Polygamy: An Early American History

Abstract

Sarah M. S. Pearsall holds a PhD from Harvard and has taught early American history at the University of Cambridge and John Hopkins University. She spent ten years researching the history of polygamy in early America to better understand ideas about marriage. She explains: “In the midst of same-sex marriage debates . . . I wondered . . . why some people felt so threatened by other people's marriages? Why has marriage seemed so foundational to the social and political order? Polygamy seemed like a useful way to access this issue” (11).Pearsall's opening sentence is “contrary to popular opinion, American polygamy did not start with the Mormons” (1). Her conclusion starts out by reflecting on Brigham Young University's polices on “same-sex physical relations” (289). But mostly this book is not about Mormons. There are only fourteen entries listed under Mormon/Mormonism in the index. Her major discussion of Mormons is the story of Belinda Hinton who left her husband to join the Saints. She later married Parley P. Pratt and wrote about her experiences and beliefs in a letter to her sister that became a pamphlet, the Defence of Polygamy, by a Lady of Utah, where Belinda discussed the emotional and sexual advantages of plural marriage. Pearsall summarizes her views and explains that they are similar to other groups who looked at the advantages of polygamy. Pearsall's nods to Mormon history are brief since her focus is on relationships rather than the struggles between the LDS Church and the U.S. federal government. However, I am disappointed and disgusted with her taking at face value the nineteenth-century views of “the sexual magnetism of the Mormon male” (174), and especially her use of these records in describing LDS temple rituals (176). What I find missing is the religious motivations for Latter-day Saints practicing polygamy.Focusing on the limited Mormon section may be unfair since most of the book shows that Indigenous people in North America practiced polygamy and United States revolutionists saw the value of plural marriage. Pearsall's storytelling provides faces to men and women in early America. She highlights the role of marriage in economic, social, political, and sexual relations and policies. Readers who look for those stories will enjoy the book. However, those interested in Mormon history will find very little new and some disturbing passages.