After the patient, wonderful and articulate Anne had taken us through a crash course on the roots of Fundamentalist Morman faith, she organised it so that we could attend an all day conference for people who come in contact withplural families through their work (social work, hospital workers, etc) called “Working with Polygamous Family Systems: A Culturally-Guided, Balanced Approach to Service Provision”.
Anne is a co-founder of an organisation called Principle Voices, which has been working hard over the last few years to build bridges between the traditionally extremely wary Fundamentalist communities and the outside world. She herself was a plural wife, and along with three other wpoen, they realised that the mistrust of the outside world which the communities have was meaning that they simply weren’t asking for help where they most needed it (eg doctors, counselling) for fear of being prosecuted.
Because dealings with the Fundamentalist communities are fairly new territory for state workers (only recently, under the legislation of Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, has the state law suggested that perpetrators of bigamy would not be prosecuted for this felony), the conference waas also a way of breaking down the stereotypes and biases, and helping workers to tailor their skills to this particular culture.
During the course of the day we heard from representatives from the Attorney General’s office (including the AG himself, who we managed to talk to), from social workers, and from a panel of plural wives. The AG’s office gave a layman’s introduction to the principles of hte faith, and the current legal position of the state with regards to bigamy (which is to forgive the adult consensual union, and crack down hard on any incidences of underage marriage, child abuse and welfare fraud)
The social workers concentrated on underdoing the stereotypes, and explaining with examples who standard practice in the field simply could not be applied to this culture. So rather than defaulting to suggestion applicable to mainstream society (see a counsellor, register in college, etc) – for example, Fundamentalist commuunities prefer homebirth, as they feel that they will be discrimated against or not understood in a mainstream hospital; children are homeschooled because often the taunts that children have to suffer in mainstream schools is too intimidating.
The most powerful and fascinating part of the day was hearing from the wives themselves. They alone were enough to debunk every stereotype you may ever have held about polygamy. We heard from 4 separate women about their experiences and ways of life as plural wives. Standing up there and addressing an auditorium of people with fixed preconceptions – not least because it was risking their own freedom and that of their families- must have been fairly terrifying, and yet all 4 of them were fiercely articulate, passionate and held the audience in the palm of their hands.
2 of the ladies were a little older and told stories of the raid of 1953 when the state swept down, arresting fathers, taking children from mothers. Twice I, and the rest of the auditorium, cried at how unjust the behaviour was. One lady told the story of her mother in the raid. Her mother was very very pregnant at the time, and was separated from the rest of her family and children and depostied on her own, afraid and alone, at the door of a hospital. She had a hard birth and at the end, the doctors used a general anaesthetic. When she woke up a few hours later, she asked to see her baby. The nurses ignored her. This went on and on, she was repeated dismissed everytime she ashed about her child – what gender it was, could she see it, had it died? This went on for two days as she became increasingly frantic. Finally, after that time, her baby was returned to her. It turned out that hers was the first child to be born after the raid, and the state had tried to adopt the child. Only when they realised that legal adoption requires the consent of both parents was the baby returned. During the telling of the story, the lady wept sporadically. She was extremely well composed depsite those occasional breaks. She used the story to highlight the descrimination from the very people who should be trying to protect. She talkeed about how the raids drove the communities to be even more isolated and mistrustful of the outside world. Chldren were told to call their fathers “Uncle” in public, never ever talk about their homelives outside the family home, and not to look for help from the outside world.
At one point, a beautiful and intelligent-looking woman took the stage. She was dressed in a tailored black suit, with a green shirt and gold earrings. She told us that she was the first wife of a man with three wives. How the wives loved each other, and adored and cared for all the children in their home. She worked, another of her sister-wives did, and that the house functioned very smmothly. It was so impressive. This woman defied every expectation I had of a plural wife: I thought of braids, austere formal dress, meak character, oppressed spirit, undereducated. But no, this woman was feisty, bright, and funny. The final wife, who closed the talks, was equally well-educated and well-dressed. Exactly the kind of lady – feisty, fun, passionate – that I like to be friends with. They talked about how their households worked, their priorities, and the injustice of the Fundamentalist Mormon stereotyp and the subsequent prejudice and injustice.
Polygamy is all about the family. Everyone who we heard from, talked to on the day, met subequently, talked about how the family comes before anything and everything else. When we asked “Love is…?” as part of the interviews, pretty much every single answer was an articulate variation on the theme of loving others more than oneself. When spending time with the familes, there is an overwhelming sense of community – everyone works together, but everyone also has fun together. The children are really happy, and play delightedly with their myriad of brothers and sisters.
Anne introduced us to three polygamist families. The first, which we met on Monday evening, was a 31 year old man, his 29 year old first wife and his 22 year old second wife. One thing which Anne had informed us about is that asking how many wives or children a man has is a terrible terrible faux pas. She has never talked about how many wives her husband had, and she didn’t know how many any of the many we interviewed had. The fact that these families were prepared to talk to us – and let us film them – when their entire livelihoods are at risk for doing so (people in Utah will take their custom away from business they know to have polygamist owners) – was so extraordinary, and for that reason, I’ll refrain from using names here.
That first meeting – when the man and his two wives and his youngest baby came round to be interviewed – was captivating. They were the most enchanting family I had ever seen. The fact that they are the same age as me and Mike, and so totally recognisable and like us – made it very moving. He had met his first wife at school. They were both young, but they got on really well and knew from the get-go that they wanted to get married. Their parents resisted until she was 18, then the leader of their church consented to the union. They visibly adored each other, and had a very sweet dynamic. That said, she was feisty and fun – pretty, wearing tight jeans and a ruffled t-shirt. When, after 5 years of marriage, they met a friend of his younger sister, the first wife and she had got on really well, and the first wife suggested to her husband that they consider making this younger girl part of their family. He thought it was a good idea – she was lovely and would fit well with their already large family – so his first wife set the wheels in motion, eventually proposing to the second girl by suggesting that they go for a walk together. They are such good friends that the two of them even go away together for Girls’ Weekends, leaving him to look after their large brood. He found out about the proposal when he came down for dinner and the second wife said “we’re engaged!”. It’s very much about marrying into a family rather than marrying a man.
The second wife is one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen, and the aura of love around all three of them was quite unbelievable. When I asked the first wife why she wanted another woman to share in her life (she wasn’t raised in a plural wife family, though her husband was), she said that she had so much happiness and such a wonderful life and husband, that she wanted to let someone else have that same fortune. The second wife agreed. They were just so happy. They have a large family, the sister-wives get on like best friends, all chores are shared, the children are raised regarding both the mothers as their own. As someone who always loved being around big families, I was transfixed. There was no sense of a sleazy man at the centre of it all having his cake and eating it: he was a sensitive soul, and you had the feeling that he was thrilled with these beautiful and lively women in his life.
