Understatement of the Week...

...and it's only Monday: Texans wary as polygamous sect moves in

The population of this drowsy West Texas town hasn't done much but dwindle in recent years, so its residents grew pretty curious in March when a pilot shot some aerial photos showing construction of several huge dormitory-style buildings on a sprawling ranch just outside town.

The curiosity soon changed to concern when anti-polygamy activists from Utah showed up for a news conference to reveal the identity of the group that had bought the 1,600-acre ranch: the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or FLDS, a secretive Mormon sect that practices polygamy and marriages involving underage teenage girls.

Now, with construction on the buildings nearly complete and the first of an expected 200 church members about to take up residence, the 1,951 residents of Eldorado are trying to make their peace with new neighbors many regard as followers of a strange cult.

I'm given to understand that the polyamory folks* aren't too thrilled with the FLDS, either - hey, these massive understatements are pretty easy, once you get into the swing of things**! - indeed, the FLDS is pretty much defined by their enemies, huh? Polyamorists, mainstream LDS, anti-polygamists, battered women's networks, cult awareness groups, mainstream liberals, mainstream conservatives... the list goes on, and, with all due respect to the First Amendment, quite deservedly. I mean, I'm sure that the cult's a fascinating sociological study and everything, but it's a little hard to get past the entire "indoctrinate 15 year olds until they're ready to be the fourth wife of some guy in his fifties" thing without getting squicked out, not to mention the controls put on the rest of the members.

I wonder how long that the FLDS will last at that ranch before they get evicted. Or the leadership gets indicted.

Moe

*For the record, I could care less what consenting adults get up to in private, provided of course that it doesn't spill over into my own life. That includes contract law. I will say that I've rarely seen polyamory work, and I'm sufficiently in the counterculture to have some outside awareness of the concept.

**As God is my witness, that was unintentional.

Comments

[Oberon]

I always wonder how these groups work economically. Where these people get the money to buy a huge ranch, build dormitories, etc.? Do they plan on having jobs after they move?

[crionna]

First, I knew a low-level polygamist, (2 wives, looking for a third). He (and his wives) were careful in who they looked at for wifehood. The less skilled wife took care of the children (of all the wives) and the more skilled worked as did he. And, to answer Oberon's question, they were always on the lookout for a possible wife with money already via inheritance, trust, company bonus, stock or 401k plans.

Second, I recently picked up The Bookseller of Kabul. It has very interesting stories about women's lives in Afghanistan, from a middle-class (and therefore much less depressing than in the movie Osama) viewpoint. Still, those women's lives are not their own.