Feminists For Choice

I have a secret to tell you – I’m obsessed with the FLDS (Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints) Church and the role that women play in this very cloistered society. I’ve read two autobiographies of women who have left the FLDS community, and their stories are very moving.

Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs – by Elissa Wall
Elissa Wall is a very brave woman. She is the person responsible for putting FLDS sect leader Warren Jeffs on trial. Jeffs was convicted of two counts of rape as an accomplice for forcing Elissa Wall to marry her cousin Allen Steed when she was only 14. Jeffs was convicted in Arizona and is currently serving consecutive sentences of five years to life, and he will soon go to trial in Utah for similar charges. Elissa’s courage to come forward and speak her truth is amazing. When you read her story, you just want to cry for her.

Wall’s story documents the lifestyle of the FLDS community in Colorado City, Utah, where members of the FLDS faith live in a very closed society. Before Warren Jeffs became the FLDS leader, some FLDS families sent their children to public schools, but in the past decade that has all stopped. Children are educated in schools that are run by the FLDS, no one is allowed to watch TV, and women are certainly not educated about family planning or given the option of using birth control. Girls are married off very young and encouraged to get pregnant early and often.

Wall’s story is heart wrenching. She was informed that she would be marrying her cousin – she was never asked. Walls says that she cried for days leading up to the wedding, and that she was very depressed. She eventually stopped coming home at nights and would sleep in her truck to avoid having sex with her “husband” Allen. Because of the FLDS culture, Elissa’s story could represent any of the women in the community. She eventually was able to get out of Colorado City, but she is one of the lucky ones. Too many women don’t have the emotional strength to leave. But when Walls testified against Warren Jeffs, she held a press conference to explain why she was doing it, and she said that she was coming forward so that other women, her mother and sisters in particular, would find the strength to leave.

Escape – by Carolyn Jessop
Carolyn Jessop’s story is very similar to Elissa Wall’s. Carolyn was married very early to a man named Meryl Jessop. She was his sixth wife, and she really had very little say in the matter. In fact, marrying Meryl was the only way that Carolyn would be able to obtain a college education, something that few FLDS women have. Carolyn had eight children with Jessop. She tells of the rivalries amongst Meryl’s wives and emotional and physical abuse that her children suffered living there. The happy scenes that you see in the TV show “Big Love” are totally out of sync with what really goes on in a polygamist home according to Carolyn’s story.

One of the things that really stands out about Carolyn is that she started to take birth control after she had her seventh child. He was born with severe health problems that necessitated her taking him to the doctor every week for treatments. The doctor started giving her depo shots when she would come in for her son’s treatments so that her “sister wives” wouldn’t find any evidence of birth control (like pills or a diaphragm), but she missed one of her shots and subsequently became pregnant again.

Carolyn Jessop is very fortunate – many FLDS women have left the polygamist sect, but few have been able to retain custody of their children. All of Carolyn’s children live with her, except for her daughter Betty, who decided to return to the FLDS when she turned 18.

Jessop recently wrote an article for On the Issues, where she vents her frustration about how the state of Texas handled the child abuse allegations at the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas. She is understandably upset that the state returned the children to the FLDS compound, and that the case has been closed. Jessop argues that a watch group needs to maintain constant vigilance, and that child abuse allegations need to be taken more seriously.

However, I think there was an even bigger mistake that the state of Texas made. The children who were taken away from the FLDS compound should have been placed with Mormon (aka “LDS”) families to avoid some of the culture shock that they experienced when they were placed with random foster families. The Mormon church does not practice polygamy anymore – the practice officially ended in 1890. However, the FLDS and the Mormons both believe in Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, and they share similar cultural values that would have made the transition easier for the children who were taken from their homes. I think that it would be wonderful if Mormons and former Mormons could form some kind of underground railroad to help FLDS women and their children who want to leave the cult behind.

As for Warren Jeffs, he has ended his fasts, and his health seems to be stabilizing. His Utah trial is scheduled to take place this fall in Salt Lake City. Allen Steed’s lawyers have appealed his rape conviction, stating that the state didn’t file the charges within the statute of limitations. The state, however, is claiming that a 2005 law allows them to file within an 8-year window and that they met the filing deadline. Regardless of the trial outcomes, both of these books are totally worth the read.