Like other proud
beings, we shrink from lifting the veil which enfolds the sanctity of our home
life. However, when the motive prompting inquiry is one of deep interest, I can
put aside the feelings of nature, and for the sake of truth and to vindicate
the memory of my idolised father and mother, I am glad to set down here some
facts and items. And let me speak as the daughter and not as the historian! For
the things about which I am to write are the priceless memory of a carefree
childhood, a happy joyous youth and a long life of deep satisfaction.
The principle of
plural marriage was adopted by my father as it was taught him by the Prophet
Joseph Smith, after great inner struggle and earnest prayer, as has been told
in a former chapter. His strict puritanical training ill-fitted hm to accept
such a doctrine. He foresaw—as who would not—the storm of abuse and opposition
which such action would arouse. And it was as death to him.
He told my mother
once that he brooded and sorrowed for months, unreconciled in reason, yet
converted in his spirit to its truth. And when he saw a funeral procession pass
his door, he cried out in the bitterness of his soul: “O, that I could exchange
places with the one who lies in that quiet coffin!”
Finally converted to
the principle, he did not doubt the future, himself, nor God. But the fact
remains that the men and women who entered into that relationship in early
days, did so from purely religious motives. It was a high and sacred
undertaking with them, involving much suffering and sacrifice on the part of
both men and women. We say this, we who ought to know; we who were born under
its influence and who owe our lives to the parents who lived in practised this
principle in righteousness. That all men in those days did not live it in
righteousness does not alter its being held as a sacrament. Are all monogamous
marriages rightly lived and wholly successful? The majority of the relatively
few who practised this order of marriage did so with righteous motives. Of that
fact I can bear witness.
Some of my father’s
wives were married to him in Nauvoo, Illinois, by the Prophet himself, as I
have heard him testify and as the Nauvoo records prove. After the Prophet’s
death others were married to him in Winter Quarters, where the saints were
resting after being driven from Nauvoo. On the arrival in the Valley, my
father, after the necessary interval in log houses, built good homes for his
loved wives. The “White House” sufficed for “Mother” Young and her large
family. The Bee Hive House was used as his official residence from the first.
There he had his private office, entertained callers, and carried on his public
affairs that were not prosecuted in the Church offices which were built next to
the Bee Hive House. (Susa Young Gates, The Life Story of Brigham Young
[New York: The Macmillan Company, 1930], 321-22)
