The Nineteenth Wife

What a lively discussion we had at book club last night about The 19th Wife by Dave Ebershoff.  Our poor reviewer - or lucky maybe (depends on how you look at it) - she never had a chance to go over her material.  At 9 o'clock (a full half hour after we're supposed to end) we asked her if she had anything that had not been said yet and she thought we covered it all.  I've never seen such a lively discussion!  I've read books about the Mormon faith, about Warren Jeffs and books by Jon Krakauer before.  But this book hit me hard.  The first paragraph grabbed me by the throat and would not let me go.  The author stated that all prophets have things in common; they're good looking and charismatic.  She, no, it's actually a he but I kept forgetting the gender of the author, wrote about Joseph Smith as a con-man.  Also Brigham Young - according to this author was a con-man.  Were both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young sinister, lazy, horny con-men? And if so, why are there so many Mormons now?  I believe 5-10% of Americans are of the Mormon faith.  And although the author writes of these men as con-men, the faith they engender in their followers is not much different than those of other religions.  Golly, this discussion brought me back to a road trip in 1973. Five girls in a cherry-red VW van travel to downtown Salt Lake City.  We stop at the Mormon temple. We go inside. We're not allowed to go all the way inside.  As a 19 year old I walk around the Mormon temple completely unaware of the Mormon faith, the Mormon history, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young.  I was sheltered. I wasn't as sheltered as some Mormons but I was sheltered.  I went back to Salt Lake City in 2005 and didn't stop at the Mormon Temple.  If I was to go back to Salt Lake City today, I would visit the Mormon temple, the Lion House and the Bee Hive House and Anna Eliza Young's house with the stained glass window.  One of the members of our group grew up in Utah.  She always introduces herself with her name and the tag, "I'm not a Mormon."  Growing up in Utah as a non-Morman can be a lonely existence.  Possibilities for advancement in your chosen profession or academia are (or were) limited in Utah for those who are not Mormon.  Utah is the one state where it is illegal to reside in a house with more than one woman who is not your wife.  Hence the tv show, Sister Wives, had to move to Nevada.  Both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young took advantage of the law that allows alimony only to legal wives.  If a woman is not legally your wife, she can't have alimony.  If a judge allows her alimony, it must be legal to have more than one wife.  I remember nine years ago when I travel to Kenya. I talked to a Masai warrior.  His wife was in the hospital with complications giving birth to his child. If I remember right, both mother and child had malaria. While she was in the hospital he wed another wife.  We asked him about that.  He said, 'You have polygamy in the United States, right?"  My fellow travelers disagreed. I had read John Krakauer's book about Warren Jeffs and said, "No, he's right. We do have polygamy in the United States.  It's limited but real."  And this was before the tv show, Sister Wives. In Kenya, however, with a high maternal and child death rate, it makes more sense to wed more than one wife to ensure your genes are passed along.  In the United States?  It seems perverse.  That's my opinion, anyway.   From what I know about the Mormon faith, it is more pliable and modernized than other faiths.   Our book club member who grew up in Utah is sure, in the next five years, Mormon faith will change to include women as church leaders just as they changed to allow black leaders a few years ago.  She might be right.  If you want to know more, read The Nineteenth Wife, it's quite a story.  Part of the book includes actual excerpts from a book written by Brigham Young's 19th wife, Anna Eliza Young.  Her entire story can still be checked out at the library.  Her passion was to end the practice of polygamy in the United States. She talked to President Ulysses S. Grant about the issue.  The whole book makes me wonder - are we any more evolved than the lions on the savanna?