Marriage     

After the Civil War, Congress again turned its attention to Utah. The attempt by anti-polygamists to deny US citizenship to those practicing plural marriage provoked a massive “Indignation Meeting” organized entirely by women. Over 3,000 women gathered in Salt Lake City's great tabernacle to demand religious liberty for themselves and their families.   

When the proposed legislation failed, federal officials turned to enforcing the law against plural marriage passed during the Civil War. Church leaders responded by sending a test case to the US Supreme Court. Their lawyers argued that criminalizing polygamy trampled on the constitutional and territorial rights of Utah's Latter-day Saints. Not so, the Justices ruled: The Constitution protected belief in polygamy, but Congress could outlaw its practice. Reynolds v. US (1879) was the first high court decision to place limits on religious freedom.   

Over the next decade, campaigns against polygamy escalated. In Congress, new acts harshened the penalties for plural marriage, fractured Mormon families, and dissolved the Church’s corporate status. These punitive measures also threatened completion of a massive temple under construction in the center of Salt Lake City.

“A Polygamous Family,” Women of Mormonism, 1882
Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, New-York Historical Society

Salt Lake Temple 
Church History Museum, Salt Lake City  

Sister Wives   

These four women, all plural wives of high Church leaders, were among the first to embrace plural marriage in Nauvoo, Illinois. They had experienced mob violence, banishment from their homes, the trials of the overland trail, and the indignity of being portrayed as ignorant women in thrall to lecherous patriarchs.   

All four treasured their gathered community and valued sacred rituals. They also treasured their identities as citizens. They used the 1870 “Indignation Meeting” not only to challenge Congress but also to ask Utah legislators for the vote. They got it several weeks later, joining the women of Wyoming Territory in gaining suffrage.   

“Were we the stupid, degraded, heartbroken beings that we have been represented, silence might better become us; but, as women of God—performing sacred duties—we not only speak because we have the right, but justice and humanity demand that we should.” —Eliza Snow, 1870  

Zina Huntington Young, Bathsheba Smith, Emily Partridge Young, and Eliza Snow, 1867 
Courtesy Church History Museum, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Mormon women rallied in 1879 to defend their marriages and their religion. That same year, the Supreme Court ruled that polygamy was not constitutionally protected.

“Detachment of 400 Mormon Women,” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 1879 
Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, New-York Historical Society  

Death & Burial