This was first posted on February 24, 2011.

Sexual separation is often a characteristic of dominant societies. The military, administrative and travelling imperatives of imperialism dictated it and, no less than Sparta or among the Zulu, the training and socialization of the young became increasingly directed towards this end. Public schools, youth organisations, juvenile literature, the club and the army mess were all expressions of it, as were strictly segregated working men’s clubs and school staff rooms. In the extending and building of country houses and public buildings of this period,  the provision of the male sanctum became an architectural necessity.

-John M. Mackenzie, Manliness and Morality, Middle-class Masculinity in Britain and America 1800-1940, Manchester University Press, 1987, p 180-181.

Men and women are segregated in the church organizations, and are so from a young age. The Young Men and Young Women’s programs are evidence of this, but historically, even 10 and 11 year olds were segregated until the advent of the (sometimes) co-mingled Valiant class (I was a Merrie Miss.) Youth organizations, literature, church meetings and MIA activities all segregate young females from males as the males developed authority levels within priesthood ranks. As such, the above statement, whilst written in regard to the social Darwinist aspects of Victorian and Edwardian exclusion of women from big game (authoritative and elite-class) hunting , I think can easily be applied to the segregation still present within Mormon Society.

President Snow once closed a funeral address by asking the “Lord of Israel to bless the Latter-day Saints” to “be prepared for the events of the near future,” with their “hearts right before the Lord.” And, as we might expect from a man of sound integrity, he sought for this goal himself.

In the same speech, he told a story about he and Franklin D. Richards approaching Brigham Young with the sole purpose of resigning their Priesthood, if their president saw fit. As we also might expect, President Young didn’t see fit, but instead told them tearfully, “Brother Lorenzo, Brother Franklin, you have magnified your Priesthood satisfactorily to the Lord. God bless you.”

So what did Lorenzo Snow mean when he encouraged others (and himself) to have their “hearts right before the Lord”?

As the final day in our series dedicated to International Women’s Day and Daughters in My Kingdom, we find this Sunday, 17 March 2013, is the 171st anniversary of the establishment of the Relief Society.  Last January, we made a common-sense suggestion to invite all to celebrate the Relief Society anniversary by asking your ward or branch to host a sacrament meeting dedicated to women (not necessarily mothers) and the Relief Society with all talks given by women, and flanked with hymns written by and for women. After all, Mother’s Day is for mothers, so it makes sense to have a meeting aimed at celebrating the accomplishments, testimony and dedication of biblical and Mormon women, if only to displace some church traditions which exclude women as final speakers in sacrament meeting.

So- what happened in your ward or branch today? Did you have a meeting all about women? or was it all about motherhood, disguised as women? Or something else? Share!

Emmeline B. Wells and Her Presidency

The beginning of this chapter mentions that it was Emmeline B. Wells, fifth general RS President, and her presidency that decided on the motto, “Charity Never Faileth.”  Show a picture of the RS seal and ask, “What symbols do you see in this image? Why do you think they chose these particular symbols?”

When someone comments on the wheat, mention this background info: the most long-lived of the society’s economic enterprises was the wheat storage program directed initially by Emmeline B.Wells in 1876, after Brigham Young suggested the Relief Society store wheat against a time of famine. In 1906 the Relief Society donated several railroad cars of wheat and flour to the victims of the San Francisco earthquake. The Relief Society continued to gather and store wheat until the close of World War I (1918), when the Relief Society sold 205,518 bushels of their storage wheat to the U.S. government at its request.

Use this story as a jumping off point to share with your class some info about Emmeline B.Wells, who was an amazing person. (See Women of Covenant: The Story of Relief Society for more details.)

• As a teen she was abandoned by her husband and lost her son
• She knew Joseph Smith in Nauvoo and then made the trek west
• She was a plural wife to first Newll K. Whitney, and then after he died, to Daniel Wells. She had five daughters from those two marriages.
• She was the editor of the Women’s Exponent for 39 years
• She represented the Relief Society in national gatherings of women
• She was friends with Susan B. Anthony and other national suffrage workers
• She herself was a tireless suffrage worker, writing many editorials about women’s rights
• She was general RS President from 1910 to 1921

One of the most common comments (criticisms?) I hear when discussing programs or lessons on the Relief Society anniversary or Daughters in My Kingdom (DIMK), is the historical, but yet, American perspective. Indeed, in my ward, I have even heard members of the Relief Society presidency say that rather than teaching the history of DIMK, they aim to teach its concepts, avoiding a history that can sometimes feel like a distant, rote lecture to non-American, often first or second generation, converts. And yet, I perceive that this is one of the reasons that DIMK is written so simply; it can be easily read by average readers and it can be easily translated to a variety of languages because of its uncomplicated prose.

In this lesson plan, I hope to address significant concepts applicable to all Mormon women as well as address the Relief Society history as presented within the framework of this chapter.

The online chapter heading (absent in the hard copy) includes a powerful quote by Emmaline B. Wells, 5^th General President of the Relief Society:

  The sisters never lost sight of the institution, nor the promises made to them by President Joseph Smith. … They were always ready with willing hands and tender sympathies to perform deeds of love and charity, and many were in need of such kindly acts for those were the days of toil, and of suffering, of scarcity and of hardship.

Women’s suffrage is an important part of the history of Mormon women and the Relief Society. Because the majority of Mormon women in the nineteenth century were living in Utah territory, Utah history characterises Mormon Women’s suffrage. Thus, Utah history is the axis from which Mormon women’s history is cultivated, even outside of Utah, even outside of the United States.

In the 1847 settlement of Salt Lake, women living in the Salt Lake area were allowed to vote by ballot. Though limited and not well documented, this is possibly the first time in US history where women voted in conjunction with men.(1) In 1870, Mormon women gathered to address a room of male reporters at a meeting in the old Salt Lake tabernacle. The women eloquently orated for the rights of women to practice their religion, a religion wherein, among other issues at hand, women were expected to raise their hands in vote to sustain church leaders.(2) Territorial legislature allowed Utah women the vote in 1870, but the 1873 Edmunds Act -aimed at persecuting polygamy- disenfranchised the vote from all practicing and sympathisers of polygamy, men and women alike.(3)  The Edmunds Act was not as disempowering to church leadership as intended, so the more robust Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887 was signed into law, nearly financially ruining the church, and disenfranchising all women in the Utah territory. The 1890 end of polygamy was followed by the 1891 Territorial vote wherein franchised men restored the vote to Utah women. At its inauguration as a US state in 1896, Utah was the third US suffrage state. (4)

The 1870 tabernacle meeting is mentioned in Daughters in My Kingdom (DIMK), but only through the lens of the defence of polygamy.