Polygamy and Poufs

I've had it with polygamy.   Since Friday, when I bought a copy of Carolyn Jessop's "Escape," I feel as though I've been living the life with her, page after page, pregnancy after pregnancy, with catty sister wives, too many children,  and too few washing machines.  And worst of all, utter submission to "Father," as the husband is known,  he of the clammy, grasping hands, seven wives, and 54 children.  It's a startling, depressing book.

Jessop was a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (FLDS), which broke away from the mainstream Mormon church in the early 20th century over "the principle," which holds that polygamy is the way to the highest level of salvation.  The followers live mostly in the western US, Canada, and Mexico.  Jessop lived in Colorado City, Arizona, a town so remote and unhospitable that there are no hotels. Everyone is FLDS.

It's one thing to look photos of FLDS women, with their dowdy pastel prairie dresses and weird pouf hairdo's, and wonder why on earth they'd choose to live that way, but another to read the texture of that life, the infighting and competition among wives, the domestic abuse by the all-powerful husband.  Jessop says that in every household, the husband has a favorite wife, and everyone knows who that is.  In her house, it was Barbara, who wept everytime the husband slept with another wife, and then connived to get even by abusing that woman's child or anything else she could think of. Jessop escaped with all eight of her children after 17 years of marriage.

On the internet, there are websites like "Polygamy Chic," which celebrate this life: the fresh-faced women, the simple modest clothes, the bountiful children.  But according to Jessop, it's a life grueling beyond our imagination.  Jon Krakauer, in "Under the Banner of Heaven," writes that Joseph Smith himself, founder of the Mormon Church, took up polygamy in the 1830's because he was horny and wanted more power.  His first wife, Emma, fought it and lost.

I don't know whether I feel more outraged that this Taliban-like oppression is going on in the US,  or grateful that I have my own car, can go anywhere I want,  and read anything I please without getting permission.  And then I'm mad about feeling grateful.