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Dorothy Allred Solomon
Posted in:
July 14, 2008 11:55 AM by Dorothy Allred Solomon | COMMENTS
From time to time, FLDS leaders have been called "the American
Taliban." Certainly, FLDS patriarchs dominate their women and
children, with Warren Jeffs dictating how they dress (no hearts on
clothing, no printed fabrics, and five or six acceptable patterns
featuring long sleeves and long skirts). They arrange and force
marriages of daughters and widows. They also deprive women of funds,
encouraging them to "bleed the Beast" by applying for state and federal
welfare programs rather than paying them for their work in FLDS
enterprises. In addition, leaders rarely permit women to get adequate
education, even though home schooling is de rigeur in FLDS circles and
many medical needs are met by community members. All these FLDS
restrictions parallel the deprivations imposed on women and children by
the Taliban overseas.
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Posted in:
July 11, 2008 12:11 PM by Dorothy Allred Solomon | COMMENTS
I'm just wondering how a mainstream modern woman, for instance a reader of Marie Claire, responds to the idea of plural marriage. When I was in college so many of my female friends struggled to find a committed partner with whom they could begin a family. But few committed male candidates for marriage presented themselves. I often felt guilty for being unwilling to share my husband with them. In the years since, I notice that this issue persists: more women seem ready for a truly committed marriage than men, and I've wondered if plural marriage offers some sort of a solution. How do you all feel about polygamy--for yourselves--anyway?
Posted in:
July 10, 2008 11:02 AM by Dorothy Allred Solomon | COMMENTS
I woke up today thinking about Gloria Steinem. Weird, I know, but it
had to be in response to a dream I had about Warren Jeffs performing
plural marriages. Marriages of young women to old men. Marriages of
young women to young men. Marriages, even, of his own daughters to men
of his choosing. I think of my own husband who made his prospective
sons-in-law run a gauntlet of challenges before he would consent to
give his daughters' hands in marriage. Why would Jeffs so avidly
arrange and marry, marry, marry people?
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Posted in:
July 9, 2008 3:46 PM by Dorothy Allred Solomon | COMMENTS
Online petitions regarding the Texas raid on the FLDS compound near Eldorado reveal some interesting things about Americans. An online petition that supported the actions of the Department of Family and Protective Services workers netted about 265 names by the first of June. An online petition condemning the actions and encouraging the return of the children to their mothers netted ten times as many names. If these statistics truly represent reality, it seems that the vast majority of Americans support the integrity of family, even if there's a possibility that the children may be at risk. Which of these petitions would you have signed, and why?
Posted in:
July 8, 2008 2:24 PM by Dorothy Allred Solomon | COMMENTS
One month ago, Judge Barbara Walthers ordered FLDS parents to go to parenting classes as a condition of regaining custody of their children. The classes will be begin in about ten days and will be "much like those delivered to other clients," according to a Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) spokeswoman, Marleigh Meisner. I wonder what the usual format for teaching parenting is in Texas? Having conducted communication trainings for many parents and their children, I've learned that theory doesn't hold a candle to experience, that the hands-on method works a lot better than the didactic approach, and only when you combine the two, do you have a winner.
The FLDS community, emphasizing obedience above all other virtues, is strict, disciplined, and patriarchal. One reason cognitive learning alone won't make a big dent in FLDS practices has to do with the fundamentalist need to be right, combined with members' strong tendency to take literally what has been written in Scripture and spoken by their so-called prophet. For instance, a lesson warning about the evils of child abuse can quickly be countered with "spare the rod and spoil the child." The transactional paradigm that works so well for parents and children who desperately need to discover egalitarian communication will be rejected as disrespectful by polygamy elders. In other words, parent-to-child communication with a "superior to inferior" attitude will continue to raise hackles or raze spirits unless the FLDS people actually find a successful way of talking. The whole idea of parents and children communicating on an adult-to-adult wavelength that promotes mutual respect will probably never happen in this hierarchical, patriarchal and repressive society.
What do you think the Texas DFPS should do to insure that its obligatory parenting classes really make a difference in the FLDS community?
Posted in:
July 7, 2008 2:11 PM by Dorothy Allred Solomon | COMMENTS
As things unfold, the Texas raid on the fundamentalist YFZ Ranch seems more and more like the Short Creek raid of 1953. The children taken from their mothers. The heartbreak of women. The public outcry. The children returned to their mothers. Exorbitant costs to the state. And now, the head of Texas Department of Family and Protective Services commissioner, Carey Cockerell, has resigned. Although he hasn't acknowledged the link between his resignation and his approval of the raid, he did occupy a primary seat of responsibility (only Governor Perry has more authority) and approved the funding, which has grown beyond a $14 million tab for Texas. In the Short Creek raid, Arizona's Governor Pyle lost his political career to the choices he made while launching crusades against polygamy.
Repeatedly, political institutions in America have tried to legislate what happens between consenting adults in the way of marriage. Repeatedly, judgments prove to be expensive in terms of life's currency: time, energy, and love, not to mention money. Institutions resist accountability and change, and we as a people seem to learn little from life experience. As the song "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" says, "When will we ever learn?"
Posted in:
July 3, 2008 2:56 PM by Dorothy Allred Solomon | COMMENTS
Fldsdress.com. The new fashion line started because FLDS children taken
into custody by Texas officials kept losing their clothes. Foster
parents and group directors wanted the children to give up the long
underwear and pioneer-style clothing in favor of panties and capris and
lightweight blouses. So the prairie garb got lost or tossed. But FLDS
moms insisted that their children be dressed the way they'd always
dressed them. They made replacement clothing for their kids and sold
it to the state of Texas.
READ MORE
Posted in:
July 2, 2008 12:48 PM by Dorothy Allred Solomon | COMMENTS
Yesterday's
USA Today "Life" section featured the topic of infidelity in marriage.
The article remarked on the rise of infidelity and the implications of
this rise. For one thing, Americans are beginning to face the reality
that infidelity is not just about having sex. It's about "having a
life"--in other words, having intimate, meaningful conversations and
experiences. Reporter Sharon Jayson interviewed experts who express
concern that, while our ancestors expected too little from marriage,
people today expect too much of marriage. It seems we idealize
marriage and form expectations of our spouse that no single person can
fulfill. So most (up to 80%, the experts say) decide to play around,
committing various kinds of infidelity, sometimes at the cost of the
marriage.
My mother once said, "One comfort of living plural marriage is that I
always know who my husband is with when he's not with me. And I know
that she shares my values and my commitment to the family." During
frequent periods of my father's unavailability (he was a doctor as well
as a spiritual leader) my mother turned to her sisterwives for comfort
and consolation, for fun and companionship. She relied on them for
back-up childcare and home care, and for general moral support. When
she wanted to prepare for a piano performance or if she was sick, or if
she simply wanted to spend the week with her mother, the sisterwives
took over for her. Of course, the arrangement didn't lack jealousies
and rivalries, resentments and frustrations. In my experience, the bad
often outweighed the good. But those who think plural marriage has
nothing to recommend it may be stuck in idealization of monogamy-and
that always exacts a price.
Posted in:
July 1, 2008 1:06 PM by Dorothy Allred Solomon | COMMENTS
People who watched what happened after the Short Creek raid of 1953 may
have speculated (as I did) that the raid on the FLDS community at the
YFZ Ranch near Eldorado, Texas would have little impact, other than to
drive polygamists farther underground. But in fact, the whole
community has been influenced by this forced dialogue with the state
and communication with the media. Plural wives have spoken for their
way of life, have taken media people on tours, have written op-ed
letters to newspapers. Their children survived life outside the
compound, lived in a variety of care centers and foster homes, and
endured exposure to movies, television and public education. Even the
men have engaged in conversations and correspondence, not only with
reporters but with governors, directors of social service, and
attorneys general.
READ MORE
Posted in:
June 30, 2008 12:24 PM by Dorothy Allred Solomon | COMMENTS
Eight-year-old Jeffrey pointed out that in the animal
kingdom, the males always have the showy looks. I knew that, of course, but hearing it again from such an
innocent and unclouded set of eyes made me see it again. "People have it turned around," he
teased. "Girls have to have
make-up and all that hair and all those clothes." He said it in that taunting way of eight-year-old boys,
half-charm, half-churlish. Together we watched the peacocks and the lions and
the springbuck in the zoo. We talked about how even fish and insects seem to
carry the pattern: males glossy and glittery; females dusky and dull. And I wondered about the long history
of women altering their very bodies to become beautiful-going back to when gold
rings stretched out necks, lip-plates pouched our mouths, our feet were bound,
our waists corseted. Today we color our hair, inject our lips with collagen,
scrub our skin raw with peels and micro-dermabrasion. This while most guys are
happy to shower, zip and go.
Then I thought about FLDS women, who seem to go out of their
way to be plain, plain, plain.
Long white undergarments, long dresses, hair twisted into plain buns and
disfiguring lumps; no jewelry and no make-up allowed. Eyebrows remain untweezed
even if mono-brow threatens. These women seem to say: Pay No Attention. Yet the FLDS men wear their hair short
and fashionable, their shirts charmingly western or simply business-like, nice
suits, good-looking cowboy boots, Levis, and an occasional bolero tie with a
nice piece of turquoise. Why do the FLDS men get the plumage while the women
keep themselves plain?
Posted in:
June 27, 2008 4:40 AM by Dorothy Allred Solomon | COMMENTS
Where did fundamentalist polygamy in America begin? Polygamy isn't new. Until the 20th century, more than two-thirds of the world's population allowed polygamous marriage. But polygamy among Christians in the United States of America presents an anomaly. Polygamy as part of a religious belief began among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the early 1840's, when the founder and prophet, Joseph Smith, Jr., quietly spoke to a few of his closest associates concerning a revelation he said he'd received instructing him to initiate "The Principle of Plural Marriage." Some historians speculate that without the quantum leaps of population made possible by polygamy, the Latter-day Saints would not have survived losses incurred during the raids by mobs, the exposure of Winter Quarters, and the trek across the Great Plains, not to speak of the 500-man Mormon Battalion mustered to fight the Mexican War, in addition to other casualties of the Old West. The Church continued the practice until 1890, when political and legal pressure to give up polygamy reached a fevered pitch, and the LDS Church passed a manifesto to end it.
Fundamentalists believe that God does not change and insisted that "the Principle" is an eternal law lived by exalted beings. But members in good standing of the LDS Church agree that the obligation to live polygamy has been removed and, in fact, is cause for excommunication.
To fundamentalists who insist that "God does not change," I'd point out that the Creator of All formed Canada geese to be polygamous during times of disease and sparse population, monogamous during times of balance, and homosexual during times when the population outstrips food availability. I suspect that God can collude with Nature to do whatever needs to be done to make life work. What do you think?
Posted in:
June 26, 2008 7:49 PM by Dorothy Allred Solomon | COMMENTS
Today,
I’m still preoccupied with YFZ spokesman Willie Jessop’s complaint that
FLDS women called to testify before the Texas Grand Jury were being
forced to choose between their children and their husbands, their
freedom and their faith. I keep mulling his statement over, wondering
about faith at the price of freedom. And freedom at the price of faith.
READ MORE
Posted in:
June 25, 2008 11:51 PM by Dorothy Allred Solomon | COMMENTS
Starting today, several members of the FLDS will appear before a Texas
Grand Jury to determine the validity of claims regarding child abuse
and underage marriage. Discord prevails as attorneys and clients
accuse each other and the judge of conflicting interests and
prejudice. Sixteen-year old Teresa Jeffs wants to fire her attorney,
who has petitioned the court to prevent her from seeing her father,
Warren Jeffs (now serving time in the Utah State prison) and FLDS
spokesman Willie Jessop, fearing that the FLDS men have put undue
pressure on the girl. Other women want to tell their story, of being
mislabeled as child brides into polygamous marriage by Child Protective
Services, and may or may not be heard. Generally, the FLDS seem to be
holding a united front against any who would try to disrupt their
community for any reason.
READ MORE
Posted in:
June 25, 2008 12:20 AM by Dorothy Alldred Solomon | COMMENTS
Alarms went off as I read last Friday’s AP report: The principal of the
Gloucester (Massachusetts) High School had announced the results of an
investigation into the spike in teen pregnancy, seventeen this year as
compared to an average of four in other years. It seems that a group
of girls made a pact to get pregnant. None of the girls were over
sixteen, and in visits to the clinic, they seemed more upset to find
that they weren’t pregnant than to find that they were. One teen
listed the father of her unborn child as a homeless man. The
administrators described them as “girls who lack self-esteem and have a
lack of love in their life.”
Meanwhile, we’re worried sick about the child brides and teen mothers
on the YFZ Ranch—as well we should be. Some of these FLDS girls are
forced to marry and procreate long before they are ready (as clearly
established in Elissa Wall’s recent book, Stolen Innocence). But some
defiantly embrace the practice of young marriage and youthful
pregnancy—in Massachusetts suburbs and throughout the state of Texas,
in cities and towns, as well as in isolated fundamentalist communities
in Arizona and Utah. What gives with our girls in America?
READ MORE
Posted in:
June 23, 2008 4:18 PM by Dorothy Allred Solomon | COMMENTS
In the case of fundamentalists, if agencies would teach the FLDS people
to live in the mainstream by providing them with financial skills,
knowledge about housing, vocational counseling, etc., many FLDS members
would probably leave the YFZ Ranch and other FLDS communities on their
own. Many of these fundamentalists have lived with “mind-forged
manacles,” imprisoned by religious leaders who kept them from receiving
education and from making their own decisions. They have been denied
the American right to “pursuit of happiness” and like everyone, they
long for freedom. If such a life-skills investment could be made, the
bill would amount to far less than the $14 million spent ineffectively
trying to eradicate this stubborn and devout population. If the
fundamentalists knew that they were free and capable, they’d put their
energy into building their own lives instead of adamantly defending
themselves.
READ MORE
Posted in:
June 19, 2008 4:36 PM by Dorothy Allred Solomon | COMMENTS
People who know little about polygamy express surprise when they
discover that so many of the FLDS women are returning to the YFZ
Ranch. Even though it’s clear that these women could lose their
children if they again put them at risk of early marriage and other
types of coercion, many mothers have taken the risk and returned to
their homes. Why on earth, mainstream women ask, would a woman want to
go back to such a situation?
I can relate to this confusion. I never wanted to live polygamy
myself. But to tell the truth, I missed having many shoulders to bear
life’s burdens, and many minds to solve a problem, and many mouths to
share food and information. As my mother used to say, “Many hands make
light work.” I know why my mother liked plural marriage to the degree
that she did. She got to live next door to her twin sister, who was
also married to my father. She got to share her whole life with the
two people to whom she was closest.
READ MORE
Posted in:
June 18, 2008 2:11 PM by Dorothy Allred Solomon | COMMENTS
Recent reports indicate that only about a third of the children and
their mothers have returned to the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado, Texas.
Others are living in homes around San Angelo. This raises some
interesting questions. Are many of the women keeping their children
away from the ranch? Are they unwilling to return to an environment
many describe as repressive to women and children? If they stay away,
how will they survive? Most FLDS women are poorly educated, with
skills confined to homemaking and child rearing, which limit their
ability to earn a living in a modern world. And most have no assets,
given that the FLDS women don’t usually make decisions.
READ MORE
Posted in:
June 17, 2008 11:46 AM by Dorothy Allred Solomon | COMMENTS
It seems that the tab on raiding the YFZ compound has run over $14
mi
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