I've just finished a book that has left a big impression on me. It's called Shattered Dreams, My Life As A Polygamist's Wife, by Irene Spencer. It's the autobiography of a woman who was the second wife (out of a total of ten) of a fundamentalist Mormon polygamist.
The book explains how supporters of plural marriage convince and trick young girls (who grew up in polygamist families themselves and don't know better) to marry them to be their wives, many times under age, telling them that this is the real mormonism and that they will go to heaven. That if they have doubts is because their faith is not strong enough. And everything to fulfill the lust of some pitiful disgusting idiots who take advantage of the gullibility of fourteen-year-olds. And then, the big problem is that the husband many times cannot provide for all his wives and children. Since legally he can only marry one, the other wives appear to be single mothers, who keep whelping a baby every year, so they go on welfare, becoming a fraud to the state. A real scandal.
It is estimated that 40,000 people remain living in polygamist families in the state of Utah.
The great channel HBO has a series called Big Love, which is about a polygamist with three wives in current day Salt Lake City, and his relationship with a fundamentalist polygamist clan (whose leader is played by the great Harry Dean Stanton). It's a great series, I am so sorry it hasn't made it to Spain yet.
