Copyright 2001-2002 © The Dark Side of Salt Lake  City

Webster’s: Polygamy

1. the state or practice of having two or more wives or husbands at the same time; plural marriage.                 

Polyandry

1. a woman with more than one husband.

 The Mormons hide the dark side of Salt  Lake City from the world. This is the Mormon way. Polygamy is a practice that makes slaves of young girls who are married off to older men and there is no help for them from the LDS church.. Neither Joseph Smith nor Brigham Young cared about the long term effects this practice of polygamy would have on helpless girls and women.

 Brigham Young

Brigham Young had 55 wives. Historically he is credited with only 27 but careful research of Mormon documents and diaries clearly defines 28 additional wives. Brigham Young had been an ardent supporter of polygamy and made many forceful speeches supporting the practice as God’s command. When Joseph Smith died in 1844, Brigham Young married between seven and nine of Smith's widows.

Lion House, Brigham's stable for his wives.

In my opinion, Brigham Young was the very type of man that, by contrast, had made Joseph Smith so popular with the ladies of his day. Young was rough and authoritative. He billeted his wives in, what looks like, a stable for humans. The Rev. John Todd, D.D. visited the Salt Lake Valley in 1869. The Mormons, with Brigham Young as their leader, had been in the valley for 27 years by then. The Rev. said, "By no possible means can you learn how many wives Brigham Young has, even if he knows himself; and they the citizens of the Salt Lake Valley do not hesitate to say he does not always know his own children."

 The power Brigham Young enjoyed as head of the fast growing church, afforded him momentous considerations from the people and those he was closely associated with. Rev. Todd also reported, "You receive the impression that Brigham Young owns the whole, the soil, the machinery, the industry, the cattle and all the Mormons besides; and practically he does. As he is a prophet, inspired of heaven, he can do no wrong, and is too sacred to be questioned; and as President and Governor, he has the power of handling the property as he pleases."

This was pretty much the situation and was till his death.

In March of 1995 the Mormon Church began to sharply edit its history. At the insistence of Gordon B. Hinckley the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles began to select materials that would be selected from the ''Discourses of Brigham Young,'' compiled in 1954 by Apostle John A. Widtsoe. These would be used to educate the Relief Society, and the adult male priesthood quorums; these had previously been separate, now they would be the same. These few speeches had already been carefully selected from hundreds of speeches recorded in the multiple volumes of the ''Journal of Discourses'' thus; the church hierarchy was doing some major censoring of their representation of church doctrine.  Now these people could say," I've read the early speeches of Brigham young and he didn't say anything like that."

The practice of polygamy was supposed to have been abandoned 13 years after his death in 1877; this was a prerequisite to being accepted to Statehood. Perhaps statehood should be rescinded!