Paula Harline's The Polygamous Wives Writing Club uses the personal writings of twenty-nine Mormon women to narrate their experience within polygamous families. Unfortunately, there were no actual polygamous wives writing clubs in mid to late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Utah. The idea of the writing club is a “device” that allows Harline to imaginatively stitch her stories together according to geography, time, and theme (4).

Harline writes that while in graduate school, she hypothesized that the “ultimate irony of polygamy is that it actually promoted feminist ideals such as independence, female community, opportunity, and power” (77). Now, she finds that “polygamy thwarted female friendships” and created alienation between husband and wives (88).

Not that one can easily make generalizations. As Harline quite correctly observes, “Mormon polygamous marriages were not just one thing but an entire spectrum of north and south, horizontal and vertical, far and near, early and late, old and young, pleasure and pain, substance and poverty, compatibility and disappointment, children and illness, respect and disregard, companionship and loneliness, regret and gratitude” (199). Convinced that plural marriage would secure them the fullest possible measure of celestial glory, some Mormon women eagerly married already married men. Some chose polygamy over the objections of their monogamous parents, while others succumbed to the pressure of parents and church leaders.

A few found contentment. Martha Cragun, the third wife of Isaiah Cox, worked cooperatively and harmoniously with her sister wives, divvying up chores and childrearing. When she imagined the hereafter, she did not mention her husband. Instead, she wrote that “we three who loved each other more than sisters, children of one mother love, will go hand in hand together down through all eternity” (116).

At the other end of the spectrum is what Harline too blandly labels the “weird experience” of Annie Berry. In 1876, Berry's twice-divorced mother married the widower Henry Chestnut. From the start, “Mr. HC” set his sights on the eleven year-old Annie, stating that he would make her his “little wife” (184). And he did. When she was fourteen, her mother, stepfather, and another prospective wife went to the St. George Temple. Chestnut told Annie she would marry him, and she was too horrified and scared to resist. Given her young age and the fact that Chestnut was already married to her mother, the authorities had to obtain permission from hierarchs in Salt Lake City for the sealing to proceed. Afterwards, Chestnut threatened to kill Annie if she ran away, and Annie's mother became angry when her daughter became pregnant. Several babies later, she finally left Chestnut. Harline writes that Chestnut “exhibited characteristics of a domineering husband in the way he intimidate Annie, took advantage of her youth, and fluctuated between anger and affection” (193). It would be simpler to state that Chestnut raped and abused Annie Berry and was enabled to do so by church authorities. Harline might more fully have analyzed the inherent disparities of power between men and women in nineteenth-century Utah.

Harline points to a 2002 study of contemporary societies that finds that women in polygamous families have higher rates of childbirth, discord, and mental illness, and she suggests that before contemporary Americans extend toleration or legal protection to polyamory or polygamy, they might want to stop and consider the “obscure nineteenth-century polygamous wives” whose lives she documents (201). Of course, nineteenth-century monogamoy was also intensely patriarchal and all too often brought about both loneliness and abuse. After leaving Chestnut, Annie Berry entered into a monogamous marriage with Thomas Day, who left her behind on their farm for extended periods of time and once hit her “with his willow” while she was pregnant (195). Annie, it should be noted, was not easily intimidated. Once, while she and Thomas argued over irrigation water, she erupted, “You lazy son of a bitch I have put in every dam dam and tuck out every dam dam” (196). He raised his shovel to strike her, and she raised her hoe to defend herself. Their marriage improved over time. In later decades, she taught Thom to knit, and he helped make stockings for the family.

In the end, what can we learn about Mormon polygamy from these twenty-nine women's writings? Many books have appeared on the subject in the past several years, including works by George D. Smith, Brian Hales, and Merina Smith. In particular, there is now a great deal of information about the early Mormon practice of polygamy in Nauvoo. Other historians, such as Kathryn Daynes, have used census data to reach broader conclusions about marriage age, divorce rates, and economic prosperity in early Utah. Harline's study is particular valuable for its insight into the experiences of polygamous families after the 1890 “Manifesto,” in which Church President Wilford Woodruff encouraged church members to obey the law of the land. Although church hierarchs tacitly authorized some plural marriages over the subsequent fourteen years, the manifesto produced confusion and heartache among many polygamous families. Especially until the threat of prosecution at the hands of U.S. authorities subsided, many men thought that they should no longer cohabit with their polygamous wives. Wives in turn feared abandonment. At the same time, those who became pregnant sometimes felt disdain from their own communities. Perhaps in a final irony, the beginning of polygamy's end brought about further anxiety and loneliness for those women who had embraced it as a religious principle.

Harline admirably switches our focus away from the much-debated morality and motivations of Joseph Smith to the experiences of polygamous women and families. Other than his 1843 revelation on the subject, the Mormon prophet left behind few clues about polygamy in his written records or transcribed sermons. By contrast, even though few felt free to express themselves openly on the subject during their lifetimes, scores of Utah women left behind colorful and revealing journals and memoirs. By locating and interpreting those documents, Paula Harline has contributed to a richer and more intimate understanding of the varied ways in which women embraced and lived a most difficult religious principle.