quaist

COLORADO CITY, Arizona (AP) -- Ben Bistline chuckles when asked to explain why the practice of polygamy persists. The outside world, he says, just doesn't get it.

"We just grew up in polygamy," said Bistline, a 70-something former polygamist and local historian. "It's part of our life. I don't know how else to say it."

Bistline has lived along the Utah-Arizona border since the neighboring towns of Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah -- home of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints -- were still known as Short Creek.

He was there when Arizona authorities raided the community in 1953 in an attempt to stop plural marriages and has seen dozens of men and women jailed for their beliefs.

"They believe that it's necessary to gain their exaltation to the highest level of heaven," said Bistline, a resident of Cane Beds, which is just east of Colorado City.

"They've been taught that since the day they were born. It won't change."

Not even with the prosecution of FLDS leader Warren Jeffs.

"He's not the sole supporter of polygamy," said Lori Chatwin, a Colorado City woman who grew up there and married at 17. "It's a religious belief."

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TheAngel

My problem is not with polygamy, although I don't agree with that personally. My problem is the human rights and civil rights that are being taken away from these people, espeically the women, being married off at such young ages. It's amazing, and I don't understand how cities like Colorado City are allowed to continue to exist. It's nothing more than a basic slave trade where women are sold into service at young ages, brainwashed, and expected to bare children, do everything for the man, and be little more than cattle for him.

ceilirose

Also some of the men in these sects have to turn over their whole paycheck from construction jobs to the church leaders forcing their families to go on welfare to pay for the basics. The average US taxpayer is picking up that cost while someone else profits. Add this to basic civil rights abuses - they can nail this guy (Jeffs) to the wall as far as I'm concerned.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP...31/acd.01.html

ROCKSTAR

I agree with you! The only element of this case I find criminal is the fact that young girls are being pushed into adult hood and lives they have no control over. That's wrong, it IS slavery.

We have a really high profile case in Puerto Rico where a man has three wives and has children with all of them. Well two kids died and social services removed the rest of the 7-9 children from his house and are now investigating him.

Some say they're criminally pursuing him for his lifestyle, but the truth is, two kids are dead. I still believe though that he is a good man and when the investigation clearly indicates the babies died of natural causes then, there's no case. But still they pursue it! I think it's wrong. He's not breaking any laws and his personal life is HIS!

Unless there is a serious threat, an actual crime or enough suspicion of a crime, I don't think it's the business of the state what people do with their privacy.

jalapeno_wildchild

i would think the women would have problems "sharing" their husband with one another and by sharing i mean in every aspect of the term. it just seems wrong to me.

goodnightboy

Well in Islamic law a man can have up to four wives, if I'm not wrong. Nobody has a problem with that. It's just that to me I wouldn't want to share, but then again I'm not Muslim, so it's not something I grew up with (and therefore accept). Cultural differences, I suppose.

To what ROCKSTAR said: it's his life! You might not agree with it but as long as it doesn't infringe on anyone or the law no one has the right to stop him from having three wives and having kids with all of them.

And about the Jeffs thing: I fail to see what polygamy has to do with people working for him and not getting a cent, but that's disgusting. Why do these people persist in working for him and not getting a penny? Can they leave?

quaist

Maybe that's in conjunction with them being in the sect?

sunnykerr

The thing with polygamy is that, whether you belive it's a sect or whether you think it's a religion, it's all closed in. Because the practice is against the law, people in it don't go in "the outside world," so it opens them up to having their rights violated by religious leaders, who are seen as the real authority. That's the link between polygamy and slavery. It's not that polygamy hinges on slavery; it's that it opens up the possibility.

I keep waiting for the polygamy where a woman can have multiple husbands. Now, that I'd look into.

quaist

One advantage of polygamy is, that more kids are born through it. This wouldn't be the case in a "female polygamy".

A man is able to impregnate many women at the same time, a woman's not.

sunnykerr

Well, yes. That's the whole point of polygamy, isn't it? Spread the seed.

So, if what we know if male polygamy, I'm just saying that, speaking as a woman, I'd like to give "female" polygamy a try.

TheAngel

There's a society like that in Africa, I can't remember the name of the tribe, but when a woman marries a man she also marries his brothers, so she can have multiple husbands. I wouldn't want more than one man in my life...Just one more person to house train.

I'm sorry, I couldn't resist the dig. But seriously, for me the beautiful thing about love is that it's shared between two people and is unlike any emotion shared between two people anywhere. The love between two people is different than the love of family and friends. It's love that causes a bad day to become good with a single look. It's love that can take away the pain of the world with a touch. It's love that can protect and keep safe locked in the arms of someone else. To me, it doesn't seem like love is involved in this type of polygamy, just power.
My family's bigger than your family kind of a thing.

chicah

I agree with you, TheAngel, that there probably isn't that much love in such marriages. It's often about power and sex.
But the sad truth is that it's only the past centuries in the western world where love is counted as a natural part of marriages. In other parts of the world, and how it used to be in most parts of the western world, marriage wasn't about love. It was a lot about your family. Your father or mother chose a partner for you based on his wealth, and then they went to his father to ask for permission. If they both agreed that their kids should marry, the kids didn't really have any choice. And people lived with that for thousands of years.
It seems unnatural and wrong to us, but let's not forget other people grow up with it. We can't say we are right and they're wrong just like that. Although I personally think it's wrong I can't condemn it.