History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

INEQUALITY OF THE SEXES. 385
and has further committed all the wickedness flesh is
heir to, or of which Satan could conceive ?
It is not right to place the polygamist on a par with
the bigamist. The one, without deception, and in conformity
with the proclaimed tenets of his faith, takes
to wife the second, or third, or twentieth—the more
promising to her the
same life-long care and protection as to the first; the
other breaks his contract with his first wife, and deserts
her for another woman. Neither can the polygamist
be justly placed on a level with the adulterer. Mormons
abhor everything of the kind. The sacred ceremony
of marriage signifies far more with them than
with those who mark the difference between morality
and immorality by a few insignificant rites.
The Mormons lay no small stress on the fact that
there is always a large Dumber of women who have
no husbands, and can get none, on account of women
being always so greatly in the preponderance.
deny that there are more men than women.
They
Whatever may be true with regard to the numer-
the better for all, it is said—
ical equality or inequality of the sexes at birth, it is
certain, dating back almost from the beginning, that
there have always been more women than men in the
world. Particularly in primitive times, owing to war or
exposure, the death rate was much greater among the
males than among the females. To obviate the evil
—for it was early recognized that the sexes should be
mated—in some instances the female children were
killed, but more frequently the excess of women was
divided among the men. Where wars were frequent
and continuous, everything else being equal, the monogamous
nation could not long stand before a polygamous
neighbor.
Coming down to later times, it is safe to say that
there are a million more women than men in Christendom
to-day; there are here five millions of women who
would like to marry but cannot, being denied one of
the fundamental rights of humanity by statutory law.
Hist. Utah. 25