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Friday, May 12, 2006

But it doesn't work this way on Big Love

I watched an episode of the HBO series Big Love for the first time this week. I had heard about the premise - the main characters are three women who are all married to the same man - and it didn't sound that notable to me.

But the episode I watched was really funny. And the basic premise allows for some complicated and unexpected interactions between the members of this extended family. Also, for guys who think polygamous marriage sounds appealing, this is a good show to watch. If you think having one wife is hard to deal with... :)

Real-life polygamous cults, though, are not a laughing matter. The Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) cult have been in the news recently because their leader, Warren Jeffs, has moved onto the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list: Blind Eye to Culture of Abuse Children of a polygamist sect have been exploited, molested for years by David Kelly and Gary Cohn Los Angeles Times 05/12/06. Kelly and Cohn write:

For half a century, while polygamous members of this remote enclave engaged in widespread sexual abuse and child exploitation, government authorities on all levels did little to intervene or protect generations of victims. ...

The religious sect of about 10,000 portrays itself as an industrious commune of the faithful, choosing to live apart from a hostile world. But their simple lifestyle and self-imposed isolation have concealed troubling secrets that are only beginning to emerge.

Court records, undisclosed investigative reports and interviews by The Times over the last year show that church authorities flout state and federal laws and systematically deny rights and freedoms, especially to women and children.

Handling cults is not a familiar or easy thing for law enforcement. It takes some amount of training and specialized knowledge to tell the difference between a cult and an unconventional but not cult-ish religious sect.

Sexual abuse is, of course, not unknown in established churches. The Catholic Church and the Episcopal Church have been in focus over the last several years on the question of sexual misconduct by ministers, in part because they do have a centralized structure that assumes a high degree of responsibility for the ministers.

But it goes on in less structured denominations, too. Because of the decentralized structures, it may be a while yet before that comes to light on a comparable scale. But it's there.

Still, sexual abuse and exploitation is not just a frequent occurrence in cults. It's endemic. It doesn't always take the form of coerced sex. It can be extreme control over sexual practices, separating husbands and wives for long periods of time (the Moonies), or even genital mutilation (Heaven's Gate). Sex can be a very effective method of control for an authoritarian cult leadership. And the kind of leaders who head up cults are usually what we used to call sociopaths, which means they among other things that they just don't feel themselves bound by rules, even the ones they create for their cult.

The Times report continues:

Among sect members, girls as young as 13 are forced into marriage, sexual abuse is rampant, rape is covered up and child molesters are shielded by religious authorities and law enforcement.

Boys are thrown out of town, abandoned like unwanted pets by the side of the road and forcibly ostracized from their families to reduce competition among the men for multiple wives.

Children routinely leave school at age 11 or 12 to work at hazardous construction jobs. Boys can be seen piloting dump trucks, backhoes, forklifts and other heavy equipment.

Girls work at home, trying to keep order in enormous families with multiple mothers and dozens of children who often eat in shifts around picnic tables.

Wives are threatened with mental institutions if they fail to "keep sweet," or obedient, for their husbands.

While this cult is pretty obviously male-dominated, cult leaders can be women, also, like Elizabeth Claire Prophet. It has been argued that one of the appeals of "new religions" - which some scholars use as a synonym for cults, which I think is a mistake - is that they offer women opportunities for leadership they might not have in more conventional religious congregations.

And that may well be true in many cases. Unconventional religious groups are not always cults, and cults are not always religious. But cults are destructive, no matter what opportunities they may give to particular individuals.

The negligence of law enforcement wasn't entirely out of ignorance:

Officials also knew local laws in Colorado City and adjacent Hildale, Utah, were enforced by polygamous police officers and administered by a polygamous judge — and that police routinely referred alleged sex crimes to church leaders.

In 1953, acting on similar reports, Arizona Gov. J. Howard Pyle launched a massive raid, with about 120 police officers, on the FLDS. It backfired badly, however, and was regarded as a political disaster for Pyle, who lost his bid for reelection.

The political debacle, coupled with a fear of violating the sect's religious freedom, ushered in 50 years of official passivity and government inaction, even in the face of continuing reports of illegal conduct in the FLDS enclave.

The Mormon Church is understadably anxious to make sure everyone knows that the cult group whose leader is on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List is not part of the Church. In Media get a big 'F' for stories on FLDS: Many confuse splinter groups with S.L. church Deseret Morning News 05/12/06, reporter Carrie Moore writes:

The FBI's Ten Most Wanted listing for fugitive Fundamentalist LDS Church leader Warren Jeffs late last week has not only turned up the heat for those pursuing him but has again created media confusion with the Salt Lake City-based LDS Church.

In a news release Thursday, the LDS Church said increased media attention to polygamist groups, "particularly those living in southern Utah and Arizona," too often "refer to these groups as 'Mormons' or 'Mormon sects.' " Such references are "misleading and confusing to the vast majority of audiences who rightfully associate the term 'Mormon' with members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," it said.

Church spokesman Dale Bills said LDS Public Affairs has fielded "a number of questions" from media — presumably both national and international — following Jeffs' Ten Most Wanted listing along with Osama bin Laden and other high-profile fugitives. Reporters have called for the church's comment, though "there is no reason why the church would wish to comment about a legal action concerning a group with which it has no affiliation or connection," the release said.

At the risk of giving fundi trolls an excuse to flame me, I'd have to say that it's important to distinguish polygamy in different cultural contexts from aberrant sexual practices in cults. In Muslim countries where polygamy is allowed, for instance, the practice is regulated by law and enforced by custom in a way that just doesn't occur in cult groups.

Polygamy is assumed in practice to be disadvantageous to women and children in those relationships, and from what limited knowledge I have of the subject, that's true. In the case of the FLDS cult, it has it's obvious disadvantage for a lot of boys, too. Viewing one episode of Big Love brought to mind a whole series of practical complications that would occur if a formal legal structure for polygamy were to be set up in a country like the United States. Would there be a primary spouse with priority legal rights over the others? Would legal responsibility for the children of one spouse be shared by all the spouses? Yikes! It would get hairy.

It's a notable historical fact that the early Mormons were disturbed by the initial proclamation of plural marriage by their prophet, Joseph Smith. Robert Remini writes in his Joseph Smith (2002) that in the early 1840s, Church members were irritated with Smith for various reasons:

But a more important and immediate reason for the mounting hostility against Joseph and his brethren came with shocking rumors of plural marriages, more popularly known as polygamy. The revelation about plural marriage was dictated by the Prophet on July 12,1843, a year before his death; it was not publicly announced until August 29, 1852, in Utah, although it had been generally known for some time. Today many Mormon scholars feel there is strong evidence that an unwritten revelation concerning plural marriage came as early as 1831 and that Joseph had married Fanny Alger, although Louisa Beaman, to whom he was sealed on April 5, 1841, is officially regarded as his first plural wife. In fact Joseph wed a number of women, most of them daughters or sisters of leaders of the Church who had been informed of this new doctrine.

It seems that in his study of the Bible in the early 1830s, Joseph queried the Lord about the patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament who practiced polygamy without committing the sin of adultery. In the recorded revelation of 1843 the Lord responded, "I, the Lord, justified my servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as also Moses, David and Solomon, my servants, as touching the principle and doctrine of their having many wives and concubines." They did not commit adultery because they acted on the Lord's command. "Therefore, prepare thy heart to receive and obey the instructions which I am about to give you; for all those who have this law revealed unto them must obey the same." The revelation went on at length to explain the terms and conditions of the new covenant—the doctrine of eternal (or sealed) marriage—and it also gave to Joseph the "power to bind and seal on earth and in heaven." The revelation as written then stated that "if any man espouse a virgin and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then he is justified and cannot commit adultery." It went on to declare that "if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore he is justified."

The revelation recognized that this covenant might be difficult for Emma Smith to accept, and so she was admonished to heed the law. "Let my handmaid, Emma Smith, receive all those that have been given unto my servant Joseph, and who are virtuous and pure before me." Those who are not pure "shall be destroyed, saith the Lord God. For I am the Lord thy God, and ye shall obey my voice."

Smith's first wife, Emma, was not thrilled about the new revelation, either. Remini doesn't rule on how many wives Smith himself accumulated, though he gives prominence to an estimate of 27, with possible numbers ranging from just a few up to 84. The youngest of his wives was 14. (I heard that the Kansas legislature just moved the legal age of marriage down to 14 with the parents' consent a few days ago; I have no idea what that's about).

Remini also writes:

To what extent, if at all, Joseph was influenced by the "free love" doctrines of other religions and communitarian groups at the time, or by the Swedenborgian notion of spiritual marriage for eternity, cannot be determined - but he certainly had access to them and undoubtedly knew of them.

posted at 1:08:00 PM by Bruce Miller

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