Every man should have four wives: a Persian, with whom he can converse; a woman from Khorasan, for the housework; a Hindu woman to raise the children, and one from Transoxiana, whom he can beat as a warning to the others

Never may an act of possession be exercised upon a free being; the exclusive possession of a woman is no less unjust than the possession of slaves; all men are born free, all have equal rights: never may there be granted to one sex the legitimate right to lay monopolizing hands on the other, and never may one of these sexes, or classes, arbitrarily posses the other.

Women are not made for one single man; 'tis for men at large Nature created them.

Polygamy is just the backdrop.

One wife, you're happy, two and you're tired, three and they'll hate each other, four and they'll hate you.

It is useless to judge nineteenth-century Mormons by late twentieth-century standards. Both men and women were given an impossible task and failed at it. All we can do today is sympathize with them in their tragedies and marvel at their heroism as they suffered.