“It is
a melancholy and a humiliating fact that the opinions of
most people are determined more by what others around
them think and say than by what they believe themselves.
They are not accustomed to the proper exercise of their
own reason, and do not follow the convictions of their
own minds.
“Yet
there are some who dare to think and act for themselves;
and into the hands of a few such I doubt not these pages
will fall: and to all such I most heartily commend them.
To an active and an ingenuous mind there is no pursuit
more fascinating than the pursuit of knowledge, no
pleasure more exquisite than the discovery of truth. All
those who would enjoy this pleasure in its highest sense
must love Truth for herself alone; they must emancipate
themselves from the trammels of prejudice and public
opinion, and dare to follow Truth wherever she may lead.
“I make
no further apology for calling the attention of an
intelligent age to a new examination of an old
institution. Truth dreads no scrutiny; shields herself
behind no breastwork of established custom or of
respectable authority, but proudly stands upon her own
merits. I will not despair, therefore, of gaining the
attention of every lover of the truth while I attempt to
develop and demonstrate the laws of God and of nature
upon the important subjects of love and marriage, and to
apply those laws to the two systems of monogamy and
polygamy.” – page 18
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“It is
disrespectful to our Creator, and dishonorable to man,
to require that love should be suppressed because
marriage is inconvenient, and still more dishonorable
and disrespectful to require any one to be deprived of
the rights of love on account of the impossibility of
marriage; for marriage ought to be possible to all…
“We may
waive our rights, and live in celibacy, if we prefer to;
but no one who loves and who wishes to marry ought to be
compelled to remain unmarried. It is, therefore,
demonstrated that any form of society which fails to
provide for the marriage of all is a defective system,
and opposed to the natural, inherent, and inalienable
rights of man.
“There
are very many persons, especially many women, who are
neither married nor have an opportunity to marry. By
some means they have been deprived of their rights. The
fault is not theirs; they would, in almost every
instance, prefer wedded life if it were in their power
to attain it; but it is not. They possess the same
susceptibilities of love, the same yearning for intimate
companionship, that others do, but these tender
sensibilities they are obliged to repress.
“The
fault is not in nature, nor in the laws of God, but it
is in the tyrannical laws and fashions of the artificial
system of social life which now obtains among us. This
system must be at fault, for it does not and it cannot
provide for the marriage of all. Many who desire to
marry are forever deprived of husbands and homes, while
the system of polygamy does provide for all, and is,
therefore, the only system which is in harmony with
divine and natural laws. This proposition is further
demonstrated by the simple fact that the number of
marriageable women always exceeds the number of
marriageable men.” – pages 30, 31
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“As it
now is, there is not a man for every woman; and either
some women must remain unmarried and “waste their
sweetness on the desert air,” and be entirely deprived
of their birthright, and denied all matrimonial
advantages, or they may, several of them, agree to share
those advantages in common with each other, by having a
single husband between them. Polygamy does not compel
them to do this: it only permits them to do it in case
they have no opportunity to do better.
“On the
other hand, it does not compel a man to marry even one
woman, much less to have more; but, if the intensity of
his passion urges him to such lengths that he must have
and will have more than one, it requires him to take
them honestly and honorably, and to support them and be
a true husband to them.” – page 42
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“The
marriage system of polygamy never formed a part of that
ceremonial dispensation which was abrogated by the New
Testament; nor has it ever been proved that the New
Testament was designed to affect any change in it; but
the presumption is that this new dispensation has also
left it, as it found it, abiding still in force. If any
change were to be made in an institution of such long
standing, confirmed by positive law, it could obviously
be made only by equally positive and explicit ordinances
or enactments of the gospel. Yet such enactments are
wanting. Christ Himself was altogether silent in
respects to polygamy, not once alluding to it; yet it
was practiced at the time of His advent throughout
Judaea and Galilee, and in all the other countries of
Asia and Africa, and, without doubt, by some of His own
disciples.
The
Book of the Acts is equally silent as the four Gospels
are. No allusion to it is found in any of the sermons or
instructions or discussions of the apostles and early
saints recorded in that book. It was not because Jesus
or the apostles dared not to condemn it, had they
considered it sinful, that they did not speak of it, for
Jesus hesitated not to denounce the sins of hypocrisy,
covetousness, and adultery, and even to alter and amend,
apparently, the ancient laws respecting divorce and
retaliation; but he never rebuked them for their
polygamy, nor instituted any change in that system. This
uniform silence, so far as it implies any thing, implies
approval.” – page 45
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“I have
demonstrated that monogamy is not commanded in the
Bible, and that it is not the doctrine of Christianity.
I shall now account for its origin, by proving that it
is the joint offspring of paganism and Romanism. The
social system of European monogamy is proved to be
derived from the ancient Greeks and Romans (especially
from the latter), by the early histories of the nations
of Europe, and by an uninterrupted descent of
traditional customs from them to our own times. It is
one of those pagan abominations which we have inherited,
which the Roman Church has sanctioned and confirmed, and
from which we find it so difficult to emancipate
ourselves.” – page 49
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“Take
monogamy as it is today, in Protestant countries, and we
see that the old Roman leaven is still in it.
Christianity has not reformed and purified that system
so much as that has corrupted Christianity. Most of us
in these countries are accustomed to congratulate
ourselves upon our happy escape from the bondage and the
bigotry of the Papal Church. Yet we are mistaken. We
have not escaped. Rome binds us in stronger shackles
than the iron chains of the holy Inquisition. Her
shackles are upon our consciences: they are intertwined
with every fiber of our social life…
“We are
too servile and timid in our interpretation of the
Bible, and in our examination of the divine and natural
laws. We hesitate to follow the simple truth to its
legitimate and logical conclusions. We stand aghast at
the radical changes which severe truth requires in our
religious and social systems. We shrink from exploring
the profound labyrinths to which truth attempts in vain
to lead us; while we look anxiously around for clues and
leading-strings by which to trace our way. We dare not
go forward without example and authority; and authority
and example are redirecting us to Rome.” – pages 81, 82
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“Great
men always recognize the voice of God… no matter under
what social system they may live. They yield to the
natural and the divine behests, even though they
transgress the laws of ordinary social life. They obey
God rather then men; and this obedience is the first
element of their greatness. Ordinary laws may be
sufficient to restrain ordinary men; but when a Samson
is within their bonds, those bonds are snapped asunder
like the green withes and
the new ropes of Delilah.
“There
are many more such men than the world dreams of in its
narrow monogamic
philosophy, yet it is a shame and a pity that our social
laws cannot be so amended
and
brought into harmony with those of God and Nature…
“I am
called by the justice of God and the sufferings in
mankind in behalf of a greater freedom to marry, and a
greater purity of the marriage relation. Let us have
such marriage
laws,
that whatever relations any honorable man shall
determine to form with the other sex can be honorably
formed and honorably maintained…
“By
attempting to deprive one-half the women of any lawful
and honorable means of amorous pleasure, and by allowing
the men only partial and inadequate means, it impels a
multitude of each sex to secret transgression, or else
to open profligacy…
“Now,
which social system is the more honorable and manly, the
more virtuous and
pure,
the one more in accordance with Nature and the laws of
Nature’s God – a pretended and a corrupt monogamy, or an
open and honest polygamy? Which manifests the more base
and selfish passion – the man who espouses the partners
of his love, and takes them to his home and his heart,
and provides for them and their children, or the man who
steals away from his house in the dark, and indulges his
dishonorable and degrading passion in secret places, and
then abandons the partners of his guilty pleasure to a
life of wretchedness and shame and want?” – pages 93-95
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“Because a woman’s heart is so constituted, it is
impossible for her to cherish a sincere love for more
than one husband at the same time. It is even difficult
for her to believe that a man can cherish a sincere and
honest love for more than one woman at the same time. It
is difficult for her to believe it, for she cannot
comprehend it. Her own instincts revolt against the
thought of a plurality of husbands, and judging his
feeling by her own, she does not see how a man can want,
or at least can truly love, a plurality of wives. As
this point involves a constitutional difference of sex,
it is one of which we must be aware that our feelings
cannot guide us.
“A man
can never know the infinite tenderness and the infinite
patience of a mother’s love, except imperfectly, by
reason and observation. His experience does not teach
him. His paternal love does not exactly resemble it. So
a woman can never know the purity and sincerity of a
man’s conjugal love for a plurality of wives, except by
similar observation and reason. Her conjugal love is
unlike it. Her love for one man exhausts and absorbs her
whole conjugal nature: there is no room for more. If she
ever receives the truth that his nature is capable of a
plural love, she must attain it by the use of her
reason, or admit it upon the testimony of honest men.” –
page 115
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It
would be as impossible and as unnatural for a
pure-minded, virtuous woman to have more than one
husband, as for the earth to have more than one sun; but
it is not unnatural nor impossible for a pure and
noble-minded man to cherish the most devoted love for
several wives at the same time: it is as natural for him
as it is for the sun to have several planets at the same
time, each one dependent on him, and each one harmonious
in her own sphere. To each planet the sun yields all the
light and heat which she is capable of receiving, or
which she would be capable of receiving, were she the
only planet in the sky. Each planet attracts the sun to
the utmost of her weight, - the exhaustion of her power;
and the sun returns her attraction to an exactly equal
degree, and no more. Not one planet nor two, nor all
combined, are able to exhaust his power, or move him
from his sphere.
One
more illustration: if a strong man holds one end of a
cord, and a little child the other, and they pull
towards each other, the tension of the cord is measured
by the strength of the child, and not by that of the
man. The same degree of power is felt at each end of the
cord. The strength of the child is exhausted, that of
the man is not. He can draw several children to him,
sooner than they could unitedly draw him to them, A
similar relation exists, naturally, between the male and
the female. He is the sun, they are the planets. He is
strong, they are weak. Let us not find fault with the
ordinances of God, nor attempt to resist His will.
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“We
possess such contradictory sentiments and such
conflicting passions, that we need a divine law to teach
us what is right and what is wrong, and what is pure and
what is impure. Divine law has taught us that marriage
is honorable; that the normal exercise of love is the
noblest and purest passion of the soul; and that the
normal gratification of the reproductive instinct is the
highest function of the body: and those only are ashamed
of it who either indulge it abnormally and sinfully, or
who desire to.” – page 126
