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82
PRACTICAL POLYGAMY.

spective of any civil authority. "Any High Priest, Bishop, Elder, or Priest," can perform it; and as almost all the Mormons hold one of these offices, almost every man has the right to unite a couple. In this way a great many marriages are performed that are only lawful in Utah. Outside Mormondom they would be regarded as concubinage. This is an artful means of keeping people in subjection, and of retaining them at Salt Lake.

Thus far we have reviewed the immediate effects of polygamy. The Mormons have, however, another system of marriage, in the carrying out of which there is still more of the atrocious and corrupt. This is what they term "the sealing for eternity," and will require a separate chapter.