Dimensions
128 x 198 x 27mm
Irene Spencer grew up in a fundamentalist, polygamous Mormon village in Arizona. The thirteenth of thirty-one children, she grew up in abject poverty and isolation, and was taught that she should never question the church leaders. Her mother, unable to cope, left her children and three 'sister-wives' with her abusive husband. Desperate to escape her violent home, and believing she had no choice but to live by 'the Principle', at sixteen Irene found herself in a plural marriage, sharing her husband with her half sister. When the government raided her village, she fled with Verlan, numerous other wives and countless children to a ranch in Mexico where Verlan's brother, a self-proclaimed prophet, was attempting to found a new Mormon colony. The strains of husband-sharing with - ultimately - nine other wives were unbelievably hard. Irene's story provides a fascinating insight into polygamous marriage - the squabbles and the jealousy, and the agony of watching your husband choose other wives over you. They lived with divided loyalties in unremitting deprivation - struggling to maintain so many households and to bring up 56 children.
