Thanks, I had no idea. I’ve heard about a lot of strange holy things (aren’t there some relics supposed to be Jesus’ foreskin?), but never about sacred underwear. Ignorance fought. (they don’t look very sexy, but functional)
I have no connection to LDS and I only know from reading, but…
I gather polygamy started because Joseph Smith’s preaching converted a lot more women than men. What to do with all the extra women who were joining his religious community? Simple - multiple wives. So there was a practical reason in the beginning, but as an ongoing self-contained community the concept was obviously not really sustainable. I suppose for a while, it worked that the older men took the younger women, but sooner or later there would be an imbalance.
Commonly referred to outside the faith as “Mormon long-johns.”
“Long johns” being American slang for winter-weight underwear that’s half or more body coverage.
Jumped in here (late) to add I saw an interview with a woman who was part of a “harem”. She wrote a book called Some Girls about her experience. For a while she was the favorite and said she basically had to be willing to have sex at any time. In return she got a lot of money/goods. I recall her saying she and a few others would go into a store and just grab $20,000 dresses and buy them without trying them on. They might never wear them.
Well, since European contact caused the smallpox pandemic- not quite. Of course some tribes got hit before that tribe had Euro contrat. But the initial cause was European contact.
That’s what I meant. If you map out the Americas year by year starting in 1492, painting in the parts where smallpox and other diseases had reached in one color and places where contact with Europeans had been made, you’d see a few initial overlapping dots, and then by the mid 1500s the diseases would spread ahead of Europeans
Considering the worst hit the Pacific Northwest tribes in the late 1800’s, when Victoria was already an established town, the spread was not complete.
Cold. Just cold.
But very well-played. Morbid humor is another dish best served cold.
For her pleasure, no doubt.
(Sorry, couldn’t resist!)
…says the guy with “mogul” in his username…
Suttee was a Hindu practice. The Mogul emperors were Muslim.
Ripley’s Believe It or Not, a precursor to the SD, albeit not necessarily a well-researched one, once showed how the Great Mogul’s libido resulted in the game of Parcheesi. Of course the courtiers would try to gain favor by supplying him with women as has been the practice for eons, so to make things interesting he sat on a raised divan conducting state affairs while the women moved as pieces towards him at the roll of the dice.
The Ottoman Sultan would discreetly view the odalisques bathe and send an apple to his night’s desire (or, more usually, his mom would play procuress). The woman had that night and that night alone to receive his imperial essence, and if she conceived a male heir might one day take the place of sultan’s mother (a mighty position: one such mom slapped the visiting Empress Eugénie of France with impunity). Of the thousands of women who served in the sultan’s bed, a few dozen males would be born, and all but the eldest would be strangled at his accession.
If I were a junior prince in the Sultanate, I would keep a fast horse on standby along with a disguise and a large bag of jewels.
The younger men were kept locked up, to prevent that.
Or maybe they started locking up the younger brothers instead of killing them.
That must have made for a fun family conversation round the dinner table.
Hey Dad, how’s work?
Oh, pretty good. The new bureaucracy’s running smoothly at last, I’ve made it legal for your older brother to kill you when he takes the throne, and I’ve picked up an Iliad for the state library.
Wow, an Iliad! That’s fantast…wait what?
“Don’t worry son… the good news is if he dies before me, then you’re next in line and you get to kill little Hussein and Mehmet Jr…”
“Don’t be so dramatic son, I simply codified into law a long standing and accepted means of succession. Even if I hadn’t done so we both know you boys would be at each other’s throats the moment I died. I’m just recognizing reality.”
There’s four weeks in a month…