An important part of early Mormon culture making was the promotion of polygamy in the ranks. Although Kathy Daynes is correct to note that the brethren had to preach polygamy from the pulpit in order to get the members to enter into polygamous relationships, it is also important to remember that polygamy was promoted in other forms as well, such as in the following song. According to Carmon Hardy, “[t]his verse appeared as part of a ballad sung to the tune of ‘Rosa May’ in the 17th Ward School House in Salt Lake City, on 15 October 1856,” at the height of the Mormon Reformation (which was also, not coincidentally, the time when polygamy was practiced by the highest percentage of Mormons from 1852 to 1890).[1] This verse is part of a longer song entitled “The Reformation,” which was published in the Deseret News.

Now sisters, list to what I say

With trials this world is rife

You can’t expect to miss them all,

 Help husband get a Wife!

Now this advice I freely give,

If exalted you would be,

Remember that your husband must

Be blessed with more than thee.

Then O, let us say

God bless the wife that strives

And aids her husband all she can

T’obtain a dozen wives.

___________

[1] B. Carmon Hardy, Doing the Works of Abraham: Mormon Polygamy (Norman, Oklahoma: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 2007), 115; see Kathryn M. Daynes, More Wives than One: Transformation of the Mormon Marriage System, 1840-1910 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001), 101.