The transition of this people into the new life is complicated—­is heartrending.  Remember that when these men began their rebellion against Brigham, it was simply a protest against his tyranny—­his exorbitant tithing system—­a mere refusal to render tribute unto him; not at all a disavowal of the Morman religion or of polygamy.  But as bond after bond has burst, this last, strongest and tightest one of plurality of wives is beginning to snap asunder.  To illustrate:  One man, a noble, loving, beautiful spirit—­nothing of the tyrant, nothing of the sensualist—­with four lovely wives, three of whom I have seen, and in the homes of two of whom I have broken bread, with thirteen loved and loving children—­wakes up to the new idea.  Four women’s hearts breaking, three sets of children who must leave their father that the one-wife system may be realized!  I can assure you my heart aches for the man, the women and the children, and cries, “God help them, one and all.”

Where the man is a brutal tyrant, the problem is comparatively easy.  What we have tried to do is to show them that the principle of the subjection of woman to man is the point of attack; and that woman’s work in monogamy and polygamy is one and the same—­that of planting her feet on the ground of self-support.  The saddest feature here is that there really is nothing by which these women can earn an independent livelihood for themselves and their children, no manufacturing establishments, no free schools to teach.  Women here, as everywhere, must be able to live honestly and honorably without the aid of men, before it can be possible to save the masses of them from entering into polygamy or prostitution, legal or illegal.  Whichever way I turn, whatever phase of social life presents itself, the same conclusion comes:  “Independent bread alone can redeem woman from her curse of subjection to man.”

I attended the Liberals’ Fourth of July celebration.  Their beautiful hall was packed; their souls were on fire with their new freedom.  Never since the first reading of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, were its great truths responded to with such real and deep feeling as on this occasion.  I did not intrude myself on them again—­but my soul, too, was on fire for freedom for my sex, as was that of every wife and daughter in that assembly.  But these men have yet to learn to loose the bonds of power over the women by their side, precisely as have the men in the States and the world over.

Here is missionary work—­not for any “thus saith the Lord” canting priests or echoing priestesses by divine right, but for great, Godlike, humanitarian men and women, who “feel for those in bonds as bound with them.”  No Phariseeism, no shudders of Puritanic horror, no standing afar off; but a simple, loving, fraternal clasp of hands with these struggling women, and an earnest work with them—­not to ameliorate but to abolish the whole system of woman’s subjection to man in both polygamy and monogamy.

In a letter home she says: