![]() ![]() He always hears about how many wives he has (at least 20, according to people who have left the community he won’t say) and how many children he has fathered (“lots,” he says, with a broad smile). He says he dislikes the salacious stories of multiple sex partners and young brides. Winston Blackmore, 49, a former bishop of that sect in Bountiful, is chatting at the local midwifery center one recent morning. Newspaper readers want to know why, for decades, no one has stopped young teenage girls from marrying adult men-a dubiously legal move-and why polygamy has been allowed to flourish. attorney general’s office, which has received scores of complaints. is working to build cases, spurred on by the B.C. Across the border, police in Arizona and Utah have made arrests in kindred communities, and an internal rift has prompted hundreds of onetime practitioners to go public with their strange stories. But Bountiful’s days of uncontested defiance-and of child brides, according to former adherents-may be ending. ![]() But then, their communal living arrangement is unusual: Ruth and her sister also share a husband.įor 50 years, members of a breakaway Mormon sect have been illegally practicing polygamy in Bountiful, to the quiet consternation of their neighbors in the nearby town of Creston and to the general disregard of most other Canadians. Ruth Lane and her six kids share theirs with two other moms and their 12 kids. Homes in Bountiful can be large, and that’s a good thing. Hers play outside with those of her sister Diana in a neatly kept, open space at the entrance to the residential area. The children of Bountiful, a rural community nestled in the Kootenay Mountains of British Columbia, seem happy, untroubled and close-knit within their large families, at least if Ruth Lane’s kids are any indication. ![]() A longtime haven of polygamy is feeling the heat from police-and from within. ![]()
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