Plural lives: the diversity of fundamentalism

The recent capture of polygamous leader Warren Jeffs — now off the FBI's most-wanted list and waiting his fate in the aptly named Purgatory Jail — once again puts plural marriage and Utah under international scrutiny.

The world press is clearly intrigued, while at the same time baffled by polygamy's modern-day complexities. In the shorthand of daily journalism, polygamous fundamentalism is often pictured as a monolithic culture full of sister wives in dowdy ankle-length dresses. Though estimates put their number at less than 40,000, "Mormon fundamentalists" are often confused in media reports with the 12.5 million members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In reality, modern-day polygamous fundamentalists are a diverse lot, full of rival leaders and a contentious history, as well as thousands of members who follow no leader at all. Some live in isolated communities (one group worships in a pyramid on the Utah-Nevada border); some may live next door in the Salt Lake Valley, not unlike the folks on HBO's "Big Love." Others live at Jeffs' new, secretive FLDS (Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) temple compound in Eldorado, Texas, in polygamous colonies in northern Mexico and western Canada, and in tiny outposts scattered around the Intermountain West.

Despite the imprisonment of the movement's most visible leader, polygamous fundamentalism appears to have a staying power that makes it unlikely to disappear anytime soon, according to experts both inside and out.

Anne Wilde, a polygamist widow and a director of the pro-polygamy group Principle Voices, says there are currently some 37,000 people (including children) who are fundamentalist Mormons. That's a name that the LDS Church finds objectionable, but one that the fundamentalists say is fitting. It is the mainstream LDS Church, they argue, that strayed from the faith's original doctrinal underpinnings when LDS Church President Wilford Woodruff issued the Manifesto in 1890, advising Latter-day Saints to refrain from plural marriage.

Deseret Morning News graphic Fundamentalist authority line Requires Adobe Acrobat.

Because polygamy continued in secrecy to a small extent, a second "official statement" on the practice was issued by LDS Church President Joseph F. Smith in 1904, ending authorization for plural marriages on pain of excommunication from the church. Current LDS leaders acknowledge the practice as part of their early history, and LDS scripture still contains passages that fundamentalists use to defend its continuation.

Groups are diverse