Female Latter-day Saints get plastic surgery at a higher rate than other women in the United States. A 2024 study by the Utah Women and Leadership Project found that 20% of CoJC women had undergone minor cosmetic procedures, such as laser hair removal and botox. [1] 14% of CoJC women reported having major cosmetic procedures, such as breast augmentation, tummy tucks, and face lifts. In comparison, only 4% of women in the United States reported having cosmetic procedures of any kind. Meanwhile, Utah has the 6th largest number of plastic surgeons per capita in the United States, 66% of CoJC women in Utah know someone who has had a cosmetic procedure, and Google searches for breast augmentation are 53% higher in Utah than the national average. [2] These numbers should be shocking among a religious group, particularly because religiosity is often associated with better body image.
Yet these numbers do not surprise me. Plastic surgery is as familiar to me as baby blessings and bridal showers. These are the waters you swim in if you grow up as a female in Utah. Indeed, a significant proportion of the women in my extended family have had some kind of cosmetic surgery. These procedures range from breast augmentations and laser hair removal in young adulthood to botox and face lifts in middle age. It’s almost an expectation. When the older women in my family have undergone cosmetic procedures both major and minor, I’ve found it easy to roll my eyes at their vanity. I have sworn to myself that I won’t be like them. Their generation was raised to believe that the value of women lay in her looks. They’re vain, yes. But they’re also generationally pre-conditioned.
But then I entered a strange new phase in my own-age friend group: my friends are beginning to dabble in botox, breast augmentation, and other cosmetic procedures because they have turned 30. As everyone knows, botox in your 30s is wonderfully preventative for wrinkles in your 50s. My friends aren’t the women from The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. I deeply respect them. One of these friends sent a video message to the group confessing that she had gotten botox. She loved the results, but she felt uneasy and guilty. I couldn’t just dismiss this friend as vain and unaware. She is highly educated, down to earth, and deeply aware of the cultural waters that she was raised to swim in. She knows what she is being sucked into – and the deep contradiction between her deepest beliefs about women and her actions – but the pressure is just too great. And, to my surprise, I don’t blame her! My truest response was to tell her that she looked great and not to give herself a hard time. To my horror, I even spent a few days wondering if I should take the preventative plunge. How unpleasant would it be to look 50 alone?
As I’ve thought about this friend, I’ve been forced to reconsider the 20% of COJC women - and the women in my own family - with more empathy. And I’ve felt a greater antipathy toward the cultural forces in my faith community that brought us to this point. What is it about Utah Mormon culture that leads to high rates of cosmetic surgery? Carol Lynne Pearson’s “Ghost of Eternal Polygamy” has much to say about the painful impact that polygamy continues to have on the women in the Church. I believe the phrasing “the ghost of eternal polygamy” also goes a long way in explaining Utah cosmetic surgery culture.
Here's how the logic goes: polygamy officially ended well over 100 years ago, though polygamous relationships continued well into the 20th century. However, the doctrine of polygamy has never been repudiated. It’s still on the books, so to speak, in the eternities. Imagine what this does to the female psyche? There are more “worthy” women than men in the Church. In Utah, some sources report that the ratio is 3 Latter-day Saint women to every 2 active Latter-day Saint men. [3] The competition is high. Not all CoJC women will procure a husband in this life, which is perhaps the most culturally and religiously valued achievement in the Church. This will naturally lead to a beauty arms race between women. No one wants to be in the guaranteed percentage of women who don’t find a husband in this life. Not to worry, say Church leaders. These women will be guaranteed all the blessings in the eternities that they were denied in this life – i.e. they will be married in the next life. But married to whom? Perhaps to one of the millions of unmarried men who have died in battle or in childhood or at birth. Or she will become the second, third, or fourth wife of a righteous man? Forever second choice, she will nevertheless not be denied her blessings–though that comes at the price of polygamy. No wonder, then, for the high anxiety women in the dating years feel. Each year lowers their chance of marriage in this life, and perhaps raises their chance of polygamy in the next.
For their part, men will become more selective in response to higher supply. He will expect more from the woman he marries. She must be stylish, spiritual, accomplished, ambitious (but not work outside the home), charitable, and above all beautiful. All that is expected of the man is the bare minimum: preferably a returned missionary, active in church, and a w-2. Since a woman’s worth – and thus likelihood of marrying – is attached to her beauty, she must do all she can to enhance that beauty and gain an edge over other women. She will get eyelash extensions, lip filler, and preventative botox. She will get breast augmentation in her 20s. She will watch YouTube videos on proper makeup applications and sculpting techniques. She will tone her body in the gym and wear high heels to accentuate her legs and butt. She will be perfect and worthy.
Does the obsessive anxiety ebb once the woman has successfully “caught” a husband? No, because the threat is not over. The ghost of eternal polygamy looms over her entire married life. The competition never ends; the need to prove herself enough to merit monogamy in the eternities continues. For example, if she dies young, her husband has easy access to a second wife who will then be sealed to him for eternity as well. Now she’s stuck in a polygamous relationship all because she had the misfortune of dying young. But what if she is simply so perfect, so beautiful that no other woman could ever compare, even if she did die young? What if she can prove that she is enough and worth waiting for? So she’ll do everything possible to not just stay young and healthy – have you ever been to a workout class in Utah? – but to look young and healthy as well. Still she cannot risk dying first, for the temptation for her husband to remarry will be too great. And if her husband does remarry, it will likely be to a much younger woman, perhaps one who has the youth and vitality left to support her husband through extremely taxing church callings.
Nor can she risk losing her beauty. With so many other women available, divorce is much more of an option for her husband than for her. Her odds of remarriage are low, for there are 10 women just like her that could fill her place. She must keep her husband satisfied. She must be enough. If she is not beautiful, what is her worth? Internal perfection must show on her outward countenance.
But what if her husband dies first and goes on to marry polygamously in the next life while she continues in mortality? This was a common (though vague on specifics) idea in my grandparent’s generation. Now the poor woman has to stave off competition in life and in the eternities. If she is anything less than perfect, which she can never actually be in this life, her husband will look to supplement elsewhere - whether in this life or the next.
For the CoJC woman, there’s no winning! She can never truly escape the ghost of eternal polygamy no matter how hard she tries. The ghost haunts in life and in death. So the woman must carefully guard her heart against the possibility of emotional betrayal. Perhaps this means that she will hold back some part of her heart from her husband, such as in the cases heartbreakingly recorded in Pearson’s work. Or perhaps she will spend the quiet moments of her life attempting to strip herself of the “selfishness” that prevents her from fully embracing polygamy. Oddly, no one applies the label of “selfishness” to the man who has lots of wives for the sake of guaranteeing his spot in the celestial kingdom, his stature, his righteousness, his dominions, his legacy, his….etc. No, such a man is unselfish because he has to put up with lots of wives who have thoughts, feelings, needs. How exhausting.
But back to women. What the woman sees as “selfishness” is instead her sense of worth, healthy and committed love and devotion, and basic equality. To accept her lot, to demonstrate her faith, the woman must strip herself down to the studs. She is the sacrificial lamb. She rejects romance and love as false emotions. She gives wholly of herself but does not receive a whole self in return. She is a fixture in another’s kingdom, a jewel in another’s crown. She is woman; she is second.
Thus we have the terrible logic of cosmetic procedures and polygamy. I didn’t question the prevalence of cosmetic procedures growing up in Utah. Who doesn’t want to look their best? Now I read the statistics, and I see a culture in terrible pain. We are haunted by the past because it has never actually died. We are haunted by a murky future because we are told to stop worrying and have faith that all will work out. And at least one of the ways we cope is to strive to win the race and prove our worthiness via cosmetic procedures and a great hairdo. All is not well in Zion.
NOTES:
[1] Bodies At Church: Latter-day Saint Doctrine, Teaching, and Culture as Related to Body Image. Utah Women and Leadership Project. Research and Policy Brief. August 1, 2024. https://www.usu.edu/uwlp/files/briefs/58-bodies-at-church-latter-day-saint-doctrine-teaching-culture-body-image.pdf --- [Back to manuscript].
[2] Cosmetic Surgery Among Utah Women. Utah Women and Leadership Project. https://www.usu.edu/uwlp/files/infographics/cosmetic.pdf --- [Back to manuscript].
[3] Ibid. [Back to manuscript].
Full Citation for this Article: Johnston, Savannah Eccles (2025) "Utah Beauty Culture & The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy," SquareTwo, Vol. 18 No. 1 (Spring 2025), http://squaretwo.org/Sq2ArticleJohnstonBeautyCulture.html, accessed <give access date>.
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