'Papa Married a Mormon' a 'Mormon-loves-gentile' story

Few people really understand the fear felt by Mormons in the genesis of the faith's flight to Utah to avoid what members perceived as severe persecution in Missouri and Illinois. In the latter half of the 19th century non-Mormons, or "gentiles" were regarded as intruders in "Zion" bent on either crushing the saints or forcibly removing them from their third homeland. In “The Kingdom or Nothing,” Samuel Taylor's biography of Mormon prophet John Taylor, when settlers heard rumors of a planned U.S. military "invasion" upon the Utah territory, church settlers abandoned the new Salt Lake City and trudged south to Provo, leaving instructions to a few left behind to burn everything if the soldiers assumed command of the city.

These sentiments are nearly gone, although stronger generations ago, when Utahn John D. Fitzgerald wrote the popular novel “Papa Married a Mormon.”

Times have changed, and “Papa Married a Mormon” has been adapted to the stage many times in Utah. The novel, first published in 1955 by Prentice Hall, is easy to find at used bookstores. Two sequels followed: “Mama's Boarding House,” and “Uncle Will and the Fitzgerald Curse.”

Set in the 1880s and ’90s in the fictional southern Utah towns of Adenville and Silverlode, the most unique aspect of Fitzgerald’s novel is that only a small portion of it is true, and that’s with a healthy dose of journalistic license, no doubt. Fitzgerald is writing about his family: His Uncle Will, who leaves Pennsylvania in disgrace to seek a life as a gambler/​gunslinger; His father Tom, Sr., who obeys a deathbed wish to find Will and tracks him down, finding him a rich saloon and gambling hall owner in Silverlode, a mining town close to the Mormon settlement of Adenville, which is headed by the town’s bishop, Ephraim Aden.

Once reconciled with Will, Tom takes over the Silverlode newspaper, and gains the trust of Adenville Mormons whose subscriptions, printing and advertising provide him a means of support. All this is threatened when he meets and falls instantly in love with Tena Neilsen, the 17-year-old daughter of Mormon emigrants from Europe. After a struggle with Tena and her family, Tom wins her heart, marries her in Denver and eventually the pair return to southern Utah with Tom (and Tena) considerably less popular among the saints than they had been previously.

While the novel’s chapters feature diverse tales (there's whole chapters devoted to saloon rowdies, kids’s pranks, family genealogy, gun fights, and dog fights) in essence the rest of Fitzgerald’s novel deals with the growth of Tom and Tena's s multi-religious family in Adenville and their slow but eventual acceptance by the Mormon majority. This subject provides the most powerful writing in the novel, as Fitzgerald portrays the suffering his mother feels, outwardly as a rejected saint, and inwardly as her Mormon conscience tears at her act of rebellion in marrying a gentile.

“Papa knew that Momma’s life was very lonely. The Latter-day Saints politely ignored her because she was an apostate. They would not let her trade in Adenville; even the farmers refused to sell her eggs and vegetables. ... Two weeks before the baby was born, Papa went through a night of torture. Mama had barely spoken to him all evening. About midnight he awoke and heard Mama crying ... He put his arm around her ... Momma threw him off, ‘Don’t touch me,’ she cried piteously.”

When Tom insists that Tena explain her behavior, she admits that she doesn’t feel married to him, since Mormons are married for time and all eternity. Tom goes to Bishop Aden and asks to be baptized a Mormon. The Bishop refuses to baptize Tom to placate his wife, but marries the pair outside a temple for time and all eternity. Although this would be frowned on today, it was not unusual in 18th century Utah to conduct “time and all eternity” marriages from outside a temple or endowment house. But it was certainly unusual if the groom was a Catholic.

Papa Married a Mormon is a fun read for anyone, but also a Utah history lesson. Fitzgerald writes each chapter like a separate story, so readers can jump in anywhere. One weakness is a tendency for the author to be a bit flowery in his prose, so at times romance almost becomes farce. Also, although Fitzgerald's heart is in the right place, he exhibits a condescending attitude toward Native Americans, a vice likely widespread in 1950s literature. One more thing: The novel comes with pictures of all the family members Fitzgerald writes about. It's fun to put a face to Tom, Tena and the Fitzgerald gang.

A postscript: I did some research and discovered that the Fitzgerald lived in Price, Utah, not Southern Utah. “Papa” did marry a Mormon, but he was a local financial professional, not a journalist, and also was an elected official. Author John D. Fitzgerald lived a fascinating life, with many unique jobs. He merits a biography.

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardNET.

Mormon Church's snub at 1893 fair was bitter setback

Originally published at StandardBlogs/Standard-Examiner

Eighteen ninety-three was heralded as the end of the frontier era as the world gathered in Chicago to celebrate civilization. 

For the Mormon Church, still mostly hidden from America, tucked into Utah, it represented for church leaders an opportunity to garner international respect in its quest for statehood. That dream would take a few more years, but in 1893, church leaders — and its ambassador, B.H. Roberts — would find its efforts to rub shoulders with the world’s religions firmly snubbed.

It would be a bitter defeat for Roberts, and also underscore the ironic closed-mindedness of a religious hierarchy that gathered in Chicago to allegedly celebrate tolerance.

Yet, while the LDS faith was shunted aside at the Chicago gathering, the secular attractions of Utah were more warmly received. The territory was greeted with interest and admiration, and provided a coveted spot at the Chicago fair.

The secret was avoiding the still-pesky religion and its association with polygamy. Historian Konden R. Smith writes of the Columbian Exposition of 1893 and its distinct treatments of the LDS Church and the Utah territory in the Journal of Mormon History article, “The Dawning of a New Era: Mormonism and the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893.” It’s a reminder that the church’s interest in public relations is not a recent development — it goes well back into its founding century.

The Parliament of Religions at the Chicago fair, which Smith claims “received more media attention and applause than any of the other congresses,” was designed to gather faiths with “brotherly sympathies any who are groping, blindly, after God.” Nevertheless, the Mormons — who Smith says expected to be invited — “were deliberately excluded.”

The church's connection to polygamy were considered by parliament organizers as a “disturbing element,” and not fit for the congress.

Letters from the church's First Presidency were ignored by organizers, Not giving up. Church President Wilford Woodruff sent young general authority B.H. Roberts to Chicago to lobby for inclusion.

After six weeks or so of lobbying for the October religions parliament, “the increasingly annoyed Parliament's managers” asked Roberts to pen “a statement of its (the LDS Church's) faith and achievements.”

The invitation came with no guarantee that the statement would be delivered by Roberts in Chicago, or even read by anyone, but Roberts believed that the invitation guaranteed him a prominent spot at the Parliament.

What eventually occurred was an offering for Roberts to speak in an obscure hall in the Scientific Section” of the fair. Roberts, comprehending that he was being shunted away from a chance to proclaim his religion,” was very bitter, and remained so for decades. He rejected the offer, and later called it a rejection by the Parliament.

Indeed, in September, the Mormon Church was officially rejected by the Parliament. Even its previous offer of submitting Roberts' paper was rescinded after expo-goers reacted with outrage, hissing and boos to Mohammed Alexander Russell Webb's defense of polygamy while reading his paper, “The Spirit of Islam.” As Smith writes, “Webb said: ‘Polygamy is no curse. A man can be a good, honest gentleman and yet be a polygamist. But I do not accept him as such if he be a sensualist.' At this point, the crowd erupted in hisses and cries of ‘Shame!' and ‘No, no: stop him.'”

It was clear that the Mormon Church, while “officially” having “renounced” polygamy in 1893, was still too much like the FLDS Church is regarded today to be included among the world's religions.

However, Smith points out that while the 1893 Parliament of Religions claimed to be inclusive, it championed a traditional evangelical North America Christianity viewpoint. Even without the polygamy problem, the Mormon Church's claim of being the restored true Gospel of Jesus Christ, was not a popular message to the parliament.

The Chicago Herald newspaper, in comments that were later re-published in the Deseret News, did criticize the parliament for yanking Roberts at the last minute. The Mormon historian's remarks were later published in his book, “Defense of the Faith.” Smith notes that Robert's arguments included his claim that “Mormonism had the answer for many of the current problems plaguing Christianity, including the growing disaffection toward Christianity and the challenge of growing secularism.” As Smith adds, Roberts' theme — that the Mormons were the Kingdom of God — directly contradicted the professed purpose of the parliament.

Thus ended the LDS Church effort to influence the Chicago World's Fair. As mentioned, however, the Utah territory — three years from statehood — was better received.

(The Smith paper referred to here is from his doctoral dissertation. An earlier version was published in The Journal of Mormon History.)

A review of the edgy LDS-themed novel, ‘Rift.’

(Originally published at StandardBlogs in 2009)

"You’re a salvation army of one,” a young woman tells elderly Jens Thorsen in Southern Utah University professor Todd Robert Petersen’s new novel “Rift,” published by Provo’s Zarahemla Press.

That’s a pretty apt description of Thorsen, a retired man who goes around Sanpete, Utah, with his keen, experienced eye, spotting trouble and then trying in his understated manner to help. Jens, who looks like 10,000 other Utah elderly men used to a life around a farm, picks his charity cases with an eye toward what might annoy Bishop Darrell Bunker, with whom he is enjoying, with malicious humor on Jens’ part, a longstanding feud.

Jens also exasperates his longtime wife, Lily, but there’s a still-simmering passion behind their bickering and her occasional temper tantrums at his critiques of LDS customs and impatience with his younger priesthood leader. The fact that Jens and Lily have hung together 50 or so years is enough evidence there’s love buried deep in that relationship.

Watching out for others is one way Jens handles the assumed idleness of retirement. Among those he helps is a young man in prison most of the town would prefer to forget, a dying apostate with a bitter wife who hates Mormons, a barber losing a slow battle with Parkinson’s disease and a Jewish doctor with a land problem that requires heavy machinery owned by Bishop Bunker. Naturally, the bishop did not allow the use of his equipment. Naturally, Jens borrows it and then rubs his truculent behavior in Bishop Bunker’s nose.

Petersen is a very talented LDS-themed writer — that’s why he’s writing for Zarahemla and not the Deseret Book monopoly, which wouldn’t publish fiction that involves considerate, thoughtful, non-condescending responses to harsh critiques of a dominant religion’s culture.

What I like mostly about “Rift” is Petersen allows the reader to get inside the mind of the old man we see at the barber shop, or at the store, or sitting at Sizzler, or in a church pew. Jens is an old man physically, but his mind is as alert and rascally as it was 50 years years ago. Petersen’s scenes of old men sitting in a barber shop, watching TV, gossiping and sneaking glances at a young women are a pleasure to read.

The mostly harmless feud between Jens and his bishop becomes more serious after Angie Bunker, the bishop’s rebellious daughter, returns home to her family planning to have a baby. After she stops coming to church, Angie is tossed from her house and Jens — soon after a life-changing experience of his own — makes decisions that puts him in direct conflict not only with his bishop, but much of Sanpete.

Death, both current and past, and our reactions to it, underscore much of “Rift.” As the novel progresses, and Jens finds himself with more time on his hands than he anticipated, events drive him to recall a very painful event 50 years or so in his past. Author Petersen reminds the readers that while unpleasant memories can sleep a long time, they still exist and shape our actions and decisions.

“Rift” is a compelling read. Petersen, who has a reputation as a short story writer, crafts excellent, stories-within-a-larger-story chapters. The dialogue of his characters are insightful and at times witty.

I have two quibbles with the novel. I would have liked to have seen at least one character as fully developed as Jens. Bishop Bunker, for example, almost seems shadowy for lack of insight into his character. Even Lily, Jens wife, suffers for lack of character development.

Second, although Petersen’s writing is still superb through the climax and resolution, he chooses to avoid the expected path — a final battle royale involving Angie’s welfare between Jens and Bishop Bunker — and instead shifts a surprise detour on the reader. Without giving away too much, I’ll just say I didn’t find it realistic. I just can’t see that kind of sex-on-sex anger bubbling to the surface so publicly within a Relief Society.

Nevertheless, I hope “Rift” finds a lot of readers. It’s an under-your-skin read that provides insights that impact us longer than the dust on a book long tucked away in a bookcase.

-- Doug Gibson

Ernest L. Wilkinson and the BYU tithing police fiasco

In a 2011 issue of Sunstone magazine, Gary James Bergera has a very interesting article, “The Monitoring of BYU Faculty Tithing Payments, 1957-1963,” that involves yet another historical nugget of mirth created by the university’s late president, Ernest D. Wilkinson. Wilkinson, upon assuming the presidency of BYU in the 1950s, was outraged that some BYU professors paid only a partial tithing, and some paid none at all.

(I digress here to admit that I too, was surprised that there were/are tithing shortfalls among BYU professors. I would have that “giving the Lord 10 percent” was something that one wouldn’t have to worry about at the Lord’s University. But it was, and had been for most of the 20th Century. Wilkinson was determined “to use an individual’s tithing history to help determine raises, promotions, and even continuing employment,” writes Bergera.

At one point, Wilkinson told LDS Church President David O. McKay that 27 percent of BYU faculty were either part tithing payers or paid no tithing at all. Wilkinson’s efforts, though, to get detailed reports of faculty tithing records descended into J. Edgar Hoover spoof when he encountered opposition from local bishoprics and stake presidencies. They understood better than Wilkinson the ethical aspects of the Law of Tithing, that taught that it was a private matter between a church member and his ecclesiastical leader. Eventually, Wilkinson was able to get the names of partial and non-tithe payers, but was stymied in his efforts to get specific details.

Wilkinson also received considerable opposition from faculty at BYU, who balked at having their academic credentials be determined by how much tithing they paid. Many faculty members, including department heads, resigned over the rule. At one point Wilkinson groused in his journal that it was primarily “English, political science and history” departments that were in opposition.

One faculty member who found himself in Wilkinson’s aim was Kent Fielding, a BYU instructor who had admitted he no longer had “a testimony of the Gospel.” When asked how he been approved to teach at BYU, Fielding replied that in his interview, apostle (and future LDS President) Harold B. Lee had asked only two questions: “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?; and, “Have you ever been unfaithful to your wife?”

Wilkinson confronted Lee on Fielding’s claim that his testimony had not been probed during his interview, and Bergera reports, using Wilkinson’s own notes, that it led fiery words between the BYU president and the LDS apostle.

Wilkinson wrote, “… I had told Brother Lee about this at the time, and Brother Lee, whose main weakness as far as I can see is that he cannot accept criticism, had interpreted it as serious criticism on my part of him…” Lee, according to Wilkinson’s recollections, sneered that the BYU president was “naive” if he was unaware that many BYU faculty did not have testimonies of the Gospel. Wilkinson further wrote, “He (Lee) was smarting very much under what I thought was my criticism of him for not having properly interrogated Brother Fielding.”

Fielding, after refusing to pay tithing and answer questions as a protest against Wilkinson’s policy, eventually had his employment terminated.

The policy that Wilkinson eventually crafted and tried to follow was that partial tithe payers would have their raises decreased by the amount they owed on a full tithing. For example, if Wilkinson determined that a professor had robbed the Lord of $600 in his tithing payments, a $1,000 raise for said professor would be decreased to $400. Professors not paying any tithing would be in danger of losing their employment at BYU. Wilkinson insisted more than once that no one was “forced” to pay tithing, while also insisting that any BYU professor who wanted to teach there would pay his tithing.

The policy prompted panicky attempts by some BYU faculty to try to turn back the clock. As Bergera reports, Wilkinson noted in his writings that one professor insisted in his interview that he had paid a full tithing.

When Wilkinson had the matter looked at, he discovered that the professor had gone to his bishop after the New Year and — much to the Bishop’s confusion — had begged that his tithe payment be applied retroactively.

Bergera estimates that over eight years, at least “two dozen (probably more) teachers were dismissed or resigned” due to church problems that had their genesis with Wilkinson’s tithing crackdown.

The BYU leader left the university in 1963 to run a failed U.S. Senate campaign. When he returned, he discovered a church leadership more resistant to the tactics he had advocated during his first term at BYU. As Bergera notes, “current BYU policy strictly prohibits the release of faculty tithing information to university administrators.”

Although I oppose any Wilkinsonian efforts to force tithing payments on any faculty, I am, I confess, surprised that anyone employed by the LDS Church (and that is the employer of BYU faculty) does not pay a full tithe. Maybe it’s because I’m a “born in the baptismal font member,” but before I read Bergera’s piece, I just assumed BYU workers were tithe payers the LDS Church Presiding Bishopric didn’t have to worry about.

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardBlogs.

A weekly bath was part of the spiritual cleansing of 1856 Utah

I wanted to share this list of questions that Mormon Church leaders — in the middle of the Mormon Reformation — asked Utah members. The information comes from historian David Bigley’s invaluable book, “Forgotten Kingdom: The Mormon Theocracy in the American West, 1847-1896.”

Bishops were instructed by the LDS church hierarchy to ask the following questions in every home. Apostle Jedediah Grant, the firebrand who was a fervent initiator of the Reformation, told bishops that any unsatisfactory answers from members must lead to “their names be written down and let the offence and place of residence be written against the name, that we may know who are living in sin, where they live and what their offenses are.”

The questions are as follows. Except for a few, and the fact that answers were not private, they’re not much different — except for the times differences– from questions members get today. From Bigler’s book:

Have you committed adultery?

Have you ever spoken evil of Authorities or anointed of the Lord?

Have you ever betrayed your brethren?

Have you ever stolen or taken anything that was not your own?

Have you ever took (sic) the name of God in vain?

Have you ever been drunk?

Have you ever taken any poles from the big field or fences or taken your brothers hay?

Have you ever picked up anything that did not belong to you and kept it without seeking to find the owner?

Have you made promises and not performed them?

Do you pay all your Tithing?

Do you labor Faithfully and diligently for your employer?

Do you preside over your Family as a servant of God or are they subject to you?

Do you teach your children the gospel?

Do you attend your Ward meetings?

Do you pray in your families night and morning?

Do you pray in Secret?

Do you wash your bodies once a week?

In a humorous sidenote, Brigham Young, Bigler recounts, had a problem with washing his body once a week. He did admit he had tried it, but “was well aware that this was not for everybody.”

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardBlogs

Mormon Doctrine enjoyed a long, controversial history

This article was originally published at StandardBlogs in 2010.

“Mormon Doctrine” is finally going out of print. The late apostle Bruce R. McConkie’s interpretation of LDS theology was a common sight in the homes of active Mormons for decades. Even today, it’s often seen in the homes of older Mormons. In fact, it will likely be decades before the book becomes difficult to find in used bookstores or ebay, etc.

Peggy Fletcher Stack of the Salt Lake Tribune wrote an excellent article about the “popular but polarizing” “Mormon Doctrine.” McConkie’s book was written as an authoritative index of beliefs, but in truth it caused much controversy; in fact as much from outside critics as within the hierarchy of the Mormon Church. The first edition of “Mormon Doctrine” — and a copy of that must be considered rare — prompted the LDS leadership to propose more than 1,000 changes. Eventually, in the early 1960s, McConkie revised “Mormon Doctrine” and it was re-published with the clear idea that it was just McConkie’s opinion.

Nevertheless, as an active Mormon who grew up in the 1960s, 70s and early 80s, I can attest that the many times I or others had a dispute on theology, “Mormon Doctrine” was the first place we went to check and see who was “right.”

According to Fletcher Stack’s article, a key problem with the first edition was severe attacks on the Roman Catholic Church. Later problems with the book were its content regarding blacks. In early editions, McConkie had stated a reversal of denying the priesthood to blacks would never occur. And “even in the most recent edition … McConkie wrote that God cursed Cain with ‘a mark of dark skin, and he became the ancestor of the black race,’” writes Fletcher Stack.

In recent years, the Mormon Church has become public relations conscious. Although McConkie is regarded as a beloved late apostle, — his last public address, as he was dying, has been sold for years and he wrote chapter headings in LDS scripture — once-popular books such as “Mormon Doctrine” are being phased out, particularly those that say politically incorrect things about blacks.

The recent battle over Proposition 8 in California has made the need for a more enlightened church more necessary. This is a simple reality, and it is not meant to imply that official church doctrines are changing today, only that a softer stick is preferred and more care has been taken between what the church believes and what one man’s specific opinions are.

“Mormon Doctrine” was to many 20th century Mormons what Parley P. Pratt’s “The Key to Science of Theology” was to late 19th century Mormons, a book on many coffee tables. No doubt another LDS book will one day rise in this century and enjoy decades of influence.

-- Doug Gibson

American Polygamy history focuses on fundamentalist Mormons

Review by Doug Gibson

I wonder how many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are aware of a statement in 1886, preserved in writing, from LDS Prophet John Taylor. In part it reads, "Thus sayeth the Lord: All commandments that I give must be obeyed by those calling themselves by my name unless they are revoked by me or by my authority, and how can I revoke an everlasting covenant, for I the Lord am everlasting and my everlasting covenants cannot be abrogated nor done away with, but they stand forever."

I had never heard of that statement by Taylor before reading "American Polygamy: A History of Fundamentalist Mormon Faith," by Craig L. Foster and Marianne T. Watson, The History Press, 2019. (Buy it here or via Amazon here.) The authors have diverse backgrounds. Foster is an LDS historian. Watson, also an historian, is wife in a polygamous family. With others plural marriage wives, she was a contributor to the book, "Voices In Harmony."

Taylor's words, uttered 134 years ago in Centerville, Utah, is a foundation of polygamists' argument for maintaining an earthly belief long shed by the LDS Church. Within polygamous circles it's regarded as a revelation. To the LDS Church it's not a revelation. To the owner of the home where it occurred, John Woolley, it was a revelation. Both he and his son, Lorin, were prominent leaders and advocates of polygamy, an ordinance believers regard as essential to achieve the highest glory in the afterlife. As Foster and Watson note, the Woolleys claimed that both Joseph Smith and Jesus Christ were with Taylor when he was given that counsel.

Just before John Woolley died in 1928, his son Lorin claimed that both he and his father met with resurrected beings Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith Sr., Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, John Taylor and Joseph F. Smith. Shortly after that event, a "Priesthood Council" was formed of prominent polygamists, designed to preside over continuation of the movement. As the others note, these presiding councils oversaw polygamous groups lived and tried to keep the safe from law enforcement.

American Polygamy covers a lot of ground in -- allowing for photos and footnotes -- about 200 pages of text. I recommend it. It is a fascinating -- and often sympathetic -- account of roughly 130 years of fundamentalist polygamy. Despite the 1890 Manifesto, polygamy continued for at least a generation within the LDS Church, with opposition to the practice slowly getting more serious by church leaders. Foster and Watson include accounts of patriarchs and apostles eventually being kicked out of the church for continuing to participate in plural marriage ordinances after its became a liability within the LDS Church. By the time of President Heber J. Grant's leadership, LDS church officials actively assisted law enforcement in tracking down polygamists.

The 1944 law enforcement raids on polygamous groups in Utah and Short Creek, Arizona (1944) and Short Creek in 1953, are covered in detail by the authors. Whatever revulsion readers may personally feel for polygamy, those affected were badly mistreated, having their constitutional rights abused. Families were forced apart. On anecdote recalls how trauma over the raids led to the death of an 84-year-old fundamentalist.

The raids, coordinated for maximum press coverage, boomeranged for law enforcement. Even 50 years later, the authors note, the Texas raids on a polygamous community was also predicated on incorrect intelligence, although later information uncovered resulted in FLDS leader Warren Jeffs being convicted of child sex crimes that will keep him in prison for life.

There's sadness in the history of fundamentalist Mormonism. The personal accounts of their suffering, both social and legal, men thrown in jail and prison, children separated from parents, one can't read these accounts without being affected. We should regret the institutional efforts against modern polygamists as much as we do those same efforts against early members of the LDS Church.

Yet, fundamentalist Mormonism also has a history of dysfunction, exploitation and other criminal behavior. The authors devote considerable space to the crimes and continued poisoned legacies of mass murderer Ervil LeBaron and pedophile and sadist Warren Jeffs. They are the two main "villains" of the book. But they are also extreme examples of significant problems that still plague fundamentalist Mormonism..

Polygamy by necessity has been isolated, with its followers pursued by law enforcement and forced to rely to a fault on either a council of leaders, or a sole leader. Foster and Watson note that disagreement within modern polygamous movements often focused on the amount of control male leaders, or a single male leader, had over the agency of followers. Control can be so pervasive that marriages are arranged. That's another debate that can occur in polygamy -- are spouses allowed to find each other? In some instances they are not allowed any say in marriage, or forced into marriage as children. This leads to tragic, criminal actions where, as noted in the book, 13-year-old girls are raped and another teenager is beaten by her father because she doesn't want to be forced to marry her uncle and have regular sex with him. One can't help wondering how much of this type of abuse still goes unpunished.

Not surprisingly, the movement has split into different factions, some with thousands, some with large single-family units. Today there is polygamy mass entertainment in the form of reality shows, talk shows, or fictionalized television. In recent years, the authors note the irony of same-sex marriage acceptance helping polygamy become less of a taboo and more accepted. Consenting adults should not be denied the right to live within polygamy. Society is moving that way.

The biggest strength of American Polygamy is it provides a human face to the sacrifices, suffering, and re-appraisals of those who sincerely believe in what is often called "The Principle." And it addresses openly some of the dysfunction of polygamy. More important than the histories of major families, Woolley, Barlow, Johnson, Allred, Jessop, Jeffs, Kingston, etc., are the personal accounts of followers, including woman and children. One may never accept polygamy as a principle but still respect the faith and commitment of those who live a still-shunned lifestyle with humility and charity.

It's interesting to wonder if fundamentalist Mormonism will stay at consistent numbers through this century or dissipate to near extinction by 2100. Author Watson provides optimistic anecdotal evidence that young polygamist women will stay in the faith. But I think all religions face skepticism from large percentages of young adults. Fundamentalist Mormonism, still tethered to 19th century mores and doctrines, has its work cut out to remain attractive to ensuing generations.