Polygamy in Christian Mormon community in the 19TH wife by David Ebershoff

ABSTRACT

The Christians Mormon religion closely related to polygamy practice. The polygamy practice doctrine makes the women have limited space to do everything. Women are forced to obey the entire rule which is made not only by men but also the ideology of religion and accept their fate on these two. That’s why this research focuses on The Effects of Polygamy in Christian Mormon Community in The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff, the novel shows that women in Mormon were always in suffering condition because of polygamy.

The objectives of the study are to know Polygamy in Mormon community, then the effects of polygamy and Ann Eliza’s struggle of life as a 19th wife also the results Ann Eliza’s struggle of life describe in the novel. The researcher uses appropriate theory to support the object. The theory used is feminist literary criticism. Feminist literary criticism focuses on the studies of the polygamy effects and struggles of female character in the novel.

The researcher organizes the analysis into three points. First, based on the first question, the reason why Mormon community known as the controversial community. Mormon become controversial becasue they spread religion exetremely and they do polygamy practice. Second, the effects of polygamy experienced by the female character of The 19th Wife novel. Those are effects of polygamy experienced in Christian Mormon. It is explained that there are several effects to the main character in Christian Mormon such as religous effect, phsychological effects, financial effect and legal effect. Beside that woman cannot become the only wife of her husband, because she has to obey the doctrine of plural marriage. The female character should face the situation that her fate created by the rule of Christian Mormon.

The result of the last question shows the struggle of the main character against polygamy. The main character ignored some rules in her Mormon Community that make every woman have no choice to determine the way of marriage. Then, Ann Eliza fight to decrease the polygamy practice. The main character used her power and her intelligence by speak out in public, in order to make people know the reality of her experiences.

Finally, the main character gets success of her struggle for decrease polygamy practice. The main character gets the legitimate power as the leader of pioneer of decrease polygamy practice in Mormon community.