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Saturday 6 October 2012
Mitt Romney, the History of Marriage, and Polygamy

Thus Romney appeals to history as the foundation of his position, which is an invitation to historians, such as myself, to become involved in this discussion. And any responsible historian will quickly agree that Romney’s statement, with its phrases “every civilization” and “literally thousands of years” is far too sweeping. The obvious practice arguing against Romney’s position is polygamy. Polygamy is accepted as legal in two of the foundational religious texts of civilization: the Jewish Bible and the Qu’ran (and is practiced in those books by the highest role models possible, prophets). While influential branches of Judaism banned polygamy in about 1000 AD, Muslims continue to practice plural marriage today.

Closer to home, Romney ignores his own ancestors. As I have shown in my paper, “Plural Lives: Mitt Romney’s Polygamous Heritage,” of Mitt’s four families of paternal great-great-grandparents, three were polygamous. Parley P. Pratt, one of the dynamic early apostles of Mormonism, married twelve wives and Mitt descends from Mary Wood, the second plural wife. Archibald Newell Hill married five wives, and Mitt’s great-great-grandmother was the first wife, Isabella Hood. The colorful German figure, Carl Heinrich (“Charles Henry”) Wilcken, wedded four wives; Mitt descends from the first wife, Eliza Christine Carolina Reiche. (Miles Romney and Elizabeth Gaskell were monogamists.)

Both of Mitt’s paternal great-grandparent families were polygamous. Miles Park Romney married fives wives; Mitt’s great-grandmother was the first wife, Hannah Hood Hill. Helaman Pratt married three wives, including two daughters of Charles Henry and Eliza Wilcken: Anna J. Dorothy (“Dora”) Wilcken (the second wife, Mitt’s great-grandmother) and Bertha Christine Wilcken Stewart (the third wife).

These family histories provide a revealing cross-section of Mormon plural marriage. Three of the husbands were required to take plural wives by the prophet at the time, Joseph Smith or Brigham Young. For example, according to family traditions, Parley Pratt “begged Joseph [Smith] not to insist upon his entering into polygamous marriages, but Joseph was adamant.” All these marriages were viewed by the U.S. or state government as non-standard (not marriages between “one man and one woman”), and therefore were illegal. They were solemnized in defiance of state and federal law (an example of what historian D. Michael Quinn calls Mormon “theocratic ethics”). The Latter-day Saints profoundly believed they had the religious right to marry in their non-monogamous way, as God, through Joseph Smith, had commanded the practice of polygamy, in a revelation that is still in Mormon scripture, Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants. Mormon leaders taught that polygamy was the highest, holiest form of marriage. In fact, they even argued that monogamy was a flawed marriage practice that caused the downfall of civilizations. Apostle George Q. Cannon, later a member of the First Presidency, said, on October 9, 1869, “It is a fact worthy of note that the shortest-lived nations of which we have record have been monogamic… . [The Roman empire] was a monogamic nation, and the numerous evils attending that system early laid the foundation for that ruin which eventually overtook her.” Brigham Young made similar statements.

Mormons and the U.S. government fought a protracted legal battle on this issue until 1890, when Mormon prophet Wilford Woodruff agreed that the church would give up any further plural marriages. Partially as a result, Utah was finally able to gain statehood in 1896. However, many Mormons felt a religious duty to continue practicing polygamy, and so founded colonies in Mexico as polygamous “cities of refuge,” under the guidance of and with the full consent of church leaders in Utah. Mitt Romney’s paternal great-grandparents were part of this migration, which remarkably transplanted north American, Utah culture to northern Mexico. Both Miles Park Romney and Helaman Pratt took their last plural wives in Mexico, in 1897 and 1898.

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    The full article reads a bit like the Old Testament with who begat whom and so forth, but it is nonetheless an...
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