Life in a Polygamous Marriage

Meet the Husband: Joe

Joe, what is it about your faith that led you to want to live a polygamist lifestyle?

Joe: 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.

In your family you have 24 children. How do you find time for all of your wives and your children in addition to having a job?

Joe: I think the biggest challenge is finding time, to find time for them all like making sure I see them every day. We’re all in one home and we connect with them on a daily basis. I may not go to every parent teacher’s 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.

What do you want readers to know about people living in polygamous marriages? What is the main message that you want to get across?

Joe: I think that we’re a family first and foremost. [The] second part is our faith. We wouldn’t do this if is wasn’t part of our faith and part of culture of where we’re from and as a result of those two aspects we should have freedom to structure our family as we see fit. It’s something that we want the rights to be able to do freely.

It’s like I finally have a voice. I’ve been quiet for so many years and it’s 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’s a hard place to be. But it’s almost a little liberating.

Meet the Wives: Valerie

Are there feelings of jealousy that the three of you feel, and how exactly do you handle that?

Valerie: Yes, we’re human beings. We definitely understand the feeling of jealousy and all the emotions that go along with that. Sometimes it’s hard, sometimes we have misunderstandings, but always we come together and we work it out. We talk about it and build that trust with one another.

Do you talk about it specifically with Joe or do you also discuss it with the other wives?

Valerie: Whoever is involved; sometimes it does involve him and sometimes it doesn’t.

Do you all plan to have more children?

Valerie: That’s a decision for each individual wife and Joe to make. Right now we’re all settled with what we have, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be a time when another one might come along.

Meet the Wives: Vicki

What does a typical day look like for your children? Could you discipline each other’s children?

Vicki: What’s great about us is we really have a common goal and we all work together as a family. If need be, we will discipline one another’s children, but they all know that we all love one another, love each of the children and have a special relationship with each of them. There’s a lot of love in our family; it’s just been great working together. It kind of takes a village to raise a family and we have it right in our home.

One question that we get a lot is about the jealousy. And I just want to say I understand how people think that. We say it's [a] natural feeling and you're going to have it. I just want to go into a little bit more about how that can sometimes tell you to be a better person. But it also is not the only thing. We do have a value for one another and love for one another and respect. So we’re not cat fighting because we are a family unit. So I know it's hard for people to understand because that’s the first thing that they can think of is, you know I couldn’t share this man or this relationship. We choose to focus on the positives and what’s important in our lives. Its brought us a lot of joy and fulfillment to have these relationships that we have. We have a really beautiful relationship with one another. I just kind of want to get that in and just how fulfilling it is and liberating even in a way. People think that maybe we’re being manipulated or controlled by a man and it’s really not that way at all. It’s actually quite liberating to be in this kind of relationship where we have a lot of freedom and time for ourselves, but also time with one another where we can build these relationships with a great bond we have with one another. And we’re with one another’s children as well and it’s a beautiful thing.

Do you tend to get jealous about certain things more than others?

Vicki: It just depends on the day or my stress level. I’ve gotten to a really comfortable point with myself too and I think in part it takes a confident person to do it but in another way it’s a vulnerable position too. And both of those things are good in a healthy relationship.

Meet the Wives: Alina

So right now because of the legal status of polygamy, is there technically a legal wife within the family?

Alina: Yes, I am the legal wife.

You have an unusual love story because you and Vicki married Joe on the same day instead of Joe marrying just one woman and then later another.

Alina: Yes. When we both had an interest in Joe and decided to pursue it a little bit more together, we talked a lot about the kind of family we wanted. This was based on building a family and based on our beliefs. We all decided that we wanted to be married. I was still waiting for my dad to give his blessing, and he was holding back because he was concerned. They could have married without me but we all decided to wait and do that together, just because we wanted our family to start out on that basis.

Joe on the Mormon Church and Raising Kids

Is your family Mormon?

Joe: We’re not Mormon, even though we call ourselves an Independent Fundamentalist Mormon. The reason for us coming out at this time is we feel that these questions about family and the structure along our faith that we believe is an important part of us. America’s ready to have that kind of discussion and we should be allowed to worship according to our conscience, in this time and in this country that was based upon religious freedom.

How do you think the Mormon Church will receive your book and your publicity?

Joe: I think the Mormon Church is very defensive typically because anytime I travel, if I tell somebody I'm from Utah, and they say “Oh are you a Mormon?” and you know, in my view, I’m Mormon. The Church is defensive in that they have done away with it since 1890 but they can’t get away from that stigma. So I think on one part, they’re going to be cautious about any association with our book, but I hope our book is very strong in making [the] distinction not only about Mormons but about the diversity within the Mormon fundamentalist you know, whether it’s Warren Jeff and the typical stigma there which causes confusing because of the FLDS, the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saint Church. What we tried to do in our book is help people understand there’s a broad diversity on Mormon faith. I read one place that there’s more books about Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism then about any other figure in American history and so there are certainly a lot of diversity within the Mormon faith and what is Mormon and what that faith is about, it’s certainly under a lot of scrutiny now with two Mormon candidates running and the book of Mormon musical on Broadway right now.

Are you concerned that you will be arrested or there will be legal action taken against you when you go home?

Joe: Well, it’s a felony, there’s no questions; it’s a felony, [and] it’s a risk. We’re not looking for legalization. We are really looking for decriminalization. We want to be decriminalized and my relationship is not felonious. There’s other relationships that we may not agree with but are accepted in America you know; that people live together without marriage and all kinds of different arrangements that are considered felony. Well polygamy has been around before America started. Polygamy has been our tradition you know, [for] six generations. My family goes back, it’s not going away. The answer is – should the state be able to determine whether we’re married or not and we say no. We’re not asking for state sanction, we’re just asking for a decriminalization.

Do you encourage your children to eventually marry into polygamous families?

Joe: I just had my first daughter married last month and it was hard to have one leave the nest. It’s my first one and she married somebody of the culture or the faith but it’s monogamous and they don’t know whether they will or not. That was Laura, she’s in the book. I had three of my children write a chapter in the book and we did that on purpose because that’s another stereotype: that we’re forcing our kids. Hey that’s what you believe, you want your kids to have those same faith and values but the integral part of our faith is this concept and very intriguing in a Mormon doctrine, it’s something called Free Agency, this idea that we were put down here with choice. I think that’s an important part of Christianity, Christ gave us a choice. We wouldn’t always choose right and we would choose wrong and right and yet we have Christ as our savior. We feel like first of all among our doctrine is this idea of the eternal progression and plural marriage is something that allows you to progress internally. But it doesn’t mean that [if] somebody doesn’t like plural marriage, they’re going to some hell and so we don’t feel like our children had failed because they don’t end in plural marriage. We want to encourage them all to find their own path with God and it’s more important that they have a connection to our father in heaven and that they follow the path that they see fit. It’s a challenging way to live and it takes a very strong faith to do it.