Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints and Family

By Mariah Jacobs- Alternative Family Group

Religion is not just an aspect of many people’s lives, for many, it is their lives. Religion has the ability to govern nearly every aspect of life if one is interested in allowing it to. While not everyone who has religion in their life lets it entirely control their lives it does happen in the lives of many. One group who are very commonly known for living their lives entirely by the rules of their religion are the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints( FLDS), known commonly as Mormons, they are a sect of Mormonism which has disassociated with the rest of the church and have formed a cult-like society. FLDS controls schooling, clothing, marriage, child rearing, and family.
The FLDS faith controls the women of the religion so closely that the women wear long dresses with sleeves and never cut their hair. The dress is worn to cover their ‘garment’ which is a full body undergarment to keep them clean from the world. Their garment is so sacred that many men have not seen their wives naked bodies. The color of their dresses represent who they are married to, every wife of the same man is to wear the same color dresses. Also, no woman is allowed to wear red or black. Red is the color that Jesus will be wearing when he returns for them and black is so dark that it represents the devil (Mikita 2008). FLDS women also keep their hair very long. Some say it is just the style but others speculate that it is in response to a passage from Corinthians which states that women who keep their hair long will be privileged to wash the feet of Jesus once they enter heaven.
In an account of her life as an FLDS escapee, Carolyn Jessop explains the schools as being private, and in the community. The students were not taught but brainwashed in private priesthood schools. “In the FLDS-run schools, children were brainwashed, not educated. My kids were taught that dinosaurs had never existed and that men had never set foot on the moon. I could see how fast they were falling behind.” They were also not allowed to have books in their homes. This is just one account of the schooling that children of FLDS families, however it is a first hand account of what a mother of eight experienced under prophet Warren Jeffs.
Marriage is not the choice of the woman in the FLDS community. The man of the relationship and the prophet determine a suitable bride for the man and they are to be married. Once married the women have as many children as possible. The bigger a man’s family the better his life will be in heaven. The prophet Warren Jeffs had over 80 wives until his fall from power. These families commonly live in a large home with all of the wives and all of their children living together. They are not always as friendly as Sister Wives makes them look, the women can be highly competitive and harsh towards each other. The marriages are commonly unhappy since the woman has no choice and then men continually add wives and children to the family.
While this is a very extreme example of how religion can affect the lives of a family it details how religion can find its way into nearly every aspect of life. With a religion this strict it is not the choice of most individuals to continue in the faith. Children are ‘brainwashed’ into believing that the faith, community and lifestyle is the only option. Women are forced into submission and servitude and can only leave the community if they flee. Fleeing poses many risks and has many problems but to some it is a safe enough option. The family life is so different than what we know that it is very different to understand how anyone could live their lives like this.

Questions:
Do you think that the strict dress code is beneficial?
Does this information change your understanding of the Mormon religion? If yes in what aspects?

Sources:
Jessop, Carolyn; Palmer, Laura (2007-10-16). Escape . Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
Mikita, C. (2008, April 15). Ksl. Retrieved from http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=3092303