Interview with a Polygamist Wife

Lori:
The Story of a Polygamist Wife

Dateline: Colorado City, AZ
Fall, 2005 (with updated information)

Across the bumpy dirt road from Ross and Lori Chatwin’s home in Colorado City, Arizona is one of the church’s private schools. Kids are on the playground as I pull into the Chatwin’s driveway. As I exit the news vehicle, I see some of the children leaning against the fence and staring. One blonde-haired little girl, wearing a long dress with her hair in a thick braid running down her back, greets me by showing two thumbs down and sticking out her tongue.

The message, from child to adult here, is a clear one. Strangers are not welcome in the twin polygamous communities of Hildale, Utah or Colorado City, Arizona, especially if they’re news media. Unfortunately, this religious community that avoids attention drew attention to itself. Allegations of child molestation, child brides forced into marriage and other crimes eventually attracted law enforcement from Utah and Arizona.
Some want to blame the imprisoned prophet, Warren Jeffs, for the current tribulations in Colorado City, Hildale and even Eldorado, Texas. Others say it’s the lifestyle that makes child molestation and forced underage marriages okay. However, history shows trouble has been a century in the making.

More Than a Century of History

In 1890, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints banned polygamy. It was the only way Utah would be allowed in as a state of the union. Those who continued to practice plural marriages were excommunicated from the church. Among the many factions of polygamists in Utah and other states is the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS. It is the FLDS who straddle the state line, growing quietly for decades in the shadows of the Vermillion Cliffs.
Colorado City has a population of about 3,500. The population of Hildale is even larger. It’s estimated there are about 10,000 polygamists who live here making it the largest polygamist community in North America. Some of the homes are massive three-story wood structures, big enough for a man to have a number of wives and a multitude of children.

Meeting Lori

Ross Chatwin greets me in the driveway of his home and invites me in. We walk to the rear of the house and enter the back door. I find myself in the kitchen of the home. Ross' wife, Lori, is sitting at a table. A long white dress covers her petite frame. She wears her dark hair in a bun. She smiles shyly as one of her six children walks into the room, a 4-year-old blonde girl. She looks at me, says "Hi," then turns and leaves.

While the Chatwins are in a polygamist community, their marriage is not.
Lori Chatwin has lived here in Colorado City, Arizona, all her life. She does not live in a plural marriage and that disappoints her. As for Colorado City, Arizona and Hildale, Utah, she made it clear, people don’t talk to those they don’t know. “If you’re an outsider it’s pretty much closed up to you.”
She explains, “You know, I’ve grown up with the, ‘You don’t talk to people. Press is bad. They take what you say and make their own story out of it.’ But at the same time, something has to happen. Nobody else is doing it.”
In January, 2005, Ross Chatwin took a stand against the FLDS’s prophet, Warren Jeffs. He blew the whistle, if you will, on corruption and abuse. At one point, Ross compared Jeffs to Adolf Hitler. That meant Lori's dream of a polygamous family would probably never happen. It is the prophet who “assigns” the marriages.
In the aftermath of her husband's actions, Lori tells me, “I have mixed feelings, mixed emotions.”
She also feels alienated. “In the eyes of my family that’s still here, I’m a traitor. You go down the street, half the people that you see are your relatives. At this point, I don’t know if we’ll be able to stay here. I don’t know if we’ll leave and have to start clear over.”
Lori would like to have a polygamous relationship in her family and explained her reasons. “I thrive on friendship. That’s important to me to have communication. What’s wrong with me having a best friend, or best friends, living in the same family, a part of the same unit?”

The Sister Wife

Such a friend would become a “spiritual” wife to her husband and a “sister wife” to Lori. Lori explained a sister wife as, “A close friend under the same head, [husband] where we don’t have to say ‘I can’t do that because my husband doesn’t want me doing that.’ If we want to do something together we know that it’s okay.”
I tell Lori many women reading this might respond by saying ‘Fine, but my best friend doesn’t sleep with my husband.’
“Says who?” Lori says and smiles.
I ask her, “Do you want a sister wife more than Ross wants another wife?”
She ponders this a few seconds. “Well, for a man that’s a very dangerous question because everyone’s going to say, ‘Oh, he just wants to sleep with another woman’,” she says. “And so, looking at it that way, I would say ‘yes,’ I want one worse than he does.”
However, she admits that if a sister wife ever joined their family, there may be a painful transition. “I mean, I’m human. I’m not going to say ‘Well, I’m not going to find some spark of jealousy hidden somewhere deep inside that’s going to make me mad some day.’ But I’m willing to work with that.”
Why would an FLDS woman even consider becoming a second, third, or fourth wife? Lori explains it this way, “A woman can not find a man because they’re all taken. All the good ones are taken. And therefore it lowers the value of a woman. Now if she could have her pick of men, whether they’re married or not, she could find a good husband. That increases her value.”
She definitely has her own logic, but Lori Chatwin also believes some lines should not be crossed. “I feel like it should be a person’s right. A consenting adult should be able to do whatever they want. Now if it’s a young girl being forced into a situation, that’s not right.”
Lori had two face to face meetings with Warren Jeffs after her husband was excommunicated. “So when he tells me 'your husband has lost the priesthood. He can no longer hold you as a wife.' I say, ‘That’s not how I feel about it’.”
Jeffs told Lori her husband, Ross, needed to be disciplined. “And he wanted me to help in that disciplinary action by not sleeping with my husband. As time went on, I started thinking, ‘this is really stupid. Why are we complying with what he’s trying to enforce whether we sleep with each other or not. It’s none of his business. Just the same as it’s no business of anybody in the whole entire world how many wives Ross has.”
For now, the FLDS saga continues to play out with its prophet sitting in a jail cell. It continues to play out in Texas as well, in Eldorado.