Marriage standards were extremely flexible all along the frontier. It was easy, therefore, for many of the penniless and lonely women converts to slip into polygamy. But for every woman who entered the system for reasons of security — and a fragile security at that — there were a dozen for whom this necessity did not arise. There was no need whatever for the attractive virgin to become a second, third, or thirteenth wife, since frontier areas always had a surplus of men. And what of the married women who gladly signed themselves and their children over to the prophet’s keeping and glory for
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