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THE UPSTREAM SWIMMERS Fema 1 P E "Rotagomsts " Mormon Novels

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THE UPSTREAM SWIMMERS Fema 1 P E THE UPSTREAM SWIMMERS Fema 1 P e "rotagomsts " Mormon Novels but Clory are first wives who are horrified at the by Linda Sillitoe thought of their husbands marrying a second time. In Blanche Cannon’s Nothing Ever Happens on Sun- n Amory Blaine, a Nick Adams, or a Holden Caul- day Morning, Eben (on a mission in England) converts field is familiar to readers of American literature as and marries the beautiful May. He keeps their marriage A the uninitiated protagonist, seeking a place in a a secret from his wife Matilda, even after they both bewildering and frequently hypocritical world of travel, come to the United States, until he decides the time is education, war, and sexual exploits. In Mormon ripe to run for ward bishop. He is aghast to find that novels, beginning in the 1940s and continuing to the Matilda cannot remain friends with May. present, the uninitiated explorer is more likely to be a Burns Hamilton, of the recently published Watch for young woman. She also explores a male world which is the Morning by Elizabeth McDonald, is a loving, though closely overseen by the Father and even more closely zealous, missionary-husband (again in England) but by his servants: men who hold His priesthood and thus becomes increasingly monstrous as he adds wife after govern and preside. From prophet to deacon, the chain wife in Utah. of authority includes virtually all men, but the Simon, in A Little Lower Than the Angels by Virginia women--Clory, Kate, Mercy, Chel, Matilda, and the Sorensen, is counseled by Brigham Young to take others--are a part of that chain only tangentially where another wife when Mercy’s health breaks. As Simon they attach like barnacles to their husbands. Perhaps listens, he feels "a weakness, an excitement that was like something he remembered from the years when he because they are only adjacent to the strain of author- ’’1 ity, some women are less loyal to the link above their was very young. Mercy soon finds herself a helpless husbands than are the husbands themselves, who are and hating observer as young, healthy Charlot assumes always more loyal to Brother Joseph or to Brother all Mercy’s wifely responsibilities. Brigham than they are to their wives. Nancy thinks she can beat the system (in For Time These women, then, are known as rebels, although and All Eternity by Paul Bailey) by marrying the first most of them live their lives "within the system." The gentile she finds. She watches with mixed emotions as rebellion is an internal see-saw more than an outward Joel converts, becomes a patriarch in Zion, and eventu- riot, as they confront and secretly reject doctrines and ally a polygamist. customs that seem quite comfortable to the rest of the Only Maurine Whipple recognized the dramatic community. possibilities of a later wife, in The Giant Joshua. Clory is Due to the limited space and time of this paper, we raised by her Uncle Abijah and Aunt Bathsheba but be- must abridge our considerations. Place as belief and as comes Abijah’s third wife when she is seventeen. "Isn’t a struggle with the earth cannot be discussed here, al- it funny," Clory thought one night, "here we are, three though it is important in the novels; nor can doctrinal womefi married to one man and to only Sheba is he ’my husband;’ to Willie and me he’ll never by anything belief as a whole, nor even comparative literary value. I ’’2 have selected seven novels from more than twice that more than ’Brother Mac’. number (ranging from Samuel Taylor’s Family Kingdom Kate Alexander, in The Evening and the Morning by to Joyce Eliason’s Fresh Meat/Warm Weather.)These Virginia Sorensen, was the young second wife of a seven bring variety as well as unity in considering what widower rather than a polygamist. From that vantage is at the core of these rebellions: a woman’s relation- point she explains to her daughter, Dessie, the adjust- ship with men--her husband and sometimes, her ment of values necessary in polygamy: lover. The graph is to acquaint you or refresh your ac- Once polygamy was established and accepted quaintance with the characters, and to save time- in a community pride wasn’t a matter of being consuming explanations as the paper progresses. well loved by one man any more, holding him A primary cause of rebellion in Mormon novels is firmly in a house, keeping him contented enough the practice of polygamy. This is the case for Kate and obligated enough to stay there. A woman Hamilton, Nancy, Mercy, and Clory. Interestingly, all could be proud of how well she got along with 52 the rest of the women. She had a reason to see way, which ravages all three. Chel endures the temple that the meals in her house were always good and ceremony in "lying white," slowly separating herself the beds always clean. And she didn’t have to be from herself during the long ritual so that Jens is left afraid like so many women are now--a man was with only a cold, compulsive ghost. These women be- always accounted for .... 3 lieve in their love, yet they believe they are wrong to Matilda, who wept as she listened to May’s and love. Eben’s laughter through the thin walls of their double When Clory, big with Abijah’s child, stepped into house, would not have agreed; nor would Nancy, who the night for fresh air and found Free, who was taking refused to let Joel marry his young friend until he an- his irrigation turn, all the months of pretense were for- nounced that she was pregnant and disgrace would be- gotten. fall the entire family. Kate Hamilton slaved masochisti- She leaned suddenly and kissed him. Beyond cally despite her husband’s callous ingratitude and his the guilty feeling in her heart was an older, relish for younger wives. Clory found Sheba’s interfer- headier clamor. But she hadn’t expected this wild, ence and bullying nearly unendurable, but she found a tumultuous bliss, this joy that struck her to the mother in her sister-wife, Willie. In addition to the in- core. Her very flesh seemed to dissolve--a voice securities and adjustments that seem inevitable in such rode triumphantly over the dark waves in her a system, these women endured outrages (some of mind, "I never knew kissing could be like this .... " which I have mentioned) which I have distinguished "You have to say it, Clory--that way we’ll from polygamy itself by the term "abuse of patriarchy." know we’re not sneaking, it’s not wrong--" Inherent in the belief in polygamy as a religious and Her head came up proudly, and she looked him social order is the concept that it is socially acceptable, in the eye. morally upright, and even holy for a man to love more "I do love you, Free," she said steadily. "I than one woman; and that he is (or can become) per- guess I’ve loved you for a long time and just fectly capable of loving them equally, though separ- didn’t know it. We shouldn’t have let it happen, ately. Clory in her dugout, Matilda rocking her beaten but now it has, I’m not ashamed. I’m glad." son, Mercy helpless in her bed, didn’t believe it. Even a ...They sat through the long night among the much younger Kate Alexander than the woman who crushed bergamot and made plans, quite as if talks about polygamy as a shift in pride was devastated they could make plans... when she glimpsed her husband, Karl, kissing her ...But run where? There were deserts stretching younger sister. Much later, Kate discovered that the endlessly on either side... kiss had not mattered to anyone but herself, but by And the ugly facts would not be downed. Run- then she had learned about the possibilities of love. ning away would justify all Abijah’s suspicions. The reverse of that male-multiple-love concept is Blood atonement, and the transgressor’s blood also considered in several of these novels, sometimes at going up as an incense to the Lord in expiation. counterpoint to polygamy. In every case, however, it is The law gave Abijah the right to do that to a wife considered socially unacceptable, morally repugnant, who transgressed her marriage vows. and evil for a women to love more than one man. Yet "No, Free," she said softly, "there’s no use Clory loves Free, Abijah’s son, with such joyous pas- trying to hang on to it. Our lives were marked out sion that she thinks of him as Kissy’s father, although by Somebody bigger than us and we’ve got to live only Abijah has reached her sexually. Kate Alexander them the way He’s set us down. At least we know loves Peter (who is married to Karl’s sister-in-law) with about our love and we can use it to make us varying degrees of joy, guilt, and passion, and gives stronger, finer. Every time I look at you I can say birth to his daughter, Dessie, which nearly scared Peter to myself, ’There’s the person who has made my to death. Chel gives herself to Erik, though she is be- life richer, who is always in my heart’--I’ll look at you and know that as long as I live I’ll never be trothed to Jens, his half-brother.
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