From an outsider’s perspective, a man who can convince more than one woman to be married to him at any given time, clearly wears the trousers.
But a new documentary has revealed that it is actually the women instigating polygamous marriage in Mormon communities.
In the newest series of OWN’s Our America, two ‘sister wives’, from Centennial Park, Arizona, describe how they chose their man, rather than the other way around.
Becca, 20, who has been married to Isaiah, 28, for a year and a half, told how she knew he was the one when she spotted him at church.
She told host Lisa Ling: ‘One day I was in church, and I was sitting with my sister Sharon, and I saw him walk through the door.
‘I had a feeling just come over me and I turned to Sharon and I said, yeah, that’s who I feel like I belong to.’
This was despite the fact that Isaiah had already been married to Marlene, also 28, for eight years already.
Today, Marlene and Becca describe themselves as being married to each other, in the same way that they are married to Isaiah.
And for Marlene, who is just weeks from giving birth to her fourth child, she never imagined marriage any other way.
‘If Isaiah had told me that he didn’t want this before we got married, I probably wouldn’t have married him,’ she said.
She says that she and Becca, after some initial teething problems, are ‘inseparable’.
‘I have, right now, my best friend living with me,’ she said. ‘I can talk to her about any of my problems. She completely understands because she’s married to the same guy.’
