MY FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE CITY OF THE SAINTS.  
When I arrived in Salt Lake City, a great many improvements had been effected; and expecting, as I did that this would be our future home for many years, perhaps for life, I was interested in everything that I saw.
The first Sunday I went to the Tabernacle I was greatly amused at the way in which some of the sisters were dressed. Quite a number wore sun-bonnets, but the majority wore curious and diverse specimens of the milliner’s art—relics of former days. Some wore a little tuft of gauze and feathers on the top of the head, while others had helmets of extraordinary size. There were little bonnets, half-grown bonnets, and “grandmother bonnets” with steeple crowns and fronts so large that it was difficult to get a peep at the faces which they concealed. As for the dresses, they were as diversified as the bonnets. Some of them presented a rather curious spectacle. I noticed two young women who sat near me: they were dressed alike in green calico sun-bonnets, green calico skirts, and pink calico sacks. On inquiring who they were, I was told that they were the wives of one man, and had both been married to him on the same day, so that neither could claim precedence of the other. Outside of Utah such a thing would seem impossible; but so many of the young girls at that time came out to Zion without father or mother or any one else to guide them; and left to their own inexperience and afraid to disobey “counsel,” it is no wonder that they soon yielded to the universal custom.
The two young women whom I have mentioned did not appear to me to be overburdened with intelligence; they looked like girls who could be made to believe anything; but after that I met with two well-educated women who, like these foolish girls, thoughtlessly tried the experiment of two or more marrying the same man on the same day, agreeing with their “lord” that that would be the best way to preserve[153] peace in their household. But they were terribly mistaken; and even before the marriage-day was over, the poor bewildered husband had to fly to Brother Brigham for counsel.
The Tabernacle services seemed to me as strange as the women. There was no regular order in conducting the proceedings, but the prominent brethren made prayers or “sermons” as they were called upon to do so. The “sermons” would be more properly called speeches; they are nothing but a rambling, disconnected glorification of the Saints, interspersed with fearful denunciations of the Gentiles, and not unfrequently a good sprinkling of words and expressions such as are never used in decent society. More unedifying discourses could hardly be imagined. As for the spirituality and devotional feeling which characterized our meetings in England, they were only conspicuous by their absence, and many devout Saints have told me that when they first went there, before the erection of the great organ, the free-and-easy manners of the speakers and the brass band which was stationed in front of the platform, made them feel as if they had come to witness a puppet-show rather than to attend a religious meeting.
There was one lady at the Tabernacle service whom I regarded with considerable interest. This was no other than Eliza R. Snow, one of the Prophet’s wives. I was told that she was the first woman married in Polygamy after Joseph Smith received the Revelation, and I believed it was so. People who lived in Nauvoo, respectable people, and not one or two either, have assured me that for four years before Joseph is said to have received the Revelation, he was practising Polygamy, or something worse, and that the Revelation was given to justify what was already done. However this might be, it is generally understood that Miss Eliza Snow was the first plural wife of the Prophet. Her principal occupation at the present time is converting rebellious wives to obedience to their husbands, and convincing young girls that it is their duty to enter into Polygamy. Unhappy husbands derive great consolation from her counsels. In matters of religion she is a perfect fanatic, and in connexion with the Female Relief Society she reigns supreme; but otherwise there are many excellent traits in her character, and I could tell of many acts of loving-kindness and self-denial which she has performed, and which will surely have their reward. As the chief poet of the Mormon Church, and as the Representative of Eve in the mysteries of the Endowment House, she[154] enjoys a reputation such as would be impossible to any other woman among the Saints.
Another of the late Joseph’s wives is a Mrs. Doctor Jacobs, who was actually married to the Prophet while she was still living with her original husband, Jacobs. Under the same circumstances she married Brigham Young, after Joseph’s death. For some time her husband knew nothing of the whole affair, but Brigham very soon gave him to understand that his company was not wanted. The sister of Mrs. Jacobs—a Mrs. Buel—was another of Joseph’s wives, and she married the Apostle Heber C. Kimball, but does not appear to have made a very good bargain.
Besides these there is another lady, a Mrs. Shearer—or, as she is familiarly called—“Aunty Shearer.” She is in every respect a unique specimen of womanhood, tall and angular, with cold yet eager grey eyes; a woman of great volubility, and altogether grim-looking and strong-minded. She was an early disciple, and is said to have sacrificed everything for Mormonism. She lived in Joseph Smith’s family, and, of course, saw and heard a great deal about Polygamy, and at first it was a great stumbling-block to her. She was, however, instructed by the immaculate Joseph, and so far managed to overcome her feelings as to be married to him for eternity. Like the others, she is called “Mrs.,” and I suppose there is a Mr. Shearer somewhere, but upon that point she is very reticent. Her little lonely hut is fitted with innumerable curiosities and little knick-knacks, which some people are for ever hoarding away in the belief that they will come into use some day. She is a woman that one could not easily forget. She wears a muslin cap with a very wide border flapping in the wind under a comical-looking hood, and is easily recognized by her old yellow marten-fur cape and enormous muff: her dress, which is of her own spinning and weaving, is but just wide enough, and its length could never inconvenience her. Add to these personal ornaments a stout pair of brogues, and you will see before you “Aunty Shearer,” one of the Prophet’s spiritual wives.
I may as well explain what is meant by “spiritual” wives and “proxy” wives.
Marriages contracted by the Gentiles, or by Mormons in accordance with Gentile institutions, are not considered binding by the Saints. That was partly the cause of my indignation and the indignation of many another wife and mother. We were told that we had never been married at all, and that[155] our husbands and our children were not lawfully ours: surely that was enough to excite the indignation of any wife, whatever her faith might be. For a marriage to be valid it must be solemnized in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City, or the persons contracting it can never expect to be husband and wife in eternity. Should the husband die before he reaches Zion, and if the wife loves him sufficiently well to wish to be his in eternity—when she arrives in Salt Lake City, if she receives an offer of marriage from one of the brethren, and does not object to him as a second husband in this world, she will make an agreement with him that she will be his wife, for time, but that in eternity she and all her children shall be handed over to the first husband. A woman thus married is called a “proxy” wife.
Now “spiritual” wives are of two classes. The one consists of old ladies who have plenty of money or property which of course needs looking after; and generous Elders marry them, and accordingly “look after” the said property, and the owner of it becomes the Elder’s spiritual wife. She will only be his real wife in eternity when she is rejuvenated.
The other kind of “spiritual” wife is one who is married already, but who does not think that her husband can “exalt” her to so high a position in the celestial world as she deserves—perhaps some kind brother who takes a great interest in her welfare has told her so—she then is secretly “sealed” to one of the brethren who is better able to exalt her—perhaps to this same brother; and in the resurrection she will pass from him who was her husband on earth to him who is to be her husband in heaven—if she has not done so before.
This is what is meant by “proxy” and “spiritual” wives. I think it will be evident even to the dullest comprehension that under such a system, “the world, the flesh, and the devil” are far more likely to play a prominent part than anything heavenly or spiritual.
All this is so repugnant to the instincts and feelings of a true woman, that I feel quite ashamed to write about it. And yet the working out of this system has produced results which would be perfectly grotesque were it not that they outrage every ordinary sense of propriety. Let me give an example. One of the wives of Brigham Young—Mrs. Augustus Cobb Young—a highly educated and intelligent Boston lady with whom I am intimately acquainted, requested of her Prophet husband a favour of a most extraordinary description. She had forsaken her lawful husband and family and a happy and[156] luxurious home to join the Saints, under the impression that Brigham Young would make her his queen in heaven. She was a handsome woman—a woman of many gifts and graces—and Brigham thoroughly appreciated her; but she made a slight miscalculation in respect to the Prophet. He cares little enough for his first wife, poor lady, and few people who know him doubt for a moment that he would un-queen her and cut her adrift for time and eternity too, if his avaricious soul saw the slightest prospect of gain by doing so; he did not care for her, but he never would allow himself to be dictated to by any woman. So when the lady of whom I speak asked him to place her at the head of his household, he refused: she begged hard, but he would not relent. Then finding that she could not be Brigham’s “queen,” and having been taught by the highest Mormon authorities that our Saviour had, and has, many wives, she requested to be “sealed to Him!” Brigham Young told her (for what reason I do not know) that it really was out of his power to do that, but that he would do “the next best thing” for her—he would “seal” her to Joseph Smith. She was sealed to Joseph Smith, and though Brigham still supports her, and she is called by his name on earth, in the resurrection she will leave him and go over to the original Prophet.
The reader will be certainly shocked at this terrible burlesque of sacred things, but I felt it my duty to state the truth and place facts in their right light. It is not generally known that the Mormons are taught that the marriage at Cana of Galilee was Christ’s own nuptial feast, that Mary and Martha were his plural wives, and that those women who in various parts of the New Testament are spoken of as ministering to him stood to him in the same relation.
Malicious first wives, especially if they are rather elderly themselves, frequently call the proxy wives “fixins;” and the tone in which some of them utter the word is in the last degree contemptuous. These poor “fixins” are seldom treated as real wives by the husband himself. He may think sufficiently well of the “proxy” wife to make her his for time and to raise up children to his friend, as the Elders say, but he never forgets that in eternity she will be handed over to the man for whom he has stood proxy, and he expects that she also will bear that in mind, and do all she can for her own support, and never complain of his want of attention to her. Some men, after having married a young proxy wife, have become so enamoured that they grew jealous of the dead husband,[157] and have tried to get the wife to break faith with him, and be married to them for eternity as well as time. This was certainly rather mean. Very few Gentile husbands would fret themselves about possibilities in the world to come, if in this world they had the certainty of enjoying the undivided affections of their wives.
Mormon husbands are so influenced by their religion that they neither act nor think like other men. I am thinking of one wretched family that I knew soon after I went to Utah. There was a man and his wife and four children, all living together in a miserable, poverty-stricken hut. I had heard that the man was paying attentions to a young girl with a view of making her his second wife, and I frequently watched the first wife as she went in and out, doing her “chores,” and wondered how she felt about it. The poverty of t............