Description: In Baring Witness, Holly Welker and thirty-six Mormon women write about devotion and love and luck, about the wonder of discovery, and about the journeys, both thorny and magical, to humor, grace, and contentment. They speak to a diversity of life experiences: what happens when one partner rejects Church teachings; marrying outside one's faith; the pain of divorce and widowhood; the horrors of spousal abuse; the hard journey from visions of an idealized marriage to the everyday truth; sexuality within Mormon marriage; how the pressure to find a husband shapes young women's actions and sense of self; and the ways Mormon belief and culture can influence second marriages and same-sex unions. The result is an unflinching look at the earthly realities of an institution central to Mormon life.
Review Quotes: "Illuminating and heartfelt, frequently moving and sometimes hilarious, these essays explore moments of failure and fulfilment, laying bare the all too often unspoken confinements, complications and comforts of love, sex, and marriage."--Carys Bray, author of A Song for Issy Bradley