Living the Principle | Jessie L. Embry, Mormon Polygamous Families: Life in the Principle

View PDF

Unfortunately but undeniably, the practice of polygamy is closely associated in the popular mind with the Mormons, fascinating both scholars and casual readers, generating a plethora of anecdotal studies, and resulting in many oversimplifications and stereotypes. For this reason, the University of Utah is to be commended for choosing Jessie Embry’s important study to begin its new series, Publications in Mormon Studies. Embry’s monograph describes the lifestyles of Mormon families living the principle of celestial (plural) marriage, using recollections of plural family members interviewed in the 1930s, 1970s, and 1980s. The bulk of these interviews with descendants from plural marriages contracted before 1904 were conducted by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. As the project developed, Embry included interviews with children from monogamous families of the same period for purposes of comparison. 

According to Embry, the “practice of polygamy is essential to fully understand Mormonism historically,” and “complete insight into the practice requires that we study the ‘motives, beliefs, perceptions, and experiences’ of those who were part of these families” (p. xvi). Embry carefully examines previous writings about polygamy and tests their validity using both the memories of her interviewees and simple quantification of their responses. This approach, in fact, is one of the most important contributions of the book. By carefully reviewing all the major literature, Embry identifies most of the important historiographic questions and evidence about polygamy. Her chapter headings are a skeletal con struct of the topic, ranging from the demo graphic and geographic characteristics to the motivations underlying polygamy. 

Embry is at her best when she identifies unanswered questions and areas needing further research. For example, her research sample revealed that between 40 and 50 percent of polygamous husbands and wives were born in Mormon settlements in Utah and southern Idaho and that less than one-third were born outside the United States, a finding at variance with two important earlier studies con ducted by Nels Anderson and Gene Pace. She was quick to note that further research was needed to examine the question of “the relationship between immigrants and polygamy” (p. 32) and concluded that although the “stereotype of immigrant women being funneled into polygamy is not supported statistically, anecdotal evidence shows some men married immigrants . . . [to solve] dual problems of economic support and assimilation” (p. 68). 

In some cases, the interviews confirmed what was already known, for example that most polygamous husbands (60 percent) married only one plural wife; that 25 per cent of the time plural wives were actual sisters; that men tended to choose women as plural wives who were as old as their first wife when she married, even though the husband was now ten to thirty years older. 

Since the interviews dealt with a later period of polygamy, the impact of anti-polygamy laws is apparent. The practice of polygamy among the Latter-day Saints was affected by the interplay of the faithful who practiced it and the non-Mormon opposition. Embry notes that had the interviews been conducted a generation earlier, they would have captured the memories of those who lived “the principle” before the intense opposition began. She speculates that “from an anthropological viewpoint” it was unfortunate that plural marriage did not continue without harassment so that differing responses of later generations in polygamy could be charted (p. 49). 

Embry’s central thesis is that “Mormon polygamous families were not much different than Mormon monogamous families and other non-Mormon families of the same era” (p. xiv). However, this thesis is not completely convincing, in part because of the admitted limitations of the methodology. Most interviews were the product of “adult memories of childhood.” Embry herself acknowledges that children would not be privy to information about parents’ sexual and economic activities and, more over, would tend to remember the most positive elements of their childhood experiences. These adult informants also carried with them contemporary ideals of marriage and a vested interest, which might have colored or distorted their family memories. It is also disconcerting to find that over one-half of the informants initially refused to be interviewed (p. xv). With these potential difficulties, I wonder why Embry did not attempt the types of analyses re quired of historians utilizing slave narratives (see Woodward 1974). Additional subtlety may have been added to the investigation if the interviews gathered in the 1930s (by James Hulett and Kimball Young) had been compared with the more recent (1980s) recollections. Did the different groups show evidence of discernible differences in models of ideal family life or moral strictures? 

Embry too hastily dismisses the question of how polygamous Mormons reconciled romantic love with the necessity for shared marital love. She accurately concludes that the decision to enter polygamy, and the willingness to make adjustments to the challenges of such a life, were primarily determined by religious conviction. She adds, however, that “plural marriages resulted from courtships that were not that much different from other romantic involvements in the nineteenth century. The modern perception of men and women marrying for love was rarely mentioned in marriage manuals” (p. 66). This contention, that romantic love as a prerequisite for marriage is a modern concept, is not born out by recent study. While early Americans distrusted romantic love, by the middle of the nineteenth century the popular culture was “preoccupied with romantic love,” and falling in love had become al most compulsory (Rothman 1984, 103-5). Despite Embry’s efforts here, the case is not closed. The issue of dissonance created by plural marriage in the nineteenth century “age of romance” is still an open question, one that historians will continue to explore using anecdotal evidence. 

The least compelling case in this book is Embry’s conclusion that there were no differences in the economic roles of polygamous and monogamous wives. The chart Embry provides comparing both groups reveals a very small sample of monogamous women. A change of only three outside salaried monogamous women (widows) would have resulted in a great percentage difference (p. 96). Besides, are widows and outside salaried polygamous wives interchangeable? Furthermore, Embry’s figures reveal a significant increase in the use of “home skills” by polygamous wives to raise money. Added to Embry’s later observation that “polygamous homes were usually separate, each wife . . . responsible for her own household and her own children” (p. 169), this information leads to a contradictory conclusion. We need not argue that plural wives were economically independent, but certainly home skills used to make money for a woman often alone with her own children differ from similar activities when the father is always present. Evidence from both the chart and from the nature of the living arrangements suggests dynamic differences between polygamous and monogamous homes. Recognizing that economic independence for women was not an appropriate Victorian ideal and that interviewees reporting here had a preconceived image of “father as breadwinner,” it is possible to differ with Embry’s conclusions.

Returning to the historiography of slavery for some perspective, other limitations to Embry’s methodology become apparent. When the controversial study Time on the Cross (Fogel and Engerman 1974) was written, scholars noted that its statistical information raised some interesting points, but in no way replaced the anecdotal material already assembled. Similarly the available quantification of responses in Embry’s study of Mormon polygamous families often only partially answers vital questions. While the author can give us the frequency of certain living arrangements for these families, she very honestly notes that “what cannot be determined with any certainty is the degree to which decisions about these matters were made solely by the husband or by the husband in consultation with one wife or with all of his wives” (p. 87). Without knowing this, we cannot really understand the essence of these marriages.

Embry’s meticulous scholarship helps us to appreciate the individual diversity of polygamous families. Often the very richness of her anecdotal examples support opponents of her views who argue for the increased independence of polygamous wives. Her examples stimulate readers to new questions and conclusions. For example, the polygamous families she describes were not always accepted by their monogamous Mormon neighbors. Early in the book, a plural wife on the “underground” describes hiding from visiting ward teachers (p. 20). Later, a child from a plural family reports that “we were called bastards by some Mormon people” (p. 190).

Both of these incidents lead interested readers to wonder about the attitudes, perceptions, and tensions that existed between polygamous and monogamous Mormons. It would have been an interesting question to include in the interviews.

Despite the limitations of the interview data and some of the inconclusiveness of the central thesis, this is an important study, an indispensable starting point for students of Mormon history and of interest to the widest of reading publics.

Mormon Polygamous Families: Life in the Principle by Jessie L. Embry. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1987), xvii, 238 pp., $19.95.