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“Now there was a great number of women, more than there was of men; therefore king Limhi commanded that every man should impart to the support of the widows and their children,
that they might not perish with hunger;”

Book of Mormon, Mosiah 21:17 (Salt Lake City, UT: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2024 on-line edition).

Brigham Young married Joseph Smith, Jr’s. widow, Emily Dow Partridge. “She was twenty, he was forty-three. … in a monogamous marriage, Emily and her child probably would not have been alone and uncared for … [Brigham’s] wives, living in the harsh realities of the pioneer West, were often left to themselves and to relatives. … in 1869, roughly, Brigham sent Emily to live in his ‘Forest Farm house,’ now Forest Dale … Apparently Brigham’s wives perceived the assignment as an exile of sorts … [Brigham] refused to support her or her children financially.”

Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1997), 412-419.