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.

Wilford Woodruff

Was born in March of 1807 in Connecticut. He was a businessman I’d say from the extensive list of Mormon owned companies he was the equivalent of CEO or board member of. He was involved in government for the territory of Utah.

He liked to have visions of important people, i.e. Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Jesus, signers of the Declaration of Independence. I would say however, his most outstanding characteristic seems to be that he was divorced by nearly everyone he married! He still managed to produce somewhere in the neighborhood of 34-35 children. 

I can’t even imagine having to snuggle up to this guy. He looks like this in every picture I've ever seen of him.  He married most of his wives right around the time of immigration to the Salt Lake Valley. It has occurred to me that women who could be induced to make the trek were pretty much stuck in the middle of nowhere when they got here. In a world full of men who viewed women as property not as human beings. How else could they so often marry children as wives and then marry woman old enough to be their other wives mothers?

In 1890, Wilford Woodruff signed "The Manifesto," pledging to Congress that Mormons had renounced polygamy; this was a prerequisite for statehood. He married again after this. Lying is a cultural thing around here.