Polygamy
Polygamy is the practice of having two or more spouses simultaneously. There are three types of polygamy: polygyny, polyandry, and group marriage. Polygyny is when one man has multiple wives at the same time. Polygyny means ‘many wives’. There are two types of Polygyny; there is sororal polygyny, in which the wives of a plural marriage are biological sisters, and non-sororal polygyny, in which the wives of a plural marriage are not sisters. Then there’s polyandry. Polyandry is when one woman has multiple husbands at the same time. Polyandry means ‘many husbands’. Group marriage means exactly what it sounds like: multiple men and women marry each other.
Polygamy is known to be illegal in the United States. Most states base their polygamy laws on the model penal code section 230.1, which provides that a person is guilty of the third-degree felony of polygamy if he or she marries or cohabits with more than one spouse at a time in purported exercise of the right of plural marriage. However, there is still a group located in Utah that practices polygamy with almost no repercussions, seeing as said group controls the entire town, including the police force, nicknamed ‘God Squad’. The group is called the FLDS, which stands for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and it straddles the border of Utah and Arizona. Some men and women try to escape the polygamist lifestyle of the FLDS. Some succeed- others do not.
The members of the FLDS believe that 3 wives is the minimum number you need to get into heaven, and that the more wives you have, the higher up you will be in heaven. This causes some of the higher up polygamist leaders to have more wives than you would believe, such as Warren Jeffs, who has 70-80 known wives and who knows how many unknown ones.
Warren Jeffs was born on December 3, 1955 in Sacramento, California to Rulon Jeffs and Marilyn Steed. He was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list before he was caught in his red sports car on August 29, 2006. He was found guilty of being an accomplice to the statutory rape of two young girls and was sentenced to life plus twenty years. His prison number is 482 and he is in the Louis C. Powledge Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice near Palestine, Texas.
Warren Jeffs has nearly 80 wives, 17 or 18 of which were ex-wives of his father’s, who died in 2002. Two of Rulon Jeffs’ wives didn’t marry Warren; Rebecca Wall fled the FLDS compound and the other was banned from ever marrying again. Naomi Jessop was the favorite of Warren’s father’s wives, and Warren even made her his confidante. She was also there at the moment of his arrest.
Warren Jeffs’ brother, Lyle Jeffs, the Bishop of the FLDS, is also a felon. He was arrested for fraud and placed under house arrest. Before he escaped, he was released under the condition that he wears a GPS ankle bracelet, which he later slipped out of by using what is believed to be olive oil as a lubricant. He is currently at large with bodyguards at his side. He is believed to be armed and dangerous according to the FBI.
Women in the polygamist faith have fewer rights than most women. They aren’t allowed to cut their hair because they are supposed to use it to wash Jesus’ and their husband’s feet when they go to heaven. The color red is prohibited because it is too ‘sensual’ and because it is supposedly the color Jesus Christ will be wearing during the Second Coming, or the Rapture. I guess that didn’t matter to Warren Jeffs, because he had a red sports car.
Women also can’t show their ankles. They can’t show any skin other than their faces and hands, because it supposedly discourages the wives from being jealous of each other, it keeps men who you aren’t married to from looking at you with lust or desire, and because it is seen as immodest and immoral. FLDS mothers are told not to hug or kiss their kids because polygamists in the FLDS believe that the only people that should be able to make a kid feel special is the dad. Personally, I disagree.