And more from that article that explains why they did these proxy wives:
Miles Romney is listed as having nine children with Elizabeth, and a total of 12 wives.
But the 11 wives after Elizabeth are not wives in the usual sense of the word - all were dead by the time of the marriages, in 1872, five years before Miles died.
Most, if not all, appear to be dead relatives of Miles and Elizabeth from Dalton-in-Furness.
Jan Shipps, one of the leading experts on the early Mormon Church, says these were most likely "proxy marriages" - the "proxy" referring to the fact that one party to the marriage was not physically present, and would have been represented by a stand-in.
"For a Mormon man, the more wives he had, the higher he stood in the hierarchy. This would have given Miles Romney more standing in heaven," says Shipps.
No-one says I'm English-American - it's the great hidden identity in America
Tim Stanley, Oxford University
Such unions were "fairly common practice at the time," adds Todd Compton, Mormon historian and authority on polygamy within the church.
In day-to-day life it would have meant "almost nothing", he says, but Miles had nevertheless made "a very serious commitment that he would be a polygamist in the afterlife".
Craig Foster, a genealogist and historian in Salt Lake City, and co-author of The Mormon Quest for the Presidency, interprets it as "an act of love" on Miles' part.
"I firmly believe that what was in his head was an act of love - he was concerned for his departed ancestors who did not have the chance of marriage. I seriously doubt he ever considered them full wives."
Proxy marriages and baptism of the dead are still part of Mormon practice - a way, Mormons believe, of ensuring that families can meet and be reunited to live together in the afterlife. But proxy marriages, where one is dead and the other is alive, are now "absolutely uncommon" says Foster.
