However we may condemn the tenets and practices of Mormonism, it must be admitted that the most representative women of the Mormons, in the heyday of Mormon power, were thrifty, industrious, economical, and notable workers. Moreover, though it is generally thought that among the disciples of Joseph Smith--to whose door, however, the practice of polygamy cannot be laid, for that was an addendum to the faith made by Brigham Young--women were held in slight esteem, an idea generally correct as to the mass, there were many instances of Mormon women of influence and power in the councils of the men. The adoption of polygamy as part of the creed was largely the work, if not the inspiration, of a woman who was "sealed" to Brigham Young; and the practice would never have grown to any strength, as it had many opponents among the men, had it not received the approbation and welcome of the women. Its adoption caused more than one schism in the Church of the Latter-day Saints, as the Mormons pompously style themselves, but the schismatics never received the support of more than a few of the women of the "peculiar people," and it may be broadly stated that the revival of polygamy among a civilized people was at least as much the work of women as of men.
Mormonism is doomed as a faith; but its existence will always be felt in national results. Even so limited a movement as this, when it touches matters of descent, must ever leave its traces, and the very breaking-up of such a community will have its effect of disseminating impure sources among the fountains of our nation. In this instance, woman, who has done so much for America, has brought harm to her.
As the eighteenth century approached its middle age, society in America grew more and more distinguished and less and less distinctive. It had long since lost all traces of provincialism; it was a power in itself with its glamor of aristocracy, and it even had its traditions of rank, which were not unrecognized by foreign social powers. In the earliest days of the century, on Christmas Eve, 1803, Elizabeth Patterson, of Baltimore, had been married to Jerome Bonaparte; and, though the marriage was unrecognized by the all powerful Emperor Napoleon and was thus made practically invalid, it was perfectly legitimate and noteworthy. Though Napoleon, because of the exigencies of his peculiar position, forced Jerome to renounce his young bride and marry as became his station, he himself treated Miss Patterson with consideration and even generosity, his liberality to her in the matter of a pension enabling her to make the famous retort, when Jerôme offered to provide for her after his marriage, that she "preferred being sheltered under the wing of an eagle to being suspended from the bill of a goose." She never bore any rancor to Napoleon for his actions toward her, though she strove with all her might to win her rights.