{"id":764,"date":"2011-09-27T17:25:35","date_gmt":"2011-09-27T21:25:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/discoveriesofawanderer\/?p=764"},"modified":"2011-09-27T17:25:35","modified_gmt":"2011-09-27T21:25:35","slug":"1-man-3-wives-and-24-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/2011\/09\/1-man-3-wives-and-24-children.html","title":{"rendered":"1 Man, 3 Wives, and 24 Children"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><em>I recently interviewed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Love-Family\/Relationships\/Marriage\/Life-in-a-Polygamous-Marriage.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">Joe Darger and his three wives Alina, Vicki, and Valerie<\/a> to capture what life was like for this polygamous family and their 24 kids. Check out how Joe describes the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Love-Family\/Relationships\/Marriage\/Life-in-a-Polygamous-Marriage.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">polygamous lifestyle<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Love-Family\/Relationships\/Marriage\/Life-in-a-Polygamous-Marriage.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">Read the entire interview here&gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/community.beliefnet.com\/go\/thread\/view\/43921\/28299977\/What_Do_You_Think_About_Polygamous_Marriages\" target=\"_blank\">Share your thoughts on Polygamy or Plural Marriage&gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Joe, what is it about your faith that led you to want to live a polygamist lifestyle?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_766\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-766\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/discoveriesofawanderer\/files\/2011\/09\/Joe-and-Wives.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-766\" title=\"Joe and His Wives\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/288\/2011\/09\/Joe-and-Wives-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-766\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Joe and His Wives<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Joe:<\/strong> You go back six generations in my family and it was very much a part of my culture and my history. An integral part of our faith and so for me, some of the men I admired the most growing up were polygamist men, men who had plural families.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>In your family you have\u00a024 children. How do you find time for all of your wives and your children in addition to having a job?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe:<\/strong> I think the biggest challenge is finding time, to find time for them all like making sure I see them every day. We\u2019re all in one home and we connect with them on a daily basis. I may not go to every parent teacher\u2019s conference but each wife will come back [after] they went to the conference. They can come back and say okay these are the issues we have. Then I can speak with all the children and talk about [a] problem or accomplishment that should be addressed.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/288\/2011\/09\/Wives.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-767\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/288\/2011\/09\/Wives.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a>What do you want readers to know about people living in polygamous marriages? What is the main message that you want to get across? <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Joe<\/strong>: I think that we\u2019re a family first and foremost. [The] second part is our faith. We wouldn\u2019t do this if is wasn\u2019t part of our faith and part of culture of where we\u2019re from and as a result of those two aspects we should have freedom to structure our family as we see fit. It\u2019s something that we want the rights to be able to do freely.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s like I finally have a voice. I\u2019ve been quiet for so many years and it\u2019s really hard being in public in one way. I mean most of my associates, my business associates and even a lot of friends are finding out for the first time right now and that\u2019s a hard place to be. But it\u2019s almost a little liberating.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Love-Family\/Relationships\/Marriage\/Life-in-a-Polygamous-Marriage.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">Read the entire interview here&gt;&gt;<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/community.beliefnet.com\/go\/thread\/view\/43921\/28299977\/What_Do_You_Think_About_Polygamous_Marriages\" target=\"_blank\">Share your thoughts on Polygamy or Plural Marriage&gt;&gt;<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I recently interviewed Joe Darger and his three wives Alina, Vicki, and Valerie to capture what life was like for this polygamous family and their 24 kids. Check out how Joe describes the polygamous lifestyle. Read the entire interview here&gt;&gt; Share your thoughts on Polygamy or Plural Marriage&gt;&gt; &nbsp; Joe, what is it about your&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":235,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,12,11,13,106,58],"tags":[117,118,116,108],"class_list":["post-764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childrens-rights","category-god","category-jesus","category-love","category-marriage","category-parenting","tag-alternative-lifestyles","tag-joe-darger-family","tag-mormonism","tag-polygamous-marriages"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>1 Man, 3 Wives, and 24 Children - Discoveries of a Wanderer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/discoveriesofawanderer\/2011\/09\/1-man-3-wives-and-24-children.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"1 Man, 3 Wives, and 24 Children - Discoveries of a Wanderer\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I recently interviewed Joe Darger and his three wives Alina, Vicki, and Valerie to capture what life was like for this polygamous family and their 24 kids. 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