I Wanted the Family, I Didn't

Just Want the Man The Bounded Reality of a Reality TV

Polygamist Wife

Masterarbeit zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades

Master of Arts im Fach Religionswissenschaft

eingereicht von

Dr.phil. Ricarda Margareta Krenn B.A. (Hons.),

M.A.

bei Ao. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Kurt Remele

Institut für Ethik und Gesellschaftslehre an der Kath.-

Theol. Fakultät der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz

Graz, 2019

TO MY HUSBAND GERALD KRENN.

ALWAYS AND FOREVER.

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Acknowledgements

7

I. Introductory Materials

8

I.1. Methodology

8

I.2.Reality Television

13

I.2.ii. A Brief History of Reality Television

13

I.2.iii. A Modern Freak Show?

16

I.2.iv. How Real is Reality TV?

17

I.2.v. Reality TV Celebrities

18

I.2.vii. Use for this Thesis

19

I.3. The AUB

21

I.3.i. The History of the AUB

21

I.3.ii. Beliefs and Practices

28

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I.4. Sister Wives

38

I.4.i. Meet the Browns

38

I.4.ii. ‘Persecution’ and Exodus

49

I.4.iii. Fame and its Pitfalls

52

II. Discussion and Analysis

55

II.1. Christine Ruth Allred Brown, her life and marriage

55

II.2. The Addition of a Fourth Wife and Marriage Crisis

65

II.2.i. Robyn Enters the Family

65

II.2.ii. Christine and Robyn

72

II.2.iii. Christine and Kody’s Marriage in Crisis

75

II.2.iv. Changing Friendships, Shifting Balance of Power

78

II.3. Money in the Brown Family

82

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II.4. Deliberate Ignorance and Isolation

94

II.4.i. Educational Choices

94

II.4.ii. Medical Care

96

II.4.iii. ’Silliness’ and Optimism

102

II.5. Activism

107

II.5.i. Principle Voices

107

II.5.ii. Buhmann vs. Brown

113

II.5. Dealing with Apostates

116

II.6.i. Ruth Ann LeBaron Allred Stevens

116

II.6.ii. Kristyn Decker

119

II.6.iii. Holding Out HELP

122

II.6.iv. The Cost of Apostasy

124

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III. Conclusion

127

Sources Cited

131

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Acknowledgements As always, I must first of all thank my parents Wolfgang and Margareta for

supporting me in my studies and only rarely asking how much longer I would need to

finish my degree.

At the University of Graz, I am of course hugely indebted to my supervisor Prof.

Kurt Remele, who always seemed to understand what I was talking about and who is

one of the kindest people in the world from whom to receive feedback. Thank you for

helping me make this thesis much more insightful. Many thanks also to Dr. Steve

Rabitsch for his friendship and support and always alerting me to any news items of

potential interest.

While this thesis has not directly touched on the little world of Centennial Park,

Arizona, I am very grateful for the openness and friendship of my contacts in that

community. Thanks to the Centennial Park Action Committee for allowing me to ask

nosey questions and to Marleen Barlow in particular for answering them.

Thanks to all the friends who watched polygamy shows with me and allowed me to

suck them into the vortex of insanity that is reality television, particularly Monika

Haidwagner, who stuck with me over the whole course of this particular obsession

and was always ready to watch the newest Season of Sister Wives. Many thanks also

to Katharina Bölsche for admitting to our shared guilty pleasure and being one of the

first people to read my thesis.

Much of the bulk of this thesis was written in a student’s dormitory in Ulaanbaatar,

Mongolia; I want to thank all our friends there, as well as the dormitory staff -

particularly Chin Bhat - for their help and support.

To my son Alexander for waiting to be born until the day after I finished my first

draft and for obligingly napping while I formatted and edited. You’re a baby in a

million and you’re perfect! If only your cuteness did not distract me quite so much.

And last but never least to my beloved husband Gerald, for cooking and spoiling,

reading and critiquing and for always encouraging me. I can never thank you enough.

Always be mine, please.

And hello to Jason Isaacs.

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I. Introductory Materials I.1. Methodology

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the emotional life, beliefs, experiences and

decisions of Christine Ruth Allred Brown, a polygamist woman. Christine Brown is a

plural wife (third out of four wives to Kody Winn Brown) and has six biological

children, while considering herself the mother to a total of eighteen. She is the

granddaughter of both Rulon and Owen Allred, the first two prophets of the Apostolic

United Brethren, a Utah-based fundamentalist Mormon church that continues the

practice of polygamy. Christine herself has been a pro-polygamy activist for many

years and has been involved in the reality television show Sister Wives since 2010.

Furthermore, her family challenged the State of Utah’s cohabitation clause in court, in

a case which they originally won, before the verdict was overturned, leading to an

even more stringent anti-polygamy bill being passed in Utah.

All this combines to make Christine Brown a most suitable subject to use in this

attempt to explore the complex lives of polygamist women living in a relatively

moderate group. While due to the limited nature of my research, I have not been able

to gain direct access of my subjects, I have endeavoured to gather as many primary

sources as possible to compare with the material on Christine Brown herself. This

material consists of the show Sister Wives, as well as the Brown family’s book

Becoming Sister Wives, and any interviews given by members of the family.

Other primary material includes the shows My Five Wives and Seeking Sister Wife,

both of which are/were broadcast on TLC, the same network that airs Sister Wives.

Both shows feature former or current members of the same church as the Brown

family, all of whom are personally acquainted with the Browns.

Memoirs of current and former polygamists from ‘moderate’ polygamist groups

have also been consulted, particularly those of the Darger Family - independent

fundamentalists who are friends of the Browns’ - and those of two of Christine’s

aunts. Furthermore, I have taken into account statements made in interviews and on

podcasts.

Having studied all these sources, I have used them to paint as complete a picture as

possible of what constitutes a ‘typical’ polygamist woman’s life, illustrated by the

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example of Christine Brown. In this thesis, I attempt to explore the joys and woes of

such a life and perhaps begin to determine why some people choose to stay in this

lifestyle, even if they are ‘miserably happy’ in it, while others leave. 1

The study of closed religious groups is difficult, not only due to issues of access,

but also of interpretation. Some scholars consider members of such groups to be

brainwashed, while others prefer to look at them as completely rational. The latter

approach borrows the methodology of economic decision-making models and

employs Rational Choice Theory to explain the religious choices people make. While

the Rational Choice Theory of religious behaviour as postulated by Bainbridge and

Stark is a useful model, in the case of people in high-demand religious groups, it is

perhaps not sufficient to explain the actions of true believers. Instead, religious

scholar - and self-confessed former cult member - Janja Lalich applies another

economic concept to the study of true believers, namely that of Bounded Rationality,

which concedes that human beings do not act perfectly rationally and that their

choices are bounded by factors such as the complexity of a problem, their cognitive

ability, or the available time. Lalich has adapted this model to explain the decision-

making processes of members of high-demand groups. Lalich has applied her model

to groups ranging from animal liberation groups to Heaven’s Gate, the latter of which

is the focus of her book Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults.

Lalich outlines the criteria that define such groups.

Charismatic authority: This is the emotional bond between leader and followers. It lends legitimacy to the leader and grants authority to his or her actions while at the same time justifying and reinforcing followers’ responses to the leader and/or the leader’s ideas and goals. The relational aspect of charisma is the hook that links a devotee to a leader and/or his or her ideas.

Transcendent belief system: This is the overarching ideology that binds adherents to the group and keeps them behaving according to the group’s rules and norms. It is transcendent because it offers a total explanation of past, present, and future, including a path to salvation. Most important, the leader/group also specifies the exact

Rachel Piper. “Kristyn Decker: Holding Out Help to Former Polygamists.” Salt Lake City Weekly, 1

Salt Lake City Weekly

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methodology (or recipe) for the personal transformation necessary to qualify one to travel on that path.

Systems of control: This is the network of acknowledged, or visible, regulatory mechanisms that guide the operation of the group. It includes the overt rules, regulations, and procedures that guide and control members’ behavior.

Systems of influence: This is the network of interactions and social influence residing in the group’s social relations. This is the human interaction and group culture from which members learn to adapt their thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors in relation to their new beliefs. 2

As will be explained in the chapter about the Apostolic United Brethren (AUB),

the latter does not fully meet these criteria. Furthermore, Lalich puts a lot of emphasis

on the conversion experience that individuals undergo when entering high-demand

groups, which is not applicable in the cases of most of the women and men discussed

in this thesis, since most of them were born into the AUB. Nevertheless, Lalich’s

Bounded Choice model is perhaps the most useful tool to understand the decisions of

members of groups such as the AUB and has therefore been used to analyse the

material discussed in this thesis.

Lalich, rather than applying economic theories to the growth of religious and other

groups, primarily focuses on how such groups create and maintain cohesion and how

individual members are kept in groups which demand irrational and even dangerous

or illegal things from them, even when there is no physical coercion or force:

I have concluded that there is a particular state of being, which I call “charismatic commitment,” that can take root quickly, so that people become easily enmeshed and, in some cases, trapped, at least psychologically. This is the point at which there is fusion between the ideal of personal freedom (as promised in the stated goal of the group or its ideology) and the demand for self-renunciation (as prescribed by the rules and norms). At that point, the believer becomes a “true believer” at the service of a charismatic leader or ideology. In such a context, in relation to personal power and individual decision making, that person’s options are severely limited - hence my

Janja Lalich. "Using the bounded choice model as an analytical tool: A case study of Heaven’s 2

Gate." Cultic Studies Review 3.2 (2004), pp.226

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overall conclusion that the best way to understand why cult members do what they do is to consider them in a state of ever-present bounded choice, a narrow realm of constraint and control, of dedication and duty. 3

Thus members of high-demand groups find themselves not only with bounded

choices, but also operating within a bounded reality defined by their group. What

makes this more difficult for outsiders to understand is that particularly in the case of

adults who convert to a group, the group members are kept there by their own ‘free’

will. However, staying within the group means playing by its rules, even when those

rules demand things that the members find it hard to give. Since such groups demand

a high level of commitment, this reluctance itself reinforces the commitment, since it

means that members are being tested in their commitment. This level of commitment

further binds members together within the group, which makes it even more difficult

to imagine life outside the group. All these factors reinforce one another, creating a

self-sealing system, as well as a state of personal closure for the individual member:

Individuals in a cult context are constrained not only by a bounded reality—one product of a self-sealing system—but also by bounded choice. This occurs when the

individual reaches what Lifton described as a state of personal closure. (“Closure” in

this sense does not mean completion, as it is sometimes used, but a turning inward and a refusal to look at other ideas, beliefs, or options.) I suggest that the state of personal closure should be considered the individualized version of the larger self- sealing system. Thus, as a person identifies and unites with the bounded reality of the group and its belief system, becoming a devotee by making that charismatic commitment to the self-sealing worldview, another process begins to take place. That is, individual perspective and personal decision making become limited and constrained, and that restriction comes from within as much as from without. In this context of closure and constraint, choices may exist, but they are severely limited. In such situations, the individual can be described as being in a state of bounded choice. 4

This view helps explain the actions of members of high-demand groups, as well as

why it is so hard for such individuals to leave. This thesis uses Bounded Choice

Janja Lalich. Bounded choice: True believers and charismatic cults. University of California Press, 3

2004.,pp.14

ibid, pp.204

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Theory to examine the life and decision-making of Christine Brown. To properly

understand the peculiar situation of Ms. Brown, her involvement in reality television

must be kept in mind. In view of the emphasis that all forms of Mormonism put on

family relationships, there is also a significant focus on the relationships within the

Brown family. External factors, such as money and relative isolation, are also taking

into consideration when exploring the choices Christine Brown has made and

continues to make, as is her role as a pro-polygamy advocate. Finally, Christine is

compared to and contrasted with other polygamist women from the AUB who have

chosen to leave.

It is my hope that I can give the reader a a good overview of the life of one

polygamist woman as a representative example of the lives lived by so many hidden

women, without diminishing the suffering of those whose experience of polygamy is

marred by abuse in many forms. I have attempted throughout to refrain from passing

judgement on those living in this way, instead attempting only to facilitate

understanding of their choices and to illuminate the religious, cultural and personal

reasons behind them, as well as examining the consequences of those choices.

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I.2.Reality Television I.2.i.What is Reality Television?

There is no single good definition of what constitutes ‘reality television’, though in

recent years, there has been a significant scholarly interest in the genre - if it can

indeed be classified as a ‘genre’ per se. Definitions include Hall’s succinct ‘shows that

portray people whose behavior is not predetermined by a script and has the potential

to reveal their true natures’ and Bagley’s slightly more wordy ‘As a presentation of 5

non-actors in legitimately natural settings and situations working without a script,

reality TV stakes its claim with viewers to regard its depictions as unadorned and

spontaneous truthful documentation of natural reality.’ Rose and Wood offer a 6

slightly less broad definition: ‘The majority of reality fare depicts common people

engaging in uncommon (wilderness survival, international travel) and common

(dating, home redecorating) tasks.’ Indeed, as mentioned above, it is debatable 7

whether it is fair to describe reality television as a ‘genre’ at all, since the term covers

a multitude of sins. Dating shows, competitions, casting shows, wildlife programmes,

docu-soaps and any number of other programmes fall under the umbrella of ‘reality

television’ as defined by the scholars cited above. For the purposes of this thesis, the

particular sub-category that is of interest is the family-focussed reality drama without

any competitive elements, usually of the fly-on-the-wall variety.

This chapter will provide a brief introduction to the history of reality television and

its development before exploring the family-focussed reality show in some more

detail and outlining the way in which it is used in this thesis.

I.2.ii. A Brief History of Reality Television

The reality TV format had its forerunners in hidden camera programmes, such as

Candid Camera, and the family documentaries of the early 1970s. As a matter of

fact, Candid Camera was merely the televisual incarnation of the long-running radio

Alice Hall. "Viewers' perceptions of reality programs." Communication Quarterly 54.2 (2006); p.2085

George Bagley. "A mixed bag: Negotiating claims in MTV's the Real World." Journal of Film and 6

Video (2001); p.61

Randall L. Rose and Stacy L. Wood. "Paradox and the consumption of authenticity through reality 7

television." Journal of consumer research 32.2 (2005); p.284

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show Candid Microphone, which moved to television in 1948, becoming the first

programme to air on the ABC network. The show consisted of members of the public 8

being confronted by contrived situations while being secretly recorded, leading to

humorous outcomes. The format was sold to various other countries and spawned a

number of off-shoots, remaining popular for decades.

The next link in the developmental chain came from the realm of cinema,

particularly cinema vérité. In what would become a theme in the development of

reality television, technological advances made new forms of television programmes

possible, in this case documentaries that observed rather than narrated and where

filmed in the now-familiar fly-on-the-wall style. The first and most important

example of this approach to the television documentary was the 1973 series An

American Family, which was produced by Craig Gilbert and was broadcast in the

United States by PBS (Public Broadcasting Service). The show followed the Louds,

an upper-middle class family from California and was dubbed a ‘real life soap opera’ 9

by Gilbert. The Louds were not a ‘typical’ American family in a number of ways - for

instance, their son Lance lived a bohemian life in New York and came out as gay

during the show - which was part of what made the show controversial. The

controversy did contribute to its success, however:

The program’s millions of viewers (averaging 10 million weekly, an extremely impressive number then) and extensive debate about it in the popular press made

it a symbol of changing 1970s American cultural norms. Also important is how

the series influenced later programming. It inspired the British TV series, The Family (1974), itself a precursor to later reality genres like the 1990s British docusoap, and it was a central influence on The Osbournes (2002–2005), which has itself spawned many copycats. 10

In a development which prefigured things to come, the parents of the Loud family

divorced between the filming and broadcast of the show. Oddly enough, after much

see Misha Kavka. Reality tv. Edinburgh University Press, 2012., p.168

Leigh H. Edwards. The triumph of reality TV: The revolution in American television. ABC-CLIO, 9

2013., p.177

Edwards, p.17810

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controversy and audience success, this type of documentary disappeared as quickly as

it had cropped up and was not revived until the early 2000s, when reality television as

we now understand it, was born.

The deregulation of television channels and the explosion of cable TV channels

from the 1980s made it necessary for broadcasters and production companies to cut

costs and turn out shows at an increased rate. The development and profusion of the

camcorder made this possible and the fact that amateur performers did not require

SAG - or Equity in the UK - pay rates made unscripted programming attractive to

broadcasters.

One of the first proper reality television shows was The Real World, which first

aired on MTV in 1992. In it, a diverse group of young people shared a home and their

interaction was filmed non-stop, with weekly episodes of edited material being

broadcast. The show was inspired by An American Family, but rather than filming an

existing family in their own home, here a group of strangers were brought to a place

specifically set up for filming. The show dealt with controversial issues such as

homosexuality and AIDS and while the cast members were amateurs, they had clearly

been chosen for being ‘characters’. At the turn of the millennium, Big Brother in the

United Kingdom - adapted from a Dutch format by production company Endemol -

and Survivor in the United States added the element of competition.

During the 2007 to 2008 Hollywood writer’s strike, the production of scripted

television programmes virtually stopped for several months, something which cost the

State of California about $2 billion . A further complication was that this strike 11

happened at a time when streaming services were beginning to be a factor in the

industry, and within a few short years, streamed content would render DVDs virtually

obsolete. In dire need of content to keep the public entertained, production companies

and broadcasters turned to unscripted programming. Over 100 unscripted shows of

one description or another were either commissioned or recommissioned during the

2007-2008 broadcasting season. Needless to say, this was simply the culmination of 12

Leigh Blickley. “10 Years Later, Here's How The Writers Strike Indelibly Changed TV.” HuffPost11

ibid.12

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a long line of developments, but after years of languishing in the ghetto of ‘trash TV’,

reality programming suddenly became ubiquitous, a trend which continues to this day.

In the early days of reality television, while scholars might be intrigued by what

programmes like Big Brother could tell us about society, human interactions in a

confined space, and the growth of digital surveillance, reality television programming

was hardly considered worthy of study for its own merits. The veritable explosion of

reality television has led to it being taken more seriously as an object of study, though,

as will be outlined later, there has been limited use of it in religious studies.

I.2.iii. A Modern Freak Show?

While Sister Wives and TLC’s other polygamy-themed shows My Five Wives and

Seeking Sister Wife are ostensibly shows in the vein of the classic family reality drama

going back all the way to American Family, it should also be noted that as with so

much of TLC’s programming of recent years, it also resembles a much older form of

entertainment; that of the freak show. TLC’s propensity for freak show-style 13

programming earned the network an entire chapter to itself in Jessica L. Williams’

Media, Performative Identity, and the New American Freak Show. Sister Wives even

gets a brief mention:

Perhaps nowhere is the freak body more familiar on television than on the TLC network. Often referred to on internet blogs and forums as the “freak show channel,” it almost solely offers reality and documentary programs that focus on physical otherness. These include domestic reality shows such as A Baby Story and Four Weddings; tattoo reality shows including Miami Ink and New York Ink; big people reality shows like Big Love and 600 lb Mom; little people shows The Little Couple, The Little Chocolatiers and, one of their biggest hits, Little People, Big World; reality shows and mini-documentaries about sexual and reproductive freakish-ness including 19 Kids and Counting, John and Kate Plus Eight, Sister Wives, I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant, and Virgin Diaries; […] TLC’s lineup of shows has obvious parallels to the traditional freak show lineup: tattooed men and women, big and little people, sexual miscreants such as hermaphrodites and bearded women, and the disabled. We still see unusual bodies at the few actual

TLC is also the US broadcaster for Channel 4’s Three Wives, One Husband, which is noticeably 13

different for being an actual documentary.

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freak shows that do exist today, such as Coney Island’s “Sideshow at the Seashore” which is comprised of tattooed people, bearded women, and big and little people who all perform novelty acts, so it is no surprise to see these bodies also represented on television. TLC typically represents these bodies in benign ways in its series rather than one-time documentaries, thus we are exposed to them much more often and become used to seeing their bodies. While the episodic nature of the freak show and the talk show kept its viewers entertained and surprised again and again with new freaks, the episodic nature of television does the opposite. Because we are exposed to the same bodies over an extended period of time […], those bodies become benign (i.e. boring) to the viewer. 14

The families involved in such shows usually stress that while their lives are worthy

of a television show because of their differences, their motivation for taking part in

their respective shows is that they want to show that they are ‘just like everybody

else’ in spite of their overt other-ness. As Williams points out, extended exposure to

what is purported to be the ‘real life’ of ‘freaks’, they become normalised to the point

of boredom in the eyes of the audience.

Finally, the sudden glut of reality shows and documentaries about polygamy may

seem odd, yet it fits into the established patterns of the industry. For instance, the

success of the comedy drama Desperate Housewives led to the creation of The Real

Housewives of Orange County, followed by other incarnations of the Real

Housewives-franchise. Conversely, Little People, Big World, a reality show about a

family in which several members had dwarfism, spawned a whole sub-genre of shows

about little people. There are even shows spanning both, such as Little Women of L.A.;

in other words, reality television makes a specialty of taking a format and exploiting it

to the point of saturation and beyond.

I.2.iv. How Real is Reality TV?

One concern about reality television as a source of entertainment or as a research

tool is how ‘real’ anything portrayed in reality programmes is. As Leigh H. Edwards

Jessica L. Williams,. Media, performative identity, and the new American freak show. Springer, 14

2017, pp.84

!17

points out, most of the audience are fully aware of this fact, yet there is still a certain

expectation of realism that needs to be met. 15

The problem then, according to the above statement, begins when the viewers are

presented with content so manipulated by producers as to lose this emotional realism

and violate the implicit contract between producers and viewers. This occurs

frequently, and noticeably so, such as when a preview shows a person reacting

dramatically to something, teasing viewers. When the actual scene is shown, it

becomes clear that the dramatic reaction is to something entirely different and had

been intercut with the situation for the purposes of the preview to create tension.

Given how frequently this ploy is used by producers and editors, the viewers are

left to suspect that a lot of what does make it into a show under the guise of ‘reality’ is

in fact even more heavily edited to distort events. While casual viewers may take

what they are shown at face value, the active audiences discussed below are liable to

dissect every second of a programme in search for the truth of the situation that may

be distorted by producers.

I.2.v. Reality TV Celebrities

Reality TV turns ‘ordinary’ people into celebrities, even though their celebrity is

usually limited by how long they manage to stay on their respective shows. As

Graeme Turner points out, reality TV ‘stars’ can go ‘from maximum visibility (on our

television screens every night, and in our newspapers and magazines in the morning)

to complete obscurity within a matter of weeks’. Reality TV celebrities also 16

encounter public scorn for being famous for no particular talent or achievement, and

are sometimes even accused of undermining public morals. The best example of this

is reality superstar Kim Kardashian West who has been ‘routinely attacked for [her]

lack of craft and meaningful contribution to public life’. Nevertheless, in spite of 17

being labelled ‘C-list’, reality television ‘stars’ are valuable capital to the purveyors of

Edwards, p.915

Graeme Turner. Understanding celebrity. Sage, 2013; p.4016

Julie A. Wilson, "Reality television celebrity." A Companion to Reality Television. Hoboken: John 17

Wiley & Sons, 2014, p.421

!18

‘entertainment news’, obviously particularly those specialising in reality television,

who exist in a kind of symbiotic relationship with their subjects. 18

Ironically, reality television ‘stardom’ itself can threaten the ‘career’ of those who

obtain it, since their newfound fame makes them less relatable to audiences, such as

in the case of Jon and Kate Gosselin, whose struggles of raising twins and sextuplets

were chronicled in TLC’s Jon and Kate Plus Eight. As the show progressed, the

family were shown going on increasingly extravagant trips and moving into a palatial

home, which irked viewers who had previously identified with the family’s life in a

small home and did not appreciate the increasingly diva-like behaviour of Kate

Gosselin in particular. 19

I.2.vii. Use for this Thesis

When An American Family was broadcast in 1973, it made waves and got

audiences talking about the state of the nuclear family in America. One person, who

could be expected to know more about the American family than most turned out to

be a fan; anthropologist Margaret Mead was quoted in The New York Times as saying,

‘[An American Family] may be as important for our time as were the invention of

drama and the novel for earlier generations: a new way to help people understand

themselves.’ She went on to say that this new kind of ‘documentary’ provided ‘a 20

new way in which people can learn to look at life, by seeing the real life of others

interpreted by the camera […] I do not think An American Family should be called a

documentary. I think we need a new name for it, a name that would contrast it not

only with fiction, but with what we have been exposed to up until now on TV.’ 21

Mead had previously worked with producer Craig Gilbert on Margaret Mead's New

Guinea Journal so her endorsement of Gilbert’s new project was perhaps less

surprising than initially apparent, but her enthusiasm for the emerging genre is still

see Wilson, pp.42118

While I cannot in good conscience recommend it, the interested reader can find out more about this 19

on http://gosselinswithoutpity.blogspot.com/.

Stephanie Harrington. “An American Family Lives Its Life on TV.” The New York Times, The New 20

York Times, 7 Jan. 1973

quoted in Edwards, pp.17821

!19

noteworthy. While the tabloid-esque nature of the genre, as well as the highly edited

version of reality presented in a typical offering make reality television a less than

ideal source, it can indeed be a useful tool for anthropological researchers. For the

purposes of this thesis, the statements made by participants are taken at face value

unless contradicted by other material, such as in the Browns’ book Becoming Sister

Wives. Every effort has been made to track down all pertinent statements about the

topics discussed, based on a close reading of the sources. For this thesis, the tenuous

claim to ‘reality’ of the genre should be kept in mind.

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I.3. The AUB

I.3.i. The History of the AUB

For the purposes of this thesis, it is important to be clear about the differences

between the various polygamous groups at present active in the Western United States

and Canada. By far the most famous and notorious polygamist group is of course the

FLDS, whose prophet Warren Steed Jeffs is serving life plus twenty years in prison

for child sexual assault, but as other polygamist groups have been at pains to point

out, the practices of this particular sect are not representative of life for many

Mormon polygamists, both members of other groups and those living as ‘independent

polygamists’. 22

The Brown family are - or at least were - members of the Apostolic United

Brethren (AUB), also known as the Allred Group. This chapter will provide a rough

outline of the history and known tenets of the AUB, particularly as they pertain to the

lives of Christine Allred Brown and her family.

Mormonism has been a controversial religion from its very inception, with

members being chased from state to state throughout most of the 1830s. This was not

helped by prophet Joseph Smith’s practice of taking wives in addition to his legal wife

Emma. At some point in the late 1830s, Smith had an affair with Fanny Alger, a

teenage maid employed in his household. While Smith never stated anything definite

either way, Alger may have been his first plural wife - the official LDS Church

acknowledges her as such - though Lucinda Harris - who was already married and 23

continued to live with her husband William Harris - is more widely accepted as such.

By the time of his death in 1844, Smith had wed anywhere between 28 and 50

women. Smith was aware that his practice of marrying multiple women - many of

whom had living husbands - was perhaps even more controversial than his claims of

prophecy and kept it secret. It was partly due to revelations about it in print by a

former follower that Smith ordered the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor’s printing

see Utah/Arizona Attorney General's Offices (eds.), The primer: A guidebook for law enforcement 22

and human services agencies who offer assistance to fundamentalist Mormon families .Salt Lake City, 2006; pp.11

“Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo.” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 23

www.churchofjesuschrist.org/topics/plural-marriage-in-kirtland-and-nauvoo?lang=eng.

!21

press in 1844, an order which led to his arrest and ultimately death at the hands of a

mob.

It was not until 1843 that Smith officially recorded the revelation that commanded

polygamy, now Section 132 of Doctrine and Covenants. Part of the revelation directly

addresses Joseph Smith’s wife Emma, who objected to her husband’s practice:

52 And let mine handmaid, Emma Smith, areceive all those that have been given unto

my servant Joseph, and who are virtuous and pure before me; and those who are not

pure, and have said they were pure, shall be destroyed, saith the Lord God.

53 For I am the Lord thy God, and ye shall obey my voice; and I give unto my servant

Joseph that he shall be made ruler over many things; for he hath been afaithful over a

few things, and from henceforth I will strengthen him.

54 And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and acleave unto my

servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment she shall

be bdestroyed, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she

abide not in my law. 24

Smith justified polygamy through his study of the Old Testament, as well as divine

revelation, framing it as a higher calling and terming it ‘Celestial Marriage’. During

his lifetime, Smith instructed a number of high-ranking followers to also take plural

wives, many of whom continued the practice after Smith’s murder. The main body of

the Mormon Church left Illinois westwards under the leadership of Brigham Young,

who led the Saints to what is now Utah, where they settled. In 1852, the Mormon

Church openly admitted to their polygamy for the first time, causing an uproar in the

rest of the United States. Politicians referred to routing out the ‘twin relics of

barbarism, polygamy and slavery’ , and Mormons were demonised in works of 25

popular fiction, such as Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet.

Doctrine and Covenant, Section 132, paragraph 52-5424

“1856 Republican Convention in Philadelphia.” Ushistory.org, Independence Hall Association, 25

www.ushistory.org/gop/convention_1856.htm.

!22

It is estimated that even at the height of polygamy only 20-30% of all members

practised plural marriage, yet the doctrine became central to Mormon theology and 26

was further developed in the writings of Church leaders such as Brigham Young.

Plural marriage was now deemed necessary to ascend to the highest level of Heaven -

the Celestial Kingdom - according to some interpretations, three wives are needed for

this. The ultimate goal of Mormon men is to achieve godhood, or exaltation, for

which ‘Celestial Marriage’ is a pre-requisite.

The adherence to polygamy was damaging for the Mormons, precluding Utah from

statehood and leading to legislation which specifically targeted Mormon leaders. In

1890, President Wilford Woodruff officially ended the practice of polygamy, buckling

to pressure from the United States government. The decision changed the LDS

Church forever, though in the minds of outsiders Mormonism and polygamy stayed

linked. The mainstream LDS Church decided that ‘Celestial Marriage’ was merely a

marriage sealed in the Temple for eternity, but not all believers shared this point of

view.

‘Mormon fundamentalists’, as those who continued to practise polygamy in spite

of the Church’s prohibition called themselves, started to move into the Arizona desert

in the 1930s to get away from the Utah authorities, who had by then begun to

systematically prosecute polygamists after abandoning the practice in the wake of the

Woodruff Manifesto, a document not accepted as a revelation by Mormon

fundamentalists. As pro-polygamy activist Anne Wilde puts it:

It was really a press release. Fundamentalist Mormons don’t really consider it a revelation because it [didn’t start] out ‘thus sayeth the Lord’ and we’re not aware of too much [sic] revelations that out with ‘to whom it may concern.’ 27

The fundamentalists felt justified in their defiance of the official Church, believing

that the leadership had given in to worldly concerns when they had turned their back

on polygamy. After all, it was Brigham Young himself who had written in The Journal

see Kathleen Flake. The politics of American religious identity: The seating of Senator Reed Smoot, 26

Mormon apostle. Univ of North Carolina Press, 2005. pp. 65

“Affidavit of Anne Wilde for the Canadian Reference Case on Polygamy.” Dokumen.tips27

!23

of Discourses that, ‘the only men who become Gods, even the sons of God, are those

who enter into polygamy’ . So without polygamy, or ‘plural marriage’, Mormons 28

would not be able to obtain ‘exaltation’ in the ‘Celestial Kingdom’, the lofty goal of

Mormon cosmology. If this in itself were not enough to justify disobedience to the

official Church line, there was also the story of John and Lorin Woolley, which

formed the basis of Mormon fundamentalism as a movement:

Fundamentalist Mormons believe that on the night of September 26–27, 1887, Church President John Taylor was hiding from federal marshals in the John W. Woolley home in Centerville, Utah Territory. After a delegation of Church officials visited him, urging that the Church give up plural marriage, Taylor took the matter to the Lord. During the night, he received a lengthy visitation from Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith instructing him not to yield to either the federal or internal pressure. He told the Woolleys and others of his vision the following day in a long meeting, during which he set apart several individuals (including John Woolley and his son, Lorin C.) with the charge to perpetuate plural marriage no matter what position the Church might later take. 29

Needless to say, the above account has been vehemently denied by the official

LDS Church, but to fundamentalists, it meant that far from being in a state of

apostasy, they were in fact following the rightful orders of a prophet and that it was

the mainstream Church who were apostates. It made it easy for fundamentalists to see

themselves as martyrs in a holy cause when they faced legal consequences for their

marital arrangements.

In Becoming Sister Wives, Christine Brown describes an episode from the

childhood of her father Rex Allred:

I was raised in a climate of fear. My father was terrified of our family being split up. When he was eight years old, his life was turned on end when his parents were arrested for bigamy and thrown in jail. They were released after a single night. (This is common, especially in the case of female polygamists, who are usually sent home to look after the children.) My grandparents initially thought

Brigham Young, The Journal of Discourses, Volume 11, Section 269, 186628

Ken Driggs, ‘Imprisonment, Defiance, and Division: A History of Mormon Fundamentalism in the 29

1940s and 1950s’ in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought Volume 38, Number 1 (Spring 2005), p.67

!24

their arrest was symbolic and that they would have no more trouble with the law. Not long after their release, however, they got word that the authorities were pursuing them once again. My grandfather fled and went into hiding. All of my grandmothers separated from one another and took their children to live in different states or in far-off corners of the same state. 30

The grandfather she mentions here is Rulon Allred, founder of the AUB. Initially,

Rulon was a member of the Short Creek group, which would much later become

known as the FLDS, a group from which the AUB is very keen to distance itself

nowadays, though like some others, he lived in Salt Lake City rather than in the desert

of Northern Arizona.

In 1949 John Y. Barlow, the man most fundamentalists recognized as the leader of the priesthood council, died. Joseph W. Musser became the leader of the council even though he had suffered a series of debilitating strokes and was now under the medical care of Rulon Allred, a naturopath and practicing fundamentalist. Musser's advocacy of Allred as his successor and other religious and policy disputes created a rift in the council before Musser died in 1954. Allred emerged as the leader of a Salt Lake City group, […] Leroy Johnson assumed the leadership of the more traditional United Effort Trust group in Short Creek, now known as Colorado City, on the Utah-Arizona border. 31

Rulon, a naturopath and chiropractor, acted as personal physician to ailing

polygamist leader Joseph W. Musser, who put Rulon forward as his successor. This

eventually left to a rift and Rulon’s group moved back to Salt Lake City, while many

others remained in Short Creek under the leadership of Leroy Johnson. 32

Rulon led AUB until his death in 1977, when he was murdered in his office in Salt

Lake City by two of the wives of rival polygamist leader Ervil LeBaron. In her

memoir, Fifty Years in Polygamy: Big Secrets and Little While Lies, his niece, anti-

polygamy activist Kristyn Decker describes the community’s reaction to his death:

Kody Brown et al., Becoming Sister Wives: The Story of an Unconventional Marriage (New York, 30

2012), p.235

see Ken Driggs, ‘Twentieth-Century Polygamy and Fundamentalist Mormons in Southern Utah’ in 31

Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Volume 24, Number 4 (Winter 1991), p.48

see ibid.32

!25

Many people in our group felt there would be no justice for the assassination. We were also angry about the hype from reporters, who continued to publicize over and over again that Dr. Allred’s death was the result of “rival polygamists” fighting over power. There was never a dispute between Rulon Allred and Ervil LeBaron over authority. We had nothing to fight about. Our leaders weren’t trying to make Ervil’s clan follow our regime. Our leaders were hardly protecting themselves, let alone planning to retaliate or fight for power. All they wanted was to be safe and live in peace. The murder was about Ervil’s power-hungry insanity. Uncle Rulon was one of the most gentle, caring, nonaggressive men anyone ever knew. He was a victim, not a rival. 33

Interestingly, Rulon’s daughter Dorothy Allred Solomon includes a quote from his

journal in her book Daughter of the Saints, dated two years to the day before his

death, in which he writes ‘I have two years to put my affairs in order.’ 34

Rulon was succeeded by his brother Owen, Kristyn Decker’s father. Much like his

brother, Owen was considered a kind and gentle man. In the 1999 BBC programme

Inside Story: Polygamy, he is interviewed with his second wife, Elsie, seated next to

him, knitting. The couple look like they could be the perfect grandparents. Owen says

he is ‘proud’ that his wives ‘truly love one another’ and jokes that he sometimes gets

jealous of their love for each other, while Elsie says how she enjoys not having to

cook every night . 35

Owen Allred always maintained that his church did not allow members to marry

under the age of eighteen - a claim which is open to serious debate - and that they did

not tolerate sexual abuse. In her book, Kristyn Decker, who was herself sexually

abused as a child, recounts her father’s reaction to finding out about a man with a

history of abuse within the AUB:

Shortly after hearing this horrific news, while I was caring for my aging mother, I was jolted awake by my father’s loud, haunting cries. I crept out of bed, trying

Kristyn Decker, Fifty Years in Polygamy: Big Secrets and Little White Lies (Bloomington, 2012), p. 33

175

Dorothy Allred Solomon. Daughter of the Saints: Growing up in Polygamy. WW Norton & 34

Company, 2004; p.295

‘Polygamy’. Inside Story, BBC. August 19, 1999.35

!26

not to wake Mom, shut the bedroom door, and meandered down the hallway toward the kitchen. I heard my father’s tormented, drawled-out words.

“She tried to scream, but … and then he threatened again … I’ll kill …” Dad stammered between his sobs. I peeked around the corner. Dad was crouched over his old black tape recorder in front of him on the kitchen table. “My dear God, Oh, dear God!” he cried out. “What have we done? What have we done?”

My father couldn’t breathe. His whole body shivered in horror while he tried to record, as one of his necessary journal records, Louise Thomas’s terrifying account of her father’s monstrous deeds. 36

The sexual abuse scandals, which did not come to light publicly, were not the only

problem Owen Allred faced during his leadership.

Under Owen’s leadership, the AUB also became embroiled in organised crime and

money laundering, as recounted in his obituary in The Atlantic:

He was the kind of stern fundamentalist patriarch who, when his church needed financing to buy the recreational hangout of the old Vegas mob, was savvy enough to route the deal through Belize. Two years ago a judge ruled that he'd laundered thousands of dollars and his church had swindled $1.5 million out of Marsha Jones, a onetime South American movie star and Detroit hood's moll who had changed her name to Virginia Hill. 37

In spite of such problems, when he died on Valentine’s Day 2005, aged 91, he was

mourned by his family and church.

The AUB was subsequently led by LeMoine Johnson, followed by Lynn

Thompson. In recent years, the AUB has been plagued by further allegations of sexual

abuse, this time against the current leader Lynn A. Thompson. The first of these

allegations was made by his adult daughter Rosemary on her family’s blog. Other

women then followed suit. Rosemary Williams is the third wife of former AUB-38

member Brady Williams, whose family briefly had their own reality TV show on

Decker, loc. 299636

Mark Steyn. ‘Owen Allred (1914-2005), The Atlantic, May 2005 Issue37

see Brady Mccombs and Associated Press. “Woman on 'My Five Wives' Accuses Father of Sex 38

Abuse.” The Salt Lake Tribune

!27

TLC, My Five Wives. The ensuing scandal has thrown the AUB into a period of inner

turmoil from which it is yet to emerge.

I.3.ii. Beliefs and Practices

The AUB has long been insistent that they do not allow underage marriages and

that members are not coerced into practising plural marriage. It is difficult to ascertain

the veracity of such a statement, but the case of Christine’s own mother who was

married as a minor has been presented as fact by both herself and her daughter. It

should be noted that Christine’s mother RuthAnn has clearly stated that there are no

arranged marriages within the AUB, with teenagers instead encouraged to pray to find

out whom God wished them to marry. 39

The LMN show Escaping Polygamy, which features the stories of polygamists

‘escaping’ their community and lifestyle chose as its first subject Leah, a young

woman from the AUB, who is portrayed as being held against her will in her parents’

house and having to sneak away from church to physically escape with the help of

former members of the Kingston Group now working with Holding Out HELP. 40

While the show presumably dramatises matter somewhat, it is a reality TV format and

the fact that the show’s protagonists were accused of trespass by members of the

Kingston Group in an ‘escape’ of another young woman - Melanie - implies that the

situations depicted are mostly reflective of reality. This somewhat undermines the 41

claim of the AUB that children and teens are not coerced into remaining in the

religion, as laid out in The Primer. However, based on my researches, Leah’s story

seems to be an isolated case.

As with other polygamist groups and indeed most closed religious groups, a young

person such as Leah - or indeed a young Christine - existing in the bounded reality of

the group they were born into cannot reasonably be expected to make a fully rational

decision about leaving their religion and risk losing their social network, possibly

their family, and venture into a strange and frightening world on their own.

see ‘One More Woman in Kody’s Life’. Sister Wives, TLC, January 25, 201539

see ‘Leah/Hannah’. Escaping Polygamy. LMN. December 3, 2015.40

see Dennis Romboy. “Utah Mother Sues Cable Network over 'Escaping Polygamy' 41

Episode.” DeseretNews.com

!28

The AUB’s official line on spiritual coercion is unequivocal, as is their insistence

that family members who apostatise are not shunned:

Many grown children accept and maintain the religion of their parents; however, some do not. Although no statistics are available, perhaps as many as fifty percent of grown children of AUB members do not continue in the religion, although most maintain life- long family relationships with their AUB relatives. Such grown children who disassociate themselves from the religion, including many who are sons and daughters of AUB ecclesiastical leaders, are not exiled, yet they generally withdraw on their own, and this is in keeping with the concepts of agency promulgated by the group.42

This claim runs counter to what has been stated by former members such as Brady

Williams and Vance Allred. Rosemary Williams has gone so far as to say that she was

told that ‘the option is hell’ , with regard to leaving the AUB. While this may not be 43

official doctrine, such attitudes, even if only held within families, are liable to have an

effect on a person’s decision to remain within their religion or not. Not only does the

individual risk losing their social network, they also live in fear of eternal punishment.

In such a situation, choosing to leave means breaking out of the bounded reality of the

group, rejecting everything and literally ‘choosing hell’. Due to way in which

property is owned within many polygamist communities - more or less in keeping

with the early Mormon doctrine of a United Order, in which property is held in

common - there are also significant financial ramifications for those wishing to leave

a polygamist group in which they had become established.

While the way in which the Brown family lived prior to their move from Utah in

2011 is usually referred to as ‘hiding in society’, i.e. living in a non-polygamist

community in a state of semi-secrecy, there are a number of polygamist communities

and even towns which are not affiliated with the FLDS. In those, the land is usually

owned by a family trust which allows individuals and families to live on the land on

the condition that they conform to the standards of the community. Examples of this

Utah/Arizona Attorney General's Offices, p.1342

‘What Happens in Vegas’. My Five Wives, TLC, December 14, 201443

!29

include Centennial Park AZ, Rocky Ridge UT and to a certain extent Pinesdale

Montana, the latter two being owned by the AUB.

What makes these situations difficult is the matter of ownership, an issue which

was addressed in My Five Wives. Brady Williams and his family lived in Rocky Ridge

on land owned by the AUB. When they left the AUB, they were expected to leave the

homes they had built and paid for, since they did not ‘fit [in the community]

anymore’. The problem was that in order to be able to move elsewhere, they needed 44

money from the sale of the houses, yet the only people able to buy the homes were

other members of the AUB, which put the Williams family at a disadvantage. While

the show ended before the issue was resolved, the family were eventually able to

move away and build a house elsewhere. This kind of arrangement is not 45

uncommon in fundamentalist communities, which on the one hand ensures that the

community has control over who can live within it - thus creating the best framework

for the societal ideal they strive for - but on the other hand makes it harder for those

wishing to leave to do so without massive financial loss. My Five Wives shows the

Williams family firmly remaining in their homes for years after leaving the AUB,

without the church taking steps to have them evicted. Some others are not so lucky, as

dramatically demonstrated by the massive and protracted legal battles surrounding

land ownership and use in Colorado City and Hildale. Here, even ‘faithful’ families 46

were often displaced over night from houses they had built themselves and moved

into trailers, while ‘apostates’ and those sent to ‘repent from afar’ were quite simply

run out of town. As so often, the FLDS provides the most extreme example, but even

the more moderate AUB has been known to engage in aggressive tactics to deprive

former members of their real estate. Christine’s uncle Vance Allred is a case in point;

when he left the AUB, he was expected to give up a home he had built. Unwilling to

do so, the case ended up in court, where Vance’s son Lance claims his Uncle Rex -

Christine’s father, referred to ‘Saul’ in Lance’s book Longshot - perjured himself to

further the cause of his church:

‘In the End, We’re in This Together’. My Five Wives, TLC, December 21, 201444

see “Brady Williams.” Brady Williams - Our New Home!! 45

for details, see e.g. Debra Weyermann. Answer Them Nothing: Bringing Down the Polygamous 46

Empire of Warren Jeffs. Chicago Review Press, 2011.

!30

Several of Dad’s brothers testified against Dad, telling stories and saying how much was owed to them, and how Dad had cheated them out of money and never paid them back. Luckily, Dad was a meticulous record keeper and kept track of all of his finances, even through all the poverty. […] Uncle Saul was the hardest. There he was, my uncle Saul, whom I loved and adored, the one I had passed many Sundays with playing softball in the park. It was painful to see him up there, as [Vance’s lawyer] Jeff then turned the tables and produced files showing that Saul still owed my father a great deal of money, not only for the home Dad had built and Saul currently lived in, but for other services and appliances as well. […] Had it not been so traumatic, I might have enjoyed seeing Jeff grill Uncle Saul, making him the scapegoat, the one that all the AUB would blame when they lost the lawsuit—which they ultimately did. But it was one of my most scarring memories. When the judge left for his chambers, Uncle Saul was escorted from the stand. He was shaking, barely able to walk. His face was red with anger and rage, and his eyes were dripping tears. “Liars! Your Dad is a liar! I did so much for all of you!” Uncle Saul screamed at us as the bailiff ushered him out. We heard Uncle Saul sobbing in the bathroom down the hall: “I hate this! I didn’t want to do this! Why! Why!” He had been a pawn. His sense of duty to the memory of his father had led him to destroy his relationship with us and his brother. He was angry. He was angry at the AUB, but he was more angry at Dad for not just being a “good boy” and complying—even though Saul, in his heart of hearts, knew the AUB was wrong. 47

The Browns seem to have never lived in an AUB-owned property. As far as can be

ascertained, there is no closed AUB community in Powell, WY and while their house

in Lehi, UT was in a neighbourhood housing several other polygamists, the house and

the land it stood on was owned by the Browns, not the AUB. As the above examples 48

show, the AUB is able and willing to exert significant pressure on those leaving and

even play family members against each other. In Lance Allred’s account, Christine’s

father Rex (or Uncle Saul) is forced to perjure himself, which he does because it is his

religious duty, as ordered by the AUB’s leadership, all the while knowing that his

Lance Allred. Longshot: The Adventures of a Deaf Fundamentalist Mormon Kid and His Journey to 47

the NBA. HarperOne, 2009 (Kindle edition); loc.176,5

“Property Information.” Utah County Government48

!31

actions are morally wrong. Yet he complies, since his choices are bounded by the

reality of the group he was born into, forcing him to either act in the interest of the

group or leave everything he has ever known.

As Lalich points out, such behaviour cannot be understood without taking into

consideration the unique position of people in high-demand groups:

[C]onformity studies and theories are relevant to the interactional processes present in [high-demand groups]. Nonetheless, they fall slightly short; for we might surmise that if a person continued to go along with an activity or a behavior in the knowledge that what he was doing was wrong, presumably he would leave the group. Bounded choice theory addresses that person who has internalized the group worldview to such a degree that on those occasions when he is in full alignment with the cult mind-set, he no longer experiences a particular activity or pronouncement as wrong or questionable. The boundaries of his perceptions and his choices are tightly drawn and sealed by the interlocking nature of the cultic structure, its social system, and his role in it. 49

It has been stated by the Browns that within their church, they fall on the liberal

end of the spectrum, something which appears to have become more pronounced

since their move to Las Vegas. While early episodes still showed Kody and the wives

telling daughters - particularly Christine’s second daughter Mykelti - to dress more

modestly, an episode broadcast in 2019 features Christine’s fourth daughter Ysabel

going to a school function wearing a sleeveless dress ending half-way up her thigh.

While Kody explains to a visiting friend of a religious background that the dress is not

acceptable by their church’s modesty standards, he has ‘seen way worse’ and accepts

that he cannot impose his will on his children. 50

Within the AUB, it would certainly be thought appropriate for a young teenager to

defer to her father’s wishes with regard to dress, as evidenced by earlier episodes of

Sister Wives, in which daughters may complain, but ultimately comply. 51

While Christine in particular has always been very protective of the reputation of

her family and church, the AUB leadership was concerned about the level of publicity

Lalich, p. 24949

‘Sister Wives Secrets’. Sister Wives, TLC, January 27, 201950

see ‘Sister Wives in the City of Sin’. Sister Wives, TLC, June 5, 201151

!32

that would come with the Brown family appearing on reality television on a weekly

basis. In Becoming Sister Wives, Christine writes about her disappointment at the way

in which her fellow believers reacted to the family’s decision to open their homes to

television cameras:

While my family quickly came to terms with my participation in a reality show, I’m afraid that most of the members of our faith were disappointed with our decision to go public. The plural lifestyle is considered sacred and many people feel that exhibiting it for the public is like casting pearls before swine. While I am sad to have angered and disappointed so many in my faith, I do not understand how they can tolerate the fact that the world thinks we all marry off our fourteen-year-old girls to older men. 52

As the television show moved from an abstract idea to a concrete reality, it became

apparent to the still fairly naive Browns that what they had signed up for was reality

television, rather than a documentary, which inevitably meant a stronger focus on

drama and the salacious connotations of the polygamist lifestyle. This meant more

trouble with the AUB for the Browns, even though the show made a point of never

naming the Browns’ Church.

After the show was announced to the public, TLC began to air promotional clips on a pretty steady rotation. Naturally, they wanted to draw as much attention as possible to the show, so they chose the sound bite where we briefly discuss sex. We had decided to address this issue head-on and quickly get it out of the way, so we could move on with the rest of the show. But the brevity of the clip made it seem as if we were going to come out with something really juicy and salacious! Of course, the truth was just the opposite, but the promotional ads started to create serious waves in our community. To TLC’s credit, when we told them it was making our day-to-day lives more difficult, the network changed the clip immediately. We felt so honored that our requests were taken seriously. When our church community saw the preview they understandably became upset. Many hadn’t been thrilled with our decision to do the program in the first place, and now they were worried that we were going to be sensational and

Brown et al., p.24252

!33

improper. Once they discovered that we intended to film Robyn’s wedding reception, some members became even more concerned. 53

Eventually, the only part of the wedding which was filmed was the reception, but

in view of the fact that many of the guests were polygamists themselves, it became

necessary for the venue to set up two different marquees, one for those who were

happy to be filmed and one for those guests who wanted to maintain their privacy. 54

At some point, Robyn Brown’s business My Sister Wife’s Closet started carrying a

line of earrings and since then, the wives have been seen wearing earrings. In My Five

Wives, the point at which Brady’s wives decided to pierce their ears is identified as a

major benchmark in the family’s separation from the AUB. In an interview with

Lindsey Hansen for her podcast My Year of Polygamy, Brady confirmed that the

prohibition on pierced ears was part of LaMoine Jensen’s attempt to restore the AUB

to the way it had been in the days of Joseph Musser. The Browns have never spoken 55

about any serious strains in their relationship with the AUB and based on what they

have said on the show, they still seem to consider themselves as member of the AUB,

even though they are no longer able to attend church services due to the geographic

distance.

In 2016, Meri Brown’s only daughter Mariah - until then the only Brown child

who had spoken of wishing to become a polygamist herself - came out as gay to her

family. While her own mother Meri was shown struggling with the revelation, the

family as a whole appeared to be accepting, and have since embraced Mariah’s

girlfriend Audrey Kriss to the same extent as the partners of their other adult children.

Kody does address his religious reservations in the episode ‘A Shocking Revelation’

by stating that given the number of children he had, he was aware that purely

statistically, it was likely that at least one of them would be gay. As Kody puts it: My

ibid. p. 22653

see ‘Robyn: Behind the Scenes’. Sister Wives, TLC, February 8, 201554

see ‘Episode 118: Feminist Polygamy and Having Five Wives with Brady Williams’. Year of 55

Polygamy from Lindsay Hansen Park

!34

religion got in my head for a minute, […] God told me, ‘it’s my job to judge, it’s your

job to love’. […] So that child will have nothing but love from me. 56

Mariah does state that her upbringing has made it harder for her admit her

homosexuality even to herself, as other church and family members - though she is

quick to point out that she was not referring to any of her parents - have told her that it

was ‘wrong’ and ‘selfish’ to act on homosexual desires.

In this, the AUB is broadly in line with the mainstream LDS Church, which uses

the term ‘Same Sex Attraction’ rather than ‘homosexuality’ - something which Kody

Brown does once, but only once, in a Talking Head segment - thus framing sexual

orientation as a matter of choice rather than part of a person’s identity. In 2015, TLC

aired one episode of My Husband’s Not Gay, a reality TV show about LDS couples in

which the husband was ‘experiencing SSA’. The show was widely considered

offensive and no further episodes were shown. In recent years, the LDS Church has

instituted sanctions against members who continue to associate with openly gay

family members, until recently even denying baptism to the children of people living

in homosexual unions. 57

Oddly, while all major fundamentalist groups are opposed to homosexuality and

consider it a sinful behaviour, many of them have been quick to use the recent move

towards marriage equality to further their own cause. For instance, Nathan Collier, a

Montana-based polygamist who appeared on an episode of Sister Wives tried to force

the State of Montana to accept his two marriages on the same basis as the acceptance

of homosexual marriages. 58

While the Browns have mentioned that their acceptance of their gay child is not

entirely in accordance with the teaching of their church and expressed concern that

Mariah might find herself rejected even by members of their own extended family,

Kody has also said that he knows other fundamentalists who have homosexual

‘A Shocking Revelation’. Sister Wives, TLC, January 8, 201756

see Elizabeth Dias. “Mormon Church to Allow Children of L.G.B.T. Parents to Be Baptized.” The 57

New York Times, The New York Times

see Andrew Buncombe. “Montana Man Inspired by Same-Sex Marriage Ruling Requests Right to 58

Wed Two Wives.” The Independent

!35

children whom they embrace. The show has never addressed how the AUB 59

hierarchy has reacted to the Browns’ opinions and statements with regard to

homosexuality, but in the wake of Mariah coming out, the tabloid press reported

rumours that the family had been excommunicated by the AUB. These rumours 60

have never been addressed either by the Browns or the AUB, but since the move to

Las Vegas, the family has conducted church services in their own home under the

leadership of Kody. It is entirely conceivable that the Browns may have been

excommunicated and are now functioning as ‘independent fundamentalists’, but no

information is available either way.

The decision of the adults in the Brown family to accept their daughter Mariah’s

sexuality is certainly not in accordance with AUB teachings. The hold of ‘systems of

control’ of the AUB has arguably become less strong since the Browns have moved

to Las Vegas and opened themselves up to the viewing public. The decision to appear

on television constituted a certain break with the values and rules of the AUB by

allowing outsiders to see the inner workings of a plural family. The ability of the

Brown family to disregard the disapproval of their church leadership and community

and presumably still remain members of their group means that the AUB does not

fully conform to Lalich’s definition of a self-sealing system.

No doubt, the geographical separation from the centre of the AUB community in

Northern Utah has weakened the social control the group exercises over the family,

and in view of the patriarchal nature of polygamy, Kody’s role as head of the family

has gained greater importance since the move to Las Vegas. One cannot help but

wonder if Mariah’s news would have been met with such acceptance if the family had

still lived near their religious community and been reminded of the ‘sinfulness’ of

homosexuality in church services.

Overall, the AUB is considered a moderate polygamist group, with attitudes only

slightly more conservative than those of the LDS Church. It is also more open than

most sects to outside researchers, though Owen Allred’s daughter Kristyn Decker has

pointed out that her father would only allow carefully selected families to speak to

see ‘Sister Wives Secrets’59

see Radar Staff. “Sister Wives Kicked Out Of Their Polygamist Church! | Radar 60

Online.” RadarOnline

!36

researchers, so as to be able to control the image of the AUB. She made these 61

comments with particular reference to the work of Janet Bennion, who has conducted

extensive research into polygamous families, including members of the AUB.

Bennion’s works include Women of Principle: Female Networking in Contemporary

Mormon Polygyny and Polygamy in Primetime: Gender, Media, and Politics in

Mormon Fundamentalism. While at times very open about the strange and disturbing

behaviour she has witnessed during her research, Bennion has also argued that many

polygamists are happy in their lifestyle.

While I use Lalich’s model in this thesis, I do not use her definition of a cult, since

I endeavour to steer clear of a word that has such negative connotations. The

difference between a religion and a cult in the United States is famously ‘about a

hundred years’, and looking at Lalich’s criteria of what constitutes a ‘high-demand 62

group’ or ‘cult’, the AUB meets them to roughly the same degree as the mainstream

LDS Church. Indeed, in her recent book with Karla McLaren, Escaping Utopia:

Growing Up in a Cult, Getting Out, and Starting Over, Lalich includes ex-Mormon

websites in her list of resources about cults . 63

Unlike the FLDS and the mostly defunct LeBaron group, the AUB does not fully

conform to Lalich’s criteria of what constitutes a high-demand group, lacking the

criterion of ‘charismatic authority’. It does however conform to the other three criteria

of ‘transcendent belief system’, ‘systems of control’ and ‘systems of influence’. It

might be more exact to state that the AUB does not fulfil the criterion of charismatic

authority of a living leader, though Joseph Smith himself would certainly qualify.

While the AUB is considered as a high-demand group in this thesis, the term ‘cult’

has been avoided, as has any overly negative judgement of the group or its beliefs.

see Rmk-Ugraz. “Rmk-Ugraz.” Untitled, rmk-ugraz.tumblr.com/post/185183293891/61

politicsrusprinciple-who-was-the-narcissistic.

see Sam Fleischacker. “Cult vs. Religion: What's the Difference?” Baltimoresun.com, 62

www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/bs-xpm-2011-10-13-bs-ed-mormons-20111013-story.html.

see Janja Lalich, and Karla McLaren. Escaping utopia: Growing up in a cult, getting out, and starting 63

over. Routledge, 2017, Appendix B

!37

I.4. Sister Wives

I.4.i. Meet the Browns

In 2006, cable network HBO first broadcast Big Love, a drama show produced by,

among others, Tom Hanks. Big Love followed the fortunes of the fictional

Hendrickson family, consisting of husband Bill (Bill Paxton), wives Barb (Jeanne

Tripplehorn), Nikki (Chloe Sevigny) and Margene (Ginnifer Goodwin) and their

children. Coming from the network which had given the world The Sopranos, the

show was an instant hit and introduced the public to a polygamous family - albeit a

fictional one - living a relatively normal life within mainstream society. The time

seemed ripe for a reality TV show about a polygamist family, though it was not until

2010 that television audiences met the Brown family of Lehi, Utah. When their show

Sister Wives premiered, The Daily Mail referred to it as ‘the REAL Big Love’. 64

The first season of Sister Wives focusses not only on the existing Brown family,

but also the process of bringing in another wife. The show goes out of its way to show

polygamy as a valid alternative lifestyle and the family as happy and united in spite of

everyday struggles. Jealousy between the wives is downplayed and the ‘happy family’

aspect put front and centre.

At the time, the family lived in a large house in Lehi, consisting of three separate

apartments in which each wife and her children were independent, yet connected

through internal doors. This house constituted the culmination of almost two decades

of the family’s trying to find the perfect solution for their living situation which

enabled them to function as a family without forcing the wives to be in each other’s

space.

The credits show the wives, Meri, Janelle, Christine and new addition Robyn each

stating what they love about their lifestyle. Husband Kody’s motto of ‘love should be

multiplied, not divided’ concludes the opening credits each week.

In the following pages, the reader will be briefly introduced to the many members

of the Brown family in order of the wives’ marriages, touching upon the often

“The REAL Big Love: Reality Show Husband Has Three Wives, 13 Children (with Another Wife to 64

Come with Three MORE Kids).” Daily Mail Online

!38

complex interconnections between various strands of the family, before exploring

how the family’s life has been affected by their participation on the show.

Kody Winn Brown was born on January 17, 1969 in Lovell, Wyoming to William

(Winn) and Genielle Brown, one of the couple’s ten children.After an upbringing

which included success at High School-wrestling - Kody was a two-time state

champion - and hard work on his parents’ ranch, Kody followed in the footsteps of 65

many young Mormons before him and embarked on a two-year mission in Texas. 66

While there, Kody learned that is parents had been excommunicated from the LDS

Church for practising polygamy. Upon his return, Kody started attending his parents’

new church, the Apostolic United Brethren, where he met his first wife Meri.

Meri Barber was born on January 16, 1971, as one of seven children of William

(Bill) and Bonnie Barber, who were active members of the LDS Church at the time.

When Meri was five years old, the family moved to Utah and joined the AUB. As 67

Bill took more wives - eventually having five spouses - the parents were 68

excommunicated from the LDS Church. Meri is was the only one of the Brown adults

to have been educated in the AUB school in Bluffdale. According to Meri, she was

something of a wallflower growing up and only blossomed once she met and married

Kody. The couple agreed to practise plural marriage prior to their own wedding in

April 1990, when they were aged 22 and 19, which are fairly typical ages for marriage

in Mormon circles, as Meri points out in the first episode of Sister Wives. 69

Their early married life was carefree and irresponsible, with neither committed to a

particular career path, often taking casual jobs and quitting them on a whim to travel

to visit family for extended periods. Meri’s failure to become pregnant weighed on 70

them somewhat, since she did not have her only child until they had been married for

five years.

see ‘Boys Night Out’. Sister Wives, TLC, January 5, 201465

see ibid.66

see Brown et al., p.1567

see ‘Meet Kody & the Wives’. Sister Wives, TLC, September 26, 201068

see ibid.69

see Brown et al., p.3070

!39

They knew and interacted with both Janelle and Christine from the beginning of

their marriage. Janelle had been born into the LDS Church and was an active member.

Her father had died when she was only two years old and her stepfather was ‘distant’,

which ultimately resulted in a divorce. Janelle was a hard worker and had a strong 71

interest in Native American culture, but she also struggled with her weight from an 72

early age, starting her first diet at the age of eight. The summer after graduating high 73

school, she met Meri’s brother Adam Barber and the pair soon married. Adam was not

active in the AUB and seems to have somewhat half-heartedly followed Janelle into

the mainstream LDS Church. The marriage was not a success and broke up soon 74

after, though Janelle remained close with her in-laws, including Meri and Kody, who

at one point sublet part of the house she lived in. 75

About a year into their marriage, Kody and Meri entered their first courtship with a

girl who was only aged seventeen at the time. The trio agreed to postpone the

wedding until the prospective second wife had turned eighteen. Meri and the young

woman were very close friends and Meri was particularly devastated when the

relationship ended in a broken engagement just a week before the wedding. 76

Soon after, Kody started spending more and more time with his former sister-in-

law Janelle and started hinting to her that they should get married. In the polygamist 77

culture, it is considered improper for a married man to actively pursue another wife,

so it is usually incumbent on the women to take the first step. Janelle, by now 78

intrigued by the AUB, was getting ready to convert and was also interested in Kody.

She came to spend some time on his family’ ranch in Wyoming, at one point

attempting to camp in a teepee in the middle of November. Her mother was worried 79

see ibid., p.3271

see ibid., p.4072

see ‘Big Boy Panties’. Sister Wives, TLC, August 4, 201373

see Brown et al., p.3374

see ‘Pawn Shops and Polygamy Perks’. Sister Wives, TLC, May 15, 201675

see Brown et al., p.5676

see ibid., p.3677

see ibid., p.4278

see ibid., p.4079

!40

about her daughter getting sucked into a cult and came with her, with unexpected

results. Within a short time, Janelle’s mother Sheryl and Kody’s father Winn were

married, making Sheryl Winn’s third wife, in addition to Kody’s mother Genielle and

his second wife Bobbie. 80

Shortly after, Janelle approached Kody and asked to marry him. Janelle’s move

into Mormon fundamentalism led to her estrangement from most of her family, and

the couple’s wedding reception consisted of a small ‘open house’ in Sheryl’s new

home in Lovell, WY. The bride wore black, though there was a traditional tiered 81

cake.

Meri and Janelle had been cordial, but never particularly close before, and Meri

felt less included in the courtship than she had during the prior failed relationship with

their first prospective sister wife. Meri was reassured by the fact that Kody and

Janelle’s relationship was very different to the one she had with her husband, since

Kody was not openly romantic with his new wife. Once the trio moved into a home 82

together, however, relations became strained between the new sister wives. This was

probably not helped by the fact that Janelle and Kody originally planned to get

married on Meri’s birthday and failed to see why this upset her, though they did

eventually move the wedding date. In their new home, Meri and Kody continued to 83

act like they always had, cuddling together on the sofa while Janelle sat alone, making

Janelle feel like ‘a houseguest who had overstayed her welcome’. 84

The two women had very different communication styles, Meri being direct and

straightforward, while Janelle was a peacemaker. Meri remembers:

I remember having conversations with her many times concerning everything—from how the house should be decorated to how the finances should be handled. I would tell her how I thought the situation should be taken care of, and because I had that type of personality, I just assumed she would voice her opinion as well.

see Haskell Funeral Home. “William Brown Obituary.” Haskell Funeral Home80

see ‘The Dress Doesn’t Fit’. Sister Wives, TLC, December 11, 201681

see Brown et al., p.8982

see ibid. p.9083

ibid., p.4684

!41

When I would find out later, through Kody, that there was an issue or disagreement, I was so upset that she didn’t tell me her thoughts or opinions while we were having the discussion. I felt as if she was lying to me, and I felt betrayed by this. I thought we were in this marriage together to have a close, if not completely open, relationship, and didn’t understand why she wouldn’t communicate honestly with me, when that’s what I was trying to do with her. I hadn’t yet learned how to be softer in the delivery of my words and not so overbearing. 85

Within a very short time, the relationship between the sister wives turned frosty,

while Kody was unsure how to help them resolve their differences. When Janelle

became the first to fall pregnant, things reached a new low, as Janelle recounts:

I knew that it would be uncomfortable telling Meri that I was pregnant. She had been unable to conceive after three years of marriage. However, I have to say that I didn’t care how she felt about my news. If it upset her, so be it. Things were incredibly tough in our relationship, so her feelings were of little importance to me at that moment. Kody, of course, was beyond excited at the thought of becoming a father. But our happiness did little to smooth over the tensions in the household. During my pregnancy, relations between Meri and me reached an all-time low. I was physically exhausted and sick, which weakened my ability to put up with Meri’s snide remarks and jabs. While she never overtly made me feel unwelcome in the house, I rarely ventured out into the rest of the home. I felt completely disenfranchised, even though I was carrying Kody’s child. 86

Janelle’s firstborn was a boy, Logan, who grew up to be the leader and protector of

his siblings, even cooking breakfast when Janelle went to work early, as can be seen

in the first ever episode of Sister Wives. Janelle went on to have six children in total,

four boys and two girls. At the time of writing, Logan is engaged and in graduate

school, the two middle boys are in the armed forces, and the two youngest children,

Gabriel and Savanah are still in school. Eldest daughter Madison was a fan favourite

during the early run of Sister Wives for her outspoken rejection of polygamy and high

ibid., p.9485

ibid., p.11786

!42

ambitions of becoming a lawyer. ‘Maddie’ returned to Utah for college, but dropped

out after only one year to become engaged to Caleb Brush, ten years her senior.

Caleb’s sister Erica was the widow of Kody’s younger brother Curtis, who had died in

a motorcycle accident in 2013, making them uncle and niece by marriage. Caleb and

Maddie married in 2016, when Madison was twenty years old. Their first son Axel

was born in May 2017, and in January 2019, the couple announced that they were

expecting their second child. 87

Meri’s only child is her daughter Mariah, born four months after Christine’s first

daughter Aspyn, who was the second child for the growing Brown family. For a long

time, Mariah was the most devout of the family’s children, insisting on going the

AUB school in Bluffdale rather than attending a local public school with her

siblings. The move from Utah to Las Vegas hit her particularly hard and upon 88

graduating from high school, she managed to convince her parents to allow her attend

Westminster College, a private liberal arts college in Salt Lake City, UT. Mariah

claimed that this would provide her with the best opportunity to spend time with the

AUB’s church community - thus potentially meeting a future husband - and to prepare

her for medical school. At approximately $25,000 annually for tuition alone, 89

Westminster was about five times as expensive as the colleges hitherto chosen by the

Brown children, but Mariah’s arguments won the day. Oddly enough, attending 90

college opened Mariah’s mind to broader ideas and by the time she was twenty years

old, she had rejected her parents’ faith and polygamy. In 2016, she came out as a gay.

Since then, her views have become increasingly liberal and she currently lives in

Chicago with her girlfriend Audrey Kriss, while pursuing a Master’s degree in Social

Work as Loyola University. 91

see “Sister Wives Star Maddie Brown Brush and Husband Caleb Expecting Second Child: 'Over the 87

Moon'.” PEOPLE.com

see '1st Wife's 20th Anniversary’. Sister Wives, TLC, October 10, 201088

see ‘Big Boy Panties’89

see ‘Mother-In-Law Invasion’. Sister Wives, TLC, December 29, 201390

Andrea-Francese. “'Sister Wives': Mariah Brown Is Engaged to Girlfriend Audrey Kriss.” The Cheat 91

Sheet

!43

Since Christine’s entry into the family and her role in it will be introduced in more

detail in an upcoming chapter, she does not get a separate introduction here, other

than to say that she joined the family when Janelle was six months pregnant with

Logan. Strangely enough, the addition of Christine during Janelle’s pregnancy helped

soothe the family atmosphere, which seems counter-intuitive, but is apparently a

common phenomenon in polygamy. 92

Like Janelle, Christine also has six biological children, five girls and one boy. Her

youngest child, Truely, was born on April 13th, 2010. This was Christine’s only

hospital birth and the birth was filmed and televised as part of the the first season of

Sister Wives. 93

Christine’s eldest daughter, Aspyn, was born March 14, 1995 and much like Logan

took on the role of carer for her younger siblings, something which Christine freely

admits. She married Mitch Thompson in June 2018. Thompson is the grandson of 94

current AUB leader Lyn Thompson, though his parents are not practising polygamists.

As of now, Aspyn and Mitch have no plans to practise plural marriage. 95

Christine’s second daughter Mykelti was always the wild child of the family, often

clashing with her parents over her clothing choices which did not conform to their

modesty standards. She had plans to become a fashion designer, but after her first 96

year at UNLV, she declared that ‘college is hard’ and dropped out to move to St 97

George, UT to work in a pawn shop owned by Chris Bloxam, a friend of the Brown

family. There she became interested in the LDS Church, but was not allowed to get

baptised because of her parents’ openly lived polygamy, though she continued to

attend church services. She also met convert and returned missionary Antonio 98

‘Tony’ Padron, and the pair shocked the Brown family by the declaring their intention

see ‘Meet Kody & the Wives’92

see ‘Third Wife in Labor’. Sister Wives, TLC, October 10, 2010 93

see ‘Aspyn’s Royal Wedding’. Sister Wives, TLC, March 17, 201994

see ibid.95

see ‘Sister Wives in the City of Sin’96

‘Pawn Shops and Polygamy Perks’97

see ‘It’s Worse Than We Thought’. Sister Wives, TLC, November 27, 201698

!44

to marry after only five months of dating in the summer of 2016. When the couple 99

finally tied the knot in December 2016, the preparations and the event itself formed a

large part of the Ninth Season of Sister Wives. Tony was not popular with the fans for

his extravagant demands of bride and groom-themed piñatas and 4.000 tacos. 100

Christine’s only son Paedon was born August 7, 1998. On the show, he was shown

as generally sensitive and close with his brothers, though less athletic than most of

them. His most outspoken moment came when he refused to attend the pro-polygamy

rally in Salt Lake City in 2017. As of January 2019, Paedon has followed in the 101

footsteps of his half-brothers Hunter and Garrison and joined the armed forces. 102

Christine’s third daughter Gwendlyn October 15, 2001 within only a few months

of her half-brother Gabriel. She has a quirky sense of humour and is particularly close

with Gabriel and Savanah.

Fourth daughter Ysabel is quiet and somewhat delicate, while also bearing a great

physical resemblance to her mother. Early on, she was shown clashing with Christine

and connecting more with Meri, even ‘moving in’ with her for one episode, though 103

this move was never mentioned again and may well have been solely for the benefit

of the cameras. As a young teen, Ysabel was diagnosed with scoliosis and the

advancement of her curvature was found to be particularly aggressive. 104

Christine’s youngest daughter Truely was literally born on television and as she has

grown up, she often appears to act to camera.

In 2009, the Brown family met Robyn Marck Jessop Sullivan, a thirty-year-old 105

divorced mother of three at an AUB dance. Robyn was descended from a long line 106

see ‘Hawaiian Vacation Erupts’. Sister Wives, TLC, June 19, 201699

see Cynical Jinx. “Sister Wives Live Tweet Party! Mykelti Ties the Knot Tonight!” Sister Wives Live 100

Tweet Party! Mykelti Ties the Knot Tonight!

see ‘Risking Arrest’. Sister Wives, TLC, February 25, 2018101

see Jane Flowers. “Sister Wives: Paedon Brown Follows His Half Brother Garrison into the 102

National Guard.” Blasting News

see ‘July 4th Rebellion’. Sister Wives, TLC, October 30, 2011103

see ‘The Truth Comes Out’. Sister Wives, TLC, March 4, 2018104

Rmk-Ugraz. “Brown Family Tree.” Rmk, rmk-ugraz.tumblr.com/post/185233417666/105

politicsrusprinciple-husband-surfer-dudebro.

see Brown et al., p.64106

!45

of polygamists, at least on her mother’s Alice’s side. Her mother’s marriage to her 107

father had failed and Robyn considered her stepfather Robert Sullivan her ‘Dad’.

Alice was his second wife and as a child, Robyn experienced the need for secrecy and

the stigma that came with living plural marriage. After growing up in St George, 108

UT, Robyn moved to Montana after high school, where she met David Preston

Jessop, a member of the branch of the Jessop family in overall charge of the AUB 109

community in Pinesdale, MT. The couple did not comply with their church’s purity

standards and married when Robyn became pregnant out of wedlock. Her first son 110

David Preston Junior ‘Dayton’ was later diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. 111

While the marriage was an unhappy one, it did produce two further children, Aurora

and Breanna, before finally ending in divorce in 2008. Following her divorce, 112

Robyn moved back to St George, where she lived with her mother until she was able

to find a home of her own. 113

She initially met Meri and Kody on two occasions, a family BBQ and an AUB

church dance and formed an instant connection with not just Kody, but also Meri. 114

After meeting the rest of the family and obtaining permission from Robyn’s stepfather

and the AUB leadership - both prerequisites for a serious relationship, even in the case

of a mature and independent woman - Kody and Robyn began a courtship and 115

became in engaged in September 2009. 116

By this point, Sister Wives was in development and some early episodes feature

scenes from before the couple’s engagement. Interestingly, while the second episode

see ‘Polygamist Pilgrimage into the Past’. Sister Wives, TLC, December 23, 2012107

see ‘Picking up the Pieces’. Sister Wives, TLC, July 21, 2013108

“More Details about David Preston Jessop, Ex-Husband of 'Sister Wives' Star Robyn Brown.” The 109

Ashley's Reality Roundup

see ‘Robyn’s Secret’. Sister Wives, TLC, August 25, 2013110

see ‘Meri Drops A Bomb’. Sister Wives, TLC, June 8, 2014111

see ‘Polygamist Debt Threat’. Sister Wives, TLC, November 18, 2012112

see ibid.113

see Brown et al., p.67114

see see ibid. p.80115

see ibid. p.82116

!46

ends with Kody proposing to Robyn, Becoming Sister Wives actually reveals this to be

a staged recreation of the actual proposal. 117

Kody and Robyn married in an AUB ceremony in May 2010, after an eight month-

long courtship, which is unusually long by the standards of their church. Their 118

lavish reception was paid for by TLC and shown on television as the finale of the first

Season of Sister Wives.

After the families merged, Robyn was the only wife not to live in the Brown

family’s Lehi home, but instead in a rented house nearby. While the family hoped to

be eventually able to move into one home together, this dream never came to fruition,

since they left Utah for Las Vegas only months after Robyn and Kody’s wedding.

While the children mostly adjusted well to the new family configuration, there was

some friction resulting from the fact that Robyn had raised her children very

differently to the way the rest of the Brown children were raised. The Browns had a

rule of ‘if you’re not bleeding, don’t come tell me’, whereas Robyn was sensitive 119

and very protective of her children and their feelings. In particular her youngest

daughter Breanna found the rougher style of her new siblings challenging and was

frequently reduced to tears. Over time, however, the children adjusted and formed 120

tight new relationships with each other, with Aurora and Breanna becoming part of

the group of children known as ‘the Pixies’ - Gwendlyn, Ysabel and Savanah - while

Dayton spent a lot of time with his stepbrothers.

On October 26th 2011, Robyn gave birth to her son Solomon, her first child with

Kody. As with Truely, the birth was televised, though unlike Christine, Robyn gave

birth at home. In addition to a midwife and camera crew, Kody and Robyn’s

stepfather Robert were present at the birth. Solomon soon became a favourite child 121

of Kody’s, often being carried on his shoulders until well past his toddler years.

see ibid. p.82117

see ‘Sister Wives Honeymoon Special’. Sister Wives, TLC, November 21, 2010118

‘Free Range Browns’. Sister Wives, TLC, March 20, 2011119

see ‘Carving Into Polygamy’. Sister Wives, TLC, April 3, 2011120

see ‘Sisters’ Special Delivery’. Sister Wives, TLC, November 27, 2011121

!47

In late 2014, Meri and Kody divorced to enable Kody to legally marry Robyn and

adopt her children from her first marriage, something in which the family 122

succeeded in June 2015. Around the time of her legal marriage to Kody, Robyn 123

became pregnant with her second child by him, a girl by the name of Ariella Mae who

was born in January 2016.

While Sister Wives purports to show that polygamous families are simply ‘normal’

and that their homes are a place where ‘love [is] multiplied’, cracks soon started to

appear as the show progressed and bloggers and journalists started to research the

family. Some of these issues were eventually addressed and essentially shrugged off

on the show - such as the fact that second wife Janelle was married to first wife Meri’s

brother prior to marrying Kody and that her own mother Sheryl had married Kody’s

father Winn before she and Kody wed, making them not only husband and wife, but

also step-siblings and brother- and sister-in-law - others were quietly swept under the

rug.

For instance, in the first ‘Special’ - not yet referred to as a ‘Tell All’ - in which the

Brown adults answered the questions of Natalie Morales, Kody stated that if any of

the wives were to leave him, they would take the children with them. This was

presented as a matter of course, with the possibility of children being withheld from

their mother due to her abandonment of her husband and religion as something that

would be considered beyond the pale. The emphasis on this is particularly relevant 124

since instances of parents being deprived of access to their children because of their

‘apostasy’ form part of a narrative familiar to those who follow the doings of the

FLDS and their ilk.

At other points of the series, Christine mentions living with her ‘other mother’ as a

teenager, something which she refers to as a ‘perk of the lifestyle’. She never states 125

a reason for this, and the casual viewer would be forgiven for thinking that this was

the result of a mere whim of the teenage Christine who found herself at odds with her

see ‘Divorce’. Sister Wives, TLC, March 1, 2015122

see ‘A Judge Decides’. Sister Wives, TLC, October 25, 2015123

see ‘Sister Wives Special’. Sister Wives, TLC, October 31, 2010124

see ‘July 4th Rebellion’125

!48

biological mother. Certainly, the context of her mentioning it - once when then eight-

year-old Ysabel ‘moves in’ with Meri, and when Aspyn chooses to live with Robyn

instead of her own mother after a year in an apartment with her sister - makes it 126

sound as if her living with her father’s second wife had simply been a prolonged

sleepover.

In reality, Christine’s mother RuthAnn (‘Annie’) left the family and the religion

when Christine was nineteen. This caused a temporary estrangement between her 127

and the family. In the AUB, it is unusual for an unmarried daughter, no matter her age,

to live on her own, so even though Christine was technically an adult, she naturally

lived with her father and ‘other mother’ after her own mother left the family, rather

than her mother, whom she now considered an apostate.

I.4.ii. ‘Persecution’ and Exodus

Sister Wives premiered on TLC on 26 September 2010 and the day after, the police

in their hometown of Lehi, UT began an investigation into the Brown family to

determine whether to charge them with bigamy by cohabitation, an offence which

existed solely in the state of Utah. Would there have been any crimes other than

‘bigamy by cohabitation’ that the authorities could have charged the Browns with?

While there is no definitive answer to this question, and the Utah authorities

ultimately concluded their cursory investigation into the Brown family without

bringing any charges, it will be shown in later chapters that the Browns were in fact 128

engaged in behaviour which was illegal.

The second season of Sister Wives begins with an episode - ‘Browns Out of

Hiding’ - in which the five adults travel to New York to appear on television shows

and introduce their family and show to the world at large. At the end of the episode,

the family is shown beleaguered by photographers. They announce sombrely that the

Utah County Attorney’s office had started an investigation into their family. 129

see ‘Pawn Shops and Polygamy Perks’126

see ‘Mother-In-Law Invasion’127

see Lindsay Whitehurst. “Read the Lehi Police Report on The Brown Family.” The Salt Lake 128

Tribune

see ‘Browns Out of Hiding’. Sister Wives, TLC, March 13, 2011129

!49

In the episodes following this, the police investigation hangs as a dark cloud over

everything the family does and though there seemed to be no news, the investigation

is mentioned at least once per episode. On the the show, the Browns make no

comment about what, if any legal steps they themselves were taking to either fight

any charges or cooperate with the authorities.

Instead, the family is portrayed as being in fear of potential imminent arrest for

their ‘lifestyle’. First wife Meri lost her job due to her involvement in the show and

speaks about it in ‘Wife Three in the City of Sin’, apparently blaming her employers’

prejudices against polygamists rather than their desire to not have a television

personality working with ‘at-risk youth’: ‘I’m not a bad person, I just have sister

wives and I get fired for it. It pisses me off. And this is exactly why polygamists hide

who they are, this is exactly why. Because if I had gone on hiding who I was for the

rest of my life, I would have kept that job.’ In the family’s book, Meri is somewhat 130

more balanced in what she says about losing her job:

I had discussed my lifestyle and our family being on a reality show with my immediate supervisor, who had subsequently discussed the situation with upper management. No one seemed concerned for six weeks—but the day after the series premiere of Sister Wives, the Lehi City police department sent out a press release that they had been investigating our family. The next time I went to work, upper management called me into the office and fired me. I was devastated. All I wanted to do was help troubled kids, and I was being terminated because my employer was afraid of somehow being involved with this police investigation. They said to me, “Meri, what happens if the police show up here at the facility?” Management told me that they were not firing me because I was a polygamist, but because they were concerned the investigation would bring unwanted attention to the facility and the children housed there. Suddenly, I’d gone from being a private person to being a public figure, and a controversial one at that. 131

Episodes seven and eight of Season Two centre around the Brown’s family

celebration of Christmas, an event overshadowed by the police investigation and the

potential of charges being brought against the adults. It is during this pair of episodes

‘Wife #3 Hits Sin City’. Sister Wives, TLC, April 10, 2011130

Brown et al., pp.217131

!50

that the Browns announced to the audience that they were leaving Utah to move to the

‘safety’ of Las Vegas, Nevada.

The impending move is eventually revealed to the younger children - those aged

approximately twelve and under - a mere three days before the family were scheduled

to leave. The children are further instructed to not tell their friends about the move, 132

though several family members and church friends are involved in packing up the

households. Many of the children react very badly to the announcement. Christine’s

son Paedon is inconsolable, while Meri’s daughter Mariah reads out a list of reasons

why she should be at least allowed to finish out the school year in Utah. (Mariah was

the only one of the children who did not enjoy public school and insisted on returning

to the ‘church school’ after a year. ) Kody remains firm and decrees that the whole 133

family is moving together. The Browns spend a visibly frantic weekend packing up

their houses and end up leaving after dark a day earlier than planned because they

have been contacted by gossip website TMZ, where somebody has learned of their 134

plans to leave the state.

The family members are shown visibly agitated during the preparations for the

move, and matters are made to look even more dramatic on television with the help of

sudden cuts and tension-building music. At one point, a siren is heard going by 135

while a moving truck is being packed up, leading to a moment of utter panic.

The drive to Las Vegas turns into something of an odyssey, mostly due to the fact

that the tyres of all of the cars belonging to the family seemed to choose that

particular night to part company with their wheel rims. 136

Eventually, the Browns reach Las Vegas and after a month in a vacation home,

each wife and her family move into a separate house, all located within a mile of each

other. 137

see ‘Gambling on the Future’. Sister Wives, TLC, May 22, 2011132

see ‘1st Wife’s 20th Anniversary’133

see ‘Gambling on the Future’134

see ibid.135

see ibid.136

see ‘Sister Wives in the City of Sin’137

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Viewer reactions to the ‘exodus’ from Utah varied. Some expressed sympathy with

the Browns, while others criticised the fact that the parents had traumatised their

children needlessly.

Indeed, it seems highly unlikely that the authorities would have arrested the adults

in a midnight raid, a fear expressed by Christine, particularly when it was likely that

such a raid would have taken place in full view of television cameras.

The files of the police investigation into the Brown family reveal that very little

effort was made to find a reason to ‘go after’ the Browns. In fact, the investigators

seem to have done little more than watch the television show, which is ironic, since 138

in Season Two - broadcast after the family’s moonlit flit to Las Vegas - Christine

admits to welfare fraud on camera, which will be discussed in more detail in a later 139

chapter.

Most of the family’s older children struggled to adjust to their new environment in

Las Vegas. Janelle’s second son Hunter fell into a deep depression, giving up playing

football and refusing to engage in any extra-curricular activities for months after the

move. 140

Kody’s insistence that moving was the only way to keep the family together rings

somewhat hollow when it is considered that one of the main complaints in Las Vegas

was the distance - both physical and emotional - that had developed between the

wives’ separate households. Even after the move to the newly-built homes in the cul-

de-sac, the family - and the adults in particular - seemed to find it difficult to regain

the closeness they claim to have enjoyed in Utah . 141

I.4.iii. Fame and its Pitfalls

The ‘celebrity’ status conferred by prolonged participation in a reality television

tends to alter the lives and behaviour of most reality television ‘stars’ over time, often

destroying the very qualities which drew viewers in the first place. The Browns are no

see Lindsay Whitehurst 138

see ‘The Price of Polygamy’. Sister Wives, TLC, March 27, 2011139

see ‘The Announcement’. Sister Wives, TLC, September 25, 2011140

see ‘Mother-In-Law Invasion’141

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exception to this. They are the frequent subject of tabloid headlines, usually

suggesting that one or more of the wives are leaving Kody. The family live in large,

even extravagant homes and indulge in travel and other luxuries, as showcased on the

show and their social media accounts.

With this limited fame comes increased public scrutiny and in the case of Meri

Brown, the danger of falling prey to online predators.

Following her ‘legal divorce’ from Kody in 2014, in order to facilitate his legal

marriage to Robyn in order to adopt her three children from previous marriage to

David Preston Jessop, Meri seemed to fall into a depression. While the family claimed

that the divorce was no more than a ‘legal restructuring’, Meri cried and shook 142

while signing her divorce papers and complained of dizzy spells. After news of the 143

divorce and remarriage became public in January 2015, Meri started a semi-public

friendship on Twitter with a person calling himself Sam Cooper, claiming to be a

wealthy entrepreneur. ‘Sam’ even sent her flowers and Meri shared a photo of the

bouquet with her Twitter following. Speculation grew that Meri was falling in love 144

with ‘Sam’ and contemplating leaving Kody for him. Furthermore, bloggers, fans, and

detractors suggested that Meri was being catfished - i.e. tricked into a relationship by

a person assuming a false identity online. It eventually transpired that there was no

such person as Sam Cooper, but that Meri had fallen victim to a con-woman from

Oklahoma by the name of Jackie Overton. Overton had previously catfished a number

of other women in similar schemes. 145

Meri eventually confessed her version of events to the family, still insisting that 146

there was no ‘emotional affair’ and that she had never considered leaving, a claim

which her own daughter Mariah disbelieved. The fallout from the incident played 147

Hannah Parry. “Sister Wives' Kody Brown Reveals He Divorced First Wife and Wed Younger 142

Bride.” Daily Mail Online

see ‘Divorce’143

see Cynical Jinx. “UPDATED!!!! I Scour the Internet The Pre Summer Solstice/ Father's Day 144

Edition for June 12th, 2015.” UPDATED!!!! I Scour the Internet The Pre Summer Solstice/ Father's Day Edition for June 12th, 2015

see “MERI BROWN WAS CATFISHED BY JACKIE OVERTON.” Jackie Overton Is A Catfish145

see ‘Catfishing Fallout’. Sister Wives, TLC, May 8, 2016146

see ‘Kody Takes Responsibility’. Sister Wives, TLC, December 4, 2016147

!53

out both on Sister Wives and in the media at large. Bizarrely, Jackie Overton

maintained the persona of Sam Cooper and in this guise even self-published an e-

book entitled Almost Meri’ed. As Sam Cooper, Overton also released a series of

compromising voice messages and photographs sent by Meri, further adding to the

Brown family’s embarrassment. In the most recent Seasons of Sister Wives, Kody 148

finds himself unable to state that he is willing to work on his marriage to Meri, instead

striving merely for a ‘friendly’ relationship with her. This cooling of the ‘original’ 149

marriage at the centre of the family seems to have led to Meri’s alienation from the

family at large, something which several episodes have focussed on.

As is the case with many long-running reality shows, Sister Wives now relies

heavily on ‘manufactured drama’, i.e. producer-driven conflict for the sake of the 150

cameras, as well as big, expensive trips, and contrivances such as taking part in a

cardboard boat regatta. 151

In 2018, the Brown family moved from Las Vegas to Flagstaff, Arizona, something

which the public originally learned about from social media, and which was later

confirmed in the press. 152

see Radar Staff. “'Sexually Graphic' Voicemails From 'Sister Wives' Star Meri Brown Uncovered | 148

Radar Online.” RadarOnline

‘The Truth Comes Out’149

see e.g. comment by ‘Anonymous January 26, 2018 at 11:34 AM' on Cynical Jinx. “SISTER 150

WIVES LIVE TWEET PARTY for Sunday, January 21, 2018.” SISTER WIVES LIVE TWEET PARTY for Sunday, January 21, 2018

see ‘‘Just Trying to Stay Afloat’. Sister Wives, TLC, October 4, 2015151

see e.g. Simon Delott. “Kody Brown, Sister Wives Officially Move to Arizona!” The Hollywood 152

Gossip

!54

II. Discussion and Analysis II.1. Christine Ruth Allred Brown, her life and marriage

This chapter introduces the subject of this thesis, Christine Ruth Allred Brown, the

third - and for sixteen years the last wife - of Kody Winn Brown. She was born on 18

April 1972 to Rulon Allred’s son Rex and his first wife Ruth Ann LeBaron, step-

daughter of Owen Allred and step-sister of Kristyn Decker. Being the grand-daughter

of both the late and the current prophet made Christine practically polygamy royalty

and she grew up to love her life and ‘the principle’. As a teenager, she was shaken 153

by her mother Annie’s decision to leave not only Christine’s father, but also the AUB,

but she did not waver in her own decision to enter a polygamous marriage. According

to her, she even knew she specifically wanted to be a third wife, which is a little 154

odd since she grew up in a household with only two wives. She did however get her

wish and joined the family of a recent convert from the LDS Church, Kody Winn

Brown as the third wife. She would give him six children and help raise many more.

As Kody and Christine recount in their book, the beginning of their courtship was

slow. They were good friends, and Christine was openly flirting with Kody enough to

enrage Meri at times, but Kody had his doubts about adding her as another wife, 155

partly because Meri and Kody had just gone through a courtship with a 17-year-old

girl that failed shortly before the planned wedding date. Another reason was that

Christine was quite overweight, which put Kody off, as he bluntly states in Becoming

Sister Wives:

When we set out on our road trip, I was convinced that Christine was the cutest girl in the world, although she was a little chubby. Back then, I was young and superficial enough to care about physical appearances. After we’d been on the road all night, we stopped at a gas station. I’d been drinking soda pop to stay awake and my stomach felt sour and upset. Just thinking about food made me queasy.

see Brown et al., p.47153

see ‘Meet Kody & the Wives’154

see Brown et al., p.51155

!55

Christine went into the Quickie Mart and bought herself what seemed looked like the largest portion of chili cheese nachos that I’d ever seen. The sight of those nachos turned my stomach. I couldn’t watch her eat them. She must have been starving, because she was eating so quickly, and there was chili sauce and nacho cheese everywhere. Looking back, I hate myself for the thoughts I had at that moment, but the sight of this chubby girl in my car devouring chili cheese nachos for breakfast put the brakes on our relationship. It brought out the most superficial and shallowest side of me. I still liked her—in fact, I liked her very much—but the nacho experience cooled my attraction a little—well, a lot. 156

In the Tell All Special following the publication of the book, Christine admitted

that she had not known about this before reading it in the book and that it was

extremely hurtful. Under questioning from host Natalie Morales, Kody doubled 157

down and refused to apologise, even going further. When Morales asked him if it

would be fair to say that he was not physically attracted to Christine prior to their

marriage, he replied ‘that’s an understatement’. This was a particularly cruel jibe at 158

a time when the marriage was visibly strained, since Christine has always been very

open about being insecure about her weight and looks.

Eventually, Christine and Kody resumed a courtship of sorts and when Christine

hinted that Kody was the man she would most want to marry, Kody took it as a

proposal. While this may seem unusually forward for a woman in such a patriarchal 159

culture, it is in fact common for a plural wife to effectively ‘propose’ to her future

husband, since it is considered inappropriate for a married man to actively pursue

another woman. What Christine did not realise was that Kody was not ready to be

married to her and had a number of other things on his mind:

I even had a hard time getting off work to attend my own wedding. Christine had to organize the whole wedding herself. Neither my father nor Christine’s mother attended the ceremony. It was a hard day for us. I didn’t have time to plan a

Brown et al., p.53156

see ‘Season Three Tell-All’. Sister Wives, TLC, June 24, 2012157

ibid.158

see ibid.159

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honeymoon. In fact, it didn’t even occur to me to plan one. No one told me that I should. When I wasn’t buried in my work, I was a Ping-Pong ball bouncing between two wives who always had their bristles up. Obviously, they weren’t interested in advising me on what I should do with Christine. After our wedding, Christine and I got in the car and drove to Montana. It was a tense trip, and I have to admit that I wasn’t my most cheerful self. Christine and I had gone from being buddies to being married. We hadn’t had time to get used to each other and I hadn’t prepared myself for the transition of adding a new wife to my family. 160

Christine was unpleasantly surprised by the demeanour of her groom on her

wedding day and the honeymoon did little to improve matters between the

newlyweds:

I was shaken when Kody showed up at our wedding with that look on his face. He was morose. I was even more devastated when I learned that he hadn’t planned a honeymoon. I was hoping that we’d finally have a romantic getaway, something special that told me how thrilled he was to have me in his family. I was young and naive. I had no idea how to tell Kody what I wanted from him. On our honeymoon—a drive through the sticks of Montana—I was struck by the realization that I didn’t know Kody very well. Once we got into the car, he still had the faraway look on his face that I’d seen at our wedding. He seemed distant and unreachable. I began to understand that he felt overwhelmed. However, I didn’t know how to talk to him about what he was feeling. I had no idea how to reach out to him. I just sat there in silence. Watching him drive with that look on his face made me unbearably sad. I realized that I had no idea how to express my feeling with him or ask him to share his with me. 161

While such an inauspicious beginning is unfortunate, it is hardly surprising, given

the brief long-distance courtship and the state of Kody’s family life at the time. The

relationship blossomed before long, but what is truly interesting is the way in which

Christine chooses to frame her honeymoon in Kody and Robyn’s honeymoon episode.

In this, she claims that she preferred not to have a plan, but rather to simply take a

Brown et al., p.62160

ibid.161

!57

road trip and describes her honeymoon as ‘perfect’, hardly in keeping with what 162

she writes in the book.

After a somewhat rocky start, Christine quickly became an important balancing

factor in the family, acting as a kind of mediator between Meri and Janelle, who had

been struggling to get along with each other since the beginning of Janelle’s marriage.

However, according to Christine herself, it was not until after the birth of their second

child that Christine and Kody’s relationship developed into the playful and romantic

stage they were at when the show began:

What really brought us together and made us more functional is that not long after we moved to Utah, Kody finally found a job he enjoyed. Kody’s new position required him to attend trade shows, one of which was in Nauvoo, Illinois. This trip would require him to be on the road for two weeks, towing his trailer with his materials and displays. Both Meri and Janelle had been on trips with Kody, but I’d never had the opportunity. When Kody asked me to go, I was over the moon. He could have taken anyone and he took me! I suddenly felt special again. This trip was a huge turning point in our relationship. It was the first time we had spent so much time alone together—just us and our daughters, Aspyn and Mykelti. In many ways the trip was a disaster—the car overheated, we had to keep the kids cool by feeding them ice chips. We broke down numerous times. But these hardships only brought Kody and me closer together. No matter how difficult things became, I was prepared to sing songs of joy the entire way. I loved every minute of the adventure at Kody’s side. Although our drive was similar to pulling a handcart through the desert, I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face. I think Kody really dug my positive attitude. Every time I glanced at him, he looked so cute and sweet. Instead of suffering in the heat, he was beaming. I had loved Kody since before we were married. I suspected that he had been falling in love with me for years. But on that trip is when Kody finally and irrefutably decided that he would step in front of a train for me—which is what he told me when we returned home. That trip was our true honeymoon experience. We had come so far since our “official honeymoon” when I worried

‘Honeymoon Special’162

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that I’d married too quickly to a seemingly distant man I loved but didn’t really know. Now I was certain that we were soul mates. 163

In the modern Western context of marriage for love being the norm, such a long

period between marriage and ‘falling in love’ seems unusual or even unhealthy.

However, when marriage is entered into after a chaste courtship, and at long-distance

no less, it is perhaps more understandable. Kody has said that the family entered into

plural marriage ‘by way of commandment’, but that he would do it all again for 164

love. While the goal of plural marriage is exaltation in the hereafter, this does not

mean that polygamists do not look for happiness in their mortal lives. While it is

unwise for a person - particularly a plural wife - to enter polygamy for romantic love

alone, many polygamists seem to seek it to some extent within their marriages.

One moment which made it clear how much influence Christine had on the

children of her sister wives is when Janelle’s daughter Maddie announces that she is

dating Kody’s late brother’s brother-in-law - i.e. her uncle by marriage - and that the

relationship is serious. She chooses to tell her parents privately, but included Christine

in the announcement. She explains that while she is close with Meri and Robyn,

Christine has had a particularly important role in her life and she wants her to be

among the first learn of her joyful news. Upon hearing what Maddie has to say,

Christine squeals and literally launches herself into Maddie’s arms in delight. 165

Christine mostly stayed home with the children, while Janelle worked full-time and

Meri sometimes worked and sometimes shared child-raising duties with Christine.

Christine’s role was not only that of ‘home mom’, but also of teacher to the 166

children for a long time, since the Browns chose to homeschool their children until

the move to Lehi, which was within relatively easy driving distance of the AUB

church school in Bluffdale.

Brown et al., p.143163

‘Season Three Tell All’164

see ‘A Judge Decides’165

‘Meet Kody & the Wives’166

!59

Christine has described the distribution of roles as ‘you bring home the bacon, I fry

it up in the pan’, and in this regard, her relationship with Janelle strongly resembles 167

that of a traditional husband-and-wife team. Janelle’s work provided the income

needed to keep the family afloat, whereas Christine kept the house and raised the

children. In some ways, these two sister wives could have formed the own little

family unit without much need for Kody or Meri.

Such was Christine’s life at the beginning of Sister Wives and she clearly showed

herself happy with her situation. Within a very short span of time, cracks started to

appear in Christine and Kody’s image of marital bliss. In episode 2 - ‘Courting a

Fourth Wife’, Kody leaves his wives, including a heavily pregnant Christine for a

weekend visit to his girlfriend Robyn, who lives about five hours away. Christine

tearfully expresses her sense of abandonment:

She lives far. She lives like five hours away and so […] there was a couple of times when I am like, you really can’t go, you can’t leave me. And you can’t leave your family. Here you are replacing your family with Robyn and her kids. And it was hard, and at the same point, I realised that it needed to happen, but it didn’t necessarily make it easier. 168

While Christine’s emotions are easy to empathise with for most people outside of

polygamy, they are not necessarily so for Kody, who expresses annoyance with both

her and Meri, who also struggles with the addition of the fourth wife. In the episode

‘1st Wife's 20th Anniversary’ Meri and Kody go for a fancy dinner to celebrate their

20th wedding anniversary and in an awkward exchange about Meri’s jealousy about

Robyn, she challenges Kody to put herself in her shoes and imagine her with multiple

lovers. Kody reacts with open disgust and describes the very idea as ‘grotesque’; he 169

seems appalled at the very notion and fails to see the irony of his reaction in view of

what he is asking his wives to do.

‘The Price of Polygamy’167

‘Courting a Fourth Wife’. Sister Wives, TLC, October 3, 2010168

'1st Wife's 20th Anniversary’169

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It should be noted that while this failure of Kody’s to ever consider the demands

his religion placed on his wives does not show him in a flattering light, it is

understood that within polygamy, men and women are required to grow in different

ways. Women have to learn to overcome their jealousy, while men have to learn to

govern fairly . In either case, spiritual growth is required, and faithful polygamists 170

see the pain that comes with it as part of the process. Meri compares entering plural

marriage to a woman deciding to have a baby, and being able to undergo pain and

discomfort for the sake of a greater good. Not only is this pain readily accepted as a 171

necessary evil, it is embraced as a religious duty, renouncing one’s own interests both

for the good of the family and to facilitate personal spiritual growth. Polygamist

women accept that their suffering is needed for them to reach exaltation and that they

are to overcome their natural human emotions to attain a higher spiritual state.

Polygamist husbands often state that they are troubled by their wives’ suffering and

conflict between the wives, but Dorothy Allred Solomon for one suspects that her

father Rulon rather enjoyed his wives fighting over him, while failing to realise how

damaging this could be to them. 172

The impact of Kody’s new marriage on Christine will be discussed in detail in the

next chapter. Let us move on briefly to the effect of the move to Las Vegas and the

ensuing physical distance between the constituent parts of the family on the marital

relationships within the family, and Kody and Christine’s marriage in particular.

When the Brown family was shown living in Las Vegas in 2011, Christine started

to complain openly about Kody neglecting her and her children. She mentions that

unlike the other wives and their children, Kody has not taken new family pictures

with her and her children . She says that she felt uncomfortable suggesting it in view 173

of their strained relationship. It did not seem to occur to anybody that it was unfair for

Christine’s children to suffer because she and Kody were struggling. Even though

everybody on the show acknowledged that there was a rift between the couple,

see ‘Episode 1’. Three Wives, One Husband, Channel Four. March 23, 2017.170

see ‘Sister Wives Honeymoon Special’171

see Solomon, p.44172

see ‘Polygamist Date Nights’. Sister Wives, TLC, May 20, 2012173

!61

nobody seemed to see that this estrangement from not only his wife, but six of his

children, could in any way compromise his ability to be a good father.

Early in 2012, Christine consulted Meri about her marriage crisis on camera,

presumably hoping for empathy from her sister wife, who had after all gone through

this process three times, every time a new wife had been added to the family. Instead,

Meri admonishes Christine to work on her own attitude and to ‘not put [her] problems

on Kody’. Christine then brings up the fact that contrary to the established tradition of

the family, Meri has not gone on a trip with Kody for either her birthday or their

anniversary in the past year, which Kody remedies later in the same episode. 174

While Christine is clearly looking for validation of her feelings, Meri, though

outwardly sympathetic, defends Kody’s behaviour throughout the conversation and

eventually manages to get Christine to say that she would work on herself.

This is in keeping with Lalich’s observations about punishment and sanctions

within high-demand groups. In this context, the family unit itself functions as such a

group. Christine - and by extension her children - was being punished by Kody - in

his role as charismatic ability - for her failure to cheerfully comply with the

worsening of her situation. In addition to this, she was being met with disapproval and

lack of sympathy by her fellow members - in this case her sister wives. Furthermore,

Christine publicly berated herself for her inability to live up to what was expected of

her. As Lalich succinctly puts it, ‘self-condemnation was everyday fare.’ 175

While living in Utah, the Browns functioned mostly as one family unit, while still

maintaining a degree of autonomy for each wife, something which the family had

tried to achieve since the beginning of their existence in plural marriage. Though it

was not apparent on the show, the family only lived in their house in Lehi for about

five years. In spite of this relatively short period, the ‘Lehi era’ became the 176

benchmark to which every new situation had to live up.

It is unclear how Kody actually divides his time between his wives and when the

system, whatever it may be, was established. In the very first episode, he says, ‘I

see ibid.174

Lalich, p.254175

see “Property Information.” Utah County Government176

!62

finally actually had to start keeping a record, you know, of where I’m at, just making

sure that everybody gets the same amount of time’. He also mentions that they go 177

through a rotation so he could spend time with every single wife. The family is also

shown eating and praying together and Kody stresses that he also wants to be able to

do a ‘bed check’, saying goodnight to each of his children once they are in bed. 178

In ‘Polygamy Pilgrimage into the Past’, Robyn mentions that she hates the word

‘rotate’ in regard to their marriages, and in ‘Defending Polygamy’, when asked how

Kody divides his time between the wives, one of them states that he rotates nights,

quickly followed by Robyn saying ‘but we don’t sweat it’. In view of his strained

relationship with Christine at the time, and the fact that both Meri and Kody have

made it clear that they do not currently ‘cohabitate’, this could be seen as an 179

indication that Kody essentially divides his time as he sees fit. In ‘Sister Wives

Separated’ Christine puts it to Kody that he waits until the last possible moment to

come to her house and leaves as soon as possible, which seems to imply that he at

least nominally sticks to the established schedule. In a Q and A episode, Kody stated

that he tries to spend more time with a wife who has recently had a baby, though 180

this was obviously not the case with Christine after the birth of Truely. Robyn moved

from St George into a rental house in Lehi during Christine’s pregnancy and married

Kody when Truely was a little over a month old. In the intervening time, Robyn and

Kody were not married, yet he still seems to have one out of every four nights at

Robyn’s house, though presumably not sleeping there, as the family were adamant 181

that purity rules applied and even the fact that Kody and Robyn had kissed prior to

their marriage was seen as something of a transgression.

The distance between the houses in Las Vegas made it harder for the family to

continue adjusting after a number of significant changes, viz. the addition of Robyn,

their new-found notoriety and the move to a new state and city. Christine states that

‘Meet Kody & the Wives’177

see ibid.178

see ‘The Truth Comes Out’179

see ‘You Asked, Browns Answered’. Sister Wives, TLC, May 27, 2012180

see ‘1st Wife's 20th Anniversary’181

!63

she liked having her own space, but that her children in particular struggle with the

distance. As will become clear in the following chapters, much of this was remedied

when the family moved into houses in the same cul-de-sac, even though it took some

considerable time.

!64

II.2. The Addition of a Fourth Wife and Marriage Crisis

II.2.i. Robyn Enters the Family

When Kody and Robyn became engaged in September of 2009 - an event recreated

for the show in a different setting - Christine was pregnant with what would be her 182

last child, Truely. While this may seem thoughtless of Kody at first sight, Christine

herself entered the marriage while Janelle was pregnant with her first child, Logan,

about sixteen years earlier, so in plural marriage, this type of situation is relatively

normal.

However, while Christine in principle - no pun intended - had no objection to the

addition of Robyn, she clearly took issue with the way in which the courtship

unfolded. In Becoming Sister Wives, Kody recounts:

When Christine and I got engaged, she told me she wouldn’t kiss me until we were at the altar. After we were married, she realized she had made a mistake and made me promise that if I married again, I’d kiss my next wife before we said our vows. So I took Robyn’s face in my hands and kissed her. 183

Apparently, Christine did not find out about this kiss until weeks after the fact and

she may have long forgotten that she ever made Kody give her that promise, because

she was very upset when she found out about the premarital kiss. She describes it as

‘devastating’. 184

In her book, Christine’s aunt Kristyn Decker describes similar emotions over

seeing her husband kiss his new fiancee, and being on the verge of a breakdown when

the newlyweds went on their honeymoon. In a harrowing section, she describes her

distress at hearing her husband and new wife have sex early in their marriage. This, 185

at least, has never been addressed on Sister Wives, since the wives even refrain from

kissing or hugging Kody in front of other wives. Brady Williams’ houses in Rocky 186

see ‘Courting a Fourth Wife’182

Brown et al., p.83183

‘Wives on the Move’. Sister Wives, TLC, October 3, 2010184

see Decker, loc.1779185

see ‘More Sister Wives’. Sister Wives, TLC, December 2, 2012186

!65

Ridge were set up to put maximum distance between the bedrooms of each of the

wives, so there is clearly some awareness of the problem of proximity between 187

bedrooms.

When Christine finally gives birth in ‘Third Wife in Labor’, there was a

particularly awkward moment when Kody leaves the labouring Christine in the

hospital and goes to Robyn’s house. While there, he receives a call from Christine

telling him that her water has broken and that he needs to hurry back. As Kody is

leaving, he and Robyn take the opportunity to share a surreptitious kiss, which is

nonetheless caught on camera. The pair are clearly embarrassed, but in an odd attempt

to diffuse the situation, Kody simply doubles down and openly kisses Robyn once

more. The audience never learns of Christine’s reaction to this open act of affection

with another wife when she was labouring to give Kody another child. 188

For the first time in her marriage, Christine realised that while she and Kody had a

fun relationship, he was not as romantic with her as he was with Robyn. She later

stated that because she had always been the last wife, she had never had to get used to

a new wife entering the family. 189

After Robyn moved from St George to Lehi in the run-up to the wedding, Kody

started to spend every fourth night with her, which seemed inappropriate to Christine,

who felt that a fiancee should not get the same amount of time as a wife. This was

presumably further exacerbated by the fact that Christine gave birth around this time

and was struggling with post-partum depression. 190

After Robyn’s marriage, the family started to settle into the ‘new normal’. While 191

the Browns were living in Utah, the major conflict in the family was shown as being

the decision of whether or not to leave the state to avoid the danger of arrest. When it

came to ordinary family activities, the wives were shown as getting along and being

see “PHOTOS TLC to Air My Five Wives Polygamy Special with Brady Williams and His 187

Family.” starcasm.net

see ‘Third Wife in Labor’188

see ‘The Four Lives of Kody Brown’. Sister Wives, TLC, October 9, 2011189

see ‘Sister Wives on the Strip’. Sister Wives, TLC, November 20, 2011190

see ‘Four Wives and Counting…’. Sister Wives, TLC, October 17, 2010191

!66

playful with each other, such as when painting each other’s faces for Halloween or 192

cooking for a party. After the family moved to Las Vegas and the police 193

investigation ceased to be a major factor, the show’s focus shifted to the way in which

the family was dealing with living in separate houses. Robyn’s pregnancy with

Solomon and the struggle of the children to adjust to live in a new city, as well as the

need for the adults to find jobs also became plot lines. This was the first time that

Christine having any issue with the addition of Robyn was really addressed. In ‘The

Four Lives of Kody Brown’ she complains that ‘Kody caters to Robyn, to Robyn’s

needs, to Robyn’s kids, to whatever Robyn needs’. It became apparent that 194

Christine was unhappy with the state of her marriage. She admitted that for the first

time in her marriage, she felt jealousy. There were arguments about the way in 195

which Kody divided his time. The show has at all times stated that there is a set

rotation in which Kody spends an equal number of nights with each wife - though it

would seem that at some point in 2015, Meri asked Kody to no longer stay at her

house, thus effectively removing herself from the schedule. On the other hand, in 196

the episode ‘Defending Polygamy’, when asked about time by the wife of Kody’s

high school friend Ken Grant, Robyn’s answer implies that the rotation ultimately

depends on Kody’s whims and desires, concluding with the somewhat cryptic

statement, ‘we don’t sweat it’. In this, she could only have been speaking of herself, at

the time considered to be the favoured wife by viewers, since Christine obviously did

‘sweat it’. She complained to Kody that he ‘come[s] over as late as possible and

leave[s] as early as possible’. 197

After the birth of Solomon, Kody freely admitted that he was spending more time

with Robyn to help her with the new baby, something which must have been hurtful

to Christine, whose youngest daughter Truely had been born only weeks before Kody

see ‘Carving into Polygamy’192

see ‘‘Polygamist Party’. Sister Wives, TLC, April 17, 2011193

‘The Four Lives of Kody Brown'194

see ibid.195

see ‘It’s Worse Than We Thought’196

‘Sister Wives Separated’. Sister Wives, TLC, May 13, 2012197

!67

and Robyn’s marriage. In an interview after the birth of Solomon, Kody stated that he

spends extra time with a wife after the birth of a baby , but based on Christine’s 198

complaints about time - one brief discussion took place before Kody and Robyn even

got married - imply that this may not have been the case after Truely’s birth, 199

particularly since Robyn was treated to an eleven-day honeymoon, an unusual

indulgence which upset even the unflappable Janelle. 200

Shortly before Robyn gave birth to Solomon, Christine revealed to the audience

that she had suffered from severe postpartum depression - or ‘baby blues’, to use 201

her euphemistic expression - after the birth of Truely and had been taking an anti-

depressant and an anti-anxiety drug. This did not seem to be news to her sister 202

wives. When Christine announced that she had managed to wean herself off the

medication to half her former dose, Janelle congratulated her. 203

Statistics reveal that Utah is amongst the top states in terms use of anti-depressants

in the U.S. a fact which has been - perhaps unfairly - blamed on the unrealistic

expectations Mormons have to live up to their religion’s expectation of perfection. 204

In this respect, Christine seems to have actually allowed herself some grace, stating

that after years of being heavily involved in the AUB church, as well as other

activities outside the home, after the birth of Truely, she was cutting back on those

things and instead focussing on her role as a mother. 205

In view of the mental health issues Christine admits to having experienced after the

birth of her last child, as well as the addition of another wife, it is doubly

understandable that she would need her husband more than ever at that time and that

having to share him with one more person would have hurt a great deal. Yet, none of

see ‘You Asked, Browns Answered’198

see ‘1st Wife's 20th Anniversary’199

see ‘Sister Wives Honeymoon Special’200

‘Sister Wives on the Strip’201

From the dialogue, it is not clear whether she was referring to two different drugs or one substance 202

treating both conditions.

see ‘Sister Wives on the Strip’203

see “Find Answers.” FairMormon204

see Brown et al., p.144205

!68

Christine’s sister wives or Kody showed her much sympathy during this struggle. As

Kody much later tells fellow polygamist Nathan Collier, he could not be responsible

for his wives’ emotions, and shows himself surprised when Collier tells him that he he

regards his wives’ emotional wellbeing as his responsibility as a husband. Kody

makes it clear that he was unwilling to do the same. 206

Christine also received scant support from her sister wives; Janelle offered no

particular words of encouragement on camera, though she did comment that friction

in any of the marriages affected the whole family, while Meri encouraged Christine 207

to work on herself.

With Robyn, the situation was doubly difficult, since her addition to the family was

the root cause of many of Christine’s problems. Robyn made a show of expressing her

hurt, paired with a degree of understanding for Christine’s position, even though

Christine would later admit that in her televised heart-to-heart conversation with

Robyn, she herself was not being honest about her feeling. 208

Given the inherent competitive nature of sister wife relationships, it must be hard

for women in plural marriage to fully trust their sister wives, since any revealed

vulnerability might conceivably be used against them to garner favour with the shared

husband. Even if no such intention exists, it is in the nature of this family structure

that fears of such betrayal would undermine open and honest relationships between

sister wives. This is illustrated by an episode in the Dargers’ book Love Times Three,

in which second wife Vicki suffered through a difficult post-partum experience and

found herself distrustful of her sister wife Alina, who had undergone similar struggles

herself:

Somehow, though, I just couldn’t connect with Alina during those difficult months. I went to St. George one weekend, and while I was gone she sent me text messages of encouragement and support, which only fueled my irrational anger. I didn’t think she understood what I was going through at all. Joe would

see ‘Courting Another Wife’. Sister Wives, TLC, January 18, 2015206

see ‘The Four Lives of Kody Brown’207

see ‘All About Christine’. Sister Wives, TLC, September 27, 2015208

!69

tell me how worried Alina was and how much she cared, and my unspoken reaction was Okay, so she’s now a saint in your eyes and I’m a devil. Great! 209

Even in Vicki’s recounting of the events, there is no doubt that Alina was only

trying to help her sister wife through a difficult time, yet even this effort was

interpreted by Vicki as an attempt to make herself look good and manipulate the

situation in her favour. This was not made easier by the fact that as Joe Darger points

out, his own trouble with Vicki in this phase coincided with a particularly happy

period in his marriage with Alina. 210

Another example of sister wives suspecting each other - rightly or wrongly - of

assuming that their sister wives are trying to manipulate situations by assuming a self-

sacrificing air can be found in Seeking Sister Wife in arguments concerning the

allocation of bedrooms and mattresses. Dorothy Allred Solomon refers to this as 211 212

one of the games the mothers played, each one trying to out-martyr the other.’ 213

The fan reaction to Robyn was overwhelmingly negative. Robyn herself is very

aware of this, as she explains in Becoming Sister Wives:

Sadly, during the first season, many of our fans cast me as a home wrecker out to destroy Meri, Janelle, and Christine’s happy family. I try not to dwell on the Internet commentary, but since I think it’s important to interact with our fans, I can’t entirely avoid it. There have been so many negative comments about me that it’s been difficult to shrug them off. People believe I have an ulterior motive—that I want Kody to myself and not because I love the family or my sister wives. People believe I’m manipulative and conniving. I usually place last in the “Favorite Sister Wife” poll. I know I should be stronger and not allow the opinions of our viewers to bother me. But so much of my marriage is tied up in the show, it’s impossible not to be aware of the feedback and the audience reactions. I’ve had to be very open with Tim, our producer, and tell him that in certain areas he has to tread lightly so as not to give America’s women another

Joe Darger et al. Love Times Three: Our True Story of a Polygamous Marriage. Harper Collins, 209

2011; loc.272,5

see ibid., loc.303,0210

see ‘Let the Seeking Begin’. Seeking Sister Wife. TLC. January 14, 2018.211

see ‘Three's Company or Three's Crowd?’. Seeking Sister Wife. TLC. January 28, 2018.212

Solomon, p.33213

!70

reason to hate me. If the audience dislikes me, then we’ve failed in our mission to convey the joys and the stability of our lifestyle. 214

It is of course impossible to really know how much the impression a reality

television ‘character’ makes on the small screen corresponds to the person’s nature in

real life.

Many viewers interpret Robyn as being a conniving and deceitful person who

compounds her behaviour by cloaking it under a veneer of sweetness and concern, in

other words, a classic ‘mean girl’. Some have tried to explain this as a survival 215

strategy in a culture where open displays of negative emotions can lead to a loss of

time and affection from a male figure, while back-stabbing might go unnoticed by the

patriarch. It is just such behaviour that characterises the fictional Nicki Henrickson in

Big Love, a character so steeped in this culture that she is essentially unable to be

honest, even when she tries. This kind of passive-aggressive behaviour has to be

regarded as a reasonable strategy for coping with the often arbitrarily changing

favouritism within a polygamist family.

It is certainly true that while Robyn is quick to cry on camera, she makes a point of

not publicly hashing out her conflicts with people, Kody in particular. In the episode

‘The Four Lives of Kody Brown’ she states that because of the limited time she has

with her husband, she focuses on him when he is around and does not bring up

negative topics, but instead attempts to create a ‘honeymoon experience’. Janelle 216

laughs that she finds this unrealistic, but it is Christine who is shown as struggling

with not bringing negativity into her interactions with Kody in the same episode,

which is one of the first to showcase a significant rift between Kody and Christine

that would continue for years.

Brown et al., p.255214

comment by ‘Anonymous October 4, 2011 at 9:37 PM' on Cynical Jinx. “UPDATE! Sister Wives 215

Season 3 Episode 2: Teen Sex Talk and Episode 3: 4 Houses 4 Relationships.” UPDATE! Sister Wives Season 3 Episode 2: Teen Sex Talk and Episode 3: 4 Houses 4 Relationships

see ‘The Four Lives of Kody Brown’216

!71

II.2.ii. Christine and Robyn

While Christine obviously wanted to like Robyn, she found her jealousy hard to

control and by showing it openly, she damaged her relationship with both Robyn and

Kody.

As Christine admitted, she had never known that she would be a jealous person,

and described herself as ‘the most secure person that I knew’ prior to Kody’s 217

courtship with Robyn. She also spoke about telling other women who would complain

to her about feeling jealous over a new wife, ‘you’re just choosing to be jealous’, 218

but not handling it very well when she was in the situation herself.

While Christine was openly resentful of what she perceived as preferential

treatment for Robyn, she refused to blame her new sister wife for it, saying ‘she’s

been phenomenal. She sees Kody and me struggling and it breaks her heart. So not a

lot of blame on Robyn’, but instead calling on Kody to divide his time more 219

equally.

One of Christine’s major complaints was that Kody was treating Robyn as his

favourite wife and giving her preferential treatment, while ignoring the rest of his

family. This was no doubt compounded by the fact that Kody showered Robyn with

attention during her pregnancy with Solomon, while he was courting Robyn during

Christine’s last pregnancy and was often gone overnight, as well as spending time

with Robyn - whom he was not yet married to - directly after Truely’s birth.

Considering the children were born about a year and a half apart, this discrepancy

could not have been lost on Christine.

After Solomon’s birth, Christine made an effort to reconcile with Robyn,

previously admitting that she had treated her unfairly, and as if she didn’t see her as a

wife of Kody, which ‘could have caused the family a lot of damage’. She also 220

expressed a worry that her children might have picked up on her behaviour and not

accepted Robyn as their mother because of it. In the episode ‘Brutal Honesty’,

‘Brutal Honesty’. Sister Wives, TLC, May 27, 2012217

‘Season Three Tell-All’218

‘The Four Lives of Kody Brown’219

‘Sisters’ Special Delivery’220

!72

Christine and Robyn go to lunch together and Christine apologises to Robyn for

treating her badly, admitting that for a while, she saw her as ‘the enemy’, while 221

now realising that she was not, and in fact had Christine’s best interest at heart.

One popular interpretation of Robyn’s motives is that she was after a legal

marriage and the ensuing security from the the beginning and that she convinced

Kody to pressure Meri into offering him a divorce. Once Robyn had achieved this

goal, she felt secure in her position and became more outspoken and less ‘sweet’,

since it would be harder for Kody to simply discard her. While there is no direct

evidence for this theory, it makes a degree of sense in the context of plural marriage

as practised by Mormon fundamentalists, where the legal wife is often in a superior

position to her sister wives who would find it difficult, if not impossible, to obtain any

financial support from their husband in the event of a separation.

It should be noted that while to ‘the world’, the position of legal wife seems like

the most important, in the religious context of plural marriage it is the first wife who

is the most important, since she has ‘“the right of Sarah” to reject or choose any

subsequent wives’. 222

Robyn became pregnant again soon after her legal marriage to Kody, something

which ignited rumours that she had denied Kody more children until she became his

legal wife. While Robyn had never said this on the show, she had previously said 223

that she would feel unable to have more children unless she had more help in her

business, My Sister Wife’s Closet. There is a question mark over Kody’s sexual 224

relations with his wives, based on the tenets of the AUB:

To the extent that it is practiced, the Law of Chastity keeps the fires of jealousy banked and also gives women some measure of choice about the use of their bodies. Since the purpose of the Principle of Plural Marriage is procreation, not

‘Brutal Honesty’221

see Solomon, p.39222

for these various rumours, see the thread ‘The Great Wife Swap of 2014: The Dark Wife Rises’ on 223

PRIMETIMER

see ‘Meri Drops a Bomb’224

!73

recreation, the Law of Chastity proscribes sexual relations when a woman is nursing, pregnant, menopausal - and when she doesn’t want to conceive. 225

In the episode ‘Baby Sister is Born’, Kody and the wives discuss that Robyn has

been more ‘mouthy’ with Kody during her latest pregnancy, and has seemed to 226

need him less, a segment intercut with scenes of Robyn being openly annoyed with

Kody and talking back to him, which she had always previously avoided. Kody put

this down to pregnancy hormones and claimed that by the time of the birth, their close

connection had been reestablished, even though Robyn was shown visibly annoyed

with Kody’s attempts as ‘coaching’ her during labour. 227

There was also a lot of chatter about Kody being annoyed that Robyn had put on

more weight during her pregnancy and not lost it afterwards, as well as visibly ageing,

which even led the interviewer in one of the Tell All-episodes asking Kody if it was

true that he had told Robyn that she could no longer be ‘sold’ as the ‘hot wife’,

something which they family strenuously denied. Around the same time, Christine 228

started to lose weight and seemed to become more comfortable and happier in her

relationship with Kody. This led to speculation that Christine had replaced Robyn as

the ‘favourite wife’. It was also conjectured that things had cooled between Kody and

Robyn, and that therefore Robyn did not resent Christine’s renewed playful and

romantic relationship with Kody. Whatever the reason might be, recent Seasons have

shown Kody being closer with Christine, and a genuine friendship between Christine

and Robyn.

The relationship between the women had made a turn somewhere along the line,

roughly around the time of Robyn’s legal marriage to Kody. The two women actually

place the change as having taken place while they were working on building a

cardboard boat together under the leadership of Kody, who was making unreasonable

demands. Christine confessed that she was shocked at how openly Robyn voiced her

discontent, without being met by rejection from Kody, something which she later

Solomon, pp.35225

‘Baby Sister is Born’. Sister Wives, TLC, June 5, 2016226

see ibid.227

see ‘Season Eleven Tell-All’. Sister Wives, TLC, January 22, 2017228

!74

brought up in couple’s therapy. However, it was also one of the first times that 229

Christine and Robyn were shown having fun together. A few Seasons later, the pair

are shown shopping for decorations and cookies for a celebration, something during

which Christine starts giggling insanely, and the fact that their relationship has 230

turned into a genuine friendship is acknowledged.

Christine’s eldest daughter Aspyn moved into Robyn’s house after a year of living

in an apartment with younger sister Mykelti, something which Christine admitted

initially upset her somewhat. A few episodes later, Robyn and Christine are 231

decorating Aspyn’s room to celebrate her election as President over Greek Life at

UNLV. They discuss that Aspyn is active in her sorority because she loves the close

friendships that it brings her, something that they experience in plural marriage. They

agree that Aspyn and the other girls just ‘want the perks but not the work’ of plural 232

marriage. Most outsiders would regard ‘the perks but not the work’ as simply wanting

the benefits of female friendship, but to Christine and Robyn, this kind of friendship

can apparently only exist within the bounds of plural marriage.

II.2.iii. Christine and Kody’s Marriage in Crisis

At Christmas 2011, as shown in the episode ‘Sister Wives Separated’, Kody and

Christine have a conversation about the holiday celebration and the gift Kody gave

Christine, a ring she had told him she wanted. Kody asks ‘So am I finally out of the

dog house?’, to which Christine replies, ‘Love, right now, really?’ She then tells 233

him that they need to work on their communication and should not be constantly on

their phones while together, to which Kody responds with a laughing ‘You’re

accusing me?’, causing Christine to backtrack and say ‘I mean both of us.’ Kody 234

continues to laugh and says ‘Ok, that works for me’, before kissing Christine on the

see ‘Robyn’s Big Announcement’. Sister Wives, TLC, October 18, 2015229

see ‘The Dress Doesn’t Fit’230

see ‘Pawn Shops and Polygamy Perks’231

see ‘Baby Sister Is Born’232

‘Sister Wives Separated’233

ibid.234

!75

forehead and leaving the room. The camera then focuses on Christine, who clearly

feels that she has not been heard. 235

Over the years, there were further incidents in which it became clear that the

relationship between Christine and Kody was rocky and that she was unable to

communicate her point to Kody in a way that allowed him to acknowledge and

validate her. In Season Five, the family travels to Montana to visit the polygamist

Collier family. On the way, the idea of stopping to see Kody’s high school friend Ken

Grant is brought up, which upsets Christine. Ken has previously appeared on the 236

show in the episode ‘Defending Polygamy’, making it clear that while he values

Kody’s friendship, he not only consideres his religious choices ‘crazy’ but also 237

dangerous, arguing that because Kody’s beliefs are so close to those of mainstream

Mormonism, he or other Mormons could easily be swayed by the arguments of the

AUB, thus losing their eternal salvation. Janelle mocks how insecure he seemed in his

own faith, while Christine is insulted by his description of the AUB as a ‘twist’ on 238

Mormonism.

Apparently, at some later juncture, Ken sent Kody a text message in which he

jokingly suggested that Kody should just divorce three of his wives and return to the

LDS Church. While most of Kody’s wives treated this as a joke, Christine was deeply

insulted and refused to have anything more to do with Ken. This inevitably led to

conflict on the trip, even though Ken turned out to not be available to meet. Viewers

expressed outrage on social media over the way Kody treated Christine in this

respect. He suggested that she might be hormonal - the term PMS was thrown 239

around a lot - and flat-out declared that when she was behaving like this, he would

simply walk away. Perhaps most tellingly, during a meeting of the adults, he declared

that he would need to have a private meeting with Christine to chastise her, ostensibly

saving her the embarrassment of being told off like a child in front of her sister wives,

see ibid.235

see ‘A Family Meltdown’. Sister Wives, TLC, January 11, 2015236

‘Defending Polygamy’. Sister Wives, TLC, October 16, 2011237

ibid.238

see Cynical Jinx. “Review: Sister Wives S08Ep02 ‘A Family Meltdown.’” Review: Sister Wives 239

S08Ep02 "A Family Meltdown"

!76

while also making sure that everybody was aware that this was in fact what he was

doing. The backlash over this incident - and the implication that women were 240

controlled by hormones and did not need to be taken seriously - was so strong that in

the following Tell All Special, Kody stated that he had seriously considered leaving

the show over it. 241

Another low point in Kody and Christine’s relationship came on a trip they took

for their 21st wedding anniversary. Many things made the trip odd, beginning with the

fact that family therapist Nancy Hunterton accompanied the couple. The destination

of the trip was Galveston, TX, a city chosen because it was the new home of the

family’s former therapist Pat Merkley. During the trip, Kody and Christine attended

several therapy sessions in different settings with both of their therapists. In one

instance, Nancy instructs the couple to work together to build a rock tower on the

beach that represented their relationship. Kody decides to build a house that

represents the whole family, while Christine wants to focus on their relationship as a

couple and perhaps as a smaller family with six children. Christine tries to argue, but

eventually gives in, and Kody gets his way. He later admits that he had steamrollered

over her, but also says ‘I’m not sorry for that’. In another session, Kody recounts 242

how upset has been at the addition of Robyn and how at one point she stated that she

‘hated plural marriage’, which according to Christine shut down the conversation 243

completely. It was clear that even after several years, the couple struggle to

communicate on this issue. Christine emphasises that she just needed to be loved and

in a much-replayed moment, Kody replies ‘honour the entire family and I will love

you’. Viewer reactions were predictably heated. 244 245

see ‘Courting Another Wife’240

see ‘Season Eight Tell-All’. Sister Wives, TLC, March 1, 2015241

‘Marriage Counseling Texas Style’. Sister Wives, TLC, September 27, 2015242

ibid.243

ibid.244

see Cynical Jinx. “Review Sister Wives S09Ep05: Marriage Counseling Texas Style.” Review Sister 245

Wives S09Ep05: Marriage Counseling Texas Style

!77

At some point, most likely between the adoption of Robyn’s children and the

revelation of Meri’s ‘emotional affair’, the relationship between Kody and 246

Christine improved drastically and in recent Seasons of the show, the pair are seen

having a loving and playful relationship, in which Christine seems more comfortable

disagreeing with Kody than she claims to have been hitherto. Strangely enough,

Christine eventually claimed that it was Robyn who saved her relationship with

Kody. In a therapy session with Nancy, Christine expresses that she has always felt 247

that in order to be loved by Kody, she has to go along with whatever he says or wants,

while Robyn argues with him without seeming to lose his affection. 248

It could be argued that while things were difficult between Robyn and Christine,

and Christine and Kody for a long time, Christine learned from Robyn’s ability to

contradict Kody and argue with him without being afraid of having his love

withdrawn from here. Certainly, recent seasons have seen Christine being flippant

with Kody, without any apparent ill effects on their relationship. Seen in this light, the

conflict resulting from the addition of Robyn could be argued to have made Kody and

Christine’s relationship stronger and more mature.

II.2.iv. Changing Friendships, Shifting Balance of Power

While the relationship between Robyn and Christine became closer, Meri began to

distance herself from the family at large and while she confessed her emotional affair

to Robyn before even speaking to Kody about it, their relationship no longer seems 249

as close as it once was, when Robyn first got married and Meri describes in

Becoming Sister Wives how with her, she has finally found the sister wife relationship

they had all been hoping for. When Meri wrote and repeated those words, Christine 250

admitted that a deep and genuine friendship between sister wives required a lot of

see Daily Mail Reporter. “Sister Wives' Meri Brown Admits She Was 'Catfished' in Fake Online 246

Affair.” Daily Mail Online

see ‘The Truth Comes Out’247

see’ Robyn’s Big Announcement’248

see ‘Catfishing Fallout’249

see Brown et al.,p.216250

!78

work and that she had not been putting in the amount of effort required herself. 251

Since then, much has changed; Robyn and Christine have became closer, while Meri

has continued to distance herself from the rest of the family. In a Talking Head-

segment in Season Nine, Meri is asked if she wanted to comment on the fact that

Christine and Robyn have become close friends, she declines to do so since it hurt her

too much. A conversation between Meri and Christine about six months after 252

Solomon’s birth becomes particularly interesting when viewed in conjunction with

another conversation years later. The stated purpose of Christine’s visit to Meri’s

house is to see if Meri, who had injured her knee skiing, needed any help. The 253

ensuing conversation takes place in Meri and Kody’s bedroom, a space which the

wives have previously described as more or less sacrosanct. Hanging beside the 254

door is Meri and Kody’s marriage certificate, something which the other wives do not

own to frame. Meri is reclining on her bed, while Christine is seated in a much lower

chair, reminiscent of a supplicant. When Christine complains of Kody’s emotional

distance from her, Meri encourages her to work on herself, rather than try to change

Kody. 255

In a particularly poignant moment, Christine comments on a new family picture of

Meri, Kody and Mariah. The dialogue implies that Kody has taken pictures with each

wife and her children, with the exception of Christine. It seems hard to not interpret

Christine’s various statements on the subject as the children of a disfavoured wife

suffering as much as their mother, whether the father intends this or not. Kody may

have been distancing himself from Christine to avoid confrontation, rather than as a

form of punishment for her open discontent with the change in her situation in the

family, but to their children, this would have made little difference. While the children

apparently voiced their sadness at not seeing Kody often, they did not seem to be 256

see ‘Picking Up the Pieces’251

see ‘Meri Moving?’. Sister Wives, TLC, January 7, 2018252

see ‘Polygamist Date Nights’253

see ‘4 Houses, 4 Relationships’. Sister Wives, TLC, October 2, 2011254

see ‘Polygamist Date Nights’255

see ‘The Four Lives of Kody Brown’256

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consciously aware of the fact that anything in particular was wrong between their

parents, something which the viewing of the finished show would eventually have to

make evident to them.

Particularly coupled with Kolleen Snow’s statement about being frightened of 257

her other mothers, as well as the largely glossed-over issues between Christine and

Meri regarding the way Meri would punish Christine’s children, the virtual

breakdown of Christine and Kody’s relationship after the move to Las Vegas makes it

evident that even in the best of circumstances, children are liable to suffer emotional

damage as a result of polygamy. Christine only touches upon the argument with Meri

in her section of Becoming Sister Wives:

About a year before I became pregnant with Truely, I had a devastating argument with Meri. For a while, I’d been feeling that she was too tough on my kids. While I understand that all children need discipline, I often felt that she went too far when it came to my children. It seemed to me that she was taking her frustrations out on my kids in particular. As a result of this, many of them were wary of her and were afraid to cross her accidentally. 258

Years later, in the Season Nine episode ‘Confronting Meri’, Christine calls Meri

over to her house to have a discussion about their relationship. While Christine is

obviously trying to be kind - using a soothing voice and offering hugs - it is clear how

much the power dynamic between the two women has shifted, no doubt due to the

relative status of their relationship with Kody. Christine and Kody’s relationship

seemed to be entering a new phase after years of struggle, while Kody had gone so far

as to tell a journalist that he and Meri were no longer ‘cohabitating’. He had also 259

made it clear in filmed therapy sessions that he was not interested in rekindling a

romantic relationship with his first wife and was instead striving for a polite and calm

way to coexist with her. 260

see ‘Sister Wives on the Ropes’. Sister Wives, TLC, September 15, 2013257

Brown et al., pp.144258

see ‘The Longest Labor’. Sister Wives, TLC, March 11, 2018259

see ‘Another Catfishing’. Sister Wives, TLC, January 1, 2017260

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Comparing the two conversations, even the venue of each and the way the two

women were positioned in the room made it evident that something had shifted. In the

earlier conversation, Christine was in Meri’s bedroom, sitting on a chair, positioning

her beneath Meri, before moving to the foot of the bed, while Meri - who had an

injured knee - sat up straight with her back against the carved headboard. In the

second conversation, Meri was called into what was usually referred to as Christine’s

‘library’, but was now dominated by a large oval conference table. Christine sat at the

head of the table, while Meri took a chair along one of the sides. In both situations, it

was clear that the person who ‘owned’ the space, whether literally or positionally, was

the one setting the tone and ultimately wielding the power in the conversation.

In conclusion, the relationships between sister wives are dynamic and ever-

changing, and made more complicated by the fact that while sister wives should strive

to be friends, they are also competing for the time, resources and ultimately love of

the same man, which makes it difficult to fully commit to a trusting relationship.

Thinking in terms of win-win rather than a zero-sum game is certainly helpful in this

respect, but it cannot be forgotten that some things, such as time, are finite and that

there will ultimately be winners and losers.

As long as a family stays together, the relationships within it are bound to remain

in flow. Over the course of Sister Wives, viewers have been able to follow Christine

and Kody’s marriage from a place of relative to happiness to abject crisis and back

again. Robyn entered the family with Meri as her best friend and at odds with

Christine. Since then, Meri has distanced herself from the family as a whole, while

Christine and Robyn have become best friends. Whether in plural marriage or

monogamy, it is only natural that relationships go through ups and downs, what

distinguishes polygamist relationships here is the number of adults involved as well as

the expectation that these relationships will continue after death.

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II.3. Money in the Brown Family Money is second most common reason for divorce even within monogamous 261

marriages, and given the complexity of a situation involving multiple adults and often

a large number of children, it can be of no surprise that financial considerations are a

persistent problem within polygamist families. This chapter outlines the financial

history and current situation of the Brown family, as well as the way in which

finances are divided across the family. Kody claims that one of the most difficult

aspects of polygamy was trying to achieve financial balance, stating ‘I can’t have

some of my children going to school in new shoes, and some of the children going

into school with holes in their shoes’. 262

In the Second Season-episode ‘The Price of Polygamy’, while not addressing how

the budget is precisely divided, the wives do address that they have to make their

children - for some reason, they seem to focus mostly on their daughters - understand

that they have a certain budget and cannot buy them something they want every single

month. Meri chimes in and jokingly says, ‘I have one child. She gets whatever she

wants whenever she wants it.’ The wives all laugh, before Kody inadvertently 263

reveals what is probably the truth of the situation by saying ‘I have to say, Mariah

doesn’t pester me nearly as much as the other kids.’ There seems to be a general 264

unawareness among the adults at this point that there is a fundamental disparity in the

way the family’s finances are divided.

All of Janelle’s and Christine’s children shared rooms - with the exception of

Christine’s only son Paedon, who by necessity has his own room - while Mariah had a

very large room all to herself. Within her portion of the Lehi house, Meri even had

space for a sewing room, while when Truely was born, the wives are shown

awkwardly rearranging furniture in Christine’s bedroom to make room for a crib. 265

At no point does anybody suggest that it might be a possibility to let some of

see “10 Most Common Reasons for Divorce.” Best Marriage Advice - Get Marriage Tips from 261

Experts

‘Meri, On Her Own…’. Sister Wives, TLC, January 20, 2019262

‘The Price of Polygamy’263

ibid.264

see ‘Courting a Fourth Wife’265

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Christine’s children move into Meri’s part of the house, which is particularly

interesting given that in another episode, Ysabel does just that, though there is every

indication that this was merely a ploy to create a plot for the episode in question.

It should be noted that while it is common for children to live in the home of their

biological mother - or in her section of a shared home, as the case may be - there are

exceptions to this. For instance, the Alldredge family of Seeking Sister Wife - fellow

AUB-members and friends of the Brown family - state that the children are not

divided by mothers, but rather by age and preference. 266

While there appear to have been times in Christine’s marriage that she worked at

least part-time, her primary role within the family has been that of stay-at-home-

mother and homeschool teacher. She has clearly stated that she prefers to stay at home

and has little desire to work. According to her, her financial contribution to the family

consists of canning, couponing, meal planning and the like. She considers this 267

enough of a contribution, which Janelle in particular found difficult in the beginning

of the marriage:

Christine joined the family only a few months before Logan was born. She and I had our differences, but nothing serious. At first, Christine came across as something of a little princess. I was baffled by the fact that Christine didn’t believe that she needed to work in order to contribute to the family. (It’s funny to say these things now, because over the years, Christine has morphed into the cornerstone of our household’s stability and has worked tirelessly for everyone.) Back then, however, she had little experience living apart from her parents, and was clueless about many practical things. Initially, this grated on me. 268

Ironically, over the years Janelle would come to rely on Christine’s home-making

and child-care skills to such an extent that the two women could almost be said to

constitute a complete family unit by themselves.

As the only ‘original’ wife who had lived alone prior to marrying Kody, Janelle

was more mature in her handling of finances and concerned about creating a steady

see ‘Let the Seeking Begin’266

see ‘The Price of Polygamy’267

Brown et al., p.119268

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stream of income for the family. Meri and Kody, on the other hand, freely admit that

they handled their finances more like teenagers than young adults during their early

days of marriage, though even with the benefit of hindsight, they seem to see little

wrong with their approach:

During that first year of marriage, we weren’t always the most responsible young adults. At one point, we both held jobs that didn’t really interest us. We needed to make a trip out of town to see his family in Wyoming, so we quit our jobs and decided to just get ones that we actually liked when we returned home. We loved spending time together more than anything, and before we had kids or other wives in the picture, we were able to live carefree. Maybe we were purely enjoying ourselves, or maybe we were taking our time figuring out what we wanted. I think it was healthy not to have rushed into anything, pretending that we were more mature and knowledgeable than we were. 269

Janelle frequently found herself frustrated by the carefree attitude of her new

spouses when she entered the family three years into the marriage:

Often Kody would take Meri with him when he worked out of state, which made me very resentful of her. I couldn’t just take off from work, as she seemed to be able to. But when Meri didn’t work, she didn’t get paid—I thought it was extremely flaky to blow off work for fun like that, especially when we were so broke. 270

Inevitably, conflicts arose within the family, even before the addition to Christine,

as to how money should be divided and how financial decisions should be made. As

the first wife, Meri was initially the one who had control over the bank account, as

she recounts in Becoming Sister Wives. As Janelle states in conversation with 271

visiting anthropology graduate students, ‘my marriage was saved when I got my own

checking account.’ 272

ibid., p.30269

ibid.., p.114270

ibid., p.170271

‘First a Verdict, Then a Lawyer’. Sister Wives, TLC, February 15, 2015272

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The way Meri portrays the solution the family eventually came to makes it sound

as if finances are divided equally between the spouses on a monthly basis, though

questions remain here, since statements such as Kody saying that Christine wanted

more grocery money in return for allowing his wrestling mats in her garage make it

sound like each wife gets an allowance from Kody. 273

The question of how fair it is for the finances to be divided between the adults

without reference to how many children have to be housed, clothed and fed from that

adult’s portion has scarcely been addressed on the show. Nor has the fact that Kody,

who nominally has either no home to take care of, or all of them, seems to get the

same amount of money as each of the wives. Vicki Darger also speaks of her

frustration of having to share her own income equally with the family while having to

justify every purchase she made, something which Janelle Brown would certainly be

able to empathise with. Such conflicts are common within polygamist families, 274

particularly when not all members of the family work outside the home.

One factor that further complicates the Brown family’s finances was the nature of

employment the adults pursued. While Janelle worked for the government, she was

the only spouse to bring in a regular full-time wage. In Utah, Meri was employed

part-time, and it was in the nature of Kody’s work that income could be unpredictable:

Most of his married life, Kody has been a salesman. As most people know, in this line of work, you can have very good months or very bad months. When he has months that are not so good, we all contribute to get the mortgage paid. On the other hand, when he has a good month and ends up with some unexpected cash in his wallet, we can either play catch-up from the bad months, or he has been known to use some of it for something fun, maybe a special trip with a wife and their kids. 275

What is implicit in the above paragraph is that the family seem to set little store by

saving a certain amount of money each month, preferring to spend money as they

make it, which may account for their repeated bankruptcies. Once again, Janelle

see ‘Boys Night Out’273

see Darger et al., loc.213,1274

Brown et al., p.170275

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appears to be the only wife who finds this approach problematic. Meri has frequently

made it clear that she feels entitled to her share of the family money and will spend it

on ‘nice things’ in accordance with her ‘more expensive taste’, while Christine 276

seems to give little thought to where money actually comes from. She described the

financial side of buying four new houses in Las Vegas as ‘just one part of it’. In 277

spite of the family’s precarious financial situation after the move from Utah - all of

the adults had lost their jobs by moving - she and Meri both felt that their emotional

need for a nice home outweighed the financial concern over the cost incurred. This

seemed to particularly grate on Janelle, who resented Meri renting a large house with

a pool for her and her one child, but Christine’s flippant statement, ‘There are 278

certain things that I want, and certain things that I deserve,’ also indicates a 279

disregard for the realities of a responsibly-conducted financial life. This attitude may

in part stem from the common belief among members of high-demand religions that

‘God will provide’, which is nowhere more prevalent than in the loosely connected

movements known as ‘the prosperity gospel’. While the Browns do not subscribe to

its tenets, they have at times used its vocabulary when discussing their beliefs about

finances. 280

For instance, it emerged - complete with papers - that each of the three original

wives had filed for bankruptcy at some point in their marriage and the related papers

made interesting reading indeed. First wife Meri - of whose inability to have more

than one child much was made on the show - included seven children in her joint

bankruptcy filing with Kody in 2005. The couple’s listed monthly expenses were 281

not only far above their stated income, but in addition, their charitable contributions -

most likely tithes to the AUB Church - exceeded what they claimed to spend on food

for a family of nine. In all three cases, most of the discharged debt was owed to credit

‘Leaving the Nest’. Sister Wives, TLC, June 24, 2012276

ibid.277

see ibid.278

‘Sister Wives in the City of Sin’279

see ‘Leaving the Nest’280

“BROWN FAMILY SISTER WIVES Bankruptcies Analysis.” Scribd281

!86

card companies. Between the three bankruptcies, the Browns avoided repaying over

$100,000 in debts. Furthermore, each family member seemed conspicuously devoid 282

of seizable assets at the time of their bankruptcy, which suggested that the Browns

were using a rotating system of running up debt and declaring bankruptcy as a

financial plan. While this practice is certainly deplorable, it is not actually criminal.

More remarkably, third wife Christine filed for bankruptcy in March 2010, months

after the filming for Sister Wives had begun. Her filing papers showed that she was on

government assistance, including food stamps, at the time. This was potentially 283

problematic. Had the Utah authorities really wished to prosecute the Browns for

crimes relating to polygamy - prosecutions for polygamy per se are so rare that even

David Kingston was not charged with it in 1999, but rather with incest - they would

have had everything they needed from the show alone. In the episode ‘The Price of

Polygamy’, Christine’s giant and well-stocked pantry is shown and Janelle proudly

declares that ‘everybody’s free to take from it’. While this may served to show the 284

family as being united, it is also illegal, since sharing food stamp provisions with

anybody other than listed members of the same household constitutes welfare fraud.

Interestingly, neither the media nor the prosecuting attorney seemed to notice. It bears

mentioning that when Warren Jeffs brother Lyle was prosecuted and imprisoned, it

was on charges of welfare fraud for just such a practice, albeit on a larger scale. It 285

is entirely conceivable that Christine was unaware that she was engaging in fraudulent

and illegal behaviour, but ignorance of the law is famously no defence. Most likely, at

least State employee Janelle would have been aware of the fact that their use of food

stamp money was criminal, which would account for her agitation prior to the move

and what appeared to be real fear of arrest.

Joe Darger argues that polygamist women and families have no choice but to walk

a fine line between truth and lies on official forms and requests for public assistance,

as the law in Utah would otherwise be able put them at risk of arrest:

ibid.282

ibid.283

‘The Price of Polygamy'284

see “Ex-Polygamous Sect Leader Lyle Jeffs Gets Nearly 5 Years in Fraud Case.” Azcentral, The 285

Republic

!87

The coalition also is helping government agencies understand the barriers our criminal status creates, how it pushes us underground and into difficult decisions, and why decriminalization would benefit the government and Fundamentalist Mormons who practice polygamy. Here’s an example from my own life. With most of our children, I was able to list myself as the father on their birth certificate applications. Changes to Utah law now require an unmarried father to file a paternity declaration before he can be listed on a birth certificate. I can assure you that I am not the only polygamist who has concerns about filing such paperwork with the government! As a result, my name is not listed on my daughter Tori’s birth certificate. Years ago, Utah Children wanted to make sure polygamous families had access to services designed to protect the health and well-being of children, such as the food stamp and low-income health insurance programs. I pointed out the difficulty plural families had trusting that the information they disclosed would not be shared with law enforcement agencies. I also pointed out the challenges plural families have filling out aid applications completely and honestly. For example, is it fraud to apply under the status “single mother” given that the state does not recognize polygamous unions? When listing members of one’s household, is the entire plural family counted? Does it make a difference if the plural family lives in one home or in separate residences? By the way, plural wives who are not legally married to their husbands may apply as single mothers for food stamps and government-funded children’s health insurance programs provided they fully disclose household income, including any support they receive from their children’s fathers. Those programs are available to assist children from fundamentalist families, just as they are children of unmarried moms or impoverished families in every state. But the point is, from health insurance applications to tax returns, Fundamentalist Mormons are often relegated to “none of the above” choices. 286

It should be noted at this point that while many polygamists are reliant on public

assistance, the AUB at least discourages this:

We try to encourage our people to take care of their own needs and to entirely avoid any reliance upon the government. Though there are some members of our faith who may have received government assistance, they are encouraged to become self-

Darger et al., loc. 416,0286

!88

sustaining as soon as possible. Our teachings are to be honorable in all our nancial dealings which includes full payment of all required taxes as well as avoiding debt. 287

It can be very difficult to feed a large polygamous family, with our without the help

of public assistance. While it might be more responsible for polygamists to decide to

limit the size of their families to fit their financial capacity, polygamists are liable to

feel that the demands of their religion to bring as many souls as possible into

righteous families outweigh such concerns. Unfortunately, such religious certainty

does not eliminate the need of children to be fed and there are distressing stories of

mothers and children being reduced to dumpster-diving to feed themselves. For 288

instance, in Escaping Polygamy, former members of the Kingston Clan talk about not

liking fruit and vegetables because those items were always rotten by the time they

got them. 289

One thing that was drawn to the public’s attention by the gossip magazines - and

eventually addressed on the show - were the details of the divorce of fourth wife

Robyn, who had previously been married to David Preston Jessop, a member of the

branch of the Jessop family in charge of the AUB community in Pinesdale, MT.

Robyn left the marriage with her three children and over $32,000 of debt, including

more than $1,000 owed to Victoria’s Secret, which seemed in stark contrast to the 290

very modest image the family projected. Years later, Robyn recounted that she had

married Jessop because she was pregnant with their first child, a revelation made in

front of all the Brown children during one of the family’s Sunday services. 291

With the move to Las Vegas in January 2011, the two gainfully employed adults in

the Brown family - Kody and Janelle - found themselves unemployed, leaving the

family dependent on their savings and income from their television show alone. TLC

has never made public how much participants in the network’s shows are paid, but

Utah/Arizona Attorney General's Offices, p.12287

see Solomon, p.182288

see ‘Melanie’. Escaping Polygamy. LMN. December 10, 2015.289

Hollywood Life Staff. “EXCLUSIVE! Inside 'Sister Wives' Divorce! Robyn REALLY Likes 290

Victoria's Secret!” Hollywood Life

see ‘Robyn’s Secret’291

!89

estimates range from wildly. Like many of their fellow reality TV ‘stars’, the Browns

have never referred to the financial recompense from their media presence on the

show itself, instead giving the impression that the family supports itself through their

various businesses. Soon after moving to Las Vegas, the Browns became involved in a

multi-level marketing venture by the name of LIV, something which is referred to on

Sister Wives only as ‘our network marketing business’ , though Kody discusses it in 292

somewhat misleading terms in Becoming Sister Wives: ‘[…] we were approached by

a company that asked our family to partner with them on Operation Detox, a business

and humanitarian project focusing on nutrition and addiction recovery.’ 293

The Browns were in need of all the money they could get. The rental houses they

lived in in Las Vegas were not next to each other and the family complained of losing

their ‘family culture’ leaving farther apart. Somehow, the Browns were able to obtain

financing for four separate newly-built homes in a suburban Las Vegas cul-de-sac.

The homes came with a standard four bedrooms and were priced at around $400,000

each. However, all the wives, including first wife Meri chose to go beyond the base 294

plan and added a fifth bedroom. In the case of Meri, mother of one teenager who left

the home for college in another state within half a year of moving in, this caused a

certain amount of conflict within the family. Meri herself was clear about not

particularly wanting the extra bedroom, what she did want was a wet bar in her

kitchen, a feature which was not available without adding the extra bedroom, hobby

room and pantry. 295

The controversy over the wet bar brought the distribution of financial resources

within the Brown family to light. Meri eventually decided that having the wet bar was

sufficient justification for getting the bigger house model, yet it was claimed that all

the wives would get an equal budget for their houses. When it came to choosing

options for the houses beyond the base plan, it transpired that Meri’s choices meant

that she had already exceeded her budget, leading Kody to ask her to eliminate

‘Leaving the Nest’292

Brown et al., p.236293

see Cynical Jinx. “What's Happening with Those Houses: Part Deux.” What's Happening with 294

Those Houses: Part Deux

see ‘Kody Begs for an Answer’. Sister Wives, TLC, November 25, 2012295

!90

optional extras such as French doors over sliding ones, which led to a fight and Meri

storming off. 296

This discussion also revealed that the family were not only financing the houses

themselves via a mortgage, but also things such as blinds and washer/dryers. Kody 297

justified this by saying he did not want to have to go and haul those appliances into

the houses himself, which seemed to disregard the fact that putting such items on a

mortgage would mean paying for them for thirty years or so.

Upon Meri’s return to the room - with Robyn for emotional support - it was

decided that Meri would have her French doors and the like, putting her almost

$5.000 over budget, something which she claimed, she would ‘pay for myself’. She 298

also reiterated that this money was not coming out of ‘anybody’s else budget or their

house budget’ and Janelle, who had been unable to stretch her budget to allow for a 299

cement slab at the back of her house, said ‘I was ok once I realised that I wouldn’t

have to give up anything that I wanted.’ 300

While Janelle’s decision to forego a cement patio may have simply been an

expression of her more cautious approach to finances, when choosing options with

Christine, Kody suggested that Christine should give the money left over in her

budget - she had cut several options to be able to afford stone cladding on the exterior

of her house - to Meri to help her afford her options. When she told him she did not

wish to do so, he tried to convince her by offering to ‘help pay for it’. Christine 301

stood her ground, though she admitted in a Talking Head that doing so made her feel

selfish, and in the face of the evidence, Kody later claimed to have merely been

joking. 302

At the time of writing, none of the five parents in the Brown family are employed

in a traditional job. They must draw a wage from TLC, though how much the

see ‘Hard to Say Goodbye’. Sister Wives, TLC, December 30, 2012296

see ibid.297

ibid.298

ibid.299

ibid.300

ibid.301

see ibid.302

!91

participants in reality television are paid is a closely guarded secret, with estimates

varying wildly. Robyn runs her online boutique, My Sister Wife’s Closet, where she

sells her jewellery designs, Janelle has a health coaching business named S.T.R.I.V.E.

with Janelle, which is the source of much mirth on internet forums, since Janelle

appears not to have lost any significant weight since the beginning of the show. Kody

has been sighted at gun shows and Season Ten mentions a business ‘selling 303

manufactured products to a distributor’. In the past, Kody has worked at a number 304

of jobs, from logging to selling space on roadside advertising boards - which was his

profession when the show started - and at one point, he owned a gun dealership called

‘Das Hundhaus’, which he presumably thought was German for ‘dog house’. Meri 305

owns Lizzie’s Heritage Inn in Parowan, UT, which is run by her mother Bonnie and

sells LuLaRo clothing online and at pop-up events. Recently, Christine has also 306

started selling LuLaRo, as have daughters Madison, Mykelti, and Mariah’s girlfriend

Audrey. LuLaRo is a Utah-based multi-level-marketing company (MLM), which has

been dogged by scandal and a number of lawsuits recently. It is not the first time 307

the Browns have been involved in an MLM, they even mention their work for LIV in

Becoming Sister Wives, though it is framed somewhat differently in Kody’s

description in the book; ‘we were approached by a company that asked our family to

partner with them on Operation Detox, a business and humanitarian project focusing

on nutrition and addiction recovery.’ LIV sells nutritional supplements using the 308

MLM approach, which has traditionally been popular with stay-at-home-mothers,

particularly Mormons, to the extent that it has been speculated that this is due to the

Mormon Plan of Salvation resembling the structure of MLMs. Be that as it may, it is

see Cynical Jinx. “SISTER WIVES Season Premiere! LIVE TWEET PARTY! for November 27th, 303

2016.” SISTER WIVES Season Premiere! LIVE TWEET PARTY! for November 27th, 2016, cynicaljinxwelcome.blogspot.com/2016/11/sister-wives-season-premiere-live-tweet.html.

‘Meri, On Her Own’304

see comment ‘Sadly AddictedJune 11, 2012 at 11:47 PM’ on Cynical Jinx. “Review S04 Ep07: 305

Brown Boys Do Vegas.” Review S04 Ep07: Brown Boys Do Vegas

see “Lularoe Meri Brown.” Facebook306

see Gaby Del Valle. “Popular MLM LuLaRoe Is Being Sued by Its Main Clothing Provider.” Vox 307

Brown et al., p.236308

!92

certainly true that MLMs are popular among Mormons and many of them are based in

Utah.

Overall, the financial situation of the Brown family has always been precarious,

though they seem to not have experienced the kind of poverty that is relatively

common in polygamy due to the size of families. Christine was able to fulfil her

dream of being a stay-at-home mother for most of her marriage, thus remaining more

sheltered from the outside world than she would have been as an active part of the

workforce. While this is clearly what Christine wanted for her life, it does throw up

the question of what she would do for a living if she ever decided to leave Kody and

her religion. She seems to have no formal training in any profession and very little

work experience. As a third wife whose children Kody may never have officially

acknowledged as his, she would find it almost impossible to obtain child support, let

alone alimony from him in the event of a separation. While the Browns have strongly

claimed that Kody would support any wives who wanted to leave, the fact remains

that we - and the wives - only have his word for this. While there has never been any

suggestion that money worries are a factor in Christine’s decision to stay in her

marriage through the crisis following the addition of Robyn, it should be noted that

for other women in polygamy, the fear of poverty and inability to feed their children

and themselves can be a reason to stay in a situation that makes them unhappy.

!93

II.4. Deliberate Ignorance and Isolation Polygamists often have the charge levelled at them that it is only ignorance that

keeps them within a restrictive and backwards lifestyle and belief system.

Organisations such as Centennial Park’s CPAC are at pains to be emphasise that

polygamist women are largely educated and able to make their own choices. At the 309

same time, most polygamists take steps to insulate themselves from the wider world

in some ways. Two of the ways in which this isolation has occurred or broken down

in the lives of the Brown family and Christine in particular is explored in this chapter,

namely educational choices and medical care. This chapter also takes into account

Christine’s innate optimistic nature and - for want of a better word - silliness.

II.4.i. Educational Choices

Kody Brown and his wives initially chose to homeschool their children, a task

mostly performed by Christine. When the family moved to Lehi, Utah, they were

within easy driving distance to the AUB’s church school in Bluffdale. Meri had

attended this school as a child and her mother had taught there. Most of the Brown

children were put into a public school until shortly before the beginning of Sister

Wives. In the first season, Meri’s daughter Mariah expressed her dissatisfaction with

the public school she and her siblings now attended and asked to return to her church

school. She was allowed to do in the next school year, though Kody in particular

expressed concern about the quality of education she was receiving there. He revealed

that most graduates had to get GEDs to be considered high school graduates . 310

Home schooling is a common practice among members of closed groups, as is the

setting up of private schools, thus controlling what children born into the group are

exposed to in terms of information and influence. This makes it possible for such

children to grow up with virtually no exposure to the outside world, which makes it

even harder for them to leave as adults.

see Centennial Park Action Committee. Polygamy: Common Questions and Misconceptions. self-309

published, date unknown

see ‘1st Wife's 20th Anniversary'310

!94

In the case of Meri’s daughter Mariah, exposure to secular education and the

teaching of critical thinking skills completely changed the young woman’s attitude

and eventually enabled her to admit her sexual orientation to herself and her family.

Unlike Meri, Robyn and Christine - both of whom had been raised in the AUB -

attended public schools. In spite, or maybe because of this, Christine was worried 311

about sending her children to public school, partly because of outside influences they

would be introduced to, but mostly because she feared they would be bullied for their

parents’ lifestyle. As she puts it, ‘when I was in school, I was ok, but my brothers and

sister were picked on and bullied. It wasn’t known that I was a polygamist, but it was

known that they were.’ No instances of the children being bullied at school are 312

mentioned, even in Utah, a state where polygamy is frowned upon. When the family

left for Nevada, all the children were shown to be distressed and many specifically

mentioned the pain of leaving their friends behind. Janelle’s second son Hunter was in

tears as he explained that since going to public school, he had made a lot of friends

and joined his school football team, a social network of which the move would

deprive him. 313

Much later in Las Vegas, the adults are shown attending a parent-teacher

conference, an event which the children’s school, Centennial High School, did not

allow to be filmed. Instead, the adults are shown going into another school and

meeting with a number of teachers who are willing to be filmed discussing their

students. The teachers in question are a Spanish teacher, a gym coach, a guidance

counsellor and a career coach of some sort. Most of them have good things to say

about the high schoolers, though Coach Alia mentions that Aspyn has been absent

from her class a number of times, which leads to a Talking Head-discussion about

allowing children to skip school, something which Christine is apparently more

relaxed about than Meri, whose daughter Mariah is in the same year as Aspyn. Meri

complains that Mariah frequently asks to be allowed to skip school and when she tells

her daughter that school is too important to skip, she counters that Christine allows

see ‘Polygamist Flash Mob’. Sister Wives, TLC, January 12, 2014311

‘Browns Out of Hiding’312

see ‘Sister Wives in Holiday Crisis’. Sister Wives, TLC, May 8, 2011313

!95

Aspyn to do so ‘all the time’. Meri’s answer is invariably, ‘I don’t care, I’m not

Christine.’ Christine jumps in to explain that she only allows Aspyn to miss school

because she is a good student with good grades, while she would not allow her son

Paedon to skip lessons, since his grades are too weak to justify it. While there is a 314

certain logic behind allowing a stronger-performing student to miss lessons when a

weaker one is not, the question remains why a parent would find it appropriate to

simply condone their children’s regularly not going to school in the first place.

Presumably, such a policy would instil the idea that school is an optional activity, or

something that is to be endured in the manner of a punishment.

II.4.ii. Medical Care

As is often pointed out in Sister Wives, polygamists are inclined to choose home

births, mainly for fear of scrutiny that might fall upon the family in a hospital. The

birth of Christine’s last child Truely was an exception in this regard. While viewers

have witnessed the birth of several children over the run of Sister Wives, to date

Truely’s is the only birth to take place in a hospital setting, something which Christine

was clearly nervous about.

The decision to forego a home birth was based on Christine’s age and prior

medical history. She had suffered a miscarriage the year before in which she

haemorrhaged and passed out. As Janelle points out, most midwives would not treat 315

a woman of thirty-seven who has suffered such a miscarriage, effectively making the

hospital the only safe option. Once in hospital, Christine declares herself pleasantly 316

shocked by the positive experience she is having, going so far as to question whether

she has made a mistake in having her previous children at home. She is given an 317

epidural, allowing her to experience the birth, but not feel any pain, which seems to

delight her.

see ‘Kody Begs for an Answer’314

see ‘Third Wife in Labor’315

see ibid.316

see ibid.317

!96

No matter how much the Browns may claim that it was fear of persecution or

discrimination that kept them from being delivered in hospital, the fact remains that

this cannot be the only deciding factor.

Christine’s paternal grandfather Rulon Allred was a naturopathic doctor with what

can only be described as dubious qualifications, based on the portrayal of his

education in Samuel Woolley Taylor’s I Have Six Wives:

In Los Angeles, Rulon Allred gravitated to the fringe of the medical profession, enrolling to the Electro Vibraglow Institute […] a colon-irrigating factory dedicated to the proposition that all human ailments originate in constipation. […] This was an impressive operation involving the use of a wonderful [fake] machine whose control panel bristled with knobs, levers, dials, and gauges, where light flashed, needles quivered, and bells rang. After two years of “study”, the student would receive a diploma and could call himself “doctor”, setting up business with one of the machines, which, patented by and manufactured exclusively for the Institute, sold for $ 824.89. 318

In spite of his lack of formal training, Allred was widely acknowledged to be

excellent at at least one thing: delivering mothers of their babies. It is estimated that

he attended upwards of 5.000 births in his career. In her book, his niece Kristyn 319

Decker describes the comfort of having him there during a difficult birth and the relief

of knowing that her unwell newborn was in safe hands. 320

What is interesting about the preference for home births is that Christine at one

point directly mentions that answering questions as to the identity of a baby’s father

were hard to answer, which further implies that Kody’s name may not appear on 321

the birth certificates of most of his children.

Truely was born mere weeks before Kody’s wedding to Robyn and from her

statements at the time, it is clear that Christine felt abandoned by Kody during this

time, since her pregnancy spanned most of the new wife’s courtship and engagement.

Samuel W. Taylor, quoted in Rmk-Ugraz. Untitled, rmk-ugraz.tumblr.com/post/185183421776/318

politicsrusprinciple-picture-rulon-allred-with.

see Solomon, p.257319

see Decker, loc.1569320

see ‘Baby Sister is Born’321

!97

While there was some debate between the wives as to how much of Kody’s time

Robyn was entitled to as a girlfriend and fiancee, Christine’s increased need for

support during her pregnancy and after Truely’s birth was not really addressed. Kody

did seem excited about the new baby, stroking and kissing Christine belly and

rejoicing in the fact that the unborn child seemed to be reacting to his presence. 322

When Truely was born, he nicknamed her ‘Scrumpy’ - as in ‘truly scrumptious’ - 323

and once even referred to her as ‘Grumpy Scrumpy’ when she was fussy. 324

Arguably, Robyn’s pregnancy with Solomon changed everything, particularly

when it is noted that Kody announced it with the words ‘in seven and a half months,

Truely won’t be the little one’. He could have phrased this better, perhaps by saying 325

that she would be a big sister, rather than by baldly stating that she would lose her

status as the family’s baby. From this point on, Kody seemed to pay little attention to

Truely, at least on camera, and coupled with Christine’s openly discussed postpartum

depression, it seems likely that the little girl may have suffered from some emotional

neglect. When Solomon was born, Kody’s full focus seemed to shift to him and while

he often carried his new son in his arms or on his shoulders - even when Solomon was

three years old and above - we never again saw him picking up Truely. In some 326

interactions after Solomon’s addition to the family, it seemed as if Truely was almost

unsure about who Kody was and certainly shy around him, once even saying ‘no

thank you, Daddy’ when he asked her for a hug. This contrasted sharply with her 327

reaction to him before the birth of her newest brother, when she was clapping and

seemed eager to hug him when he entered the room. 328

When Robyn was getting ready to give birth to her fourth child - her first with

Kody - she explained that she preferred to have a home birth, because she was

worried that in the hospital, ‘they’ll throw in pitocin, or an epidural, and sometimes

see ‘Meet Kody & the Wives’322

see ibid.323

‘Wife #3 Hits Sin City’324

‘The Announcement’ 325

see e.g. ‘Meri Catfished’. Sister Wives, TLC, November 15, 2015326

‘One More Woman in Kody’s Life’327

see ‘The Four Lives of Kody Brown’328

!98

you kind of miss the magic of the actual just regular birth that God sort of

designed’. She added that her body was built to give birth, that this was ‘what God 329

designed a woman’s body for’. There was an implicit superiority over women who 330

chose to have children in hospital or who opted for medical interventions such as

induction or pain relief - both of which Christine did in the case of Truely - being

expressed by Robyn. While it would be precipitous to read this a direct criticism of

her sister wife, it seems to express a cultural bias within the fundamentalist Mormon

community that is rarely so openly expressed on the show. More often, the preference

for home births is explained as being due to the illegality of polygamy, which further

underscores the narrative of persecution.

It is particularly revealing to watch Sister Wives in conjunction with My Five

Wives, which ran for two seasons on TLC, the same network as Sister Wives. Since

the Williams family were not members of the AUB, they were able to be more open

about the shortcomings of the group. Notably, when fifth wife Rhonda experienced a

health scare, she seemed conflicted about seeking medical advice. This was

particularly startling given her profession - medical assistant. When prompted by a 331

producer, she explains that her hesitation about medical intervention stems from her

upbringing within the AUB, where health matters are considered to be in the hands of

God. Rhonda recounts that her mother, when diagnosed with breast cancer herself,

defied the advice of doctors to immediately begin treatment and instead followed the

advice of religious leaders to ‘receive blessings and eat healthy’, which led to her 332

death soon after. Even though Rhonda herself chose to put her trust in the medical

establishment, the show also featured a laying-on of hands by the adults in the

family. 333

‘Sisters’ Special Delivery’329

ibid.330

’Pilot’. My Five Wives, TLC, September 26, 2013331

‘We’ll Be There For You’. My Five Wives, TLC, April 20, 2014332

The fact that all the adults, not just priesthood-holder Brady bestow a blessing on Rhonda 333

underscores their separation from their church.

!99

Knowing about the apparent distrust of conventional medicine within the AUB

could help explain some traumatic events shown on Sister Wives. In one episode, 334

Robyn and Christine weigh their youngest children and 14-month-old Truely weighs

in at 19lbs fully dressed, including shoes and a winter jacket. Meanwhile, three-

month-old Solomon weighs 16lbs. Christine laughs heartily about this and calls

Truely ‘petite’ . However, according to infant growth charts, the little girl was not 335

merely ‘petite’, she was dangerously small. In fact, her measurements put her on the

thick red line at the bottom of the chart, below which there are no more curves. 336

There was clearly something not right and any health professional would have noted

this, which strongly implies that the Browns never took their daughter to see a

paediatrician.

In the summer of 2013, Kody was left alone with the children for several days and

during this time, Truely fell ill. It took the family several days after the return of her 337

mother Christine to recognise that something was seriously wrong. Truely was taken

to hospital and diagnosed with acute kidney failure. According to Kody, a nurse told

them that, ‘normally, cases like this, we don’t expect them to leave’. Kody 338

recounting this in a Talking Head-segment - presumably recorded after Truely’s

recovery - causes Christine to burst into tears. It took several days of dialysis for

Truly to respond to treatment and her eventual recovery was treated on the show as

akin to a miracle. One particularly alarming element of Truely’s illness is that it

appears to have led to no further reflection on the part of her parents. Christine at one

point exclaims, ‘why didn’t I know this is such a serious thing?’, but there is no 339

indication of her trying to further her education on the topic of child health. Another

thing that is notable is that when the Browns were actively selling LIV, their family

website featured statements from each of the adults about the health benefits of the

‘Brutal Honesty’334

‘Brutal Honesty’335

“Growth Charts - Homepage.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 336

‘While the Wives Are Away…’. Sister Wives, TLC, January 19, 2014337

‘Browns in Crisis’. Sister Wives, TLC, January 26, 2014338

ibid.339

!100

products. In Christine’s section, she mentioned that the products helped Truely

‘poop’, as well as casually stating that the little girl was prone to throwing up due 340

to dehydration. Leaving aside the fact that vomiting is a cause, rather than a result of

dehydration, it is strange that an experienced mother would treat such a thing as a

matter of course rather than a serious medical concern in a toddler. While the Browns

claimed that Truely had become dehydrated as a result of not drinking enough while

suffering from the flu - in itself indicative of a level of neglect, since she was three 341

years old and too young to be responsible for her own fluid intake - remembering how

dangerously underweight she had been since she was a toddler makes it seem likely

that she may have suffered from some underlying and undiagnosed health condition

which led to her near-fatal illness.

Seen in isolation, what happened to Truely may appear to be merely stupid and

neglectful, but regarded in conjunction with other instances, such as Mykelti being

taken to see a chiropractor rather than a doctor for emergency care after falling from a

horse in ‘Free-Range Browns’, it seems likely that for whatever reason, the Browns

prefer to avoid seeking medical help for their children. In view of account of distrust

for the medical profession on the part of former AUB member Rhonda Williams and

the general reputation of the polygamist community for eschewing the medical

establishment, this alone would make it appear likely that the Browns would only

seek medical care in absolute emergencies. This is somewhat relativised by the fact

that in Season Nine, Christine’s daughter Ysabel is being treated by a doctor as well

as an alternative practitioner. By Season Ten, however, Kody expresses his 342

frustration with the medical establishment and states that he no longer wants to see

the orthopaedic surgeon, instead telling Ysabel to be more diligent in her exercises as

prescribed by the alternative practitioner. When there is no improvement in her

condition, he blames her failure to exercise every day, rather than accept the doctor’s

explanation that the exercises were futile. 343

“Choose Your Green Drink” Kody Brown Family LIV Online 340

see ‘Browns in Crisis’341

see ‘The Truth Comes Out’342

see ‘Meri, On Her Own’343

!101

Some years prior to the beginning of the show, Janelle’s daughter Madison needed

an emergency appendectomy. At the time, Kody had just started a new job and had

not yet the courage to put all his children on his medical insurance, which meant that

the operation was very expensive to the Browns and in their first Special with Natalie

Morales, it was stated that the Browns were still paying off the ensuing debt . The 344

fact that Janelle’s government job presumably came with medical benefits was never

addressed. It is possible that part of the Brown family’s reluctance to seek

conventional medical care stems from the high cost of health care in the United

States, though a rejection of evidence-based medicine is a common trait in closed

religious communities.

II.4.iii. ’Silliness’ and Optimism

In the first episode of Sister Wives, Christine is seen making breakfast for her

children and Kody. She slides a baking sheet of sliced bread into the oven and

explains that she refuses to use a toaster as ‘toasters kill more people than sharks’ . 345

While everybody in the family, including the children, make fun of Christine for this

rather silly belief - the point of the comparison is obviously that the odds of a shark

attack are extremely low, rather than to suggest that toasters are dangerous - she

persists, even when she burns two batches of toast in one morning. She also expresses

as distaste for microwaves, which she says shoot ‘harmful radiation’ into food. In 346

both these cases, she does so with a laugh, yet seems to be serious enough to act

according to her baseless beliefs, refusing to have either a toaster or a microwave in

her kitchen. In another episode, Christine tries to fry an egg on the pavement, as one

might be tempted to do on a particularly hot day in Las Vegas. However, Christine

does so by cracking the egg into a pan placed on the pavement, rather than on some

foil, as she is eventually convinced to try by her children. 347

see ‘Sister Wives Special’344

‘Meet Kody & the Wives’345

‘Wife #3 Hits Sin City’346

see 'July 4th Rebellion’347

!102

In the episode ‘Brutal Honesty’, Christine mentions in passing that she feels like

she’s ‘back in college’ while studying for her real estate exam. This phrasing rather 348

implies that Christine attended a higher educational institution at one point, though

she makes no mention of this anywhere else. In the same episode, Christine twice

shows her inability to do simple maths, once when she is unable to work out

Solomon’s weight, and when she reads from her real estate exercise book: ‘“The

current market value is $145,000 and it’s assessed at 40% of its current market value.”

It’s the terminology that’s killing me, not just the maths.’ The camera then briefly 349

focuses on Janelle trying to not look horrified at this inability to perform a simple

calculation, while Christine appears to genuinely not find anything embarrassing

about it, but seems exasperated at being expected to perform such a difficult task.

When Janelle and Christine take their real estate licensing exam later in the same

season, Janelle passes while Christine fails. She is later shown trying to study for 350

another attempt while also dealing with the needs and demands of her young children

and complaining that the move to separate houses in Las Vegas has fractured the

family and made it harder for sister wives to help each other with childcare.

Ironically, in one of the scenes of Christine trying to study while also wrangling

children, the child she is trying to send off to watch television while she studies is

Robyn’s daughter Breanna. While it is understandable to an extent that Christine’s 351

sister wives might not be able to help look after her children while she studies, it is

unclear why she would be expected to look after theirs in addition to her own while

preparing for an exam. Later in the same episode, ‘Confronting Failure’, Christine

announces that she has managed to pass her licensing exam on this attempt and

excitedly anticipates being able to make a significant financial contribution to the

family’s finances in the near future.

Early in the following Season, in the episode ‘Kody’s Wives’ Lives’, Janelle and

Christine are shown preparing for a meeting with Mona Riekki, the Browns’ real

‘Brutal Honesty’348

ibid.349

see ‘Meri’s Baby Decision’. Sister Wives, TLC, June 17, 2012350

see ‘Confronting Failure’351

!103

estate agent, for whom they are planning to work. The next day in their meeting,

Mona asks if they have read through everything in a document she had given them,

and reacts with incredulity when Christine tells her that she has not, because ‘after our

last meeting, I was extremely overwhelmed, thinking ‘how am I going to fit this all

in?’ I thought studying to do the test was time-consuming.’ Mona then informs her 352

that because of the upswing the Las Vegas real estate market, she herself has been so

busy that she has not had a single day off in six weeks. In her Talking Head segment,

Christine admits, ‘I have to be honest, I don’t remember a single thing Mona said

after that.’ Later that day, when Kody is at Christine’s house, she tells him that she 353

will not be able to work in real estate after all, since her children are too young and

she cannot possibly work on weekends and evenings. Kody agrees, since Christine is

not in a situation where another mother can take her children and the idea of Christine

working in real estate is apparently dropped without further discussion. This leads to

the inevitable question of how Christine could possibly have been unaware that estate

agents work predominantly at times when most people are off work and able to

dedicate themselves to house-hunting. Since at this point, the Browns have been

involved in trying to purchase their new houses for over a year, it would seem logical

for Christine to have taken the time to have a conversation with Mona or one of her

associates about the realities of their working lives. This is just one instance of

Christine blatantly failing to consider long-term consequences and plan ahead, instead

donning her rose-tinted glasses and hoping for the best.

This failure to understand arguments and to follow a logical path of thought may

be a contributing factor in Christine’s decision-making, in that her cognitive

limitations make her unable to choose rationally.

Christine reveals her ever-optimistic personality in her twitter handle

‘rosecolored6’, and makes no bones about the fact that she prefers to not think 354

about unpleasant matters. When guidance counsellor Dr Guido gave Mariah a video

called So You Want to Be a Doctor, which showed scenes of the stress and mental

ibid.352

ibid.353

account, Christine BrownVerified. “Christine Brown (@rosecolored6).” Twitter354

!104

anguish medical professionals often experience on a daily basis, Christine was

appalled why he would consider this suitable viewing for a soon-to-be high school

graduate considering a medical path. The idea that being prepared for harsh 355

realities seemed utterly foreign and even disturbing to her.

This failure to be able to engage with negative emotions and differing viewpoints,

as well as a reluctance to apply critical thinking, are common features in the LDS

Church. While education and intelligence are seen as gifts from God, the Church is

very clear about the fact that certain topics are not to be discussed or even thought

about, since doing so could only lead to unhappiness. Mormonism has a long history

of distrusting intellectuals, though not to the extent that charismatic branches of

Christianity do. Joseph Smith himself was not well-educated and his teachings and

prophecies were the result of divine inspiration rather than assiduous study of

scripture. Reading or engaging with material that may lead believers to question their

faith is discouraged, both in the LDS Church and fundamentalist churches such as the

AUB. There is also the common advice to LDS members to ‘put it on a shelf’, 356

when tackling with a difficult theological issue that they cannot make sense of. This

can apply to things as diverse as the teaching of polygamy in the afterlife, the

prohibition on the ordination of women or the location and nature of the planet Kolob.

Trying to explain such complex and contradictory questions in a religion that does

not have a professional priesthood can be difficult. The AUB church has produced a

small number of apologists, such as Drew Briney and Vance Allred, the latter of

whom has expressed remorse about his efforts to create convoluted explanations for

doctrines that plainly contradicted each other. His sister Dorothy has said that while 357

their father Rulon was no tyrannical prophet in the vein of Warren Jeffs, as their

children and followers, their reality was still shaped by how he saw and interpreted

the world.

see ‘Big Boy Panties’355

see Owner. “Put It On A Shelf.” Leaving The Mormons356

see ‘Episode 677: VANCE ALLRED – SON OF ASSASSINATED AUB POLYGAMIST 357

PROPHET RULON ALLRED’. Mormon Stories

!105

How could we, as children in such a setting, see the gap between idealism and day-to-day reality? How could we know concepts like ‘paranoia’ and ‘delusion’? Since we dared not trust the world, we trusted my father as surveyor and purveyor of truth, and the way he saw it was the way it was. He was the center of gravity from which balance was struck. He established our definition of ‘sane’. 358

While Rulon’s granddaughter Christine grew up sheltered within the AUB, in

recent years she has lived in a large city and away from her religious community. She

has spoken openly about being raised to be afraid of the outside world, and

particularly in early Seasons, her view of the outside world in general is evident, such

as when she referred to a Presbyterian pastor as a ‘shark’ in his own office. Since 359

then, she has clearly grown more comfortable and has even admitted that what she

was taught about the outside world may have limited in her ability to interact with it.

Solomon, p.24358

see ‘The Announcement’359

!106

II.5. Activism II.5.i. Principle Voices

Principle Voices is the largest and longest-standing organisation of polygamists

campaigning for the decriminalisation and legalisation of their lifestyle in the United

States and Utah in particular. The Brown family and Christine especially have been

involved with the organisation for many years and it was through Principle Voices that

the producers of Sister Wives first made contact with the family.

The mission of Principle Voices is:

• Facilitate communication between polygamous families/communities and government agencies and non-government organizations (NGO’s).

• Coordinate advocacy training for individuals and communities from the polygamous culture, helping them to participate effectively in political, legal and public discussions.

• Evaluate, compile and disseminate useful information affecting plural families, especially legal issues and public policies.

• Provide formal and informal presentations, training and education pertinent to the polygamous culture, and government agencies and non-government organizations.

• Encourage research, studies, literary and historical works of this culture. 360

The organisation was founded in 2000 by Anne Wilde, Mary Batchelor, Marianne

Watson and Linda Kelsch, and has members from all major polygamous groups apart

from the FLDS. In its infancy, it was in direct opposition to Tapestry Against

Polygamy, the organisation co-founded by Christine Brown’s mother. The

organisation and its principals are not immune from controversy, as evident from the

following entry about Wilde and Batchelor on the Sister Wives Blog in 2011, in which

it was pointed out that neither woman actually lived in a polygamous marriage and

that they had driven away any of their husband’s other wives. 361

http://www.principlevoices.org/360

Mister Sister. “‘Sister Wives’ Anne Wilde. Mary Batchelor, Principal Voices, Safety Net.” "Sister 361

Wives" Anne Wilde. Mary Batchelor, Principal Voices, Safety Net., sisterwivesblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/sister-wives-anne-wilde-mary-batchelor.html.

!107

Ironically Vicky Prunty, the co-founder of Tapestry, was Batchelor’s former sister

wife.

With the exception of the FLDS, the Kingston Group is perhaps most dogged by

scandal among the larger polygamist groups, many of them revolving around incest

and sexual abuse. While pro-polygamy activists deny any knowledge of such illegal

activities, Principle Voices has not spoken out against the Kingston Group or

distanced itself from it. Worryingly, given the predilection of the Kingston Group in

particular, members of Principle Voices have gone so far as to defend even practices

like incest as being protected under religious freedom laws. British journalist Sanjiv

Bhattacharya interacted with a number of polygamist groups for his book Secrets and

Wives: The Hidden World of Mormon Polygamy, and recounts with bemusement the

experience of speaking to Heidi Foster and two of her sister wives. Heidi and John

Daniel Kingston lost custody of two of their daughters - both now starring in

Escaping Polygamy - after a contentious child abuse trial. Daniel Kingston is also the

father of the young woman whose marriage to her uncle triggered another infamous

polygamy trial of the late 1990s. Yet when Bhattacharya spoke to Heidi Foster, she

and her sister wives failed to offer detailed answers about the affair and instead

framed their marriage to Daniel in terms of amusing mix-ups over missing socks. 362

While polygamists claim that they are outraged by any abuse in their communities,

there is a tendency of whataboutism when discussing the issue, as evidenced by the

following passage by Joe Darger:

Critics often claim that polygamy is inherently abusive. A more true statement would be to say that monogamy inherently breeds abuse. One example: in 2010 alone, seven women in my home state of Utah who were in monogamous dating, cohabiting, or married relationships were killed by their intimate partners. In more than 170 years of Mormon polygamy, I am unaware of any woman murdered by her husband. (I am speaking here only about polygamy among early Mormons and current Fundamentalist Mormons.) 363

Sanjiv Bhattacharya. Secrets and Wives: The Hidden World of Mormon Polygamy. Soft Skull Press, 362

2013 (Kindle edition), loc.319,1

Darger et al., loc.419,8363

!108

By the mid-2000s, Principle Voices had managed to make important contacts

within the Utah legislative and law enforcement communities. In 2005, the group

worked with the Utah Attorney General's Safety Net Committee (a coalition of

government agencies, social-service workers, activists and polygamists) to create the

Primer on Polygamy, officially known as The Primer - Helping Victims of Domestic

Violence and Child Abuse in Polygamous Communities. Utah Attorney General Mark

Shurtleff made it clear that he had no intention to prosecute anybody for polygamy

alone and many polygamist activists - including Christine Brown - attended the 2008

Utah Polygamy Summit together with Shurtleff.

By the time of the creation of the Primer in 2006, Christine had become involved

in Principle Voices and had publicly spoken in favour of plural marriage. Bubbly and

outgoing Christine made a likeable spokesperson, particularly when her natural

people skills were further honed by the organisation:

Principle Voices gave us extensive media training about how to field questions regarding abuse, sex, and our faith. We were taught how to skim the surface of the question, give a truthful answer without going into too much detail. I learned how to deflect questions from my faith and sex and turn the subject to my family. 364

In 2008, following the YFZ raid, Principle Voices spoke out against the actions of

the Texas authorities and vehemently denied that abuse was more prevalent in

polygamous communities than in society at large. In May 2008, when Christine took

part in a panel at the Polygamy Summit also attended by Utah Attorney General Mark

Shurtleff, who used the opportunity to reinforce his position of not prosecuting

polygamists unless there was evidence of other crimes. In September 2009, she 365

attended another event in the presence of Shurtleff and was interviewed for television:

Christine Brown, a plural wife and member of the Bluffdale-based Apostolic United Brethren, said she was not afraid to sit in the same room as Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff.

Brown et al., p.237364

“Polygamy Summit 2008”. YouTube365

!109

"It doesn't make me nervous at all because the attorney general, he specifically says as long as there are no child-bride marriages, as long as there's no child abuse, he's not going to prosecute," she told Fox 13 News. […] "So you want to be charged, in a way?" she was asked by Fox 13's Ben Winslow. "Bring it on," Brown replied. "Kind of. We need a test case. We need it decriminalized. People need to see that there are families out there that would be a good representation of the plural communities and we just live our lives like everybody else and that's the only law we break.” 366

At around the same time as Christine threw down this challenge, she was also

becoming even more familiar with TV cameras in her life. Principle Voices had been

approached by a reality television producer looking for a suitable family to showcase

in a new series.

Christine had appeared in televised segments about polygamy before, such as in

Dawn Porter’s exploration of polygamy, in which she stated that the raid in Texas put

polygamist families in fear. 367

On the whole, Principle Voices does not seek the legalisation as much as the

decriminalisation of polygamy. Some commentators have put an uncharitable

interpretation on this, arguing that the legalisation of plural marriage would be

undesirable to polygamists, since it would make fathers legally liable for child

support. While the Browns have never clearly said so and Christine has even

described Kody as a ‘good person to put your kids on paper with’, it seems likely that

Kody is not listed on most of his children’s birth certificates. Christine’s 2010

bankruptcy filing does not list child support, implying that she listed the father of her

children as ‘unknown’ or even made a up a fictional person by the last name Brown, a

practice known from the group that would later become the FLDS. In Lifting the Veil

of Polygamy, former polygamist Mary Mackert speaks of the pain of knowing that her

father would not claim her and that a fictional person sharing his last name was listed

as her father instead. 368

quoted in team, theHOPEorg.org volunteer. Polygamists Seek Decriminalization Of Their Lifestyle366

see ‘The Polygamist's Wife’. Dawn Porter. TLC. October 21, 2008.367

see Sacred Groves. “Lifting the Veil of Polygamy (2016).” YouTube 368

!110

It has been argued that if polygamy were all-out legalised and father were expected

to support all their children with all the wives to the same extent as monogamous men

are, polygamy as practised by Mormon fundamentalists would become financially

untenable for the families. There is an alleged practice within the FLDS in particular,

widely referred to as ‘Bleeding the Beast’, which means that while the sect does not

acknowledge the legitimacy of the American government, which they regard as

ungodly, the community accepts financial support from the very institutions they

despise, mainly in the form of food stamps and other support for the plural wives

filing as single mothers. This apparent discrepancy is explained a way as ‘Bleeding

the Beast’, ‘the Beast’ being the U.S. government, which is being ‘bled’ of money for

godly purposes and thus destabilised. The AUB have been adamant that they do not

engage in any such practices and do not encourage their members to seek government

help. In fact, at various points, members of the Brown family have outright said ‘not

every plural family commits welfare fraud’. The fact remains that based on 369

Christine’s bankruptcy papers, while ‘not every plural family’ does, the Browns

certainly have fraudulently claimed welfare benefits in the recent past.

While Principle Voices has an official policy of being against child abuse and

sexual abuse in any form, the reaction of people involved in the organisation to the

raid on the YFZ ranch showed that their preoccupation was with protecting polygamy

as a practice rather than those who might suffer in it. A petition, signed by hundreds

of polygamists, called for the release of the arrested members of the FLDS and the

return of the children who had been taken into care. 370

While the children taken from their parents included pregnant teens and the

supposedly distraught mothers robotically parroted the same few lines on television,

the signatories of the petition seemed unwilling to even entertain the possibility of

abuse taking place within the FLDS. The comments added by some signatories were

revealing, many choosing to compare the raid with the persecution of Jews in Nazi

Germany. Annie Rains from Centennial Park commented in all caps:

see ‘Browns Out of Hiding’369

“Sign Petition: Free the Innocent FLDS .” Petition 370

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YOU!! THE GOVERNOR,CPS, AND JUDGES, HOW IS GODS NAME CAN YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING THESE PEOPLE RIGHTLY BY RIPPING THOSE INNOCENT CHILDREN FROM THEIR MOTHERS, NOT LETTING THEM EVEN SAY GOODBY. TAKING THE GIRLS AND RAPING THEM TO SEE IF THEY HAD BEEN RAPED. YOU THINK THAT THE CHILDREN HAVE BEEN ABUSED SEXUALLY/PHYSICALLY/ETC BY THERE FAMILYS. THIS IS IS CHILD ABUSE IF I HAVE EVER SEEN IT!!!! THIS IS AN OUTRAGE AND TOTALY AGAINST THEIR CONSTITUTIOAL RIGHTS. I ONLY HOPE SOME OF YOU OUT THERE HAVE A CONSCIOUS AND A FEAR OF GOD!!! 371

Another signatory, Jed Darger from Herriman, UT had the following to add to his

signature:

Well I for one, totally disagree with all of this. I think a "better" judge shoul've [sic] been put on the case. She was wrong in what she did. Especially because they caught the stupid Obama lover who did it. It was and [sic] African from Colorado that picked up their accents on videos and information that she had. She was also wrong in her doings. And I ask you, what will become of them on judgement day? When God has no mercy for these two individuals in particular. There is no justifying what they did, it was wrong either way. See you in H#!!/purgatory Judge. 372

It should be noted that while some of the comments were more nuanced, the

reaction of the polygamist community at large was not one of outrage at the discovery

of the ‘temple bed’ or of the audio tapes of Warren Jeffs having sex with a twelve-

year-old, but outrage at the raid that led to those discoveries. Once the evidence of

Jeffs’ systemic sexual abuse of minors was presented at the trial, the pro-polygamy

activists were quick to state that they had had no idea and condemned such behaviour

unequivocally. At various points during Sister Wives, Christine has spoken of being raised in an

atmosphere of fear and sometimes outright paranoia with regard to outsiders. While

she never goes as far as to acknowledge that this was unwarranted and lay blame at

ibid.371

ibid.372

!112

the feet of the AUB, as the years have passed, she seems to have become more

conscious of the fact that a disservice was done to her.

Her natural openness continued to battle with her upbringing as she struggled to

relate to certain people, such as Ken Grant or any former polygamists, with the

exception her mother Annie, a case in which blood ultimately seems to have proved

thicker than water.

What makes the comparison between Christine and her mother interesting is that

they seem to have similar experiences in many ways, yet have come to very different

conclusions and convictions based on them. Both women have clearly suffered

heartbreak in plural marriage, though unlike Christine, Annie states that she was

hardly madly in love with her husband. Both struggled with their sister wives, but 373

found co-parenting to be something in which they could flourish. Eventually, Annie

came to the conclusion that she could no longer function in her family and her

religion and left, briefly becoming an anti-polygamy advocate. Christine, on the other

hand, even while experiencing pain and heartache, has continued to advocate in

favour of polygamy. One is left to wonder what it is that took these two women, so

closely related and so similar in many ways, down such different paths. It may have

been Christine’s deep love for Kody, or her strong religious conviction which have

kept her in polygamy when so many members of her family have left.

II.5.ii. Buhmann vs. Brown

In July 2011, Kody Brown and his wives filed a lawsuit against the County

Attorney of Utah County Jeffrey Buhman, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and

Gary Herbert, the governor of Utah, alleging that the cohabitation clause in Utah law

was unconstitutional. 374

Their lawyer was civil rights advocate Jonathan Turley, who presumably took their

case pro bono. The criminal case against the Browns was dropped on 1 June, 2012

and no charges were brought against them.

see ‘Another Woman in Kody’s Life’373

https://jonathanturley.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/brown-complaint.pdf374

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The Browns’ civil suit was heard in the US District Court for the District of Utah

and on 13 December, 2013, Judge Clark Waddoups decided in favour of the

Browns. It seemed that the Browns, and polygamists in general, had won the day. 375

Utah’s cohabitation clause was no more, polygamy was effectively decriminalised.

The State of Utah, however, appealed the ruling and on 11 April, 2016, the Tenth

Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Judge Waddoups ruling. Part of the reasoning 376

was that since the Browns had moved, their suit was essentially moot, as they were no

longer at danger of arrest.

In other words, things had returned to the status quo. In early 2017, the Utah

legislature passed HB99, which specifically prohibited cohabitation while

‘purporting’ to be married. The bill was later signed into law by Utah Governor

Herbert. While the original cohabitation-clause could technically be applied to

anybody living with more than one sexual partner, this new law is specifically

targeted at religious polygamists, who now face up to five years in prison for the

crime of purporting to be married.

The episode ‘Risking Arrest’ shows members of the Brown family returning to

Utah to take part in a march on the State Capitol. Christine in particular is emotional

at the prospect at returning to Utah for the event, breaking into tears in a family prayer

circle.

Her only son, Paedon, then eighteen, was one of the few adult children to refuse

participating in the march. Christine attempts to push him to come, but is told to desist

by Kody, who feels that giving their children a free choice is more important than

having the whole family there. In her Talking Head-segment, Christine says that the

emotional damage caused to Paedon is so real as to invalidate the Court’s ruling of

mootness.

The march on the Capitol was quite small, and there was a counter-demonstration

by anti-polygamy activists. What was remarkable about the march was the variety of

ways in which it was televised. The anti-polygamist demonstration was covered in

Escaping Polygamy and news media interviewed both sides and Three Wives, One

https://jonathanturley.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/brown-summary-judgment-decision.pdf375

https://jonathanturley.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/brown-judgment.pdf376

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Husband - a British documentary series focussing on the polygamist group at Rock

Creek Ranch - shows Enoch Foster and his wives attending the march and later

watching coverage of it on television, scoffing at the pronouncements of Christine’s

estranged aunt Kristyn Decker. Furthermore, among those present at the meeting on 377

the eve of the demonstration were Drew Briney and his third wife Angela, who would

shortly go on to star in TLC’s Seeking Sister Wife. In short, it was practically a full

house of TV polygamists.

The episode ‘Risking Arrest’ also features Kody speaking wistfully about the

consequences of living secretly, stating ‘I never excelled after becoming a

polygamist’. He goes on to lament how some of his plural wives in particular have 378

been unable to shine and fully take part in society due to the need for secrecy. At the

rally against HB99, Christine spoke on behalf of the Brown family, showing herself to

be a rousing public orator able to improvise. No matter how long-time viewers feel 379

about the internal dynamics of the Brown family, Christine has clearly functioned as

an effective communicator for her cause and will likely continue to do so. As the next

chapter will reveal, Christine is not the only activist woman in her family, though her

mother and aunt have taken positions quite different from hers.

In her activism, Christine shows herself to be a true believer, in Lalich’s words a

‘deployable agent’ for her group. Even while she suffered in her personal life due 380

to the demands of her religion, Christine’s commitment towards her group never truly

wavered.

see ‘Episode 4’. Three Wives, One Husband, Channel Four. April 13, 2017.377

see ‘Risking Arrest’378

see ibid.379

see Lalich, p.235380

!115

II.5. Dealing with Apostates As in many religions, fundamentalist Mormonism finds it difficult to deal with

apostates. If one’s church holds the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, as the AUB

believes, it is hard to accept that a loved one would ever turn their back on it. 381

Moreover, as Brady Williams points out, Mormon fundamentalists live in fear of

losing their own testimony and therefore tend to avoid contact with apostate family

and friends lest they themselves may be convinced to leave. 382

Within Christine Brown’s family, there have been several notable cases of

apostasy, such as the previously discussed one of her uncle Vance. While Vance

engaged in a protracted court battle with his former church and family over a piece of

real estate, two of his cousins have gone further and become anti-polygamist activists

following their departure from the AUB. One of them is Christine’s own mother, the

other her aunt Kristyn Decker. Both have appeared on Sister Wives, and the way in

which Christine interacted with them was notably different.

This chapter briefly recounts the trajectory of the lives of each of the women,

before moving on to Christine’s onscreen interaction with representatives of Holding

Out HELP and exploring the losses incurred by those who leave polygamy.

II.6.i. Ruth Ann LeBaron Allred Stevens

In 1999, a BBC documentary explored modern-day polygamy as practised by

fundamentalist Mormons. It begins with the case of Maryann Kingston, who at the 383

age of sixteen was forced to marry her uncle David Kingston. When she ran away

from her ‘husband’ several months later, her father John Daniel Kingston beat her

with a belt, stating that he would deal her one blow for every time she had disobeyed

him. Maryann escaped on foot and called the police from a petrol station. The ensuing

criminal investigation and trial thrust polygamy in Utah into the public light once

again and provided the jumping-off point for the BBC feature on it. In the further

course of the programme, various polygamists and former polygamists are

see ‘Episode 677: VANCE ALLRED – SON OF ASSASSINATED AUB POLYGAMIST 381

PROPHET RULON ALLRED’. Mormon Stories

see ‘An Extended Family RSVP’. My Five Wives, TLC, November 2, 2014382

‘Polygamy’. Inside Story, BBC. August 19, 1999.383

!116

interviewed, including Owen Allred, then the prophet of the AUB, who is shown

sitting next to one of his wives, who would only occasionally look up from her

knitting to acknowledge the camera. Allred appears to be a kindly old man who is

sincerely concerned with the emotional well-being of his wives.

Another interviewee is a woman identified as Ruth Stevens, a former polygamist.

On camera, she appears sad and traumatised, almost breaking into tears when

discussing her experiences in polygamy. She is also shown as being active in Tapestry

(against Polygamy), an advocacy group which attempts to curb the abuses within

polygamy. Ruth Stevens and Annie Allred are two names for the same person, and

what the BBC had captured was Christine’s mother at the height of her activism.

It was not until the second half of Sister Wives’s Fourth Season that Christine’s

mother appeared or was even discussed in detail. Annie had left both her husband and

religion when Christine was in her late teens, which would account for Christine

living with her ‘other mother’. The split between Rex Allred and Annie appear to

have been acrimonious, based on the fact that while Annie sewed her daughter’s

wedding dress, she refused to attend the small wedding reception hosted by her

former husband and his remaining wife.

In the course of Season Five of Sister Wives, Annie decides to move in with her

daughter Christine to help her to care for her children. The fact that this would

constantly put her and Kody in each other’s space is addressed in somewhat cryptic

terms before her move to Las Vegas, after which they are almost never shown

interacting.

Ruth Ann LeBaron’s biological father was Floren LeBaron, younger brother of the

infamous Ervil LeBaron, the renegade polygamist leader who ordered the murder

AUB prophet Rulon Allred. Her mother Anna Waltraut Waldhaus Mattern left Floren

and married Rulon’s brother Owen, who became the AUB’s prophet after his brother’s

death. Ruth Ann’s future husband was Rex Allred, son of Rulon, in order words her

first step-cousin. They married when Ruth Ann was seventeen years old. She was six

months pregnant when she graduated from high school.

!117

After eleven years of marriage, Rex took a second wife at the urging of his father -

or at least this is how Annie makes it sound in an interview - and while the two 384

women struggled to coexist as sister wives, Annie concedes that they were great at co-

mothering their children. Christine recollects that she thought her mothers were best

friends and that she was shocked to find that her mother looks back at this time as

very painful. When Christine was nineteen years old, Annie decided to leave her

husband and their faith, something which shocked Christine deeply.

Annie’s activism with a group opposed to polygamy drove a wedge between

mother and daughter, and for some time, Christine would not allow her mother to

have access to her children. According to Kody, it was his own mother who

remonstrated with him and Christine and convinced them to allow Annie back into

their lives in spite of their differing beliefs. Both Christine and Kody have stated that

their reluctance to engage with Annie during this time stemmed from a concern that

Annie would kidnap their children and claim to the authorities that they should be

removed from them due to their practice of polygamy.

In a Talking-Head-segment overlaid with newspaper headlines, Kody describes the

situation of the late 1990s in Utah as ‘a witch hunt’ and claims that the family

believed that Annie was at the head of the witch hunt. He also stresses that the

accusations were against people he personally knew and that they were false. 385

Tumblr blogger politicsrusprinciple dug deeper into the headlines visible in the

segment and uncovered that what Kody was referring to were cases of serious abuse,

which raises questions. Either TLC chose headlines that did not relate to what Kody

was talking about, or he was unwilling or unable to recognise abuse even when

proven in a court of law. Kody further claimed that this fear of Annie and the damage

she might mean to do them led the family to move from Utah back to Wyoming.

Eventually - as so often, timelines are almost impossible to reconstruct - Annie

disengaged from Tapestry, describing her co-founder as ‘angry’, while she herself had

see ‘One More Woman in Kody’s Life’384

see ibid.385

!118

only wanted to ‘bring organisations together’. She reconciled with Christine and 386

her family and seems supportive of their family and their lifestyle.

II.6.ii. Kristyn Decker

In ‘Sister Wives on the Ropes’, the Browns engage in a public panel debate with

several former polygamists at UNLV. The debate is chaired by Prof Jankowiak, who

has extensively researched modern-day Mormon fundamentalist polygamy. The

episode is his first appearance on the show, though in a later Season, two of his

graduate students go to observe the Browns for several days. This seemed to serve no

stated academic reason and did not result in any papers or formal published reports.

During the pre- and post-observational discussions, Prof Jankowiak makes a number

of statements which put his academic detachment into question, such as a when

warning a female grad student that she should expect to be propositioned or when he

encourages the students to find out which was the ‘love wife’ and which the ‘sex

wife’. The latter statement in particular was picked up by the Browns as proof that 387

even academics were prejudiced against them. In spite of such serious lapses on

camera, Prof. Jankowiak’s research on polygamy is in-depth and well-regarded.

Perhaps the way in which he conducts himself on reality television is a caution to

academics to avoid appearing on such entertainments.

Before the debate, Prof. Jankowiak asks the Browns if they wish to sit down with

the speakers on the opposing side in advance of meeting them on stage, something

which the Browns decline. At some point before the start of the debate, Christine uses

one of the ladies’ rooms in the UNLV facility. While she is in the lavatory, her aunt

Kristyn Decker and Kolleen Snow come to the door and find it locked, at which time

they quite naturally decide to wait outside for the - to them - unknown woman inside

to emerge. Christine, who can hear and apparently identify the voices from her

position in the lavatory, becomes frightened that her aunt has chosen this unusual

ibid.386

‘Anthropologists Move In’. Sister Wives, TLC, January 25, 2015387

!119

venue to confront her and refuses to leave the ladies’ room, necessitating Meri and

Robyn to join her and flank her as she walks out without acknowledging her aunt. 388

The debate quickly turns acrimonious, though the way in which the show is edited

made it impossible for viewers to judge how events actually unfold. In one

particularly unpleasant moment, Robyn snaps at another participant, ‘don’t make me a

victim, sweetie!’ After the broadcast, both sides expressed their displeasure with their

portrayal on the show. Former polygamist Kolleen Snow recorded a video statement

for the site The Sister Wives Blog. In her video, she is particularly critical of wives

Robyn and Christine, describing the latter as a ‘typical polygamist mother’, who is 389

willing to ignore all the suffering going on around her to justify staying in a lifestyle

that she feels is religiously mandated.

After the debate, Kristyn Decker asks if the Browns would be interested in going

for dinner, something which Christine declines with an uncomfortable smile. ‘Sister

Wives on the Ropes’ showed Christine almost frightened of engaging with her

apostate aunt, whose departure from the religion she seemed to take as a personal

insult. As she put it, ‘I’m giving her the platform to talk about why she hates my

family so much’, a statement which makes it clear that Christine had obviously not 390

read her aunt’s book, Fifty Years in Polygamy: Big Secrets and Little White Lies. In

the book, which makes for distressing reading, even by the standards of ex-

polygamist memoirs. Decker speaks of sexual abuse from childhood, including at the

hand of a half-brother - something about which she never confided to her parents - as

well as her struggles in her marriage once her husband married another wife. She also

addresses her relationship with her father Owen Allred and his predecessor in the role

of prophet of the AUB, Owen’s brother Rulon. In one touching episode, she describes

the birth of one of her children, who had ingested meconium during the birth and

stopped breathing while Decker was asleep after an exhausting labour and delivery.

She describes waking to find Rulon resuscitating the infant and turning to tell her not

see ‘Sister Wives on the Ropes’388

Mister Sister. “KoKo's View after Watching the UNLV Panel Episode. ‘Sister Wives’ - ‘Kollene 389

Snow.’” KoKo's View after Watching the UNLV Panel Episode. "Sister Wives" - "Kollene Snow"

‘Sister Wives on the Ropes’390

!120

to worry about her baby, which gave her a sense of safety. Her despair and outrage 391

at ‘Uncle Rulon’s’ murder on the orders of Ervil LeBaron could not be clearer:

Many people in our group felt there would be no justice for the assassination. We were also angry about the hype from reporters, who continued to publicize over and over again that Dr. Allred’s death was the result of “rival polygamists” fighting over power. There was never a dispute between Rulon Allred and Ervil LeBaron over authority. We had nothing to fight about. Our leaders weren’t trying to make Ervil’s clan follow our regime. Our leaders were hardly protecting themselves, let alone planning to retaliate or fight for power. All they wanted was to be safe and live in peace. The murder was about Ervil’s power-hungry insanity. Uncle Rulon was one of the most gentle, caring, nonaggressive men anyone ever knew. He was a victim, not a rival. 392

In another incident, she describes coming upon her own father one night and

finding him in tears as he was reading the details of sexual abuse within his own

church. It should be mentioned that in an interview with ‘Mormon Stories’, Rulon

Allred’s son Vance recounts an AUB member approaching him with a story of sexual

abuse, which he brought to Owen, who merely expressed his exasperation that the

problem was so widespread within the AUB. While Kristyn Decker was touched by

her father’s emotional distress at the stories of sexual abuse, her cousin Vance was

disgusted by Owen’s failure to deal with the problem effectively. Decker does 393

address the jealousy experienced by her father’s wives, yet she never speaks of most

of her family members with anything less than fondness. Based on the book alone,

Christine’s accusation that her aunt ‘hates [the] family’ seems unfounded. Even

though she found plural marriage difficult and ultimately abusive and unsustainable,

in her book, she speaks of her love for her husband and even her sister wife. At one

point, she had a relationship with her husband that was essentially akin to an affair

within their own plural marriage and during which her husband offered to leave his

Decker, loc. 1569391

ibid., loc. 1664392

‘Episode 676: VANCE ALLRED – SON OF ASSASSINATED AUB POLYGAMIST PROPHET 393

RULON ALLRED’. Mormon Stories

!121

other wife, something which Decker declined as being unfair to her sister wife and a

betrayal of the promises they had made.

One interesting question is what exactly differentiates Kristyn Decker and

Christine’s mother Annie in Christine’s view. Both women left polygamy after many

years of living in plural marriages, both publicly denounced their former religion and

referred to it as abusive, and both became involved in anti-polygamy activism. At the

same time, they both seem reasonably supportive and loving with regard to their

families, though Kristyn Decker’s comment about wanting to kidnap Christine was a

rather unhelpful one. Given the similarities between the two women, who are step-394

sisters, it seems odd that Christine would embrace one to the extent of inviting her to

live in her house, in spite of Annie’s continued disavowal of polygamy, while hiding

in a toilet when confronted with the other. It might simply be that even as an adult, it

is harder to hold a grudge against one’s mother than a mere aunt.

II.6.iii. Holding Out HELP

In the episode ‘Polygamists Cults’, Janelle’s children Logan and Madison, as well

as Christine’s daughter Aspyn are shown going to Utah to work with Holding Out

HELP for a weekend. Holding Out HELP’s mission is described thus on the

organisation’s website: ‘Holding Out HELP provides those who come from a

polygamous culture the resources needed to transition from isolation to

independence.’ This mission can obviously be carried out in a number of ways, and

Christine in particular was sceptical about letting the children go there, even implying

that she feared that Aspyn might be taken away from her.

In Utah, the Brown children meet teens their own ages who have escaped from

various polygamous groups, though none from the AUB. The stories they hear move

Madison to tears, though all three Brown children express the conviction that the

abuses the former polygamists have experienced are not the result of polygamy per

se, but the way in which it is practised in their groups, i.e. the FLDS and the Kingston

group. After a weekend spent getting a safe house ready for a family escaping from

the FLDS, the Browns invite their new friends to visit them in Las Vegas to see a

see ‘Sister Wives on the Ropes’394

!122

functional plural family. One young woman, Kolleen Snow, one of the daughters of

John Daniel Kingston, is particularly vocal about her disdain for polygamy, but even

she consents to visit the Browns in Las Vegas. Of the ex-polygamists the Brown teens

encountered, the show centres on Kolleen above the others and she would later appear

again in the episode ‘Sister Wives on the Ropes’.

Kolleen and the other young ex-polygamists recount some harrowing stories of

growing up to the Brown family and their reaction is one of shock and sympathy. A

clip of Christine tearfully saying ‘I didn’t know men could be such bastards’ was 395

used several time in continuity announcements, and Janelle describes Kolleen in

particular as ‘a superhero’. 396

At the same time, the Browns are eager to point out that none of the teens came

from their own church and that polygamy itself was not at the root of the abuse and

neglect they had experienced.

Some of the leaders of Holding Out HELP have accompanied their charges to Utah

and while the teens go out together, they converse with the Brown adults. Christine

confesses to Tanya that she had been apprehensive about meeting her, based on

‘certain things she had heard’ about her, which leads Tanya to retort with a coy ‘little

old me?’ Tanya and her colleague clarify that their mission is not limited to helping 397

people leave their communities.

What is interesting about the interaction with Holding Out HELP is the extent to

which Christine seems threatened by meeting people who have had bad experiences

in polygamy and even more so those who have helped them leave the lifestyle. As she

says in a later episode, ‘what if, when I went through my hard times, what if I’d gone

to somebody and they’d helped me to leave my family? We have a beautiful family

and it’s the most important thing.’

‘Polygamist Cults’. Sister Wives, TLC, December 9, 2012395

ibid.396

ibid.397

!123

II.6.iv. The Cost of Apostasy

In a way, Christine’s reluctance to interact with people who are critical of her

lifestyle mirrors Ken Grant’s concern that fundamentalists might lure mainstream

Mormons away from the LDS Church by using their own beliefs against them. 398

Both those positions imply a deeply-held insecurity in the ability to defend one’s

theological stance. For Christine, Holding Out HELP - and organisations like it - seem

to constitute almost a forbidden temptation she cannot trust herself with. It seems

unusual for a grown woman with a strong conviction in her lifestyle to fear contact

with an organisation offering her a safe way out of her lifestyle in case they were to

tempt her to leave her faith and family, but in the context of personal closure of the

true believer, needing to establish boundaries with anybody who might conceivably

challenge the group’s beliefs makes sense. For most people born in a high-demand

group, there is too much to lose and not enough to gain to make leaving a palatable

choice.

Things are different for some women - first wives - whose husbands decide to lead

their families into polygamy reluctantly follow, even if it is in spite of their better

judgement. One such wife is April Briney, who met and married her husband Drew

while studying at BYU and when he brought up the matter of a second wife eight

years into their marriage, resisted for a year, but ultimately acquiesced. On Seeking 399

Sister Wife, April never seems entirely at ease with plural marriage, and she left the

family with her children after filming the first season. What ensued was a social

media fracas, in which her former sister wives accused her of being mentally unstable

and taunted her with a photograph of her holding a sign saying ‘I’m a Wife, not a

Victim’:

We have heard through mutual friends and acquaintances some of the accusations that April is making, which are not only false, but sad to hear. The lifestyle and family she defended so fervently in the past of her own free will and choice, she now claims victim of. We’ll leave it at that.

see ‘Defending Polygamy’398

see ‘Let the Seeking Begin’399

!124

Though she clearly has caused so much pain for our family, we wish her the best and are hopeful she will find the healing she needs. We know that the mentally stable April would not have done the things that she’s done. 400

Meanwhile, April accused the family of withholding her possessions and

impersonating her in an apology for her behaviour published on the family’s

website. A balanced view would probably be that April had spent her time in plural 401

marriage being ‘miserably happy’, to use Kristyn Decker’s phrase.

Whatever the truth of this particular situation might be, it certainly demonstrates

that there can be a fine line between and activist and an apostate, which is

unsurprising, considering that even pro-polygamy activists frequently point out that

their chosen lifestyle is a difficult one. As Lalich points out, the willingness to deal

with such difficulty is part of what separates the true believer from the apostate and

ultimately leaves both feeling justified in their decision:

[P]ersonal freedom (e.g., salvation), as aspired to by each participant, could be gained

only through self-renunciation (transformation) of the highest order. The charismatic

commitment of each individual was stretched to mold the adherent into a deployable agent, or true believer. This was not achieved for every member of the group, however. For some, commitment was not that strong; they doubted major aspects of the belief system; they failed tests and either left or were ejected from the group; they did not have enough faith or lost faith in the leader - for one reason or another, they were not ready to take that leap. 402

Like April, Christine has been an outspoken advocate of polygamy, while at times

suffering in it. Unlike April, Christine was born into the AUB and had no family and

social network within the LDS Church to fall back on. While April has been

welcomed back by her extended family and perhaps even by her original Church,

Christine would lose most of her extended family - even if apostates are not ‘shunned’

Angela Briney. “Why the Brineys Are Not Returning for Season 2 of TLCs Seeking Sister 400

Wife.” The Briney Family

April Briney. “April's Apology Regarding Season 1 - Updated.” The Briney Family401

Lalich, p.255402

!125

per se, the experience of the Williams family shows that relationships suffer when

people leave the AUB - and would most likely find herself spiritually adrift.

Indeed, former polygamists born into the lifestyle often find themselves having to

make a very dramatic spiritual choice in the process of rejecting their old lifestyle; for

instance both Mary Mackert and Doris Hanson describe consciously choosing to go to

hell rather than remain in polygamy, as do the cast members of Escaping 403

Polygamy.

Such a decision must be horrible for a religious person for whom ‘hell’ is not an

abstract concept. While Christine has undoubtedly undergone severe psychological

struggles, particularly within her marriage to Kody, her attachment to her children and

those of her sister wives, as well as her strong religious convictions would have likely

required a much worse situation - and at least some form of overt abuse - to get her to

leave her family and her faith. Unlike April Briney, Christine does not have any social

structures to return to in the outside world. And while her mother and aunt made the

terrifying decision to escape their bounded reality for the unknown, Christine has

shown herself to be a true believer.

see Lifting the Veil of Polygamy403

!126

III. Conclusion After years of marital conflict, the marriage of Christine and Kody Brown appears

to have settled into a happy phase of playfulness and a certain degree of romance.

Recent Seasons of Sister Wives have shown Christine attempting to rebuild a

friendship with Meri, an undertaking the success of which is as yet uncertain. Robyn

and Christine seem to have become real friends, and relations between her and Janelle

seem unchanged.

HB99 passed into law and Utah could at this point prosecute polygamists for no

crime other than ‘purporting’ to be married. To date, I am not aware of any such

prosecutions having taken place. Ironically, this new and more stringent law is a direct

result of the Brown family’s lawsuit against the State, which was initially successful.

While the Browns no longer live in Utah, other ‘media polygamists’ do, notably the

families at Rock Creek Ranch (Three Wives, One Husband), Brady Williams and his

family (My Five Wives) and Joe Darger and his family. Several other polygamists who

are public about their illegal behaviour have chosen to leave Utah, among them the

Brineys and the Alldredges, both of whom were featured on Seeking Sister Wife. Both

pro- and anti-polygamist activists are continuing their campaigns and it seems like no

common ground can be found between them.

While one presumes that Christine and her aunt Kristyn Decker have not spoken

since the debate at UNLV in 2013, it seems likely that in spite of Christine’s happier

demeanour since, her aunt would still judge her to be ‘miserably happy’. For now, and

perhaps for the rest of her life, it seems certain that Christine has no intention of

following her mother and aunt out of polygamy, whether she is being held there by

love or faith, or even - in tumultuous times - the hope that things must eventually get

better.

While many issues plagued marriage of Christine and Kody at one point or

another, for now, they seem to have overcome them to their mutual satisfaction. It

could be argued that even if they had not, Christine might have chosen to stay in the

family, perhaps for love of her sister wives or their children, perhaps for fear of the

loss of access to the Celestial Kingdom. Given the current state of Meri and Kody’s

marriage, and the insistence of her sister wives that she stay with the family even after

!127

the virtual breakdown of her marital relationship, such a thing does not sound as 404

outlandish as it appears at first sight. In a plural relationship, even if things were not

to work out with ‘the man’, it might be worth to stay for ‘the family’, which is after

all what Christine claims to have wanted all along.

At the same time, it bears mentioning that Christine’s aunt Kristyn Decker was

fifty years old when she left polygamy, so the possibility that Christine might change

her mind over time still remains.

While Christine and Kody’s marriage has clearly improved over the run of Sister

Wives, the fact that Christine chose to stay within a religion that requires her to suffer

tremendous emotional pain and welcome it as part of her spiritual growth and

religious duty. Janja Lalich’s model of Bounded Choice helps the outsider understand

the way in which true believers like Christine make their decisions. As Lalich points

out, within high-demand groups, choosing to leave or stay is a choice that has far-

reaching consequences:

[I]n a context of bounded choice, a person’s perceptions and, hence, decision-making processes are constrained even further. The social context of cultic totalism is one of hyper-certainty and ultra-rationalization, resulting in both external and internalized sanctions. […] Almost everything is set up, figured out, taken care of: there is only one way to be, to think about things, to perceive the world. The individual in such a setting is faced with being ‘rational’ and choosing for the group - which can be described only as a bounded choice - or being ‘irrational’ and breaking out of the mold, in which case he would find himself outside the group, in another context (or struggling to define himself in another context). 405

Like many fundamentalist Mormons, Christine Brown was born into her religious

group, which makes it even harder for her to leave, since she has no social structures

in the outside world to fall back on. Moreover, both Christine’s grandfathers were

prophets of the AUB, making her ‘polygamist royalty’. Her identity is bound up in

being a member of a polygamist group and her role as a good polygamist wife.

see ‘Confronting Meri’404

Lalich, p.260405

!128

Christine has been raised within the AUB, and even though she went to a public

school, she freely admits to being taught to fear and distrust the outside world from an

early age. While she has a naturally outgoing personality, this fear is evident in her

interaction with anybody who might conceivably question her belief system, such as

apostate family members. She labels such people ‘unsafe’ and is reluctant to engage

with them. For Lalich, this attitude marks the ‘point of the fusion of personal freedom

and self-renunciation, at this point of personal closure, [where] the individual may

well become his own source of constraint.’ 406

Christine is a member of a group that is wary of the outside world and whose strict

rules and peculiar doctrines imbue them with a high level of distinctiveness, making

them ‘a peculiar people’, a label frequently applied to Mormons in general. While the

AUB does not have a living strong charismatic leader, there is an element of

charismatic authority present, even if only in the form of the late Joseph Smith.

The move to Las Vegas has removed the Brown family from the immediate

authority of the AUB leadership and made Kody’s role as head of the household and

essentially the charismatic leader of a very small group more pronounced. This may

help to explain why a true believer like Christine readily accepted Mariah’s sexuality.

While the AUB would not condone this acceptance, Kody is the immediate leader of

Christine’s group and he had already decided that he had the authority to choose

acceptance. In both their cases, another reason might simply be that it is very hard to

choose to no longer love a person.

Kody has made it clear that the family was always on the liberal end of the

spectrum within the AUB, which became more apparent after the move to Las Vegas.

This was particularly evident in the attitudes and behaviours of the older children,

none of whom have chosen to live polygamy. While Christine at one point worried

about having failed as a mother if her children did not follow her way of life, she now

seems considerably more relaxed about their choices. Given the secular influences the

children became exposed to in Las Vegas, as well as their parents’ increasingly liberal

attitude, it makes sense that the children would feel free to make other choices.

Lalich, p.254406

!129

In this case, it may be more surprising that Christine has not, particularly given the

pain she endured after the addition of Robyn to the family. The most likely

explanation for this is that Christine felt tested by her tribulations, being thrown into a

refiner’s fire and having to prove herself to God. Unlike her mother and aunt,

Christine is a true believer, whose bounded choices are still very much her own.

Exactly the kind of suffering that led others to leave made her even stronger in her

beliefs and commitment.

!130

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