Item Detail
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17721
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0
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0
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English
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Nineteenth Century Mormon Monogamist and Their Passive Resistance to Polygamy
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Williamsburg, Va
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College of William & Mary
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Senior honors thesis
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"Mormon polygamy becomes a spectacle - the exotic practice of a utopian community in the West. The irony is that most faithful Mormons were monogamists with marriage patterns similar to mainstream America. The voices of these men and women have been silenced by polygamy in several complicated ways. Mormon monogamists were typically faithful in all other aspects of the gospel, but resisted polygamy. Despite the constant urgings of church leaders, the majority of Mormons remained uncompelled by the promised blessings of polygamy. The division between the LDS Church and mainstream America, which was exacerbated by polygamy, stifled public dissent by monogamists. As political pressure from the federal government increased to an oppressive level and the temporal salvation of the LDS Church hung on the question of gaining statehood and publicly disavowing polygamy, Mormon monogamists united with polygamists to defend their faith. They were compelled by their devotion to the LDS Church to publicly endorse a practice that they did not privately support." [Author's abstract]