their statements, which they were either required or at least strongly motivated or socially. Felt pressured to say without looking at the whole, the whole story. And so um I the thought that like as I’ve been thinking about this, I thought of um Alexander Solzhenitsy who wrote the Gulag Archipelago, and um he was a devoted, committed, believing communist. Until the system ate him, right? Until he was tortured and sent to the gulag, and forever he had to think like, what happened? What happened? Like, I believe in this system. And he had to go through that painful process of changing, you know, coming, letting sad and painful experience teach him further truth. And then he started collecting the stories and he compiled them and the gulag archipelago was a big part of what finally. Brought down the popular support for communism and um I think that if we were to look at Alexander Solzhenitsy’s early statements in favor of polygamy, I mean it’s in favor of communism, if we could dig those out and then we held them up and said look what he believed and ignored the rest. I think we would do him a great disservice, and I think there is a similarity there, right? We,
[01:03:52] um, we, we even, even the argument like I was thinking also about because one of her, one of, um, Annie Tanner’s explanations for polygamy and even my mom said this like it made such good people, you know, and so we can look at it and go, OK, they were so refined. But even that I have trouble with cause we could look at any system that causes horrible suffering and saying, but the people can become refined in that. Does that mean we should defend systems that are by their very nature designed to cause suffering? As I’ve thought about this, I just thought. Like It is not God who loves mankind who institutes systems that cause suffering, right? Of course, pain is part of this world and God can heal and bind up our wounds, but God inspires systems that are designed to To bring to pass the eternal life and happiness of man. They are designed to make people live in peace and joy and to love one another so they don’t have to suffer. It’s systems that bring instability and selfishness and. Yeah that that that are the opposite. So I would say communism is not a system inspired by God cause it by its very nature causes suffering. And similarly, polygamy is not an institution inspired by God because by its very nature it brings suffering, and I think. The one who inspires systems that by their very nature cause uh uh just uh and I mean infinite suffering, what’s the word I’m looking for. Um, I think that that is the enemy of mankind that inspires those systems. If we believe, I, I happen to believe the scriptures that say. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, my brethren ye have done it unto me. And that say, um, when you’re in the service of your fellow beings, you’re only in the service of your God. I think there is, as Elder Maxwell said, something literal in that. If we believe that the Savior suffers for the pain and suffering of mankind, that he bears our stripes and that he is afflicted with our inflictions, if we believe that he truly bears our suffering, then we have to recognize that the more suffering there is in the world, the more suffering is applied directly to the Savior. Any suffering we alleviate, we directly alleviate from God. And any suffering we cause we directly cause to God. If we believe that, that if you’ve done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me. So systems that create more suffering are a way that the enemy of mankind can create more more suffering for mankind and thus more suffering for the savior of mankind. So I think we can’t ignore this suffering. We have to look at what Jacob truly says that. Polygamy causes women and children to suffer, and I would argue it even causes men to suffer like like it did for Marion Tanner, Joseph Marion Tanner, right? It causes suffering and that matters. It matters to God. And we shouldn’t overlook it. It should matter to us. We can’t fall into this polygamist mindset of letting the suffering of women be invisible to us, or at least writing it off and saying it doesn’t matter because we have so much of a, you know, we’re so dedicated to this tradition. So anyway, that’s, I’m gonna leave it there for today, and we will, I will see you back next week. Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of 132 Problems.
