The Secret Story of Polygamy
Though polygamy technically means the taking of multiple wives or husbands, in practice it refers almost exclusively to wives. As Tracy reports, Utah, with its huge Mormon population (the faith once included polygamy as one of its tenets), is rife with "plural marriages." Thousands may be practicing polygamy there, she writes, but those who are prosecuted usually aren't charged with polygamy, but with crimes related to domestic violence. Tracy builds her book around a 1998 trial in which prominent Mormon John Daniel Kingston was tried for assault on his 16-year-old daughter, whom he beat severely after she refused to become his brother's 15th wife. Tracy's argument is that polygamy hurts women, girls and taxpayers: women and girls are abused and live in fear, while children from these illicit marriages are often supported not by their fathers, but by the state. And yet the author offers few facts to build her case. Although she interviewed numerous polygamous women, law enforcement officers and social workers, their comments are often rambling and nonspecific. The assault on Kingston's daughter is the axis of Tracy's case against polygamy, but she quotes no doctors or officials about the nature of the attack. Her rather garbled history of the Mormon faith is written from an insider's perspective both confusing to non-Mormons and occasionally inaccurate. More disturbing, however, is the cultish quality the author ascribes to Mormonism, which renounced polygamy in 1890. Polygamy in the West is a fascinating subject, but Tracy misses the opportunity to illuminate it.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.