Kelsch said he never actively concealed his father's polygamy, but "we weren't going to advertise it."

Wilde and just about all other practitioners of plural marriage in the West consider themselves followers of the true Mormon faith. But the mainstream LDS Church renounced polygamy more than a century ago and strongly disavows any connection to them.

Many of Utah's polygamists draw a sharp distinction between themselves and the Fundamentalist LDS Church, the polygamous sect raided by Texas authorities earlier this month because of allegations of physical and sexual abuse. By Wilde's estimate, about 15,000 of Utah's polygamists belong to no group at all.

According to law enforcement authorities in Utah and Arizona, many other polygamists are divided among about 11 communities, societies or orders, though Wilde said some of those groups have faded away, have few members or lack religious legitimacy.

Most Utah women in polygamous marriages are indistinguishable from other women. They take jobs or work from home to help support their families. Wilde, for example, helped run a publishing house from her home. They don't wear prairie dresses or put their hair in braids or a bun, the style consistent among FLDS women.

In black dress pants and a white blouse with a charcoal-colored jacket, Heidi Foster looks like any other 36-year-old suburban Salt Lake mom, albeit with 10 children in her home. The youngsters' father is an occasional visitor who acknowledges another woman as his only legal wife.

Foster belongs to the Kingston clan, a 1,500-member group based in the Salt Lake City area but scattered across the Intermountain West. The group has legitimate and widespread business interests worth an estimated $150 million by some published reports, including pawn shops, a trash collection company, dairies and coal mines.

Polygamist John Daniel Kingston — Foster is careful not to call him her husband — helps support her family.

Court papers from a custody battle involving two of their rebellious teenage daughters say Kingston has at least a dozen other wives. When asked about it, Kingston has invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. He is believed to have more than 100 children.

Even outside the FLDS, women in polygamous relationships tend to marry young — around 17, according to research conducted at the University of Utah. The men usually wait 10 years after a first marriage to start accumulating more wives.

In the cities and suburbs, the polygamist husbands are usually nomads, said Irwin Altman, a psychology professor at the University of Utah.

"Typically, the guy doesn't have his own place. His clothes are spread all over. For privacy, some said they had to take a drive in their car," said Altman, co-author of the 1996 book "Polygamous Families in Contemporary Society."

Altman found that the men earnestly cling to early Mormon beliefs that polygamy is key to eternal salvation.