"Polygamy in New England."
By N. Y. Examiner
This is the somewhat startling title under which Dr. Leonard Woolsey Bacon discusses the lax divorce laws of the New England States, and their effect on the morals of society. By this term, he sarcastically warns us we are not to be led to suppose that the customs of Utah and New England are alike in all particulars, in spite of numerous points of resemblance. Polygamy in Utah is unlawful, in New England it is sanctioned by law; the Mormon polygamy is simultaneous, the Puritan is consecutive; the Utah practice is polygamy strictly, the New England is more impartial, and admits of polyandry also. The New England plan has other advantages. For example, the Mormon harem produces much domestic unhappiness and jealousy; while the Puritan home with its peaceful succession of wives, each for the time being the exclusive possessor of her husband's affections, is a tribute to the superior wisdom of the Yankee legislator. But the two institutions are at bottom one. Polygamy is polygamy, whether a man have six wives simultaneously or consecutively, so that he marries a second during the lifetime of the first. Nothing helps one in the understanding of an abstract principle like a concrete example, and Dr. Bacon supplies one. It is not at all peculiar, and nothing in it is fictitious except the names. Here it is:— Emily Brown, now about forty years old, comes of good stock, being the daughter of a rich New England farmer; she was married to Albert Knight. The Superior Court for the county where they lived gave them the necessary license, and each of them married again. Emily Brown Knight's second choice was Carolus Williams, a minor, whose time she bought from his father for that purpose. Double polygamy papers were again issued by the Superior Court, and Williams married another woman with whom (having a less versatile temperament than the bride of his extreme youth) he is still living. Emily Brown Knight Williams was married to Judson Phipps; and presently once more to Mr. and Mrs. Phipps the same Superior Court issued the double license, which, as usual, was acted on by both parties. Mr. Phipps, who seems to have a mission as a consoler of disappointed hearts, married a woman who had deserted her second husband, he having been deserted by her first. Mrs. Emily Brown Knight Williams Phipps was then married to Tobias Thomas, on occasion of which solemnity the divine blessing was invoked upon the auspicious union in a touching and appropriate prayer by one of the resident pastors of her own town. Up to the present moment no further change of name has been reported from Mrs. Emily Brown Knight Williams Phipps Thomas, who lacks only one step more to make her the peer of the woman at Jacob's well. But there is no reason whatever to doubt that if her seemingly capricious affections should alight upon a new object, and be reciprocated, the Superior Court would show the same alacrity as before in smoothing the proverbially rough path of love; nor that five dollars, or at the outside ten dollars, would suffice to dignify the occasion with the services of a minister of the Lord Jesus Christ, and "sanctify it with the word of God and with prayer." On one other point information is lacking—we are not told whether any children were ever born to this much-married woman and any of her husbands, and if so, what became of them in the vicissitudes of her matrimonial career. After this, one can easily believe Dr. Bacon's assertion that the people of New England, clergy and laity alike, are unanimously and conscientiously opposed to polygamy—in Utah. Dr. Bacon's article is not to be suspected of levity because he treats this subject with grim humor. The spectacle of a minister of the gospel "solemnizing" unions of this sort, and gravely pronouncing a true marriage what his Lord expressly calls adultery, is a humorous, if also a horrifying sight. It is one to move the "inextinguishable laughter" of the demons of the pit, and to provoke the godly sorrow of every true believer in Jesus and his teachings.—N. Y. Examiner.