American Mormon fundamentalists and the tradition of “historical” polygamy in the 19th and early 20th centuries

The article discusses the features of the tradition of polygamy developed in the American Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints in the 19th and early 20th centuries and continued by modern United States Mormon fundamentalist sects. Mormonism is a form of Americanized Christianity. Mormons played a significant role in the national history of the United States participating in colonization and settlement of the Far West. The Federal government in the last century and a half (since 1862) considered polygamy as a criminal act and refused to carry out the decriminalisation of this practice.