"Marrying Pa"

Posted by rjhmoore at 4:56 PM 0 comments

A.E. Young has added yet another disturbing fact to her tale. Apparently it eventually became the common custom for a man to marry his wife and then marry his daughter(s) once they became of age. A.E. talks about two schoolmates of hers and how they discussed their future relationship with their father. She says, "The little girls knew of the arrangement, and used to talk very openly of 'marrying Pa,' and in very much the same way they would speak of their intention to take tea with a friend." I must say this: disgusting. Of all the things, what could have possibly led these people to believe that incest was a divine practice?

These are my thoughts broken down and organized so that someone besides myself can understand them. First I think, those poor girls. I imagine marrying my dad and I shudder. It is just so wrong and unnatural. To see that they approached it openly and casually makes me wonder what was said to them to make them believe this was an okay, even good, thing. What could someone say to me to make me think that marrying my dad was the right thing to do? I cannot possibly imagine anything could make me think that because of the age I am and the knowledge that I've come to possess. However, perhaps because the girls were so "little," they were more impressionable, and therefore grew up believing that this was a societal norm.

Second, I think, what do the parents of these children think about doing this their offspring? Offspring are simply that; they do not double as spouses. A.E. Young tells us that many men and women married with the sole goal of eventually sealing all their daughters to the husband so that he would have plenty of wives in heaven. How did this prospect settle in young couples' minds? Imagine being a wife and having a daughter knowing that someday she would have to lay with your husband just as he lays with you. Imagine being a husband know that your daughter will be the mother of your grandchildren/children or whatever title on the family tree those kids are given. It is unbelievably sick. How were these parents and daughters at peace with this arrangement?

I have been surprised by many of the things that the early Mormons did, but this shocked me. I'm baffled by what pain these incestuous acts surely caused.