May 8, 2008
Raid on Sect in Texas Rattles Other Polygamists
by Kirk Johnson and John Dougherty
The New York Times
COLORADO CITY, Ariz. -- As the supper dishes were being cleared away and the rice pudding brought out for dessert, Marvin Wyler's two wives, along with some of their children and a group of friends, began poring over the list.
The 44-page document, from a court in Texas, gives a glimpse of who is married to whom in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or F.L.D.S. -- and in the hothouse world of religious polygamy, a list like that is a sort of Rosetta Stone to the usually hidden relationships of power, politics and piety.
"We are adding up the number of men who may be going to prison," said Isaac Wyler, 42, the eldest of Mr. Wyler's 34 children, who was examining the list on Sunday to see which men may have had wives under the legal age when they married.
Scenes like this have played out in recent days in polygamist communities on the Arizona-Utah border as the marriage list and other records, seized last month from the polygamist sect in Eldorado, Tex., along with 462 children in an investigation of possible under-age brides, have filtered west.
Read the complete story (Some news sites require registration)
