Mormons are one of the most famous and numerous religious sects in the United States, especially prevalent in the states of Missouri and Utah. Although it belongs to the Christian denominations, its members still practice polygamy. For women who are members of the sect, and even teenage girls born in communities, this sometimes turns into a real horror.
The Mormons: The Story of Mary Ann
Here is a story that happened relatively recently, in the mid-90s. Thirty-two-year-old David Kingston of Salt Lake City had long been staring at his charming sixteen-year-old niece Mary Ann, the daughter of his older brother Daniel, and finally wooed the girl, using her father's mediation.
In 1996, in an atmosphere of deep mystery, a wedding ceremony was held, presided over by the bride's father, and Mary-Anne became David's fifteenth wife. But the girl never tasted the joys of a happy marriage. The husband exercised his rights over his wife only three months later, visiting her at his mother-in-law's house. Apparently, it was Mary-Ann's night, to which, at last, the turn came …
At the age of 16, the girl had not yet thought of carnal pleasures either as entertainment or as a means of procreation, and even the rare visits of her husband horrified her. Mary-Ann was an ordinary girl, and therefore wanted to date guys and hoped for a normal monogamous marriage. But alas …
Finally, she tried to run away from home. The father and husband (he is also an uncle) returned the girl home and decided to punish her for her obstinacy.
Since the Kingstons were engaged in, among other things, breeding ostriches, Mary Ann was massacred in a barn on an ostrich farm. The girl was beaten until she lost consciousness and thrown on the floor … Some time later she woke up and, having barely covered seven miles across rough semi-desert terrain, made it to the parking lot of truck drivers, from where she called the police.
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Having examined the fugitive woman, completely covered with bruises and scars from the whip, and after listening to her story, the police immediately arrested the girl's father and uncle, charging them with abuse of a minor, vile harassment and incest …
The Mormon Community Bond
Despite the girl's statement and strong evidence, the Kingston brothers insisted on their innocence. Their hopes of circumventing the law were not unfounded: The Kingstons led a clan of 1,500 members and ran an empire with a turnover of 150 million dollars, which includes a variety of private enterprises, from farms to gambling houses.
In addition, the cult of polygamous marriage in Utah is shrouded in an impenetrable veil of secrecy, and collecting evidence is fraught with enormous difficulties. The second, third, fourth, and so on, wives often change their surnames and pretend to be single mothers, and many women are so committed to the "ancestral faith" that they often give false testimony, covering up their husbands …
Of course, the Kingston clan also rallied the ranks. The girl's father, Daniel, acquired a witness who was ready to provide him with an alibi for the day the girl was brutally beaten. And the younger brother claimed that his fifteenth marriage remained unfulfilled.
Polygamy is alive
In 1896, the Mormon Church itself renounced polygamy and outlawed polygamous marriage, but a hundred years later, the state authorities again began to show a very tolerant attitude towards this revived relic of the past, and now about 60 thousand people live in polygamous marriages in the western United States.
The Utah Supreme Court even passed a ruling according to which polygamous families, the so-called clans, have the right to adopt and adopt orphans … The position taken by justice outrages women who have learned all the "charms" of polygamous marriage and left their husbands.
Women in the Mormon community are seen as a kind of "brood mare." Husbands demand that they regularly give birth to a child a year, and force wives to mark the days of ovulation on the calendars. All property and land plots are registered exclusively in men, who send their sons to universities, but hardly care about the education of their daughters, and as a result, few of the girls manage to go to college …
By the way, more and more Mormon children are showing a desire to leave their clans and live independently. But so far the law does not provide them with any support.
The weakness of the law and the clan solidarity of its violators lead to the fact that the former wives of Mormons are forced to create secret shelters in which they can take refuge with children from the horrors of patriarchal communities.
According to the few women who were lucky enough to escape from the Mormon clans, in polygamous communities, the female population is completely deprived of any freedom. The will of women is oppressed here, so rebellion is rare, and the case of Mary-Ann Kingston should be seen rather as an exception to the rule.
By the way, in Russia the activity of Mormons is officially prohibited. Just in case…
SUPRUNENKO YURI