She was born into polygamy. Her family followed the teachings of Joseph Smith, including plural
marriage. Like many young girls, she had been promised to a man who was her father's age.
But she ran away. She chose hell over the life of polygamy. That girl was me. I was lost alone,
desolate. Then Jesus Christ found me and rescued me. In his love, I found real freedom. He is a
shield to all who will take refuge in him. This is why I can look back and ask, polygamy, what love
is this? Welcome to polygamy. What love is this? I'm your host, Doris Hansen, and our show tackles
the hard question about Mormon polygamy and its founder, Joseph Smith, especially the question
that we ask, is polygamy true expression of God's love? But before we get started on this show,
we'd like to let you know that if you or someone you know needs to escape from polygamy, you can
contact us. You can go to our website, shieldandrefuge.org, or you can call us on our toll-free number
877-425-9993, and we can discuss your situation confidentially. Or if you would like to be a
guest on our show, or if you have any questions about any of our shows, you can email us at
email at whatloveisthis.tv. And now I would like to welcome our co-host back again, Earl
Erskine, again, former Bishop of the LDS Church, and talking about all of this history that we've
been doing in the past couple of shows. This is exciting. This is really a good one with Fanny
Stenhouse. Does it ever make you go, I wonder why I didn't know these things when I was part of
that church? It really does. You think, well, how is it that I missed all this? Yeah, because these
books are out there. They are. They're out there. This book's been published since 1872.
They're unaware of it. Most of us are unaware of it. Well, last time we began a two-part show
that was reviewing the story of Fanny Stenhouse and her experience in pioneer Mormon polygamy,
and how she and her husband eventually recognized that Mormonism was a deception, and that Brigham
Young especially exploited and deceived the Mormon people, and especially to heighten his own
esteem and his personal finances and, of course, his personal harem. After they got away from Mormon
Utah, both Mr. and Mrs. Stenhouse wrote books about Mormon Utah, Brigham Young, and polygamy.
Fanny's books, two of her books, are an expose of polygamy in Utah, which was published in 1872,
and another one entitled Tell It All, which exposes polygamy for the abuse that it heaped upon
women, and her experience is written in both of these books. Very good books. You can purchase
either book online at amazon.com. I got mine at Utah Lighthouse Ministry. You can go to utlm.org
and order either one of these books, and they are very good if you want to know about early
Mormon polygamy. Fanny Stenhouse was converted to Mormonism in Europe. She and her husband came
to America sometime after that, and they lived in the East for a while before moving to Utah. But
Fanny dreaded coming to Utah because it was certain that in the isolation of the West, she and her
husband would be trapped into a life of polygamy. She knew that. Her fears were well founded because
Mormon leaders, including Brigham Young, pressured her husband into polygamy, which they called
celestial marriage. This other wife would be Belinda, who was a daughter of Parley P. Pratt.
Fanny's response to her husband choosing a second wife went like this. She writes this in Tell It
All on page 434. I, of course, was not expected to ask any questions or events, any curiosity
respecting the girl or my husband's relations towards her. I had given my consent. I had acted
my part, or at least all of the part that was expected of me. I had fulfilled my duty as a
Mormon first wife when I agreed to another wife being taken. Henceforth, all that transpired was,
so the elders would have said, no business of mine. And that's the way it is when the man
takes a second wife. It's no business of the first wife. Of course, Fanny was devastated,
but at the same time, she knew it was coming. And according to her Mormon faith, she was required
to accept it and live the rest of her life sharing her husband with at least one other woman. And
she, along with all the other plural wives, were taught that this painful polygamy was God's command,
and they must buckle under the pain and live their religion or end up in hell. About the
experience of first wives as they watched their husband court new wives, she wrote this. They
know what it is to watch the course of a husband's courtship and note how he progresses with his
wooing, and they could, if they dared, tell the painful feelings that rankle in their breasts at
such a time. Nor is the new wife much happier. The girl against whom the first wife now feels so
bitterly will, in all probability, some day be as unhappy as she is now. In due course of time,
when the wooing is over, she will be brought home, will have her little day of triumph until her
Lord and Master deems it necessary to add another jewel to his crown, and then her heart will be
rent, as the first wife's was, and another crushed and degraded victim will be added to that list
of suffering women who have become martyrs to this heavenly order of marriage. Wow. You can just
tell the anguish in what she writes, and a couple more coming up too. We can just feel that pain,
and Fanny acknowledged that Belinda was a nice and very attractive girl, which of course didn't
make it any easier for her to accept her as a rival wife. She knew that this agony wasn't
Belinda's fault because she was just as much a victim of polygamy as Fanny herself was. She said
that she would have liked Belinda if they had known each other under different circumstances.
Although she hated the very idea of doing it, she considered it her duty to her rival future
sister wife to give her some kind of cordial attention. However, as the impending wedding day
approached, she experienced such a sense of apprehension. She said she felt like a condemned
criminal facing her day of execution, and when the actual wedding day arrived, she wrote this
about her feelings. Utterly cast down and broken-hearted, I felt almost as if the Lord himself
had forsaken me, and there was no one to whom I could look for aid. I could not go to my husband
in that hour for sympathy, for I well knew that his thoughts must be with his intended bride,
and that my sorrows would only trouble him at a time when he must desire to be at peace.
She's agonizing over this, knowing that her husband was no longer her husband only, and she
withdrew into herself knowing that she would never be able to love his new bride. Their private,
exclusive monogamous marriage was no more. He now belonged to two, and neither one of them
would ever have him alter herself. Again, she said this.
Yeah, such pain. I was utterly miserable. It was only in the dead of night in my own chamber
that I gave way to the terrible anguish that was consuming me. God and my own soul alone bear
witness to what I suffered in that time of woe. That night was to me such as even the most God
forsaken might pray never to know, and morning dawn without my having him for a moment closed my
eyes. You know, coming from polygamy, I have heard stories of first wives and the agony that they
suffered in the first wedding night of a plural wife. I can't imagine. Fanny writes that after
she had become a plural wife, her status in Utah's polygamous society changed. She was now one of
them. In fact, it was one of those who shared the painful experience of being a displaced first
wife. Other plural wives made her feel included because she said they were all caught in the same
trap together now. I guess misery does love company. And they shared a little bit too. They shared
their misery as we'll read here. Every polygamic wife, whether first, second, third, or tenth,
cannot help feeling that her position is inferior to that of a monomic wife. The influence of this
supposed revelation is by no means elevating or refining. I was now upon an equal footing with
other first wives. They had no hesitation in confiding to me their griefs, and I had abundant
opportunities of hearing stories of cruelty, wrong, and suffering under the celestial system,
many of them so utterly revolting that I would not dream of relating them again. Polygamy among
the Mormons is so involved in disgusting and disgraceful details that a modest woman would not
dare to relate all she knew. In this book, I've endeavored to be true to my title and to tell
it all as far as such a thing was possible. But there are thousands of horrible incidents,
too degrading to mention, which form part and parcel of the system of polygamy,
but which no woman who had any respect for herself would think of putting upon paper. Wow.
Isn't that something? And it makes me wish that she had done that because we have a lot more shows
to do on this particular, but she didn't. Anyway, polygamy was bad in early Mormon,
as bad as it is now. Fanny's husband had started a newspaper that he called The Telegraph,
and it was the first daily paper she said that was ever published in Utah. It was remarkably
successful from its beginning, partly because Brigham Young had told the Mormons to support it.
Brigham Young knew he had a faithful follower with Mr. Stenhouse, and that if the newspaper was
successful, he would also benefit himself. And at this point, his assumption was true that Mr.
Stenhouse was faithful because he did believe that Brigham Young was the prophet he claimed to be,
and a faithful servant to God. His belief in Brigham Young, however, was about to change.
The Telegraph soon became the leading newspaper in Utah, which by necessity required Mr. Stenhouse
to travel outside of Utah to the eastern states from time to time. And Fanny writes that after his
travels away from the church's influence, Stenhouse's newspaper editorials began reflecting
more liberal opinions. Sometime after Mr. Stenhouse had married his second wife,
Brigham Young suggested he take a third wife and offered him one of his daughters. Fanny was obviously
against having another plural wife, but she says that something was about to change. She didn't
know what it was, but she just says there would be something drastically different in their situation.
So she kept silent about it. Her husband's understanding of the outside world was gradually
undermining his confidence in his religion and in Brigham Young. And so she writes this about that.
And it gave me courage to hope that after all the day of liberty might dawn at last.
Feeling as I did, I regarded with more and more distrust the proposed marriage of my husband
to Brother Brigham's daughter. For I felt that then he would be deeper than ever in the toils of
the priesthood. And I sometimes almost believed that it was my duty to use every influence in
my power to prevent it. Putting my own feelings out of the question, it is probable that I might
have done this simply for his own good. For I doubted not that someday the scales must fall
from his eyes, and then he would be thankful that I had prevented the marriage. So she was seeing
changes. She was seeing it. She was understanding that something was up, and so she was wise in
following that sense. Fanny decided at this point that it really didn't make much difference
anyway how many wives her husband had. His marriage to yet another wife couldn't make
her feel any worse. So his marriage proposal to Brigham Young's daughter was accepted.
But as it turned out, he was betrothed to a very young and a very feisty young girl.
Now it was about this time that Fanny had reached her point of ultimate frustration
regarding the entire ungodly Mormon system and its barbaric polygamy. So she decided that she
was going to reread the, it wasn't section 132 then, but that's what it is now, but she was
going to reread Joseph Smith's so-called polygamy revelation, and that was the beginning of the
end of Mormonism and polygamy for both she and her husband. This was her reaction after she read it
again. About this time I procured a copy of the revelation on celestial marriage and read it through
carefully and calmly from beginning to end. When a copy of it was first given to me years before,
I was so angry and indignant that when I got only partly through it, I cast it from me and
discussed as an outrage. From that time, although I had heard portions of it quoted and read,
I had never perused it as a whole. Had I done so, I have not the slightest doubt that my eyes
would have been open to the absurdity and the wickedness of the whole system, and years of
wretchedness would have been spared me. Isn't that sad? She finally read the whole revelation
from first to last words and was shocked by its wording and its grammar, that it contradicted the
book of Mormon and the Bible, and as well as all the standards of basic morality. She has more to
say about it. What blasphemy to represent God is one day giving a revelation, declaring a thing
sinful, and the next day justifying it, I felt perfectly humiliated with myself. I now made
careful inquiry and was soon clear to me, it was soon clear to me that the doctrine of plural
marriages originated in the licentious hearts of Joseph Smith and those associated with him.
When once I was convinced of that, the whole fabric of my religion crumbled before my eyes,
and from that time I can hardly say that I had faith in anything that had been taught me.
Wow, that would have been a turning point for show, and of course this is what we hope and pray
for all Mormon fundamentalists, that they would just back up a little bit and really take a logical
look at all this. Now Mr. Stenhouse was courting his soon-to-be third wife, but quarrels were erupting
between those two, and they were happening even more frequently. She eventually just broke off
the betrothal, and Mr. Stenhouse would not be taking Brigham Young's daughter as a third wife,
but during this time, and as a result of the sufferings that all plural wives must endure,
his second wife, Belinda, was becoming a very unhappy second wife. She realized that she was
just another jewel in the crown of her husband as it were. She wasn't someone special, but she was
only just another wife. One of her children at that time became very ill and eventually died
from the illness, and that even though Fanny had that jealousy between her and the second wife,
the child and the grieving of the mother brought her and also Belinda, of course,
where their attitudes both were plunged into even deeper decline because of polygamy. Mr.
Stenhouse had been a faithful and loyal member of the Mormon Church now for 25 years. He had always
had great confidence in regard for the prophet, but Fanny writes this. I believe that my husband
would willingly have laid down his life if by so doing he could have shielded Brigham Young from
harm or have been of essential service to him, but causes were now in operation which by and by
detached him from the church and made it possible for me also to leave the Mormon faith. Hitherto,
for my children's sake, I dared not leave the church without my husband and I therefore anxiously
watched for anything which might rescue him from the bondage in which he was held. And as we see
these things happen, we just see this take place and then this, just like it's moving their lives
away from polygamy and then away from Mormonism. Well circumstances were certainly changing things.
Mr. Stenhouse's newspaper was very successful and it had been headquartered in Salt Lake City
where the hustle and bustle of business and the population was the greatest. But Brigham Young's
sermons were becoming more and more wild and arrogant and he claimed the right, he was claiming
the right in his sermons to dictate in everything about the Mormons. Even telling the women what
stockings or ribbons they could or couldn't wear and of course he was saying that in his sermons.
This fanaticism was causing opposition and talk of apostasy among some of the members
which caused even more denunciations from Brigham. Fanny said this.
Brigham Young in one of his sermons says that the first thing manifested in the case of apostasy
was the idea that the prophet was liable to make a mistake. When a man believes that he has taken
the first step toward apostasy he need only take one step more and he's out of the church.
Now that sounds familiar to us and not even today. Brigham Young was saying the same thing then,
you know, like the prophet can't make mistakes. Why are they saying now that Brigham Young was
just a man who made mistakes after you read something like this? They were preaching they
don't make mistakes. Just a man spoke as a man sometimes. Yeah so there's some contradiction
going on there but anyway this method of sermonizing was having the effect of alienating her husband
and his newspaper articles reflecting his condition of mind. Now to add insult to injury
Brigham Young accused Mr. Stenhouse of publishing favorable advertisements of stores owned by
Gentiles. Oh no, no freedom of press, no freedom of speech, no freedom of choice. Isn't that awful?
So no doubt you know that's how newspaper advertising is a big portion of the finances
in publishing newspaper. I'm so glad that we know Mormon isn't true. It's so darn controlling.
And it still is controlling but anyways things began to unravel in the formerly Mormon controlled
minds of Mr. and Mrs. Stenhouse. As these issues took the course of turning them against Brigham
Young and Mormonism one huge problem remained. He was still married to Belinda. Right one day
her husband came home with the news that Brigham Young wanted him to move his newspaper out of
Salt Lake City and into Octon and publish from there and they both knew at that point that this
was just a ploy by Brigham Young to destroy their finances and their business. She wrote this.
I do not doubt that long before this time he had noted I guess Brigham Young had noted that my
husband was weakening in the faith but he had waited for his opportunity and now he considered
that it had come. We knew very well that this was the way in which he had always acted towards
those whom he feared or doubted. When he saw them growing weak in the faith he ruined them
before they finally left the church. That was his that's the way they did it. He would justify it
because okay they've left the church. Yeah they're doubting the prophet. So Mr. Stenhouse still though
was in those throngs of the you know the in between that he still was faithful towards
Brigham Young and the church and so he obediently moved his business to Octon but Belinda didn't
follow him there. Soon their worst fears however were realized. The Octon environment was not able
to sustain his paper and they were heavily mortgaged in moving. They had to move and get a building
and all that and there was no favorable economic future that they could see. As it turned out
their son Fanny and Mr. Stenhouse's son became terribly ill even to the point to where they
doubted that he would live. Fanny and her husband decided to travel where he lived which was in San
Francisco and that so upset Belinda she threatened to divorce him if he left and went to San Francisco.
Well it was his son and so he and Fanny did go and soon after they returned back
Belinda divorced him. Well I took care of that problem. So there we see these little things
taking place you know that's freeing them up away from the Mormon system. Well Fanny and Mr. Stenhouse
were gradually becoming freed from the strongholds of Mormonism and polygamy. Mr. Stenhouse had not
regularly attended their school of the prophets which they had during those days of Mormonism
and Brigham Young used the excuse of irregular attendance to disfellowship him. Oh boy what power.
This is what she wrote. Brigham's assumption of the right to disfellowship men from the church
because of irregular attendance at the school was a stretch of authority which startled my husband.
What will he not do next he said to submit would be to acknowledge him absolute and me a slave
but there is but one alternative now slavery or freedom cost me what it may I will be free.
Don't you love that? Don't you just love that? Cost me what it may I will be free. They knew he
knew she knew that that Brigham Young had his tentacles and everything that had to do with
Mormon life in Utah and he knew that if he gave in at this point that he would be under Brigham
Young as a slave slavery to every whim that he had and he said cost me what it may I will be free
that's so great I just wish there are more people do that today and so began the long painful process
of freeing themselves from Mormonism after an attempt on their lives and many other acts of
violence and shunning after these events she wrote this. This kind of sounds like Colorado City or
some of those other places. It is no secret that the police of Salt Lake City for it is the police
who their commit murders and other inhuman outrages treat with the greatest brutality all the unhappy
Gentiles and apostates whose misfortune it is to fall into their power. This is also this also
is the wretched effects of the fanatical teaching of the church. These men believe that Utah is Zion
the kingdom of God and the citizens of the United States are but intruders upon this holy ground
that they ought to be driven out and despoiled of everything and even murdered if opportunity offers.
They make no secret of these feelings toward the Gentiles and towards apostate Mormons
it is shown if possible in a somewhat stronger manner. And you know this is it was tough people
wanted to leave it if you I don't know if you've read Wild Bill Hickman's stories and and some of
those but and he was an assassin assassin for Brigham Young and he he wrote a story and he
went out and killed people sometimes he said they would dress up like Indians so it looked like the
Indians did it but if somebody wanted to leave Utah and Brigham didn't want him to go then he
was sent out on the mission to make sure they didn't leave the valley it was so isolated here
that they had that kind of control they could do it and they did do it and and like you say today's
polygamy groups the FLDS have what they call the God Squad it's been in the news and on the paper
and others polygamy groups have silent spies that they spy on their members but God God works in
peace and gentleness and patience yeah he doesn't work in in the fear and murder and shunning that
these people were working in and you know as we go through this story there were so many twists and
so many turns that we couldn't possibly tell all the details here but the Stenhouses finally did
escape the Mormon machine eventually he was able to sell the newspaper and move to New York and
they did get out and they did get away and and it was a way that they were able to write their
books he also wrote a book about their life in Mormonism and of course you can find like I said
the books online and and I would really highly recommend that you read them they are good books
they're they're honest they're heart wrenching you'll never see Mormon polygamy in the same light
again if you'll read their books that it's the one that we took this show from this one in the
last shows tell it all published in 1972 by Fanny Stenhouse so get the books and read all of the
story as we kind of skimmed over it quite quickly here but isn't that scary to read is what they
had to go through and yet their belief and their faith is so strong I mean I related to what he
was saying about giving your life for the church I mean that's something we hope never would happen
but it was in the back of our minds that this is the truth it's a true church and we'd give our
lives for Zion and the building up of the kingdom so it's scary to be so blind about the Zion thing
as I became a Christian and I was reading in Psalms it says only Jerusalem is Zion okay yeah
we'll end with that one thanks girl thank you appreciate it again you know as I close today
I would like to share some closing thought from Fanny's book she said a woman can never be truly
happy in polygamy they may publicly say they are but privately they suffer tremendous emotional
pain she said that out of the evil which man originates God alone can produce good Fanny wanted
the whole world outside of Utah to know about this barbaric Mormon polygamy and to see it completely
destroyed from civilization she prayed that the veil would be gone from the eyes of enslaved Mormon
men and women that they would reject the priesthood which was polygamy that they would realize that
God never required that they should be degraded this way that they would shake off the slavery
and captivity of Mormonism and polygamy by claiming their rights she wanted to see Mormon
polygamous free and so do we
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