What apologetic Mormon had he heard that from? Clearly, he’d been poking around on the Internet, since I was pretty sure he hadn’t had that statistic in his head before Kenneth announced he was engaged to a woman from a polygamous family.
“Well, if that’s true, then those twenty percent are related to the other eighty percent one way or another. Everyone’s intermarried in Mormonism by now. At least all of us in Utah,” I said.
Kurt wisely didn’t argue with me on this point. “Every time I hear about people who practice polygamy now, it’s always a testimony to me that once God has withdrawn His support of any way of life, there is nothing holy left in it.”
Well, that was convenient, I thought. Just like the Manifesto of 1890 that had banned polygamy in the Mormon church. The manifesto had been conveniently received from God after Wilford Woodruff had been threatened by the US government with seizure of all church assets—not to mention imprisonment of every church official practicing polygamy.
The truth was, polygamy had always been one of the most unsavory elements of our Mormon past. Joseph Smith received the revelation to practice polygamy in 1839 and he’d practiced it in secret, even from his first wife, Emma, and some of the husbands or fathers of the women he married. Joseph spent years hiding the truth from Emma, and then wrote a scripture about how if the first wife didn’t accept polygamy, the husband had no more obligation to ask her permission.
The first rumors about polygamy started spreading in Nauvoo, Illinois, when the First Counselor in the Presidency of the Church, William Law, who had committed adultery and been denied a temple sealing, got angry that his wife asked Joseph Smith to seal her to the prophet instead. He bought a printing press with the express purpose of exposing the secrets of Mormonism, including polygamy, to the public. The Nauvoo Expositor printed but one issue before Joseph Smith demanded the destruction of this private property by church members. This was the reason Smith was thrown in prison, where he was martyred in Carthage, Illinois.
The true historical facts are available on the Internet, but in Sunday School lessons, the story tends to be that Joseph Smith was murdered by those who hated the popularity of the Mormon church and were jealous of the wealth of Nauvoo.
But now was not the time for Kurt and me to come to an agreement on the place of polygamy within the church. All I wanted from my husband tonight was for him to treat Naomi Carter politely. If he could add a little warmth in, that would be a bonus. Her goodwill as a daughter-in-law could mean the difference between our remaining part of our son’s life and being relegated to the outside, looking in.
Soon we were pulling to a stop in front of The Melting Pot downtown, where there was fortunately a parking spot. Kurt paid the meter and I went inside to give our name to the hostess. Then we were being led toward a table in the back of the restaurant.
The woman sitting next to Kenneth had long blonde hair, large hazel eyes, a strong Roman nose, and a Julia-Roberts-esque mouth that was emphasized with dark red lipstick. She was leaning into Kenneth’s arms and looked up when he pointed at us. I saw wariness cross her features before she could stifle it. I felt an instant of nervousness, as well.
“Mom, Dad, this is Naomi,” Kenneth said. “Naomi, my mom and dad, Kurt and Linda Wallheim.”
Kurt held out his hand and shook Naomi’s. She and I did a “Mormon hug” between women, where you touch across the chest, get a brief whiff of the other woman’s perfume, and glance sideways at her ear and cheek in simulation of a kiss. I was left with the faint impression of roses.
“Mrs. Wallheim, it’s so good to finally meet you,” Naomi said formally. “Mr. Wallheim, Kenneth talks about you all the time.”
“Mr.” and “Mrs.” were almost never used in the Mormon church. “Brother” and “Sister” were far friendlier, but we weren’t in a church situation now.
“Call me Linda,” I said. Marie and Willow called me “Mom,” but Naomi and I weren’t there just yet.
Kurt didn’t offer his first name, however. I wished he could just speed up whatever mental processes he was going through, but for now I waited for the awkward silence to pass.
“This restaurant is very nice,” he said at last, without bothering to even look around to make the statement believable.
We sat down, Kurt and I on one side of the booth and Kenneth and Naomi on the other. Kenneth was dressed in a white shirt, thin red tie, and the dark suit he probably hadn’t worn since his mission. It had grown too small for him in the shoulders, an apt metaphor for his church life, I suppose.
Naomi was dressed modestly in a plain white blouse and houndstooth patterned A-line skirt. There was nothing remotely old-fashioned about her that would make me think of polygamists or the FLDS church.
“It’s lovely weather tonight, isn’t it?” Naomi said.
“Yes, lovely,” Kurt said.