Friday is baking day at our house.

I have been unemployed for six months. Three months ago, when bread in our supermarket went to $3.50 from $2 a loaf, I ordered a 25-pound bag of flour online and whipped up a batch of sourdough starter.

Friday has been baking day ever since.

Some weeks it’s plain loaves; some weeks it’s herb and garlic.

No, I don’t own a bread machine. I’m the bread machine.

As I kneaded a recent batch, I thought about a news story I’d heard on the radio. It seems our nation’s libraries are enjoying a surge in popularity. The economic downturn has made buying books a luxury and citizens who never before patronized libraries are borrowing books.

“You have everything,” one woman gushed to a librarian.

Well, yes they do. And it’s free.

I can’t remember the last time I bought a book.

I recalled an interview Loretta Lynn gave National Public Radio in 2000. She said she was glad to have overcome her hardscrabble childhood, but she worried about other Americans:

“How in the devil would kids today know how to build a fire and cook if we had a war or something should happen to this country? How could they take care of themselves?”

Like Loretta, I come from Appalachia.

When I was growing up, homemade clothes were an unremarkable fact of life. My mother wasn’t just a seamstress; she was a talented draftswoman. As a young lady, the fanciest clothes I owned came from her gifted hands. I remember when my sister yearned for a velvet robe in a department store. My mother stood in front of the display, walking from one vantage point to another.

Then she went home and made a perfect copy.

I learned by watching her. This spring I realized that my “yard pants”—the cheap jeans I keep for working in the garden—were sprouting holes and couldn’t be replaced for lack of funds.

I remembered that at the bottom of our “rag bag”—another thrifty habit taught by my mother—was a discarded denim shirt. I cut it up and used it to patch the pants, making them do another season.

We have always planted a vegetable garden each year, but now, with our income halved and grocery prices soaring, it had to produce.

Suddenly, the most important grocery question in my life was not “Paper or plastic?” It was fertilizer or mulch?

In July, I found myself making bruschetta with my own tomatoes and herbs and serving it on homemade bread.

One less thing to buy at the store, I thought.

Last week, my husband and I spent a morning restacking our woodpile after a violent storm. A blazing fireplace allows me to turn down the thermostat and take the sting out of natural gas prices.

Our next door neighbor had the same thought when he realized his fireplace could be rigged to heat the entire house.

“As long as I’m a slave to it,” he told me, “it keeps us warm.”

When I was still employed and gas was $2.50 a gallon, my husband and I used to go to an expensive restaurant to celebrate our anniversary. There was no question of that this year. But when my sweetheart got home from work that evening, the house was spotless, a fire crackled in the fireplace and two loaves of bread were cooling on the kitchen counter.

He brought a bottle of wine he’d found on sale at the market.

We had a fine anniversary.

After Sept. 11, 2001, our nation rolled up its sleeves.

We asked, “What can we do?”

I was raised by the Greatest Generation. I was ready to join a scrap drive or sign up for ration tickets.

But nobody suggested anything.

President Bush told us to go shopping! Some sneered.

Gas at $4 a gallon accomplished what I expected our government to ask.

Thrifty is stylish again. Sales of sport utility vehicles have slowed. “Energy efficient” is the new mantra for houses. Coupons are cool.

It’s not all fun. Some nights I lie awake, worrying about our shrinking savings. I see the strain in other families.

But I have something I would have missed during more prosperous days.

I’m proud of us—the way my husband and I have pulled together, the way Americans are stepping up to this challenge. People are asking: “How can we help the ones who lost their homes? How can we make sure everyone has health insurance?”

When I was a bride, someone gave me a cookbook for a wedding gift. It had a recipe called “war cake.” The most important ingredient—vinegar.

That’s right, vinegar.

War cake was invented during World War II, when sugar was rationed. Few people had enough sugar for a whole cake. The sour vinegar intensified the sweetness of what sugar they could get.

We’re all baking war cake now.

And I have faith it will come out of the oven just fine.

Andrea Moore-Emmett has been writing about polygamy for over 12 years.
“I was the first one to write about abuses in polygamy,” she says, “and I kept writing about it until my editors at the paper told me they were tired of it.”
Her investigative work eventually resulted in a book, God’s Brothel, published in 2004. Polygamy, she says, is a problem the authorities would rather ignore.
“They [law enforcement] know of men who are doing the same thing that Warren Jeffs has been doing- and some even worse- and they’re not doing anything about it simply because there’s no media spotlight on these men. They only do something when they have to but they would rather not ever do anything.”
Moore-Emmett says the problem extends beyond the boundaries of Texas and Utah- “I know of 32 states where Mormon and Christian polygamy is being lived-” and includes communities in Nevada, Missouri, Colorado and South Dakota.
An ex-Mormon raised in the mainstream church, Moore-Emmett is critical of the LDS leadership for ducking the issue of polygamy.
“They do not want to look like they are culpable in any way because that would mean that they would have to take responsibility and they want to distance themselves from this issue as much as possible. They don’t want to look like they have anything to do with it.”
One result of this look-the-other-way policy is a lack of hard data on polygamous groups. The number of polygamists in the United States has been estimated at 30,000 to 100,000.
“It’s an educated guess,” say Moore-Emmett. “There’s no census of any type.”
No one knows how many women and children flee polygamy each year.
Lack of official scrutiny means lack of support for those women and children; they are forced to rely on non-polygamous relatives, a smattering of non-profit groups, or simply their own initiative.
Limited resources makes such escapes “very rare,” according to Moore-Emmett.
“They don’t have any idea that there are programs for them. They don’t have any idea that there are choices for them. They don’t have skills or education when they do leave and so that makes them very fearful to make that kind of a step.”
Those who do manage to escape often take refuge in anonymity.
“In a lot of cases these women don’t want to talk about it. They don’t want to come forward and tell their stories. It’s very difficult for them to revisit the painful past. They’re often really afraid that they’re going to be sought after by the polygamists if they come out.”
At times Moore-Emmett found herself caught between religious fanaticism and skittish law enforcement. By day she watched judges return children to situations she was convinced were dangerous. At night polygamous wives appeared on her doorstep, pleading for her to stop her investigations. Polygamous men called her at 2 a.m. to rant and scream.
Overwhelmed with frustration and disgust, she eventually left Utah.
She believes polygamy should remain a felony. Although sympathetic to the desires of individual, rational adults, she points out that,
“Polygamy practiced within these cults is coercive by nature. And abusive by nature. And I think it should remain against the law simply because of the nature of it.”
We discuss some of the abuses she has documented in FLDs communities. I tell her that Carolyn Jessop has publicly described the technique used by her ex-husband, Merril Jessop to “break” babies: slap the infant until it screams. Hold it, face up, under a running tap so that it can’t breathe. Repeat, until the child is too exhausted to cry.
The technique is familiar to Moore-Emmett.
“They start in the cradle breaking babies,” she says. “It’s essential for control. They start them at infancy.”
She describes other methods: some children are submerged in a bathtub when they cry. Some parents simply slap the children until they faint.
I point out that investigators at the YFZ ranch have said that they saw no evidence of risk to infants and toddlers.
“They are definitely at risk,” she says. “It alarms me that anybody even considers putting those kids back in that compound. They are all at serious risk.”
I tell her that at least one expert has testified in court that he is unsure if the boys are being harmed by the FLDs lifestyle.
She says the boys are “groomed to be predators.”
“What is not talked about very often is that the boys live through horrible, horrible beatings. And they’re taught to fight each other- hand-to-hand combat…’till they’re bloody.”
For boys, Moore-Emmett says, violence is seen as a strength, “because you need violence to control.”
Survival skills like violence and control seem to take the place of formal education. Most FLDs children are church- or homeschooled.
“No state is monitoring the non-education of these children,” says Moore-Emmett. She describes a weak curriculum of basic math and spelling. Literature other than holy scripture is forbidden. History is restricted to the genealogy of the Mormon prophets. Science is regarded as heresy, and other cultures are not worth knowing about. Teaching health would only encourage immodest discussions of the human body.
Knowledge of the human body could pose problems. FLDs children are seldom vaccinated; there are outbreaks of diseases like whooping cough. The genetic consequences of incest are explained away by doctrine:
“The FLDs believe that if you marry a close relative- or any relative- God automatically changes your blood so you’re not related.”
I tell her that investigators have reported that only half the families living at the YFZ ranch are polygamous.
She laughs out loud.
“Well, if they’re talking about children under the age of 14, which is a huge part of the population, that could be true. If they’re talking about the adult population, that’s absolutely not true.”
CPS investigators have reported difficulty in determining which children belong to which parents. In FLDs culture, whole families are frequently “reassigned” to new males by the prophet. After reassignment the new head of household frequently marries several of his new stepdaughters as well.
I ask Moore-Emmett if she thinks the children have been told to lie or are genuinely confused.
“These children are genuinely confused,” she says. “Absolutely genuinely confused. They can have a daddy one day and if they’re reassigned they have a new daddy the next day.”
She says that the reassignment of children is not limited to fathers.
“In some cases even the children are rotated between mothers on purpose so there’s no bonding.”
Her knowledge of FLDs childrearing practices makes her suspicious of news footage showing weeping mothers.
“These women are really not in touch with their feelings and they don’t know how to have any feelings. They have been trained from the cradle not to feel. Feeling is a bad thing for them. They don’t want to have any of the negative feelings so they drum out all the feelings.”
Still, she is not surprised to see mostly FLDs women interviewed by the media.
“They do it on purpose [sending women to meet the press]. They believe women are more sympathetic and they know that they are using women, so if they can get women to say ‘I’m perfectly happy,’ then somehow that is proof enough.”
She believes that the FLDS leadership has been “love-bombing” the press- blitzing the media with positive spin. Negative stories are being suppressed.
The FLDs, she says, has ways of dealing with dissent.
“People disappear within the FLDs- boys disappear, girls disappear. The kids call them “poofers”- they disappear in a poof.”
The threat of Blood Atonement can also guarantee silence. Blood Atonement is the execution of church members in “atonement” for grievous sins.
“It’s an absolute fear…women are terrified to leave because of that threat.”
Moore-Emmett has heard the criticisms of the raid on the YFZ ranch. Some critics have called it a sweeping violation of the groups’ constitutional rights. She admits she is “not a constitutional attorney” but maintains,
“I don’t have a problem with what Texas authorities did. I think that it was difficult circumstances and difficult circumstances call for extreme measures sometimes.”
“What I come back to is the rights of these children. Where are the rights of these children to have the kind of life that we as American citizens expect of the most vulnerable of our citizens? And if we do not protect the most vulnerable of our citizens, then shame on us.
“Where are the rights of these children not to be molested? Where are the rights of these children to have an education? Where are the rights of these children to get medical attention when they need it? Where are the rights of these children to have a safe home where they’re not thrown out on the streets at the age of 14 or they’re not forced into a marriage? Where are the rights of these children not to be abused to the point of near death in many cases or death in some cases?
She points out that the FLDs has used 30 million dollars of public funds to support their lifestyle in a single year.
“Do we want to fund this kind of abuse- this institutionalized abuse? What we’re talking about is a pedophile club. Are we going to say, ‘Oh, these adults have rights to this pedophile club,’ and forget the kids?”

(This article was cross-posted at Poligazette May 1, 2008.)

We spoke by phone.

Anne Wilde was a plural wife for 33 years, until the death of her husband. 

She doesn’t wear a prairie dress.  She doesn’t live in an isolated compound.  She holds a B.A. in Business Education and is a published author.

And she wants you to know she is not unusual.

Polygamy in the United States, she says, is far more diverse than just a few isolated communities.

“There’s no recipe for how to live this,” she says.

In addition to organized religious communities, there are up to 15,000 independent Fundamentalist Mormon families practicing plural marriage on their own.  The Principle Voices website also carries links to Christian and other non-Mormon groups practicing polygamy.

“There are a lot of people who live [polygamy] for other reasons in the United States.  Muslims and Jews who live it as a Biblical principle or may just live it because it’s convenient- there’s all different reasons.”

Ms. Wilde and her co-authors decided to write Voices in Harmony in part to counter negative media coverage of plural marriage.

“If we don’t speak up and show the other side of the picture then they’re going to keep talking for us and everybody’s going to think it’s just a terrible lifestyle.”

As part of the research for Voices in Harmony the authors sent surveys to Mormon plural wives.  The results showed that the average plural marriage has 2-3 wives and 7-10 children.  The typical plural wife is educated.  She may share a single residence with the rest of the family or have a home of her own.  Many polygamous families live quietly alongside their monogamous neighbors.

“…there are many, many women who have freely chosen this lifestyle as consenting adults and that are happy and adjusted in it,” she says.

A plural wife is often a working mother.  The large families produced by plural marriage can be difficult for one man to support; Ms. Wilde worked and said she was glad to contribute to her family’s income.

“A lot of wives feel the same way,” she says.  “They are highly educated in many cases and they want to use that education in helping the family.”

There are risks, however.  Polygamy in illegal in all 50 states and is a felony in Utah.

“It lends to isolation because people don’t want to take the risk of coming out in public or being found out.  The kids in public school can be ridiculed; that’s why they try to keep that kind of quiet.”

A reluctance to come forward can mask problems such as poverty or domestic abuse.  That is where Principle Voices and the Safety Net Committee try to step in and help.

“We have also tried to help  our own people in understanding these [state] agencies are there to help provide services for everybody across the board that qualifies, whether you’re a polygamist or not.  And some of the poeple that live in this lifestyle are so isolated and so leery of the government…that they are in poverty where they really do qualify for these services.”

Her group gives presentations to polygamist communities on domestic violence.  Polygamist groups need to understand, says Ms. Wilde, that domestic abuse is more than broken bones:

“…there’s other kinds of domestic violence and abuse. Emotional abuse.  Mental and so forth…”

“Controlling and domineering husbands are not what our lifestyles are all about.”

Ms. Wilde says that she and her colleagues have worked with many groups, but efforts to reach out to Warren Jeff’s FLDS have been unsuccessful.

“We have offered and we’ve even sent money to help the women and children.  And care packages and 500 letters from some of the polygamous children up here, as well as plural wives, to open up communications.  So we have made an effort to try and help them understand that we’re very supportive of them as family- as long as there’s no red flags- which we don’t support.”

“But we have to make that distinction so they don’t think we’re supporting underage marriages or any kind of abuse- and I don’t think those situations exist in FLDS as much as people think they do.”

Ms. Wilde believes that polygamy should be decriminalized but not legalized.  Reducing polygamy to a misdemeanor could help open up communities and encourage those in need of help to come forward.

“All in all, decriminalizing would remove a lot of that stigma and risk, because they couldn’t be charged with any kind of crime,” she says.

Most plural families have only one legal wife.  Subsequent unions are “spiritual marriages” and have no official legal status.  I ask Ms. Wilde how she would protect that rights of spiritual wives.

“This whole lifestyle is based on religious principles and if a family cannot provide and make sure all the wives are taken care of then they have no business being in this lifestyle.  There shouldn’t have to be a law saying ‘OK, something happened, then the law says you get such-and-such.’ “

She cites examples of polygamous families who have used wills and other notarized documents to organize their assets and childrearing responsibilities.

“I just know so many- really thousands- of women that have chosen this as consenting adults, it works for them, it’s a strongly held religious belief and it doesn’t mean there aren’t adjustments and challenges- just like in a monogamous family- but it’s worth working it out because they have this belief that you will be blessed for doing so.”

I ask her if she can envision a society where plural marriage and monogamy peacefully coexist.

There is a long pause.  A little sigh.

“Oh,’ she says, “that would be a utopia for us.”

(This article was cross-posted at Poligazette June 3, 2008

Dear Mr. President (and all I know right now is that you will be a “Mr.”):

Sorry, but you’re stuck with me.

As November approaches I’m hearing that some people are threatening to leave the United States if their man is not elected. Their bags are packed and they are ready to hop a flight right after Election Day.

Don’t get your hopes up about me, Mr. President.

You see, sir, I don’t love you, or your policies or your political party. I love my country. It was my country long before you ever decided to run for president and it will be my country long after your presidency is over.

My love for this country does not depend on who runs the show. I wouldn’t call it ‘love’ if it did.

Mr. President, I am a product of this nation. I was born here. It has fed my bones and blood. It’s most sacred documents tell me that I am required to watch over it, to participate in it, to give it my eternal vigilance.

That is the bargain I was offered in exchange for my citizenship. And I have accepted it.

This nation also feeds the aspirations of thousands who adopt it as their home each year, newcomers who accept the bargain and know that the United State will exist in the bones and blood of their family as well.

I suppose there are some things you could do to drive me out, but they would have to be pretty extreme- things like credible threats to my life and my family. So far, you don’t strike me as the type.

But if such extreme measures seem tempting later, be aware: you may drive me out, but I will do my best to make your life a holy hassle until I’m gone. Not because my exit would be some great tragedy for the nation, but because it would be a great tragedy for me.

You see, Mr. President, this is my place in the world. I can’t “pack up my ball and bat and go home” because this is my home. I want no other. If someone sets fire to my house, I’ll grab the nearest hose and try to put it out. And if I believe some politician or group is hurting my country, I’ll do whatever I can to save it.

I might not succeed. My heart might be forever broken by the effort. But I see no alternative.

Grief is the price we pay for love.

And love, sir, is the great weapon you have to work with among those of us who choose to stay. You will have to work with our love of country, reason with it, contend with it at every turn.

I don’t own a gun, but my love for this country is locked and loaded.

I ain’t goin’ anywhere.

It occurred to me that, for the survivors of the attacks, nothing about them will ever be ‘fresh’; they are an unalterable fact of a permanently altered life. Unlike the rest of us, these people do not need to ‘pause to remember’; the shape of their daily lives is a constant remembrance.

Maybe it is like a scar that is normally covered by clothing. By day it is invisible to you and to everyone else, but when you stand in the shower you can look down and see it: fading slowly, no longer a rude surprise, but permanent nonetheless.

I won’t speculate further on that subject. Of all the losses in my life, none has been so terrible as theirs.

I can speak a little about the rest of us, though. Many people will always remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard that a series of airplanes had been slammed into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Some call it “the day the world changed.”

I disagree. The world did not change on that day. Instead, some things were brought forcibly to our attention.

Hatred was one of those things. New and baffling forms of hatred danced in front us like demons, jeering.

Self-hatred came first. Like a husband lecturing a battered wife, legions of intellectuals came forward to explain to America why she was to blame for her beatings.

I think, therefore I hate– myself.

Civilizational hatred came next. Litres of ink were spilled explaining to us in great detail how U.S. culture was viewed by the attackers and their supporters. Still more ink was used in explaining the attacker’s culture to Americans.

The world was divided into tribes. Free and not free. Fundamentalist and secular. Eastern and Western.

But the neat divisions did not explain one fact: one of the tribes hated the other so much that they thought even its unarmed civilians should be exterminated. The news of ordinary men and women trapped in burning buildings was cause for celebration.

The demons capered, babbling in tongues. Some of us covered our ears. Others tried to babble back, shouting hatred at hatred.

Ragged, struggling countries leapt from the edge of the map to the center of the universe: Afghanistan. Pakistan. Iraq. Ordinary Americans who could scarcely pronounce their names now saw their sons and daughters going there to fight. Events in these unseen places now had direct consequences in their lives.

For ordinary Americans the world has not changed so much as become visible and unavoidable. Maybe for us it’s like that scar in the shower. A permanent change in what we see- and how we see ourselves.

(This essay was linked by Jules Crittenden, Boston Herald editor and columnist,  at his blog, Jules Crittenden: Forward Movement.)