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More Wives Than One: Transformation of the Mormon Marriage System, 1840-1910
More Wives Than One offers an in-depth look at the long-term interaction between belief and the practice of polygamy, or plural marriage, among the Latter-day Saints. Focusing on the small community of Manti, Utah, Kathryn M. Daynes provides an intimate view of how Mormon doctrine and Utah laws on marriage and divorce were applied in people's lives.
305 pages, Paperback
First published October 16, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
January 18, 2009
A scholarly, somewhat dispassionate look into plural marriage among the early LDS, full of interesting insights. Be prepared it is written in a tone that makes it more academic than a pleasure read, depending on your perspective of what pleasure reading is of course.
August 31, 2012
It's well-documented, but here's a confession: I still hate non-fiction. I just got...bored.
December 20, 2021
An amoral look at polygamy in Utah from 1840-1910. I found the book immensely fascinating.
Things I found interesting:
- I found the three time periods really interesting where most of the plural marriages entered into happened early on and people practiced it less and less until the Manifesto.
- I found it interesting that it helped re-distribute wealth in the area since wealthier men were economically stable enough to support more wives and children, at the same time it makes the marriage feel very transactional
- Some of the views seem really dated now (separate from the view that one man should take more than one woman as a wife ha ha) like the view that if a woman has sex while she is pregnant that will make the child predispositioned to be a sexual deviant. Ergo, the solution for the male sex drive is that while one wife is pregnant a man can get his sexual needs met from a different wife.
- I found it interesting that divorce was used as a safety valve that really allowed the practice to occur.
- I found it interesting that due to divorce, death, economic situations, etc men that had plural wives rarely lived with more than two wives at a time.
Overall, I found it very fascinating and it illuminated a lot of the details of how polygamy actually worked as a practice.
Things I found interesting:
- I found the three time periods really interesting where most of the plural marriages entered into happened early on and people practiced it less and less until the Manifesto.
- I found it interesting that it helped re-distribute wealth in the area since wealthier men were economically stable enough to support more wives and children, at the same time it makes the marriage feel very transactional
- Some of the views seem really dated now (separate from the view that one man should take more than one woman as a wife ha ha) like the view that if a woman has sex while she is pregnant that will make the child predispositioned to be a sexual deviant. Ergo, the solution for the male sex drive is that while one wife is pregnant a man can get his sexual needs met from a different wife.
- I found it interesting that divorce was used as a safety valve that really allowed the practice to occur.
- I found it interesting that due to divorce, death, economic situations, etc men that had plural wives rarely lived with more than two wives at a time.
Overall, I found it very fascinating and it illuminated a lot of the details of how polygamy actually worked as a practice.
January 8, 2026
Another brilliant piece of research and writing.
There are some fascinating stories about marriage perspectives (including around six different types of legal marriage) in Utah (and much of the time, performed and recognized by religious leaders), like placing highest priority on having children, downplaying love, and consistent pressure to obey "the principle" because it was never a popular policy.
There are some fascinating stories about marriage perspectives (including around six different types of legal marriage) in Utah (and much of the time, performed and recognized by religious leaders), like placing highest priority on having children, downplaying love, and consistent pressure to obey "the principle" because it was never a popular policy.
February 28, 2021
Definitely an informative and interesting look at the history of polygamy. For the most part it was very readable, but there were a few chapters that just had so many numbers and statistics that it was a little overwhelming and hard to follow.
July 7, 2019
An important book but not exactly a fun read.
March 3, 2025
Had to read this book for class did not really enjoy the writing or the content
February 25, 2013
(follow http://faithful.staynalive.com for the full review coming soon)
I picked up this book originally to do a little family history. My ancestors were Orson Pratt and Heber C. Kimball. In fact, I'm sealed to Joseph Smith through one of Heber C. Kimball's wives who married Joseph Smith "for eternity", which by Mormon beliefs makes me linked to Joseph Smith in my genealogy and family history. I wanted to get to the bottom of how all that worked.
This book is perhaps one of the most reputable books on the topic. Written by an active Mormon historian, he tries to take an unbiased approach to helping the reader understand the history of polygamy. Some of the chapters were a little dry, focusing on just stats, but it was still interesting.
If you're trying to get a true understanding on the history of the Mormon belief in marriage, this book is it. It covers the history of marriage in general, the cultures behind it in and out of Mormon culture, and the gradual force by the US government to dissolve polygamy against Mormons by seizing the Church's belongings and dis-incorporating the Church's status. If you were ever wondering why Mormons are so defensive of marriage, this book will show you that it's happened before, and it can happen again.
I picked up this book originally to do a little family history. My ancestors were Orson Pratt and Heber C. Kimball. In fact, I'm sealed to Joseph Smith through one of Heber C. Kimball's wives who married Joseph Smith "for eternity", which by Mormon beliefs makes me linked to Joseph Smith in my genealogy and family history. I wanted to get to the bottom of how all that worked.
This book is perhaps one of the most reputable books on the topic. Written by an active Mormon historian, he tries to take an unbiased approach to helping the reader understand the history of polygamy. Some of the chapters were a little dry, focusing on just stats, but it was still interesting.
If you're trying to get a true understanding on the history of the Mormon belief in marriage, this book is it. It covers the history of marriage in general, the cultures behind it in and out of Mormon culture, and the gradual force by the US government to dissolve polygamy against Mormons by seizing the Church's belongings and dis-incorporating the Church's status. If you were ever wondering why Mormons are so defensive of marriage, this book will show you that it's happened before, and it can happen again.
March 25, 2014
This book contains so many charts and graphs, more than I actually wanted but it also contained more factual never-before-read tidbits than in any other book of this type. I loved reading it (ignoring some of the graphs) and learning so much about the times and people although none of my polygamous ancestors were mentioned, and none had any connection with Manti, the town she focuses on primarily. Still, my understanding of and empathy for the polygamous families is so much greater, and more robust: I'm sure that I'll be revisiting the book in years to come.
The author is definitely a statistician and historian extraordinaire. She leaves the reader with few, if any, questions about any aspect of L-dS plural marriage or the laws created to end the institution.
The one thing that I didn't expect and didn't like was a quote from Embry's Mormon Polygamous Families. Evidently, after the Second Manifesto, those who still hewed to the polygamous way of life were scorned by their co-religionists as they had been vilified before by non-Mormons -- that must have been incredibly difficult and heart-rending. One child born after the Manifesto said "... fellow Mormons in the community called the children bastards."
The author is definitely a statistician and historian extraordinaire. She leaves the reader with few, if any, questions about any aspect of L-dS plural marriage or the laws created to end the institution.
The one thing that I didn't expect and didn't like was a quote from Embry's Mormon Polygamous Families. Evidently, after the Second Manifesto, those who still hewed to the polygamous way of life were scorned by their co-religionists as they had been vilified before by non-Mormons -- that must have been incredibly difficult and heart-rending. One child born after the Manifesto said "... fellow Mormons in the community called the children bastards."
March 10, 2017
Rather than a judgement call on the morality of polygamy Daynes gives us an academic overview of polygamy and a thorough analysis of the doctrine, justification, motivations, and lived experiences of those who preached and practiced polygamy. A fair amount of statistics are drawn from her own work as well as census data and information gathered and interpreted by previous investigators of Mormon Polygamy. I enjoyed the entire book but the final chapter was worth the purchase price itself as she synthesizes the social norms was that were abandoned and then replaced with new norms (polygamy) then forcibly abandoned again. She ends with a few pages on fundamentalist splinter groups that seem to go through similar periods of anomie (normlessness) but in an age when it is increasingly difficult to live separate from wider society.
An excellent resource.
An excellent resource.
November 16, 2011
Mormon studeis/sociology/religion/history... If you like these you will enjoy this book as much as I did. Kathryn M. Daynes's book is the most important study to date of plural marriage in the nineteenth-century Utah and is especially significant for its detailed analysis of the demographics of Mormonism's 'peculiar institution.'" I have read this book twice and I think it is time for me to read it once more.
May 12, 2010
I wanted a very scholarly, objective view on the history of this subject. Kathryn Daynes started this book as her Master's thesis and ended up making a book. It definitely reads like a thesis at times, but the information is well organized and accessible.
October 22, 2015
This book did a better job of explaining the culture of polygamy than any other book I've read on the subject. It's a historically complicated topic, but I thought this book did well-documented justice to the motivations of the people involved in polygamy's establishment and promulgation.
September 5, 2010
I love this book so far. There are so many stories leaving me scratching my head, in amazement. I had some real discomfort with polygamy (and still do), but this book made me feel better about it.
July 19, 2012
People give you funny looks if you read this book on the bus, but if you want to understand this issue, there is no better place to start.
July 28, 2014
Definitive history and information. A bit sporadic in writing, but good nonetheless.
August 19, 2014
Fascinating and detailed.
June 24, 2022
Seems that the socio-economic benefits brought about by Smith’s desire to shtup his friends’s wives helps LDS academics rationalize polygamy
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews