Stolen Innocence: My story of growing up in a polygamous sect, becoming a teenage bride, and breaking free. Elissa Wall
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СКАЧАТЬ experience with budgeting for a family.

      My mother, in turn, had her own feelings of inadequacy. Audrey had a long-established, strong relationship with my dad; she’d borne his children and knew his wants and desires. As first wife, Audrey had primacy, which elevated her in the eyes of my father and gave her authority. Later I realized Mom saw Audrey’s concerns over the house hold budget as demeaning and felt she was trying to monitor her spending. Mom had never had money be such a contentious element in her life. Growing up on a self-sustaining farm, money didn’t have the same kind of relevance. Her family had little but made do, living frugally. Still, everyone was content and provided for. In Salt Lake, Mom tended a garden in our backyard, and harvested fruit and vegetables for the family. She was unaccustomed to having to provide reasons for items she felt she needed to care for herself and her children. It was even harder when the questions were coming from a sister wife.

      As the years went on and their families grew, these problems and insecurities did not fade away, but only amplified. Even after my mother began to have kids of her own, the two women were often at odds over everything from raising children to the affections of their husband. Each woman suffered doubts about the house hold as she tried to practice her individual parenting style and run a house full to the brim with children. To make matters worse, each mother felt that the other’s children were being treated better than her own. Frequently, communication between Mom and Mother Audrey was strained with my mother taking the onslaught to prevent further conflict. Neither had total authority over the house hold, and both seemed to feel somehow robbed of the chance to be in charge of their own home.

      Growing up, I always heard differing sides to the story, and blame for the problems in the family was always being passed around. By the time I came along, my brothers and sisters were older and the dynamic in the house hold had changed significantly. For my elder siblings, memories, as well as their understanding of the source of the troubles, varied tremendously depending on their age and involvement in the family strife. From my perspective, there seemed to be frequent fights among various family members that often resulted in raised voices and angry tones. It seemed like both mothers constantly pointed out each other’s faults, with one accusing the other of a lack of cooperation and disrespect toward the children. Each complained of being overworked, and each felt that she was carrying the heavier load. As Sharon’s daughter, I naturally tended to support my mother’s point of view. I looked up to and adored my mother and strove to be just like her.

      Mother Audrey liked a tidy house, and she tried to create an organized system for family members to accomplish their individual responsibilities. In theory, it was a good idea, but with so many people in the home it was hard to keep track of everyone’s role. Although the chores did somehow get done, the strained communications in the family prevented repeated attempts to implement a workable system. Despite the flaws, there were moments the family took pleasure in working together. We all knew the faster we finished, the sooner we could play and escape the inevitable complaints that our jobs had not been completed to satisfaction.

      All this tension between the mothers frequently spilled over to the kids, who also harbored feelings of resentment, believing that the sons and daughters of the other mother were receiving special treatment. Church rules forbade us from outwardly showing dis pleasure, so the bitterness remained just below the surface. We were taught to always put on a good face, even when things are going poorly. We were told to “keep sweet,” an admonition to be compliant and pleasant no matter the circumstance. Since we couldn’t reveal our angry words and feelings, they got bottled up inside, and often there was no communication at all. Despite our teachings, many times our true feelings came out, erupting in arguments, with each group of children naturally siding with their biological mothers.

      Over time the bickering between Mother Audrey and my mother took its toll on my father and endangered his standing with the church. Dad’s role as patriarch of the family was to control his wives and children in strict accordance with the teachings of the church and the directives from the priesthood. Priesthood in the FLDS, is a hard concept for outsiders to understand. First, to “hold the priesthood” is to hold the power and authority of God, delegated to men. To hold priesthood, a man must prove his worthiness by showing his absolute devotion to the work of God through strict obedience to the key holder of the priesthood, the prophet. The prophet is the president of the priesthood. In the FLDS, it is believed that God (or the priesthood) is funneled through the prophet to the elders of the church.

      Lines of priesthood authority are patriarchal and strictly observed. In this system all women and children basically belong to the priesthood—not just to their husband or father. In reality, they are possessions of the priesthood and the prophet, and revelations from God determine their ultimate fate. When the prophet decides to award a wife to a priesthood man, it is viewed as a transfer of a possession to the man. The prophet decides when two people should marry, when families can form, and when families that are not working are to be reorganized. From my earliest memories, I was taught that I should never do anything to go against the prophet and priesthood. Doing so would ultimately be going against God himself.

      It was common practice to expel men, and in extreme cases women, whom the priesthood considered a threat and could weaken the faith of other members. It doesn’t take a religious ordinance or excommunication for a man to lose his priesthood. All that’s required is for the prophet or someone acting at his direction to say: “You have lost your priesthood.” The significance of this is enormous for believers, as it creates a culture of fear. If a husband loses his priesthood, his family is literally no longer his. In addition, he has to leave his land and home because his home is owned by the FLDS Church and controlled by the priesthood. Faithful wives and children will accept these decisions and wait to be reassigned to another man. In the meantime, the father is told that his only chance to win back his family is to leave and repent at a distance.

      If men want to remain faithful members of the church and not lose their home and family, they must obey the priesthood’s rules and teachings in every facet of life. An important part of this responsibility is running a happy and obedient house hold. Because of the friction between Mother Audrey and my mom, it was no surprise that my father was apprehensive about the prophet getting involved in our family’s domestic issues. Men had been kicked out for far less serious problems, and it seemed only a matter of time before the difficulties at home would become apparent to the priesthood.

      But even this risk was not too great to stop my mother from enlightening the prophet to our problems once she’d reached her limit. Mom had long ago learned that trying to fix problems herself wouldn’t change anything and she could no longer allow her children to be blamed for troubles in the home. Not long before the night we learned that my father would have a third wife, my mother had contacted the prophet, alerting him to the trouble in our house hold. This bold move was a huge violation for a woman, as it disrespected her husband and went against the church code of female behavior. Women are not supposed to complain; they are taught and expected to willingly and “sweetly” obey their husbands, who are their “priesthood heads.”

      The fear of displeasing God and failing our religious responsibilities is so great that it pushes most members to do anything for the priesthood. For many women, this means they must sacrifice their own desires, needs, and feelings to conform to those of their husband and their religious beliefs. The FLDS believes that women cannot gain entrance to the highest of the three levels of heaven on their own; they must be married to a man who holds the priesthood and has at least three wives, or they will go to a lower level of heaven or to hell.

      From birth, girls are prepared for this role. Their way of life is chosen for them by the priesthood. They are told whom to marry, what to believe, and how to live their lives. Women are taught that they have already chosen their destiny before their birth, at which point they chose to willingly place their lives in the hands of the prophet and priesthood, having everything dictated for them.

      For my mother to alert the prophet without my father’s knowledge meant СКАЧАТЬ