Marriages also are effected with girls who are mere children. Accustomed
from their cradles to sights and sounds calculated to impart precocious
development, they mature rapidly, and few of them remain single after
attaining the age of sixteen. They look around for husbands, and
understand, that, if they marry young men and become first wives, in
course of time other wives will be associated with them; and they
conclude, therefore, that it is as well for themselves to unite with
some Bishop or High-Priest, with perhaps half-a-dozen wives already, who
is able to feed his family well and clothe them decently; so they plunge
into polygamy at once. Another result of the practice is universal
obscenity of language among both sexes. The published sermons of the
Mormon leaders are utterly vile in this respect, although they are
somewhat expurgated before being printed. They consider no language
profane from which the name of the Deity is exempted.
There is, unquestionably, much unhappiness in families where polygamy
prevails,--daily bickering, jealousies, and heart-burnings,--but it
is carefully concealed from the knowledge of the public.
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