Escape

Almost finished with Escape by Carolyn Jessop. The book drags out the story to the point that it becomes monotonous. It was informative just had too much details to hold my interest steadily. I put it down to read two other books.

For those who are not familiar with the story, Carolyn lived in a religious polygamous community, the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints. I learnt that sister wives do not necessarily get along with each other. They compete with each other for their husband's sexual attention since the more children the wife has, the better her status in the community.

I learned that accepting the plural wives lifestyle was an important access to heaven, but physical and emotional abuse were no obstacles to heaven. Sister wife Barbara abused the other wives and their children. The elderly husband abused his wives except for Barbara teh favorite.

Carolyn portrayed herself as intelligent and rebellious and someone who recognized early the danger that Warren Jeffs would present to her community. She was on Larry King Live some time ago. Interestingly, she escaped with her eight children but one daughter went back to the community.

It's hard to imagine that in this day and age in the United States people live like Carolyn did but she takes pains to point out she was raised to accept this lifestyle. It's a reminder that religious fanaticism is not something foreign and in some far away place.