Monday, February 20, 2012
Romney Polygamy Family Tree
While Mitt Romney may disagree with the practice of polygamy and its practice by his prior church, polygamy seems to be very prominent in the Romney family tree. Romney ancestors did not only practice polygamy but endorsed it. Mitt Romney’s great-great grandfather Parley P Pratt had twelve wives and in 1852 sermon his brother Orson Pratt, “became the first church official to publicly proclaim and defend polygamy as a direct revelation from God”. Romney’s great grandfather Miles Park Romney had 5 wives and he married the fifth one in 1897, after LDS church banned polygamy 6 years ago in 1891 and a federal law which banned the practice three decades earlier. Romney father, George Romney, former Michigan governor, who was born in Mexico, were church members who fled in the 1800’s after US law banned polygamy and to escape religious persecution. The Romney family did not return to the United States until 1912, “more than two decades after the church issued "The Manifesto" banning polygamy”. While reading this family history, one realizes how much prominent polygamy was in the Romney family during Miles Park Romney and Parley Pratt’s time.
It seems like generation after generation, they were all polygamist until the church banned it and US law prohibited it, polygamy started to fade away slowly from their lives. The founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Joseph smith, had 33 wives and Brigham young, the guy who expanded the church from Midwest to Utah had 55 wives. Smith’s repeatedly said the God authorized polygamy. That is a big issue, if this is not inequality, then what is? A Man having 33 wives and 55 wives respectively, in my opinion is just cruel, unfair, and it degrades women. What makes men so superior than women and why were they the only ones allowed to practice polygamy and why couldn’t the women marry different men?
Remember the court case?, Reynolds vs. Unites States, where the court found that laws banning polygamy were constitutional and did not violate the Mormons right to free exercise of their religion. I believe that court made the right decision because freedom of religion is not greater than the law of the land.
As a part of activity we did in class the other day, I was part of “Protecting Mormon Women’s rights” group , and after reading this article I have a witness and I would like to make a case against the church leaders and other various for-polygamy groups. The witness in this case is Hanna Hood Hill, Miles Park Romney’s (great-grandfather) first wife and our presidential candidate, Mitt Romney’s great- grandmother. In her biography she stated “I felt that was more than I could endure, to have him divide his time and affections from me. I used to walk the floor and shed tears of sorrow. If anything will make a woman's heart ache, it is for her husband to take another wife. ... But I put my trust in my heavenly father, and prayed and pleaded with him to give me strength to bear this great trial." This statement above, clearly shows that pain of Mormon women, who had to endure watching her husband with several other women, and were not for-polygamy, rather were opposed to it. They may have been forced to practice polygamy, but that didn’t mean they believed in it and it is a clear example of male domination over women. While Romney has said on several TV occasions that he believes a "marriage is between a man and a woman ... and a woman and a woman”, while his views may have changed over the years, but we still haven’t forgotten the history.
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