"Twenty-year-old Fred Cox made a momentous decision in the
spring of 1857; he would ask Mary Ellen Tuttle to be his wife. He had no wealth to offer his prospective
bride–on the 1860 census he listed no real or personal property-but at the height
of the reformation in Manti, that was a small consideration. Women were being importuned to marry,
especially to become plural wives. Fred
was an eligible young man, and several young women had encouraged his
attention. He chose young Mary Ellen.
"His difficulty was how he should tell Lucy Allen, who had so
openly shown her affection for him, that he planned to marry someone else. He concluded he would break the news to her
at a church dance on April 20. That
night he asked Lucy to walk outside with him.
While he hesitated to apprise her of his choice, she told him she was
going to Provo to work that summer, unless, she hinted, something happened to
keep her in Manti. Before he could use
this opening to introduce the subject, Bishop Warren S. Snow approached the
couple and stopped to exchange pleasantries.
From their association and their seeking to be alone, the couple
appeared to the bishop to be lovers, and he offered to marry them on the spot. Lucy eagerly agreed. Not taking the bishop seriously, Fred
submitted. The bishop played his part
well and went through the entire ceremony.
When he asked Fred if he took Lucy to be his wife, the young man
hesitated, but when the question was repeated, he gave the usual answer.
"The bishop had made Fred’s message to Lucy more difficult,
but somehow he communicated enough so that she left for Provo as planned. By late summer, Marry Ellen had agreed to
become Fred’s wife. As dedicated
Latter-Day Saints, they wanted to be married for “time and eternity”, a rite
generally performed only at the Endowment House in Salt Lake City. For them to be eligible to participate in
this ceremony, the bishop had to certify their worthiness. So to the bishop they went.
"Bishop Snow seemed perplexed at their request to be
married. He had wanted Mary Ellen as his
own plural wife but had been thwarted because her father did not want her to
enter plural marriage. Fred was unaware
of this when he and his prospective bride made their request. The bishop asked the girl if she had
carefully weighed her decision to enter plural marriage and queried the young
man whether he was financially able to support another wife. Now it was the young couple’s turn to be
perplexed. Mary Ellen assured the bishop
that such questions need not be asked, but he countered by affirming that Fred
was already married to Lucy Allen and that he himself had performed the
wedding. Fred protested, arguing that
the ceremony had not been a real wedding and was neither legal nor
binding. His protests were for
naught. Fred and Mary Ellen enlisted the
aid of their parents and even the aid of Lucy’s parents, but the bishop was
adamant that Fred and Lucy were married.
The couple and their parents appealed to a higher authority. While attending the church’s semi-annual
conference in October, Fred, his father, and Lucy’s father sought an interview
with Brigham Young. The president of the
church listened attentively to their story.
After carefully considering the case, he announced to Fred that he was a
married man and advised him to go home and make the best of it. On the way home, Fred stopped in Provo to get
Lucy and took her home with him to Manti" (Kathryn M. Daynes, More Wives Than One: Transformation of the Mormon Marriage System, 1840-1910 [Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2001], 55-56).
No comments:
Post a Comment