By definition, polygamy involves marriage. Now, whether or not a more recent definition has occurred which takes in the scope of “room mates”, I do not know. I suppose that if a man and multiple women were to cohabitate and bypass a civil or formal wedding but still declare a marital status, one could construe it to be a common law declaration but even that has to go through the legal process in order to be counted as a valid state.
This is quite a guy. We happen to live in the same county, Mohave, in Arizona, in which the larger part of FLDS (Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints) exists. There are an estimated 10,000 members in FLDS scattered nation-wide. Jeffs is a most convincing speaker. Many would call him a monster. Form your own conclusions. Some of Warren Jeffs' 70 wives pose in front of his portrait. An FLDS family, 66 years ago, sits by their doorstep. Every child in this picture shares the same father. Short Creek, Arizona. Aug. 29, 1953. The family of modern polygamist Ray Timpson, including his six wives and 41 children. Centennial Park, Arizona. February 2008. "Warren Steed Jeffs (born 3 December 1955) is the President of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS Church), a polygamous denomination. In 2011, he was convicted of two felony counts of child sexual assault, for which he is currently serving a life sentence plus twenty years. In 2006, Jeffs was placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List for his flight from the charges that he had arranged illegal marriages between his adult male followers and underage girls in Utah. In 2007, Arizona charged him with eight additional counts in two separate cases, including incest and sexual conduct with minors." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Jeffs It should be mentioned here that as the Prophet, Jeffs continues to operate as the high eminence of FLDS from within his prison cell! Not surprisingly, capitalizing on the sensational aspects of FLDS, a T-V series has been showing: Escaping Polygamy is an American documentary television series that premiered on December 30, 2014 on LMN. The show now airs on Lifetime, but can also be viewed on Tubi and follows the work of three sisters who left the Kingston clan, a polygamous group based in Salt Lake City, Utah known as The Order, as they help family and/or friends documented in anticipation break free of polygamy. They have also helped people escape from the FLDS Church and the AUB Church. The show was originally on A&E, but later moved to Lifetime. The series was renewed for a fourth season on March 4, 2019 and premiered on Lifetime on April 1, 2019. Since the fourth season aired, Jessica Christensen, one of the three women on the show, said on Instagram that she would not be filming a fifth season of the show and that if the show were to be renewed it would have to future different people. However, there has since been no official announcement from Lifetime regarding the future of the show. This series alerted me to the Jeffs debacle, as my wife watches it. The show is dramatized, every line being carefully worded and spoken, as though presenting a crime story, the adventures of young women fleeing FLDS enslavement being vividly presented. Frank
Here is a rather interesting consequence of polygamous inbreeding: The Colorado City/Hildale, Utah area has the world's highest incidence of fumarase deficiency, an extremely rare genetic condition which causes severe Intellectual disability. Geneticists attribute this to the prevalence of cousin marriage between descendants of two of the town's founders, Joseph Smith Jessop and John Y. Barlow; at least half the double community's roughly 8,000 inhabitants are descended from one or both. Frank
@Frank Sanoica Have you ever heard about Pinesdale, Montana? I lived and worked on a ranch that bordered Pinesdale back in the '70s. The nearest neighbor had 17 wives and 49 children. I met the guy and his main wife when I was shooting a wild pack of dogs running and tearing into their horses. He stopped and he and his wife both unracked rifles and helped me finish off that problem. He was impressed with my custom .243 and shooting and invited me up to see their place. None of the other wives even looked at me and the kids just starred. I wasn't invited to the huge main house, but they showed me their woodshop where they made furniture and spinning wheels and their gunsmith shop and arsenal. I had and have never since, seen anything like it. He asked if I had a 3006. I said yes and he disappeared while I chatted with his wife #1 about spinning wheels and reappeared with a box loaded with 3006 ammo. It weighed about 70 lbs. "A small token of appreciation for alerting us by shooting before we lost thousands," he said. The whole idea of polygamy and those other wives working, raising children, and never being allowed to speak to others or leave the community really was unnerving. They all looked my age and older, but still, it still leaves me with chills thinking about it. They were brainwashed into thinking it was some prophets command that they live like this. Basically slaves working to keep a mostly self-supporting community going while the guy and his main wife lived fairly normal. I moved from there and took a job at a guest ranch further up the valley as a wilderness survival guide. I came to my cabin after one trip and found a huge, maybe 100 lbs, box of custom .243 ammo with a note saying thank you and enjoy. I moved to the Oregon mountains after that and exterminated many a red-digger until that .243 barrel was worn and inaccurate. I sold it to a gunsmith that wanted that old M-98 Mauser bolt action. When I told the guys at the guest ranch about this, they said the guy and his wife were friending me to seduce me into their cult. One of the guest ranch old long time wranglers laughed and said, "That guy is looking for obedient wives to raise children and do chores. He is not looking for a female gunslinger that shoots first and answers questions later." it is amazing how many of these communities are everywhere but very few really know about them.
" Although I should read the rest of the topic first, I'm replying here to a point about the women. Granted, the women may not be brainwashed or sub-par intelligent. Why then would they accept a role that was servile. inferior, and limiting of their human potential? It is evidently paramount with some people that they find definition of themselves and the role they play in society by the role they take in a collective with pre-established rules. One horrible example of this: it was only a few but there were black slaves who, upon emancipation, wished to remain slaves and stay on their plantation. Freedom was a threat. I imagine some similar fear of freedom operates in these multiple wife families.
A trivial question - aren't the wives sexually unsatisfied?. A man can barely satisfy one wife, from my humiliating personal experience.
Another not insignificant problem with that particular Mormon sect is that boys are undervalued. From what I've read, unless their family is in the leadership structure, boys are either forced out or ignored because, if one person is going to have thirty wives, there aren't a lot of available women available for new male members of the sect.
Pologomy only benefits the Men..naturally. This is another classic of Biblical scriptures taken and twisted so that Man may do as he sees fit. Hang 'em high
When you look at the LDS doctrines, this all makes more sense, at least from their perspective. One of the core beliefs of Mormons is that there is a spirit world, and uncountable millions of spirits waiting to be born; so it is important to have a large family, and bring as many of those spirits to the earth with a body as possible. Thus, all Mormon women are basically broodmares to birth new people from the spirit world, and then raise the children according to the Mormon doctrine, and they will grow up to do the same thing as their mothers. Another interesting belief , is that there are several levels of heaven, and when you go to the Celestial Kingdom (highest level) then you can have your own planet and be the god of that earth. To them, Adam is the god of this earth, as the first man to live here. One of their main teachings is to the effect of “as man is, God once was; and as God is, man will become”. Thus, the more wives and children you can bring with you, the faster you can start your own world where you are the god. Women want to belong to the men of the highest stature in the church; so even though they are in secondary positions as wives, it is better to be one of a lot of wives in the family of an important man, than to be the main wife of an unimportant man, because of greater status in the community. This is also why Mormons are so focused with tracing ancestry, and then they have those ancestors baptized into the Mormon church as part of their celestial family. So, for every living wife a man might have, he might also be sealed to many women who have already long since died. In no way, am I trying to say this is a good way to live, or that i agree with any of it; but I thought it would help put it into better perspective as to why women would agree to polygamy, and even think it was a good thing.
You're very clear in your summary. Didn't scientology rip off and slightly alter a lot of these ideas? I'm especially thinking of someone in someway becoming the ruler of their own planet.
I don’t know anything about what Scientology believes; but I think that @Ken Anderson might know more about them. I belonged to the LDS church, so I have a better idea of their doctrines.
Scientology is a bit confusing. Here is what I came up with when I created the Scientology category for my work.
I'm reading it, or rather listening to it with my reading program. In the meantime, I recall that Charles Manson approached Scientologists saying., "Okay, I'm Clear. What now?" Sounds apocryphal.