WOMEN UNDER POLYGAMY
Benjamin G. Ferris, who visited Utah in 1854, said that polygamy was then practised by about one-fourth of the adult male population, and that the number of wives to each husband ranged from two to fifty.[1] The preachers had "the largest harems." This writer found much illness and mortality among the young children of Salt Lake City. The children were unclean and seemed to be neglected. This was, however, denied by Sir Richard Burton.
Ferris, who was an extremely hostile critic of Mormonism, stated that the elders of the Church often changed their wives for younger women. Elder Wilford Woodruff frequently practised this system of reconstructing the household.
"In Utah the effect of the plurality system is most severely felt by the first or real wife," writes B. G. Ferris. He declares that polygamy was introduced originally to gratify the sensuality of Joseph Smith. The Mormon upholders of plural marriage declare that this is untrue. They assert that polygamy was taught as a part of Biblical morality, as a remedy for the celibacy of redundant women, and in order that every woman should exercise the right of maternity. The relations of the sexes were strictly regulated in Salt Lake City under the rule of Brigham Young. Un-
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