Another Response

A few clarifications I had in response to Julia.

HOWEVER - - what kind of empowerment stories like this give women the strength to make the right decisions? To me these books are of women rebelling against the right decisions. Yes, August was a very educated woman and I'm very proud of what she made of herself (especially in that era !!!), but I still would like to see more empowerment stories like those that Kelly listed and more: Little Women, for one. I guess I would just like to see more empowerment stories in a positive light rather than a "running-away-from-the-terrible" type of a setting.

I never said that women were necessarily making the right choices in the book or nowadays, just simply observing that many want female empowerment stories to feel validated. I think I generally disassociate my perspective and beliefs of what is right or wrong from what the characters in the book beliefs are, simply because as LDS members I think we have a lot more knowledge and understanding than most people--it wouldn't work to hold them to our ideals when they don't know them. Also, I think "running-away-from-the-terrible" is not necessarily a bad thing. Having seen women in abusive relationships, I think it takes more strength to leave than to stay.

Also, as far as the town's people accepting Lily staying with the women, I don't think any of them knew till Lily visited the lawyer with Zach the first time. And it was shortly after that when May died and the sheriff or whatever told her she should move on.

And on the religion part, I personally believe that any religion in whatever form it comes in that helps people be better, kinder, and have any sort of belief in divinity is better than nothing and is still helpful for their eternal progression. If belief in Black Mary helped these women than I'm all for letting them follow their customs. Of course a belief in Christ would be preferable, but I think Christ would rather let them follow that than be spiritually starved and lacking any faith whatsoever. Just my opinion though.