The Weird and The Wacky Meet

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The Legacy of Polygamy

                 Researching the topic of polygamy from a non-biased standpoint is not something that one can do by typing “Polygamy” into Google.com.  My research process started when I talked to my friends and relatives back in Utah about different sources of information.  From there I moved into newspaper articles about past and current polygamy abuses.  Finally, I found a few organizations dedicated to helping the women and children in polygamy.  Polygamy, in and of itself, doesn’t seem to be the problem.  Under the guise of religious freedom to practice polygamy, fanatics have taken it upon themselves to heap abuse upon women, children, and the government.  Polygamy is a custom that is banned by the modern Latter Day Saint Church.  However, it is still one of the things most commonly associated with the Mormons.  My thesis is that, even though polygamy officially ended in 1890, the effects of the policy still have lasting consequences, in that polygamy is still being practiced by people who consider themselves to be following the true Mormon Church.

                 John Dougherty has written a series of articles, entitled “Polygamy in Arizona,” for the Phoenix New Times, detailing the inner workings of Colorado City, Arizona.  Colorado City is completely controlled by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, an offshoot of the LDS that practices polygamy.  The articles discuss many of the abuses perpetuated though polygamy.  So far, they seem to cover three main themes.  The first is the idea, widely held among polygamists, that older men are entitled to as many young women as they see fit.  As a result, young women are often forced into marriages at 17, 16, or younger, to men two to five times their age who are already married.  More often than not, these relationships are incestuous because of the close knit nature of the communities.  The second abuse stems from various fundamentalist sects defrauding the state and federal government in any way they can.  Colorado City has a higher percentage of people on public assistance than in any part of the nation; a full 50% take advantage of welfare or food stamps (Dougherty, “Bound By Fear”).  Contrast this with the fact that only one in five homeless people in New York City are eligible for welfare.  The reigning fundamentalist leaders in Colorado City have also found ingenious ways to funnel money meant for the school system into their own private schools, not meant for students outside of their sect.  Because the FLDS owns most of the land in Colorado City, they forced the state to lease their land for the schools, and then they pulled out 60% of the students, forcing the state to abandon the school property after they had made millions of dollars in improvements on the land (Dougherty, “Wages of Sin”).  The final abuse detailed in the articles is by church leaders against their own members.  Because they build their houses on church-owned land, they can be evicted at the slightest disobedience (Dougherty, “House Rules”).

                 The exact number of polygamists practicing in Northern America is hard to estimate because of the closed nature of the communities and the fact that women and children are often taken across the Mexican and Canadian borders clandestinely.  Tapestry Against Polygamy is an organization, run by women who have escaped polygamous relationships, formed to bring attention to the abuses that occur.  They put out a brochure entitled “Help Stop The Abuse”, estimating that anywhere from 80,000 to 100,000 people are currently practicing it in North America, mostly in the west.  The brochure also links polygamous sub-cultures with endemic domestic violence.  It lists several different forms of child abuse including, “Statutory Rape, Incest, Denial of Public Education, Child-Slave Labor, Trafficking of minors into foreign countries for sex, Arranged Marriages, Marriages to Close Relatives, Medical Neglect, Poverty, Corporal Punishment, and Secrecy and Isolation.” (Tapestry Against Polygamy)

                 Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer, details the murder of Brenda Lafferty and her 15 month old daughter, Erica, at the hands of two of her brothers-in-law, Ron and Dan Lafferty.  Ron and Dan started life out as upstanding members of the mainstream Mormon Church.  Dan began to study the early history of Mormonism and became increasingly fascinated with polygamy.  Slowly, Dan convinced his other brothers to consider the virtues of following early church teachings, including polygamy.  All five Lafferty brothers began placing increased restrictions on their current wives.  Brenda protested these changes and convinced Ron’s wife, Dianne, who was under some of the most intense abuse, to leave her marriage.  After Dianne left with his six children, Ron “received” a vision from God telling him that he and his brothers should kill Brenda and her daughter.  Even though Ron had shared the revelation with several people in his polygamous community, including Brenda’s husband, Allen, no one warned Brenda.  On July 24, 1984, Ron and Dan Lafferty broke into Brenda’s house and slit her and her baby’s throats.  Ron and Dan were the only people convicted of the murders, with Dan serving a life sentence and Ron receiving the death penalty, scheduled to be executed sometime in 2004 (Krakauer XI-XXIII).  This is just one example of the current effects of polygamy.

                 In addition to being a fascinating examination of what it takes to become a religious fanatic, it delves deep into the history of the mainstream Mormon Church, trying to explain what makes its members so susceptible to becoming, or being abused by polygamists.  The most lasting effect of polygamy seems to be the number of Mormons it draws into its fundamentalist folds each year.  In chapter four, Jon Krakauer discusses Elizabeth Smart’s abduction and rape by a former Mormon turned fanatic.  He theorizes that Elizabeth Smart did not attempt to escape her captor because she was brought up to believe that the Mormon Scriptures are infallible (Krakauer, 48).  As soon as Brian David Mitchell started quoting the Doctrine and Covenants, Elizabeth was in his sway faster than any victim suffering from Stockholm syndrome.

                 After researching the topic of polygamy I’ve become intensely frustrated at the severe lack of solutions to the problem.  On the one hand you have a church that refuses to acknowledge in any way its history of a deplorable practice.  On the other hand, through the very fact that the LDS church does not acknowledge and admit that it was wrong to practice polygamy, it drives followers into the arms of the fundamentalist cults.  These cults seem to have no end to the ways they will come up with to defraud the government and abuse their members.

 

Works Cited

 

Dougherty, John.  “Polygamy in Arizona.”  Phoenix New Times.  13 March 2003 – 31

July 2003. <http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/special_reports/

polygamy/index.html>. 3 August 2003.

 

Krakauer, Jon.  Under the Banner of Heaven.  New York:  Doubleday 2003.

 

“Help Stop the Abuse:  Creating a Choice, A Voice, Through Education, Advocacy and

Support.”  Tapestry of Polygamy.  <http://www.polygamy.org/brochure.shtml>.

3 August 2003.

 

Copyright 2004

by Amanda Evans

Date: 08/06/03