The 19th Wife

Usually my reading notes do not make it to my blog but The 19th Wife by David Evershoff has to be an exception.
Having visited Salt Lake City and the famed Mormon Tabernacle I was excited by this book. I wanted to learn more about the Latter Day Saints and Brigham Young. Well! With every page I struggled more and more with the cruelty to women and children inherent in the history of the Latter Day Saints' custom of "plural marriage." This is a convenient term for a man having as many wives as he wants. The first wife gets to accept or reject the subsequent ones but, in reality, she has no power. She owns nothing, least of all her own body, and certainly not her children. Inevitably she, in her deep belief in God's will that she do this, accepts. Brigham Young seems to be able to convince all of them that this is their role.
The book is well researched and written with present-day LDS as well as historical fact. We can only guess whether the present-day material is factual. (Certainly when I visited there last fall I found a loving, caring, nurturing and kind environment.) This book will not simply slide out of your mind as you put it aside each night. When I think of my marriage and what my husband and I have together, I know it would die if my husband were forced or wanted to take another wife. Call me selfish, Brigham, but God told Noah to take pairs of animals in the ark. He didn't say take one male and 50, 60, 125 females.
This is a great thought-provoking read. It puts a new slant on our visit to Salt Lake City last fall, for sure. And the 'saints' in that once favorite anthem of mine, Come, Come Ye Saints, are referring to each member of the LDS church. I thought saints were exceptionally good people in the Bible like Saint Peter and Saint James, but, no. Members of the LDS are called saints. I try to be a good person and I think I succeed most of the time. But I am no saint. Interesting that Brigham Young used the term for himself and all of his parishioners.
Pick up this book and give it a read for its scholarship, its organization, its historical information, but most of all because it will make you think.