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By Gary Rostein Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |
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Ah, polygamy ... the very idea of it sounds like sweet nirvana for so many of us men.
When one wife requests something done around the house on a Saturday, we can simply sneak the golf clubs into the car and fib: "Sorry, hon, Laura's got me booked this afternoon cleaning out the garage at her place, and after that Barb wants me taking our kids to Chuck E. Cheese. But I'll be sure and get next week to whatever it is you want me doing, don't you worry. By the way, we're still on for sex Tuesday night, right?" There is a downside to such a lifestyle, apparently, and the tensions have been explored in the HBO series "Big Love." The practice has also been in the news because last week law enforcement authorities arrested polygamist sect leader Warren Steed Jeffs of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Mr. Jeffs' sect has no tie to the mainstream Mormon church, which disavowed polygamy in 1890 and excommunicates any members who practice it. The criminal charges against Mr. Jeffs, a member of the FBI's Most Wanted list, include child sexual abuse, underage marriages and rape alleged to have occurred within his group of 10,000 members in Utah and Arizona. He has controlled whom and when women marry, with girls as young as 13 reportedly involved. Prosecutors are focusing on those charges rather than the polygamy practiced by Mr. Jeffs, who may have at least 40 wives and nearly 60 children. Speaking from experience Tapestry Against Polygamy (www.polygamy.org), a group of women formerly involved in polygamy and now condemning it, has repeatedly criticized Utah officials for doing too little to crack down on the behavior. "Utah is not currently prosecuting the crimes within polygamy or polygamy itself," the group stated in a May press release, accusing state officials of "the greatest Utah political cover-up of our time." It said that Mr. Jeffs "is only the tip of the iceberg. Within one Utah polygamous family seven brothers have a total of over six hundred children." We'll drink to that The Wasatch Brewery of Park City is famous for poking fun at some of Utah's unorthodox ways. It produced Polygamy Porter in 2003, carrying advertising slogans such as "Why have just one?" and "Bring some home to the wives." When a Utah state senator later launched an effort to introduce "intelligent design" in schools, the brewery began producing Evolution Ale in response. The label said the beer was "Darwin Approved" with an explanation that the beer was "created in 27 days, not 7." Maybe he needed the rest The Utah Constitution banned polygamy a century ago (a condition of being accepted for statehood), but the behavior is rarely prosecuted. The state's officials have estimated 30,000 residents might live in plural marriages. (It's hard to say for sure -- the U.S. Census Bureau now identifies people who have multiple races, but it's overlooked asking about multiple spouses). The prosecution in 2001 of Thomas A. Green for his five wives was the first polygamy case in Utah court in 50 years. His downfall, apparently, was publicizing the practice so incessantly in media interviews. Most polygamists are quieter about their ways, behaving openly among their own kinds but living in locations remote from mainstream society. Mr. Green explained the prosecution's motivation against him this way: "You stick your head out of the hole, and the government will shoot it off. It's been the unwritten rule for 50 years in Utah: You pretend we don't exist, and we'll pretend you don't exist." Mr. Green was sentenced to five years in prison, even though his wives -- Hannah, Shirley, LeeAnn, Cari and Linda -- all made desperate pleas that he was a loving man and a doting father (to 30 children, which is quite a laundry load of doting). During the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, after Mr. Green was imprisoned, an Orlando Sentinel reporter visited the cluster of dirt-road trailers 250 miles away serving as the large Green family homestead. The reporter's dispatch described a contented group of women and children, all eager to have their patriarch return. Hey, that's not us After HBO's "Big Love" began getting attention, featuring a protagonist with three wives living in side-by-side-by-side homes in Utah, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was quick to issue a statement: "The Church has long been concerned about the continued illegal practice of polygamy, and in particular about reports of child and wife abuse emanating from polygamous communities today. It will be regrettable if this program, by making polygamy the subject of entertainment, minimizes the seriousness of that problem." Sorry, nice try A Salt Lake City resident in 2003 sought a grant from the city's Redevelopment Agency that would enable him to open a Polygamy Museum on Main Street, which would have included actors impersonating famous polygamists, a polygamy-themed library, a research institute, a restaurant, club and other features. It did not win approval. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Gary Rotstein can be reached at grotstein@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1255.) |
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post-gazette.com Originally published Tuesday, September 5, 2006 |
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