THE SISTERS AND THE MARRIAGE QUESTION—THE WOMEN OF UTAH ENFRANCHISED—PASSAGE OF THE WOMAN SUFFRAGE BILL—A POLITICAL CONTEST—THE FIRST WOMAN THAT VOTED IN UTAH.

The women of Mormondom, and the marriage question! Two of the greatest sensations of the age united!

Here we meet the subject of woman, in two casts—not less Gentile than Mormon.

Marriage is the great question of the age. It is the woman's special subject. Monogamic, or polygamic, it is essentially one problem. Either phase is good, or bad, just as people choose to consider it, or just as they are educated to view it.

The Mormons have been, for a quarter of a century, openly affirming, upon the authority of a new revelation and the establishment of a distinctive institution, that Gentile monogamy is not good. But more than this is in their history, their religion, and their social examples. They have made marriage one of their greatest problems. And they accept the patriarchal order of marriage, according to the Bible examples, and the revelation of their prophet, as a proper solution.

To Gentile Christians, monogamy is good, and polygamy barbarous. But it is the old story of likes and dislikes, in which people so widely differ.

That the Mormons have been strictly logical, and strictly righteous, in reviving the institutions of the Hebrew patriarchs, in their character of a modern Israel, may be seen at a glance, by any just mind. What sense in their claim to be the Israel of the last days had they not followed the types and examples of Israel? If they have incarnated the ancient Israelitish genius—and in that fact is the whole significance of Mormonism—then has the age simply seen that genius naturally manifested in the action of their lives.

A monstrous absurdity, indeed, for Christendom to hold that the Bible is divine and infallible, and at the same time to hold that a people is barbaric for adoption of its faith and examples! Enough this, surely, to justify the infidel in sweeping it away altogether. The Mormons and the Bible stand or fall together.

In view of this truth, it was a cunning move of the opposition to attempt to take polygamy out of its theologic cast and give it a purely sociologic solution, as in the effort of 1870, when it was proposed by Congressman Julian, of Indiana, to enfranchise the women of Utah. Brigham Young and the legislative body of Utah promptly accepted the proposition, and a bill giving suffrage to the women of Utah was passed by the Territorial Legislature, without a dissenting vote.

Here is a copy of that remarkable instrument:

AN ACT, giving woman the elective franchise in the Territory of Utah.

SEC. I. Be it enacted by the Governor and the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah, that every woman of the age of twenty-one years, who has resided in this territory six months next preceding any general or special election, born or naturalized in the United States, or who is the wife, or widow, or the daughter of a naturalized citizen of the United States, shall be entitled to vote at any election in this territory.

SEC. 2. All laws or parts of laws, conflicting with this act, are hereby repealed.

Approved Feb. 12, 1870.

It may be said by the anti-Mormon that this bill was intended by President Young to serve the purposes of his own mission rather than to benefit the newly enfranchised class; but, as the issue will prove, it was really an important step in the progress of reform. The women of Utah have now in their own hands the power to absolutely rule their own destiny; and this is more than can be said of the millions of their Gentile sisters.

The municipal election in Salt Lake City, which occurred but two days after the approval of this bill, for the first time in Mormon history presented a political home issue; but the new voting element was not brought largely into requisition. Only a few of the sisters claimed the honor of voting on that occasion. The first of these was Miss Seraph Young, a niece of President Young, who thus immortalized herself.

This grant of political power to the women of Utah is a sign of the times. The fact cannot die that the Mormon people piloted the nation westward; and, under the inspiration of the great impulses of the age, they are destined to be the reformatory vanguard of the nation.