# Did the early Mormons abduct women or not? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 27, 2011, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-early-mormons-abduct-women-or-not/586960 "2011-06-27T00:04:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-early-mormons-abduct-women-or-not/586960/1 "2011-06-27T00:04:16Z")
I recall that many early Mormons were often attacked in the 1800’s because of the pervasive belief that they abducted local women and forcibly made them part of polygamous households. In seeking to get some info on this for a GD discussion about SSM and polygamous marriages I went googling for some historical proof of this assertion, but really could not find anything. Per the wiki link below it seems early Mormonism was actually female empowering (for the time). Were these accusations entirely false or not? How did early Mormons get women to come on board? [Women and Mormonism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and_Mormonism) ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-early-mormons-abduct-women-or-not/586960/2 "2011-06-27T00:50:02Z")
Just a wild guess but alcohol consumption was a lot higher back then. Something like seven times per capita than it is now, IIRC correctly. Of course part of that was water and milk purification wasn’t widely done and brewing alcohol does purify it. The LDS are known today for rejecting, or at least limit, drinking alcohol. So if they were comparably more sober back then, more likely to be able to get ahead (as Dean Wormer says fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life). So if your choice is being the sole mate of a drunk, prone to violence man or sharing a sober, more prosperous man, which would you choose? ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-early-mormons-abduct-women-or-not/586960/3 "2011-06-27T00:55:15Z")
women abduction occurred in any society so i’m almost sure the answer is yes, mormons somethimes abducted women for whatever reason. but if your question implies an organizational collusion, making everyone guilty of either commission or complicity or both, i doubt it highly. ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-early-mormons-abduct-women-or-not/586960/4 "2011-06-27T01:00:43Z")
I’m fairly into Mormon history and I have never come across a verified/verifiable account of Mormon’s abducting women, at least in a systematic way. I’m sure somewhere along the line a Mormon somewhere has abducted a woman. But there was never any attempt to do some sort of bride kidnapping like the rape of the Sabine women or the Benjamite kidnapping of the daughters of Shiloh. As to why women preferentially joined the church back then, who knows? But the pattern still holds true today. [Converts today](http://pewforum.org/Christian/Mormon/A-Portrait-of-Mormons-in-the-US.aspx#5) are nearly half again more likely to be female than male (58% vs 42%). I figure they join to day for many of the same reasons they did back then. But I don’t know what those reasons might be. ---
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-early-mormons-abduct-women-or-not/586960/5 "2011-06-27T01:01:20Z")
Off hand, I can’t think of a single instance of Mormons being accused of women stealing. Perhaps the OP can be more specific about his recollections. It is important to remember that before the Mormons emigrated to Utah, they didn’t practice polygamy openly. Thus, it is unlikely these accusations (if they ever did occur) happened before they moved to Utah. In Utah, they openly practiced polygamy in the new settlements they founded. Thus, how could they steal women when 90% of the settlers were Mormons? Sounds like this may have been some hyperbole. At one point the national Republican party was very anti-Mormon, labeling polygamy and slavery as the twin relics of barbarism. (In hindsight, they weren’t too wrong.) Early Mormons (pre-Utah) were unpopular because they voted as a block, gave preferential business treatment to their co-religionists, and took over areas where they moved. Joseph Smith was eventually killed for his actions related to polygamy, but they didn’t involve stealing women. ETA: Perhaps the OP is misremembering and conflating the movies Paint Your Wagon and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. ---
**Author:** ![surrounded\_by\_literalists](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8baadc/32.png) [@surrounded\_by\_literalists](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/surrounded_by_literalists)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-early-mormons-abduct-women-or-not/586960/6 "2011-06-27T01:27:33Z")
Also keep in mind that during the pre-Utah time, women didn’t have much in the way of rights or resources to excercise the rights they did have. A woman voluntarily joining the Mormon church against her family’s wishes could be construed as abduction by those opposed the faith. Also, many Mormon men were killed by local mobs, leaving large numbers of women and children unable to care for themselves. It was considered unseemly for a woman to rely on a man not related for, her and her children’s, care and support. With plural marriage, these widows were protected and supported through the violent time in Missouri, across the plains, and into Utah. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-early-mormons-abduct-women-or-not/586960/7 "2011-06-27T01:36:06Z")
> [@Erdosain](#): > > ETA: Perhaps the OP is misremembering and conflating the movies Paint Your Wagon and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Not really [Nauvoo Polygamy: “… but we called it celestial marriage](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:gKOACtQP-cAJ:signaturebooks.com/2010/04/1844/+978-1-56085-201-8&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com) > [@](#): > > The nineteenth-century caricature of Mormon elders kidnapping women and spiriting them away to frontier seraglios was born of the cartoonists’ prolific imaginations. Even so, there was more truth to this cliché than one might like to believe. For instance, Brigham Young was a missionary when he met Augusta Cobb in Boston in 1843. A married woman with seven children, she agreed to leave her husband and two oldest children and move to Nauvoo to live with Young. Her traveling companion, eighteen-year-old Harriet Cook, was “sealed” to Brigham in the same ceremony in what was in essence a double marriage. > > This same pattern is also apparent in the example of Bishop Edwin Woolley, who in 1843, as a missionary in Connecticut, met Louisa Rising and convinced her to marry him. She agreed before first divorcing her legal husband. Other men courted potential plural wives on their missions: William Clayton, Heber Kimball, and Parley Pratt, all of whose stories are related in this volume as part of the curious saga of the initiation of plural marriage. > > This is not to say that Mormon missionaries were insincere. Still, it has to be acknowledged that they were as enthusiastic about their marital arrangements as they were about their gospel message. In both arenas, they were zealously committed to creating a new heaven and earth, with themselves at the center. Had historians paid closer attention, they might have highlighted the risks of such social experiments. In fact, they had no time for contemplation in such a quickly changing world—where visions of utopia became realities. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-early-mormons-abduct-women-or-not/586960/8 "2011-06-27T02:34:54Z")
It’s an accusation made by Zane Grey in his famous western “Riders of the Purple Sage”. > [@](#): > > "People noticed, so ‘twas said, that Milly’s sweet disposition changed. Some said it was because she would soon become a mother, en’ others said she was pinin’ after the new religion. An’ there was women who said right out that she was pinin’ after the Mormon. Anyway, one mornin’ Frank rode in from one of his trips, to find Milly gone. He had no real near neighbors—livin’ a little out of town—but those who was nearest said a wagon had gone by in the night, an’ they though it stopped at her door. . . . > > "From the minute I heard of Milly’s disappearance I never believed she went off of her own free will. I knew Milly, an’ I knew she couldn’t have done that. . . . > > But after bein’ patient I got the contents of that drawer an’ found two letters from Milly. One was a long letter written a few months after her disappearance. She had been bound an’ gagged an’ dragged away from her home by three men, an’ she named them—Hurd, Metzger, Slack. They was strangers to her. She was taken to the little town where I found trace of her two years after. But she didn’t send the letter from that town. There she was penned in. ‘Peared that the proselytes, who had, of course, come on the scene, was not runnin’ any risks of losin’ her. She went on to say that for a time she was out of her head, an’ when she got right again all that kept her alive was the baby. It was a beautiful baby, she said, an’ all she thought an’ dreamed of was somehow to get baby back to its father, an’ then she’d thankfully lay down and die. An’ the letter ended abrupt, in the middle of a sentence, en’ it wasn’t signed. > > "The second letter was written more than two years after the first. It was from Salt Lake City. It simply said that Milly had heard her brother was on her trail. She asked Frank to tell her brother to give up the search because if he didn’t she would suffer in a way too horrible to tell. She didn’t beg. She just stated a fact an’ made the simple request. An’ she ended that letter by sayin’ she would soon leave Salt Lake City with the man she had come to love, en’ would never be heard of again. ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-early-mormons-abduct-women-or-not/586960/9 "2011-06-27T02:55:29Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Not really > > [Nauvoo Polygamy: “… but we called it celestial marriage](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:gKOACtQP-cAJ:signaturebooks.com/2010/04/1844/+978-1-56085-201-8&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com) I would argue that doesn’t rise the accusations you were asking about. Augusta Cobb was neither abducted nor forcibly married. She was baptized LDS on June 29, 1832, by Samuel Smith (one of Joseph Smith’s brothers). Brigham Young visited the Boston area a number of times between 1834 and and 1843. And Mrs Cobb was a wealthy and prominent member of the church in Boston. They would have met many times over those 9 years. Her husband never converted. In the spring of 1843 she gave birth to a son who she (interestingly) named Brigham. She then ran away with Young that fall, in September, taking only her two youngest children (including Brigham). That doesn’t scream abduction to me. That seems more to indicate adultery and loss of affection. More than a bit reprehensible. But it doesn’t look like a kidnapping. Add in the fact that Augusta traveled back to Boston in 1844 to deal with Henry Cobb. And then she didn’t return to Young until 1846. She had plenty of opportunity to recant her leaving with Young, but never did. Cobb filed for divorce after she left in 1846. [Here is a quote](http://restorationbookstore.org/articles/nopoligamy/jsfp-vol1/chp4.htm) from the Cobb divorce proceedings as published in the Boston Post: > [@](#): > > "In the fall of 1844 after her return from Nauvoo to Boston, Mrs. Cobb said she loved Brigham Young better than she did Mr. Cobb, and, live or die, she was going to live with him at all hazards. This was in the course of a conversation in which she used extravagant language in favor of Mr. Young and against Mr. Cobb. Mrs. Cobb went out again to Nauvoo, the second time, and lived with Mr. Young, and their living together, and their conduct, was the subject of conversation in the society [of the Church] and out of the society. The subject of conversation, to which I have alluded, was that persons had a right to live together in unlawful intercourse [polygamy], and Mrs. Cobb avowed her belief in this doctrine, and said it was right. > > "In conversation with Mrs. Cobb on the subject of spiritual wives, I [Adams] told her such doctrines would lead to the devil; and she said if it did she would go there with Brigham Young. The Mormons were so incensed with me for my opposition to this doctrine that they attempted to take my life in various ways. I think Mrs. Cobb was originally a woman of good feelings and good principles, but I do not think so of her now. I think she was led away by religious frenzy. > > “She said, I never will forsake brother Young, come life or come death. She said that the doctrine taught by Brigham Young was a glorious doctrine; for if she did not love her husband [Cobb], it gave her a man she did love.” Nor was she a meek and mild wife to Young. She threatened him with divorce several times and had a number of estrangements with Young. Although she did always reconcile. She had plenty of opportunity to leave Young and a support group that would have helped her. She wasn’t abducted, she went quite willingly. None of this is meant to excuse Brigham Young. He was in my opinion a theocratic tyrant and a fairly evil man… think a 19th century David Koresh. But like Koresh I don’t think he had to kidnap anyone. He was reputed to be remarkably charismatic. As an aside interestingly Augusta’s son James Cobb moved to Salt Lake in 1858 and joined the church as a favored “son” of Brigham. After some marital problems James divorced his first wife Mary, who then married Brigham Young. One of Young’s son’s, John Willard Young, then later married James and Mary’s daughter Luella, who eventually divorced John and married Nathanial Brigham, who was one of Young’s cousins. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-early-mormons-abduct-women-or-not/586960/10 "2011-06-27T03:06:52Z")
> [@Bartman](#): > > I would argue that doesn’t rise the accusations you were asking about. Augusta Cobb was neither abducted nor forcibly married. She was baptized LDS on June 29, 1832, by Samuel Smith (one of Joseph Smith’s brothers). Brigham Young visited the Boston area a number of times between 1834 and and 1843. And Mrs Cobb was a wealthy and prominent member of the church in Boston. They would have met many times over those 9 years. Her husband never converted. In the spring of 1843 she gave birth to a son who she (interestingly) named Brigham. She then ran away with Young that fall, in September, taking only her two youngest children (including Brigham). > > That doesn’t scream abduction to me. That seems more to indicate adultery and loss of affection. More than a bit reprehensible. But it doesn’t look like a kidnapping. Add in the fact that Augusta traveled back to Boston in 1844 to deal with Henry Cobb. And then she didn’t return to Young until 1846. She had plenty of opportunity to recant her leaving with Young, but never did. Cobb filed for divorce after she left in 1846. [Here is a quote](http://restorationbookstore.org/articles/nopoligamy/jsfp-vol1/chp4.htm) from the Cobb divorce proceedings as published in the Boston Post: > > Nor was she a meek and mild wife to Young. She threatened him with divorce several times and had a number of estrangements with Young. Although she did always reconcile. She had plenty of opportunity to leave Young and a support group that would have helped her. She wasn’t abducted, she went quite willingly. > > None of this is meant to excuse Brigham Young. He was in my opinion a theocratic tyrant and a fairly evil man… think a 19th century David Koresh. But like Koresh I don’t think he had to kidnap anyone. He was reputed to be remarkably charismatic. > > As an aside interestingly Augusta’s son James Cobb moved to Salt Lake in 1858 and joined the church as a favored “son” of Brigham. After some marital problems James divorced his first wife Mary, who then married Brigham Young. One of Young’s son’s, John Willard Young, then later married James and Mary’s daughter Luella, who eventually divorced John and married Nathanial Brigham, who was one of Young’s cousins. The issue the cite I gave was responding to was not whether Mormon’s\* actually abducted women\*, but whether I had mis-remembered that they had a _reputation for doing so_ by people who attacked and persecuted them. I think the cite proves that the popular reputation (undeserved or not) for doing so was not my imagination. This is also buttressed by Captain Amazing’s Zane Grey reference. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-early-mormons-abduct-women-or-not/586960/11 "2011-06-27T03:27:40Z")
> [@Erdosain](#): > > ETA: Perhaps the OP is misremembering and conflating the movies Paint Your Wagon and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. [Gonna paint a wagon, gonna paint it good…](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM5-xFenaZI&feature=related) ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-early-mormons-abduct-women-or-not/586960/12 "2011-06-27T04:42:53Z")
It wouldn’t surprise me if women who came on their own free will weren’t assumed to have been tricked and taken. Women can’t think for themselves, after all. As for why it’s more attractive to women: pretty much all organized religions are. You have a sense of a community, and a bunch of people teaching you to do things that are best for that community. Even my own branch of Christianity has dealt with it, with it always being little old ladies who stick with it and women getting their husbands to convert. ---
**Author:** ![JZesbaugh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c67d28/32.png) [@JZesbaugh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JZesbaugh)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-early-mormons-abduct-women-or-not/586960/13 "2011-06-27T05:18:11Z")
Sounds like old hate propaganda, though I can remember reading of my Great Uncle marrying a girl and returning to Utah… her family might have seen it as abduction… since their marriage system was unusual, and she left her home area. ---
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-early-mormons-abduct-women-or-not/586960/14 "2011-06-27T11:34:14Z")
> [@astro](#): > > The issue the cite I gave was responding to was not whether Mormon’s\* actually abducted women\*, but whether I had mis-remembered that they had a _reputation for doing so_ by people who attacked and persecuted them. I think the cite proves that the popular reputation (undeserved or not) for doing so was not my imagination. This is also buttressed by Captain Amazing’s Zane Grey reference. Fair enough. You were right. The caricature of Mormons in the late 19th century did indeed include women stealing. However, as Mormons were living at the time in their own completely theocratic desert kingdom in Utah, it’s hard to credit them regularly stealing women from thousands of miles away. No doubt many Mormon women weren’t happy with their polygamous unions, but there wasn’t a lot women could do at that time, plus they were thousands of miles away from any kind of secular authority. > [@surrounded\_by\_literalists](#): > > Also, many Mormon men were killed by local mobs, leaving large numbers of women and children unable to care for themselves. It was considered unseemly for a woman to rely on a man not related for, her and her children’s, care and support. With plural marriage, these widows were protected and supported through the violent time in Missouri, across the plains, and into Utah. Alas, this is a myth cherished by Mormons the world over, but it is a myth. Both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young “married” women whose husbands were still alive and present! Hardly taking care of widows. Polygamy has always been about having sex and procreating with large amounts of women and exercising power, not social welfare. Anyone who tells you different is selling something. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-early-mormons-abduct-women-or-not/586960/15 "2011-06-27T12:11:51Z")
Keep in mind that back in the 1830s people read and believed in the Bible more than today. If you read the Old Testament there are plenty of the patriarchs: Abraham, Issac, Saul, David, Solomon among others who were polygamists. There were certain rules spelled out as to how the wives were to be treated by it was legal. As to whether it was outlawed by the time of Jesus, that is debatable. Some people say the parable of the 10 virgins, Jesus is acknowledging it, others say that telling people the church is as one wife, Paul is denouncing it. An LDS man can convince some women that God had sanctioned polygamy. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-early-mormons-abduct-women-or-not/586960/16 "2011-06-27T13:12:46Z")
The over-simplified version I heard was that back then, in general, men were into drinking and women had to stay home and were into religion. When the Mormons had to move, local prejudices being what they were back then, the women often went with them. As mentioned above, a lot were already married to men who did not share ther zeal for the “whacky newfangled religion”, but the women left anyway. If you are running a relgious settlement that runs about 5 to 1 women to men, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out how God will tell you to solve the problem. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-early-mormons-abduct-women-or-not/586960/17 "2011-06-27T14:26:23Z")
For all their many faults, I’ve never read that the early Mormons actually abducted women. As noted above, women wooed away, or persuaded to join the faith, might have been seen by those they left behind as having been “abducted” or “seduced,” though. Just more grist for the anti-Mormon propaganda mills. I highly recommend Jon Krakauer’s _Under the Banner of Heaven_ ([Under the Banner of Heaven - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_the_banner_of_heaven)) for an interesting and, as far as I know, accurate portrayal of Mormon history from the earliest days to now. Fascinating book. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-early-mormons-abduct-women-or-not/586960/18 "2011-06-27T18:21:00Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > For all their many faults, I’ve never read that the early Mormons actually abducted women. As noted above, women wooed away, or persuaded to join the faith, might have been seen by those they left behind as having been “abducted” or “seduced,” though. Reminds me of the scene… Mr. Watson - “The girls’ mother is no longer with us.” Pokey Jones - “Oh, I’m sorry. When did she die?” Mr. Watson (surly) “I didn’t say she was dead. I said she’s no longer with us.” -_ **Highway 61** _ ---
**Author:** ![Rhodes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rhodes/32/273_2.png) [@Rhodes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhodes)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2011, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-early-mormons-abduct-women-or-not/586960/19 "2011-06-29T16:04:24Z")
> [@surrounded\_by\_literalists](#): > > …Also, many Mormon men were killed by local mobs, leaving large numbers of women and children unable to care for themselves. It was considered unseemly for a woman to rely on a man not related for, her and her children’s, care and support. With plural marriage, these widows were protected and supported through the violent time in Missouri, across the plains, and into Utah. Back when I was a Mormon, this was the most common excuse for polygamy. But according to Brigham Young (sorry, I can’t find the cite), there were more men than women in Utah when polygamy was at its peak. So something doesn’t add up. > [@Erdosain](#): > > Fair enough. You were right. The caricature of Mormons in the late 19th century did indeed include women stealing. However, as Mormons were living at the time in their own completely theocratic desert kingdom in Utah, it’s hard to credit them regularly stealing women from thousands of miles away. No doubt many Mormon women weren’t happy with their polygamous unions, but there wasn’t a lot women could do at that time, plus they were thousands of miles away from any kind of secular authority. > > Alas, this is a myth cherished by Mormons the world over, but it is a myth. Both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young “married” women whose husbands were still alive and present! Hardly taking care of widows. Polygamy has always been about having sex and procreating with large amounts of women and exercising power, not social welfare. Anyone who tells you different is selling something. According to Brigham Young’s pissed-off wife [Ann Eliza Webb Young](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wife_No._19,_or_the_story_of_a_life_in_bondage._Being_a_complete_expos%C3%A9_of_Mormonism,_and_revealing_the_sorrows,_sacrifices_and_sufferings_of_women_in_polygamy), missionaries in England would deny that polygamy was practised in Utah. They would marry English women and bring them home to Utah, and then the new wife would discover that she is a polygamist. That kind of deception sounds like kidnapping to me. But It’s important to note that Ann Eliza was often full of shit, so her accusations are probably more of a “caricature of Mormons” than history. > [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > I highly recommend Jon Krakauer’s _Under the Banner of Heaven_ ([Under the Banner of Heaven - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_the_banner_of_heaven)) for an interesting and, as far as I know, accurate portrayal of Mormon history from the earliest days to now. Fascinating book. Seconded. ---
**Author:** ![wei\_ji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wei\_ji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wei_ji)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2011, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-early-mormons-abduct-women-or-not/586960/20 "2011-06-29T20:09:28Z")
This is an invitation to controversy, for sure. O.k., I’ll risk it. Here is another possible contributor to this typical myth about Mormons (which I take to be a matter of exaggerated interpretation but not without some provocation; early Mormons were energetic in gathering plural wives, which was a cultural and religious taboo in America). I claim no special knowledge about the Mormon church or Mormon history, but here is the Wiki bio (caveat emptor) of a major 19th century figure in the church, Parley P. Pratt, who was a local boy where I live today. > **[Parley P. Pratt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parley_P._Pratt)** > > Parley Parker Pratt Sr. (April 12, 1807 – May 13, 1857) was an early leader of the Latter Day Saint movement whose writings became a significant early nineteenth-century exposition of the Latter Day Saint faith. Named in 1835 as one of the first members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Pratt was part of the Quorum's successful mission to Great Britain from 1839 to 1841. Pratt has been called "the Apostle Paul of Mormonism" for his promotion of distinctive Mormon doctrines. > Pratt explored an... If you go to the section on his death, you will see that he was thought to have “stolen” the wife and children of the man who tracked down and killed him. He disagreed with this interpretation, and so did his (plural) wife, who was still legally married to the man who killed Pratt. This killing had larger, indirect historic consequences, as the entry says. You may judge for yourself the truth of the charge and the nature of events that led to it. Such events might contribute to a larger accusation of abductions. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-early-mormons-abduct-women-or-not/586960.md?page=2)