Relief Socity and Plural Marriage

In the early days of the Church, the practice of plural marriage was recealed to Joseph Smith. Although this practice was initially difficult for many to accept, the faithful Saints knew that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. They followed the Lord's will as it was revealed to their prophet. They made covenants with God and were strong and devout in keeping those covenants. When the Relief Society was re established in the late 1860's, plural marriage was still part of Church members' lives. however, many people in the US believed that women who lived the law of plural marriage were degraded and abused. As a result of a general misunderstanding about the Latter-day Aints and their beliefs, the national government passed legislation forbidding polygamous marriages.

A group of Latter-day Saint women gathered in Salt Lake City in January 1870 in response to this legislation. In the presence of newspaper reporters from across the United States, these women expressed their support for living prophets and for th epractices of the Church. They defended themselves and their husbands and proclaimed their faith and their covenants. Sister Eliza R. Snow said "It was high time to rise up in the dignity of our calling and speak for ourselves...The world does not know us, and truth and justice to our brethren and to ourselves demands us to speak...We are not inferior to the ladies of the world, and we do not want to appear so."

One Latter-day Saint woman expressed the feelings of many other when she said: "There is no spot on this wide earth where kindness and affection are more bestowed upon woman, and her rights so sacredly defended as in Utah. We are here to express our love for each other, and to exhibit to the world our devotion ot God our Heavenly Father; and to show our willing ness to comply with the requirements of the Gospel; and the law of Velestial Marriage is one of its requirements that we are resolved to honor, teach, and practise, which may God grant us strength to do."

Newspaper reporters said this was a "remarkable meeting." One reported wrote, "In logic and in rhetoric the so-called degraded ladies of Mormondom are quite equal to the...women of the East."

In 1890, President Wilford Woodruff, the fourth President of the Church, received a revelation that led to the Church's discontinuance of the practice of plural marriage. He wrote this revelation in a document known as the Manifesto. About writing the Manifesto, he said: "The God of heaven commanded me to do what I did do; and when the hour came that I was commanded to do that, it was all clear to me. I went before the Lord, and I wrote what the Lord told me to write."

Because the people had accepted the prophetic counsel to enter into plural marriages and had made and kept their covenants, this new revelaiton was once again difficult for many, but faithful Latter-day Saints determined again to follow the prophet. On the day that the general membership of the Church heard the Manifesto and approved it, Sister Zina D.H. Young, (3rd General RS President) said, "Today the hearts of all were tried but looked to God and submitted."

The women of the Church who, by revelation, embraced plural marriage and who, by revelation, later accepted the Manifesto are worthy of admiration and appreciation. They were strictly obedient to their covenants and the counsel of the living prophet. Today these women are honored by their faithful posterity.

Helen Mar Whitney, who lived the law of plural marriage, wrote, "We may read the history of martyrs and mighty conquerors, and of many great and good men and women, but that of the nbole women and fair daughters of Zion, whose faith in the promises of Israel's God enabled them to triumph over self and obey His higher law, and assist His servants to establish it upon the earth,...I feel sure there was kept by the angels an account of their works which will yet be found in the records of eternity, written in letters of gold."

Daughters in My Kingdom p. 46-49