Item Detail
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'At Their Peril': Utah Law and the Case of Plural Wives, 1850-1900
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21
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11
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1990
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Begins with a discussion of origin and nature of 19th century Church courts. Discusses divorce in early Utah as discouraged but nevertheless accepted if people could not live together in harmony; women seldom denied requests for divorce in church courts, but it was much more difficult for men. Church practice became civil law in 1852, and the article discusses divorce among polygamists, and some of the legal complications involved. It also discsses dower laws and their effects on plural wives, who did not generally benefit from them.
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Notes: Reprinted in A World We Thought We Knew, ed. John S. McCormick and John R. Sillito, 68-84. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1995.
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425
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443