Many polygamists blend into modern society
By PAUL FOY
April 17, 2008
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) =97 The neighbors knew Anne Wilde as a divorcee with
three children, but she had a secret: She was married to a polygamist,
a man who divided his time among his various wives, visiting her once
a week at her house in the suburbs.
"We'd play games =97 he'd park his car at a grocery-store lot and I'd
pick him up" so that other people wouldn't see his vehicle parked in
front of her home overnight, said Wilde, now a 72-year-old grandmother
whose husband died five years ago.
The neighbors had their suspicions, but they never questioned her.
While the raid on the West Texas sect earlier this month has focused
attention on polygamists who live in communal fashion and dress like
19th-century pioneers, many polygamists are very much part of the
modern world, and live right next door in cities, suburbs and small
towns across the West.
At least 37,000 men, women and children live in polygamous families
from Canada to Mexico, with most of them in Utah, according to Wilde,
who has become an activist for plural marriage. Law enforcement
agencies do not dispute her figures.
While some men in rural Utah build large barracks-style houses with
separate entrances to accommodate multiple wives, many of the state's
polygamists are unattached to any particular sect or clan and live
almost invisibly, under rather conventional-looking circumstances.
Each wife gets her own house; the men sneak around, often without a
home to call their own. Mothers hold themselves out as single parents
to PTA or school officials if they have to explain. But that is not
usually a problem in a state where many lifelong residents can trace
polygamy in the family tree, and where law enforcement authorities
rarely prosecute the offense.
Carlene Cannon, a 37-year-old homemaker who lives in the Salt Lake
City area, talks about polygamy without actually uttering the word,
referring to it as her "lifestyle choice."
"I'm in a very committed relationship, that's what I tell people," she
said. If pressed, she will add that she is not legally married. "In
today's society, you don't really need to explain how it works,
because there's so many single mothers," she said.
Sometimes the truth comes out. Garrett Kelsch grew up outside Park
City in one of two nearby households kept by his polygamous father. As
a high school freshman, he tried to keep the family's secret from his
new classmates. One thing or two gave him away.
Kelsch, now a 34-year-old manager of a door-manufacturing shop, said
he had a half-brother of the same age in the same class. "At first the
others thought we were cousins," he said, "but they eventually asked
about polygamy and we said, `Yeah.'"
Kelsch said he never actively concealed his father's polygamy, but "we
weren't going to advertise it."
Wilde and just about all other practitioners of plural marriage in the
West consider themselves followers of the true Mormon faith. But the
mainstream Mormon church renounced polygamy more than a century ago
and strongly disavows any connection to them.
Many of Utah's polygamists draw a sharp distinction between themselves
and the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,
the polygamous sect raided by Texas authorities earlier this month
because of allegations of physical and sexual abuse. By Wilde's
estimate, about 15,000 of Utah's polygamists belong to no group at
all.
According to law enforcement authorities in Utah and Arizona, many
other polygamists are divided among about 11 communities, societies or
orders, though Wilde said some of those groups have faded away, have
few members or lack religious legitimacy.
Most Utah women in polygamous marriages are indistinguishable from
other women. They take jobs or work from home to help support their
families. Wilde, for example, helped run a Mormon publishing house
from her home. They don't wear prairie dresses or put their hair in
braids or a bun, the style consistent among FLDS women.
In black dress pants and a white blouse with a charcoal-colored
jacket, Heidi Foster looks like any other 36-year-old suburban Salt
Lake City mom, albeit with 10 children in her home. The youngsters'
father is an occasional visitor who acknowledges another woman as his
only legal wife.
Foster belongs to the Kingston clan, a 1,500-member group based in the
Salt Lake City area but scattered across the Intermountain West. The
group has legitimate and widespread business interests worth an
estimated $150 million by some published reports, including pawn
shops, a trash collection company, dairies and coal mines.
Polygamist John Daniel Kingston =97 Foster is careful not to call him
her husband =97 helps support her family.
Court papers from a custody battle involving two of their rebellious
teenage daughters say Kingston has at least a dozen other wives. When
asked about it, Kingston has invoked his Fifth Amendment right against
self-incrimination. He is believed to have more than 100 children.
Even outside the FLDS, women in polygamous relationships tend to marry
young =97 around 17, according to research conducted at the University
of Utah. The men usually wait 10 years after a first marriage to start
accumulating more wives.
In the cities and suburbs, the polygamist husbands are usually nomads,
said Irwin Altman, a psychology professor at the University of Utah.
"Typically, the guy doesn't have his own place. His clothes are spread
all over. For privacy, some said they had to take a drive in their
car," said Altman, co-author of the 1996 book "Polygamous Families in
Contemporary Society."
Altman found that the men earnestly cling to early Mormon beliefs that
polygamy is key to eternal salvation.
http://www.truthandgrace.com/mormonnews.htm
|
