Here is a condition of society unparalleled anywhere else in civilization--unparalleled even in barbarous countries, for wherever else polygamy is practiced it at least has the sanction of local convention. And the consequent suffering that falls upon the women and the children is a heart-break to see. During the days when I was in the editorial office of the Salt Lake Tribune, scores of miserable cases came to my knowledge by letter, by the report of friends, and by the visits of the agonized wives themselves. I shall never forget one young woman, in her twenties, who came to ask my help in forcing her husband to obtain a marriage certificate for her from the Church, so that her boy might have the right to claim a father. She wept, with her head on my desk, sobbing out her story, and appealing to me for aid with a convulsed and tear-drenched face. Four years earlier, she had become friendly with a man twice her age, whom she admired and respected. He had taken two wives before the manifesto of 1890, but that did not prevent him from coveting the youth and beauty of this young woman. He first approached her mother for permission to marry the girl, and when the mother-who was herself a plural wife replied that it was impossible under the law, he brought an apostle to persuade her that the practice of plural marriage was still as meet, just and available to salvation as it had been when she married. Then he went to the daughter. "I was terrified," she said, "when he proposed to me. And yet--he asked me if I thought my mother had done wrong when she married my father.... There was no one else I liked as much. He was good. He was rich. He told me I'd never want for anything. He said I would be fulfilling the command of God against the wickedness of a persecuting world.... I don't know what devil of fanaticism entered into me. I thought it would be smart to defy the United States." Late one night, by appointment, he called for her with a carriage, driven by a man unknown to her, and took her to a darkened house that had a dim light only in the hallway. They entered alone and turned into a parlor that was dark, except for the reflection from the hall. He led her up to the portieres that hung across an inner door, and through the opening between the curtains she saw the indistinct figure of a man. They stood before him, hand in hand, while he mumbled over the words of a ceremony that sounded to her like the ceremonies she had heard in the Temple. She caught little of it clearly; she remembered practically nothing. She was not given anything to show that a ceremony had been performed, and she did not ask for anything. The elderly bridegroom kissed her when the mumbling ceased, led her out to the carriage, took her back to her mother's house, and that night became her husband.