Item Detail
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4505
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0
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0
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English
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What Makes a Marriage?
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American Heritage
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November 1996
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47
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14-16
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The history of polygamy among Mormons in America is discussed. In 1852, so-called plural marriage was formally asserted as church doctrine among Mormons . Polygamy subsequently became the symbolic focus of a long battle between the Mormons and their enemies in the rapidly developing West, who wished to break Mormonism 's union of church and state so that Utah could be admitted to the Union. In 1879, the Supreme Court prohibited polygamy; the Edmunds Act of 1882 and the Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887 imposed jail terms and heavy fines for polygamists. In 1890, Wilford Woodruff, the new Mormon president, recommended that Mormons refrain from polygamy, and by the 1920s Mormons had become a conservative part of mainstream America.