“Debbie was 14 when she married her 57 year old husband. His sixth wife, she became step mom to his 31 children. As he was father to her own stepmother, she became stepgrandmother to herself.”

This should be part of a Marx Bros. sketch. Unfortunately, it's not.


According to John Krakauer's, “Under the Banner of Heaven” this is business as usual in polygamous cults.

Perhaps that’s none of our business. But upon closer inspection, the recent raids in Texas may have as much to do with what’s happening in Sadr City, as Colorado City.

It’s not about Mormons. They have disavowed polygamy since 1890. So don’t pick on them. This is about patriarchy and fundamentalist cults—worldwide.

It’s about what happens when one man hears the voice of Yahweh, Allah, Huitzilopochtli, Fred (whomever) and that “God” says that the quickest way to heaven is for a women to bend to a man’s will.

As a parent, I’m into obedience. But when blind obedience is the order of the day, free men everywhere are forced to sit up and take notice.

Many Americans think polygamy is cute. After all, what’s the harm in plural wives? Isn’t this the land of the free? If they want to live in an isolated compound, peacefully, who are they hurting, anyway? It is our government who is hurting their children, they say.

There is some merit to that argument.

However, this raid is about more than religeous freedom. It goes to the core of what took place in 1776.

Our world in St. Helena is civilized, sanitized, and safe. So with the exception of a few surrealistic news reports on TV we don’t see man in his atavistic, primal state.

Not so in rough and tumble 1776. Many folks were doing whatever it took just to keep from starving to death. People back then saw exactly how human nature worked, first hand.

History has taught us that we humans are an interesting sub-species. With all our noble qualities (self-sacrifice, forgiveness, love, etc.) we do have a few baser instincts.

It took a recent trip to Africa and the reading of Livingston’s and Speke’s diary’s to put 1776 in perspective. A trip to the genocide museum in Kilgari, Rowanda sealed the deal. 1.6 dead in three months—neighbors hacked to death by neighbors with machetes. Absent law, man’s inhumanity to man knows no bounds.

Nature, in its rawest form can be seen in a pride of lions. The Alpha male does three things: Eat, sleep, and fornicate. He leaves all the work to the females. The females raise the kids and hunt for food.

There is no sentimentality. It is truly survival of the fittest. Females will attack the easiest prey, be it a cape buffalo calf with a broken leg, or a giraffe, spread legged as it feeds at a watering hole. They want the most meat with the least amount of effort.

After they’ve killed their prey, the big boys move in. Once the fellas have had their full, the ladies and kids can join in—that is unless a lioness is in heat, then the Alpha Male will copulate with her every 20 minutes or so for four days—be it one of his harem or his own daughter. It’s not a bad life.

You get to keep this power until some young whippersnapper defeats you. If you survive, you become a ward of the state—eating the scraps—and no chicks.

What Speke (in his search for the source of the Nile) and Stanley in his search for Livingston found, was that tribal chefs throughout Africa imitated the lions.

They were warlords. Might made right. They never worked—utilized slave labor—had lots of babes, and ruled by force—not law, let alone an independent judiciary.

What are the porters carrying on their heads when you see those pictures of 19th century safaris? Tribute to give to the war lords.

Pay the tax or fight. That was the human law of the jungle. Stanley usually paid the tariff in beads, silks, or tools. If he felt it was too steep, the guns were drawn and he shot his way through. That’s how the game was played.

These tribes were patriarchal. Through brute force select families ruled. They operated just like the Texas cult.

The chief took the girls (plural) he wanted at the age he wanted them. There was no discussion. Death or banishment was the alternative.

Harems, seraglios, purdahs, polygamy—call it what you will, the rules never change. In patriarchal societies the strongest males take the women they want—often more than one.

That’s what is going on in Texas and quite frankly, most of the world, today. Western Europe, though hardly without sin, was somewhat of an exception. It took a slightly different course thanks to the rule of law and the rise of a merchant, middle class.

Think about the cults which have made the headlines over the years. From Charlie Manson, to Jimmy Jones, to David Koresh to Warren Jeff’s (great name) they’ve all revolved around messianic leaders who conveniently end up with multiple sex partners—often wives or children of other followers.

This might be a harmless frivolity of sexual excess were it not for the children involved. Here’s where the state has a legitimate interest.

What goes on between consenting adults may not be anyone’s business. Child enslavement and hideous child abuse of boys and girls falls under a different column.

Whenever the focus is that the highest state of grace is achieved when women submit to men, watch out. It means a lot of children are going to get hurt.


It is antithetical to western democracy. (To Be Continued)