Editing Brigham Young (section)

===Family and descendants===
{{See also|List of Brigham Young's wives}}
Young was a polygamist, having at least fifty-six wives.<ref name=Father/> The policy and practice of polygamy was difficult for many in the church to accept. Young stated that upon being taught about plural marriage by Joseph Smith: "It was the first time in my life that I desired the grave."<ref>{{cite web|title=People & Events {{ndash}} Polygamy and the Church: A History|date=April 30, 2007|url=https://www.pbs.org/mormons/peopleevents/e_polygamy.html|work=[[The Mormons (miniseries)|The Mormons]]|publisher=[[PBS]]|access-date=September 19, 2013}}</ref> By the time of his death, Young had fifty-seven children by sixteen of his wives; forty-six of his children reached adulthood.<ref name=Father/>

Sources have varied on the number of Young's wives, as well as their ages. This is due to differences in what scholars have considered to be a "wife".<ref name="joj2">{{cite journal|last=Johnson|first=Jeffrey Odgen|title=Determining and Defining 'Wife'&nbsp;– The Brigham Young Households|date=Fall 1987|journal=[[Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought|Dialogue]]|volume=20|issue=3|pages=57–70|doi=10.2307/45225560 |jstor=45225560 |doi-access=free|url=https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V20N03_59.pdf}}</ref> There were fifty-six women who Young was sealed to during his lifetime. While the majority of the sealings were [[Celestial marriage|"for eternity"]], some were "for time only", meaning that Young was sealed to these women as a proxy for their previous husbands who had died. Researchers state that not all of the fifty-six marriages were [[Marriage#Rights and obligations|conjugal]].<ref name="joj2" /> Young did not live with a number of his wives or publicly hold them out as wives, which has led to confusion on the number and their identities.<ref name="joj2" /> Thirty-one of his wives were not connubial and had exchanged eternity-only vows with him.<ref name=Father>{{Cite journal|last=Jessee|first=Dean C.|date=2001|title='A Man of God and a Good Kind Father': Brigham Young at Home|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43042842|journal=[[BYU Studies]]|volume=40|issue=2|page=23|jstor=43042842|issn=0007-0106|publisher=[[Brigham Young University]]}}</ref>

[[File:In_memoriam_brigham_young_3.jpg|thumb|Caricature of Young's wives, published after his death]]

Of Young's fifty-six wives, twenty-one had never been married before; seventeen were widows; six were divorced; six had living husbands; and the marital status of six others is unknown.<ref name="joj2" /> Young built the [[Lion House (Salt Lake City)|Lion House]], the [[Beehive House]], the [[Gardo House]], and the White House in downtown Salt Lake City to accommodate his sizable family. The Beehive House and the Lion House remain as prominent Salt Lake City landmarks. At the north end of the Beehive House was a family store, at which Young's wives and children had running accounts and could buy what they needed.{{sfn|Alexander|2019|pp=380–381}} In 1865, [[Karl G. Maeser|Karl Maeser]] began to privately tutor Young's fifty-six children and stopped when he was called on a mission to Germany in 1867.<ref name="called to teach">{{cite book|last1=Richards|first1=A. LeGrand|title=Called to Teach|date=2014|publisher=[[Brigham Young University]]|location=Provo, Utah|isbn=978-0-8425-2842-9|page=445}}</ref><ref name= "Burton">{{cite thesis|last1=Burton|first1=Alma P.|title=Karl G. Maeser: Mormon Educator |type=MS thesis |location=Salt Lake City |publisher=[[Brigham Young University]] |date=1950 |url=http://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/4572/ |hdl=1877/etdm119}}</ref><ref name="first 100 years" >{{cite book|editor1-last=Wilkinson|editor1-first=Ernest L.|editor-link=Ernest L. Wilkinson|title=Brigham Young University: The First 100&nbsp;Years|url=https://archive.org/details/brighamyounguniv01wilk|via=[[Internet Archive]]|location=Provo, Utah|publisher=[[Brigham Young University Press]]|date=1975|volume=1|pages=91–93|isbn=978-0-8425-0708-0 }}</ref>

At the time of Young's death, nineteen of his wives had predeceased him; he was divorced from ten, and twenty-three survived him. The status of four was unknown.<ref name="joj2" /> A few of his wives served in administrative positions in the church, such as [[Zina D. H. Young|Zina Huntington]] and [[Eliza R. Snow]]. In his [[Will (law)|will]], Young shared his estate with the sixteen surviving wives who had lived with him; the six surviving non-conjugal wives were not mentioned in the will.<ref name="joj2" />

====Notable descendants====
{{Main|Descendants of Brigham Young}}
In 1902, 25 years after his death, ''The New York Times'' established that Young's direct descendants numbered more than 1,000.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1902/06/22/101218688.pdf |title=Descendants of Brigham Young to Hold Annual Mass Meetings|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=June 22, 1902}}</ref> Some of Young's descendants have become leaders in the LDS Church, as well as prominent political and cultural figures.<ref>{{Cite news|agency=[[Associated Press]]|date=November 3, 2006|title=Brigham Young's descendants give rocking chair to Mormon church|url=https://www.deseret.com/2006/11/3/19983324/brigham-young-s-descendants-give-rocking-chair-to-mormon-church|access-date=November 2, 2021|website=[[Deseret News]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Mahonri Young |publisher=[[Smithsonian American Art Museum]]|url=https://americanart.si.edu/artist/mahonri-young-5524|access-date=November 2, 2021|location=Washington D.C.}}</ref>