Samuel Blatchford

“ While congress has legitimated the issue of polygamous marriages, born before Jaunary 1, 1883, and thus given to such issue claims upon their father which the law will recognize and enforce, it has made no enactment in respect to any right or status of a bigamous or polygamous wife. It leaves the conduct of the man towards her to be regulated by considerations which, outside of section 3, are not covered by the statute, and which must be dealt with judicially when properly presented. ”

“ The act is intended to prevent any future polygamous marriages, and to prevent the continued cohabitation of persons who are already in polygamy. The section making cohabitation a misdemeanor has special or primary application to a cohabitation with a plurality of wives. This obvious intention indicates the ingredients of the criminal cohabitation: that it is a living together in the sexual intimacy usual between persons united in the marital relation, immoral in example for not having the sanction of lawful marriage, and pernicious in producing an illegitimate offspring. ”

“ The word 'cohabit,' in this section, is to be understood in a technical or restricted sense. It does not apply to all persons who live with each other under one roof as members of one family, but only to adults of different sexes who live together in the manner that husbands and wives do, including the intimacy of occupying continuously or for recurrent periods the same bed. ”

“ Section 9 of the act contains provisions declaring vacant registration and election offices, and enacting that persons shall be appointed to execute those offices, by a board of five persons, which is directed to canvass votes to be returned to it for members of the legislative assembly, with the proviso 'that said board of five persons shall not exclude any person, otherwise eligible to vote, from the polls on account of any opinion such person may entertain on the subject of bigamy or polygamy ”

“ A strong appeal was made, in argument, to this court, not to uphold the rulings of the trial court, because that would require a polygamous husband, not only to cease living with his plural wives, but also to abandon the women themselves ”

“ He can only cease to be such when he has finally and fully dissolved, in some effective manner, which we are not called on here to point out, the very relation of husband to several wives which constitutes the forbidden status he has previously assumed. ”

“ My father has taken his meals about one-third of the time at Clara's, one-third of the time at Sarah's, and one-third of the time with my mother. About every third day he takes his meals with my mother and her children. ”

“ It authorizes amnesty to all offenders prior to its enactment, and thus it is shown that the act was passed in view of the long existence of polygamy in this territory, and the multitudes of children born therein. It is merciful to those who have broken the laws against polygamy, and humane and paternal to the children born in polygamy. ”