Plural Marriage and Mormons From Vantage of Women

On a cold day in 1870, thousands of Mormon women gathered in a Utah meeting hall to defy the US Congress. Astonished journalists listened as the women defended polygamy, which by then adherents openly practiced. Soon afterward, Utah's Mormon-dominated territorial legislature granted women the right to vote — well in advance of efforts elsewhere.

In “A House Full of Females — Plural Marriage and Women's rights in Early Mormonism, 1835-1870,” Laurel Thatcher Ulrich rewinds the tape, seeking to understand how Mormon women arrived at this seemingly paradoxical moment. The result is a book that movingly portrays believers' early struggles while leaving certain mysteries frustratingly intact.