One Man, Six Wives And Twenty-Nine Children (Polygamist Documentary) | Our Life

what does that mean yes or no yes what's her name barbara how old are you hello and how many wives do you want to have as many as i can what would you think would be a good number 12 12. don't you think that'd be rather a lot of women to have to talk to and look at why do you think that would be nice because a big family is a nice family [Music] [Music] there are nearly 50 000 polygamists living illegally in the southwestern american state of utah this is the home of tom green and his six wives linda shirley june leanne carrie and hannah they have chosen to live in the desert 200 miles from salt lake city in order to freely practice their fundamentalist mormon belief that the greater the number of wives and children one man can have the more elevated his status will be in [Music] heaven [Music] wow i am 28. and when did you get married i was married when i was 14. [Music] tom was uh 35. i had my parents permission because they thought tom was a very good man and and they could see his heart that he was not just out to take advantage of a young girl he wanted to build a family and and we we really did sincerely truly love each other i met tom when i was just 15 years old and i spent a month in his home working for his wife and i got to know his family and i became very close with linda and who did tom marry after you tom married my mother after me how did you meet tom my older sister was married to tom and i lived in southern utah and she brought him down to meet us and things just went from there i thought that he was strange because he was an outsider when he came maybe that's why i fell in love with him because he was different i don't know i met tom when my mother moved to salt lake and married tom so you were tom's step daughter yes i was i didn't see him as a father figure for very long [Laughter] i think i fell in love with him right away and i've been married to him for nine years now he let me know that he was serious and if i was serious then i needed to let him know and so i told him yes i want to marry you i want to be your wife from the time that we first kissed till the time we were married it was about two days so i went quite fast [Music] i reached over and took a hold of my chin and then kissed me it was very nice how long was that after your sister carrie had married him um two three weeks two three weeks and then after that i guess the next thing that happened was that they had a reception for carrie and tom his family and everybody got together and a lot of my family came and after the reception on the way back carrie carrie wanted me to marry tom too and so she says well why don't you sit in the back seat with a hannah tom and i sit in the back seat and we were sit in the backseat and it just came up i was looking at his eyes and i just loved his eyes and i said i want my children to have eyes like yours and he says i know how we can make that possible tom is 51 years old his three eldest children from a previous marriage have left home he now has 26 children aged 12 years and under living at greenhaven [Music] just put the flowers inside [Music] when i first saw this property i hated it it was ugly it was dry and barren and brushy and i wanted some place beautiful and pretty but we were forced to move our home and we had to get it parked somewhere this was the only place i could buy with nothing down and so we bought it and we began scraping all this brush off and these mobile homes are only temporary they're like tents we moved one out and it got destroyed the wind came along and demolished the first homes we brought so we bought more old mobile homes but in time we'll have these homes parked in a circle all the way around here and all this in the middle will be lawn and trees and flowers with little benches to sit on and a playground for the children and they'll be able to come out of any one of the homes and go into this inner courtyard area and we won't have to worry about them wandering off into the bushes with the coyotes and the snakes and they'll all be right here [Music] tell us why you choose to marry the wife so young i've married the wives that i have because those are the wives that god brought to me and and informed me that these are the girls that i should marry these girls wanted to marry me and demonstrated their extremely rare quality of being capable of handling responsibilities at such an early age you know a lot of people have criticized me soundly for marrying young girls and i i agree that there's hardly any girls of that age that are ready for marriage but these girls were these girls have demonstrated that they really were not too young because they have succeeded in building a successful relationship in a marriage which people sometimes twice their age or more have not been able to do each of tom's wives have a trailer where they have a bedroom in it and this is where mine is this is a kitchen which is going to be turned into a walk-in closet and we'll put up a wall and it'll isolate itself from my bedroom which is right here and it used to be a living room it's now my large bedroom this is where i spend my evenings when i'm not with tom and tom has his own bedroom and each of his wives spend their nights there this room is my bedroom and um i spend all my nights here each wife comes here at their according to their own schedule and spends their time with me um the only furniture i really have in here is my amwa you may notice there's there's seven drawers so there's room for two more wives there if things happen that way do you ever feel promiscuous promiscuous you mean what the wives that i have no i've entered into solemn covenants with the wives that i have we've had each wife has been married to me by a very special and sacred religious ceremony and so um i don't feel the least bit immoral or promiscuous in what i'm doing my covenants and my and my uh bonds with each wife is just as sacred as it is among any person of any other faith down the hall here i have my nursery and this is where lonnie and elizabeth spend their time this is for elizabeth and melanie and this bedroom here is a spare bedroom we're going to combine it with the bathroom bedroom and turn it all into a large bathroom and here is where the b team girls spend their time this is their bedroom my name oh joseph how old are you hey what team are you in b team who else is gonna be team lauren mindy and kelly this year linda has melvin and then johnny and then lauren and then philip and then rebecca and rosanna and those are linda six and then shirley had seven children with me she had chris and then hiram and then sierra and then jerry and then alonso or lonnie and then she had the twins elizabeth and melanie and those are shirley's and then let's see next was leanne leanne's first one was kelly and then she had misty and then emerald and then hunter and they're all named colors and then let's see next was carrie and carrie had bonnie and where is he and then wesley and then benjamin franklin and then hannah has had two with me she's had sharon and brigham young and those are all the children of each mother all of us try to get pregnant at the same time because we we really like having children at the same age close together like five four five of them and we've managed to do that several times we're down to a an e team now starting from a and every one of those teams are just unique in their own little way and it's a lot of fun to have teams [Music] i think that most people when they see plural marriage they see this horny old man that wants to have sex with young women and that's not tom that's not him at all it's a woman's choice it's a woman's issue you know i mean it's it's more about our rights and our freedom than it is about his i mean we get to decide when we're gonna have sex with him he doesn't ask it's not his place it's a young it's a girl's place to choose her husband and we chose tom i chose him i you know he didn't ask me he'd let me know that he was interested but but it was me that went to him and say i'd like to be your wife [Music] do you love him very much i do i love him very much i'm very madly in love and my life would not be the same and i would be a very lonely woman if i had to live without him i wouldn't i wouldn't want to do that but if i had to i would i hope that i hope that god never asked me to do that then i would then i would be forced to find out how strong i really am do you mind sharing him um no i don't mind sharing tom um he's a very good man and i and i would feel very selfish and very guilty if i if i had him all to myself because he is very capable and of loving other women and taking care of them and and filling their needs and he's a very good father and i would feel i would feel very selfish limiting him to just me and my children [Music] what [Music] no it'll be about two weeks okay are you ready is everybody here okay hannah sneak around and sit down over there terry [Music] kelly take over oh carson children ready to sing break him bring him let's sing to mother hannah you ready okay everybody happy birthday to you happy birthday to you happy birthday mother hannah happy birthday to you stand up stand up stand [Music] how old are you now how old are you [Applause] [Music] tell her i wish you a horse a horse [Music] the green family have barely 30 000 pounds a year to feed clothe and house all 33 of them i wish you hmm what do i wish you i wish you a dolly named emerald [Applause] [Music] i wish you a horsey do you want a horsey and a cow and a cow okay [Music] to preserve their fundamentalist way of life the children have little contact with the outside world and are educated at home by their mothers i wish you a husband that will treat you like an angel [Applause] each of my wives have their own independent personalities and and i encourage them to do to develop their personalities independently i i find that i relate with each one of them differently linda is she's very level-headed she's very mature she's very intelligent and has a fantastic memory just so amazing in her abilities that i feel extremely fortunate and blessed to have her as a partner in my marriage and shirley is as devoted and diligent as any mother i've ever seen i won great respect for surely because of that surely just a lot of fun to have around and um leanne keeps life really fun for the family and for me besides that i really like the way she dresses it's just fun to look at her walk by i i get a thrill just out of watching her walk by and uh carrie is is such a stalwart uh carrie amazes me how she just diligently devotedly works her heart out for this family without complaining ever in eight years of marriage with carrie we've never had an argument carrie's like the pillar that holds up the family and um hannah is uh hannah's an amazing girl she's she's athletic and she's strong and she's competitive and she's extremely committed to this family it's just really dazzling to me to see how she is striving to do the best she can in this family so you have five wives they're all very attractive they're young they're very lively how do you satisfy them which aspect of satisf satisfaction are you talking about i i i there was a truck driver one time that uh was talking to us on the cb radio and and he was talking to my wives and discovered that they were all married to the same man and he was fascinated and so uh he he asked me how how do you how do you do it i'd like to get a bunch of wives and i said well it's very simple all you have to do is be able to satisfy the other physical needs he said oh yeah yeah i can do that but he was only thinking of their sensual needs he wasn't thinking of their all their physical needs i said you must be able to satisfy their intellectual needs their emotional needs and their spiritual needs and if you can meet all of those needs you'll find all kinds of women that will come to you and he when he really thought about it he said well i don't want a bunch of wives that bad you see there's a there's a great price to pay but uh were you referring to the sensual the physical yeah and then as individuals you know i mean there's a big volume of well let's talk about the sensual needs first is that that's a lot of sex isn't it a lot a lot of um sensuality times five i i have the average amount and they're the ones that go without [Music] [Music] that's enough sit back [Music] are you ready how many raise your hand and don't say word if you're if you want to go on the safari okay has philip gone to sleep already phillip went to sleep wesley do you want to do a safari okay everybody get your gun put your gun on your shoulder okay got your binoculars put those on now open the door careful look outside is it all clear up there okay let's go down the path our nights are scheduled on a rotational basis it's not up to tom at all it is left up to the wives and we have all decided together that if it's just one right after another and in turn then it would be a lot simpler to keep track of and also to help deal with you know jealousy and when it is our night with tom it is totally up to the woman to initiate whether or not she wants to be intimate with him or not through the tall grass quiet misty oh here's a tall tree let's climb it real slow don't climb it fast what was tom like on your wedding night of course i have to say he was experienced so he taught me and explained things and one thing that he did is he would draw on my belly where the the what that green one i never get that part he would what explain no this isn't okay let's not do this he'd draw on your belly and tell you where a baby would be well how it works actually like where the uterus is where the ovaries are and what to explain just explain to it to me the reproductive system of the female get your binoculars look all around what do you see see a lion oh no break down in the water slim the river quick down the path i see our cabin quick inside shut the [Music] [Applause] door is it unusual for a mother and daughter to be married to the same man i've heard of a lot of them but most people think it's wrong i don't see anything wrong with it really it's it is kind of rare to have your mother marry your husband but in some areas and regions it's not but isn't it strange to see your mother going off to spend the night with your husband it may sound very strange that to think that my mother was with my husband you have to realize that this is the way i believe life ought to be lived and this is a very deeply held religion for me and my family and through my whole childhood growing up i was taught taught the values and the the reasons and the whys and the hows and and for me it was natural and what was it like to have two baby boys on the same day by the same man and be mother and daughter yourself and she was real mad at me yeah because i was first i was going to have the firstborn and i had my baby in the morning and she had hers in the evening and and i just moved over she had hers the same spot i had mine and they were both tom's children yes they were what were your boys relationships to each other they were brothers to themselves and they were they were sons to us and they were also her child was my brother and my child was her grandson so as i think there's about in every relationship we were very closely related sam the baby on the left was born with down syndrome jerry the baby on the right died in a fire three years later at the greens home he's in heaven and died um a couple winters ago our home burnt down and carrie and linda managed to get all of the children out and jerry was the only one that they could not get out and he he burnt he died in the fire and we all miss him the night of the fire i had made plans to go to salt lake because i was a month prior to having my twins and we weren't sure if they were going to come early and we made we had made plans to go to town that night and i had made a point to not say goodbye to my son because he gets so sad when i do and several hours after going to bed that night we got a call on the phone and tom answered the call and it was linda she was at a neighbor's home and said she had told him that she said tom the house burnt down and we got everybody out and he just just gave a sigh of relief and then she says except for jerry which was my son my fourth child and there were 25 children in the old homestead we were living in later on we found out that it was a wiring problem well jerry died right here and we used to put a board over it but now my mother the one who born jerry she has his body in a little container and his body is ash now but they did find a couple bones and stuff so we had a funeral and i just didn't like the fire and jerry died here come here often no not so often we go to here more than his grave though that goes to his grave more often hardly anybody's going to his grave i gotta help bury him i i just didn't like it when that fire occurred the shock of knowing that my son did not get out i just kept shouting no i mean in my heart you know when something happens that you just don't ever want to have happen and you you want to make it unhappen but you can't you know and then i i thought but it's winter the snow is deep and we don't have a sink any shelter where am i going to put on my children do you have enough time to attend to all your children i don't have enough time to tend to my children i know that i'm i'm i'm in over my head but i'm also convinced that we can make the time uh for the last two or three years i've been saddled with the just trying to to cover the basic necessities and it seems like every time we start getting close then a wind comes and demolishes our houses or a drunk runs into one of our homes and demolishes it or a fire burns it down or other things come along just when we're ready to settle in and sets us back and you know we'll never quit why have you done this to yourself though we put ourselves in this position what we're doing is a very key and elemental part of our religious belief and it's tremendously challenging and commensurately it's tremendously rewarding if it wasn't challenging it wouldn't be just and fair to pour out the kind of rewards and blessings that we receive so it has to be tough [Music] um [Music] what's your dreams for this place i have a great big grassy area for the children to play on and a covered sand area where they won't get so sunburned and a waterfall and we'll have a skating rink and in the winter time it'll be an ice skating rink we'll pour the ice over the cement and there'll be a fireplace in the center and it might be covered and self-sufficient everything we need to be self-sufficient granaries and cows for milk can make our cheese and yogurt and butter and horses to go explore everywhere with with the different teams take different teams at a time and go explore tom used to be in the dry cleaning business but now the family support themselves selling magazine subscriptions door to door in salt lake city they make the eight hour return trip once a week it's an erratic business but hannah and leanne are often successful especially when accompanied by a couple of children [Music] now we'll uh have you divide up as we usually do work towards each other i'll be working elsewhere [Music] we'll just do this one section right over here okay what it is is the tv guide is setting up new service routes in the area where they deliver the tv guide right to you through the mail each week and as an incentive to get the route set up they're often what they call it a 198 special that is leanne and hannah managed to sell only one subscription earning another 80 pounds for the family enough to feed them for three more days tom is planning hoping to take another wife to take his sixth wife and so are we we would love to have another sister wife and uh it's i i think it's very exciting because it's gonna be a new friend you know this is my courting shirt i i bought it two weeks ago so that when candace comes to visit i could look nice my wives all told me get get something nice so that you'll make an impression what is that candice i it really tickles me that my wives are concerned about me making a good impression on her because they like her and they hope that she'll choose to join our family but candace's father is is my adopted son it's a religious relationship that we have and though we've known candace since she was young it's only lately in fact uh after she turned 16 that she began to show an interest in the family in a in a different way than she had before she has she's begun to flirt with me a little and it's kind of fun oh he's you know he's off in the clouds he's he's falling in love he's it's that feeling that you get when you can can't think of much else except the person that you're in love with and that you want to be with and and so that's what we call la la land are you allowed to fall in love with anyone else um no i mean am i allowed to fall no we believe that that that a woman should only be involved with one man and love one man and that's that's how it should be that's how it works the best [Music] the green family are preparing for candace's visit there's a lifestyle on offer here as well as a marriage when a potential new wife is getting interested in our family it works the best when she spends time with the wives and the children and gets to know us us first because you know that will be a very big part of her life it's it's important that that she does get along with us and does have a relationship with us because she's also marrying us and not just time tell us a little bit about yourself myself who are you uh tell us where you live how many brothers and sisters you've got how old you are okay um i'm candice mckinley and i live in mantai that's central utah and i have 13 brothers and sisters and i'm 16. when she's 17 then i would be able to take her as a wife without having serious problems with the law even though this is uh this lifestyle is still illegal here in utah um this girl's quite mature quite capable and she has a personality where she smiles all the time and it's really it's really fun to be around her i guess if say tom is falling in love with another woman then i guess we're all going to have to deal with a sort of sense of jealousy watching him fall in love again but at the same time we are all involved in this new relationship we at the same time when he is building a relationship so are we it just makes you feel good inside knowing that he's falling in love again and that we're going to have an addition to our family someone that's going to have more children and new relationships it's it's exciting why aren't you jealous well i because it's what tom wants um and what he wants is what i want and i might get jealous i don't know i'll try not to because i think it just caused me more sorrow and sadness than there needs to be but i certainly will you see i think most of us would find it very hard to share somebody else it's very painful to share someone else and it's very interesting that you don't so i want to know why you don't well the reason i don't is because because i i love tom and i and i like his wives and i want for them what's going to make them happy and that makes me happy so where's the hammer i don't know i set it down lauren did you take the hammer oh turkey lauren give me the hammer give me the hammer okay this is my son lauren he's a practical joker now give me my hammer quick a more likely question may be what does young girl have to offer me yes she can she can give me children but there are lots of young girls that can give me children these wives have all given me children whatever young girl has to offer me i already have there i can't think of of much at all that a young girl could offer me that i don't already have with the wives i have what can i offer her the same thing that these ladies have gotten that's this family it's not just me it's not me they buy when they when they they buy the whole package [Music] [Music] [Music] to find a girl who would fit in a relationship like this and work well within a family like this is really rare it has to be somebody who is securing themselves when i see a girl like that i want to at least get some exposure of my family to her and vice versa so that should the lord decide to put feelings in her heart for us and put the idea in her mind that she could be part of this then at least the opportunity will be there emmy emerald you must stay up here on this side don't go down past those bushes all right i can't see you [Music] it may be strange to our children if their father marries a woman that is close to their age when i married tom i he had children my age so it was it was a little different they'll probably won't uh they probably won't mother them like the other mothers will but i think that they could respect them and they could be friends so do you have a girlfriend mel yes i do you tell me about that yeah she's absolutely gorgeous she's very smart and friendly she reads very fast i don't know anybody that can read that fast and she she's a really good card player she plays cards a lot and i really think she likes me well not everybody thinks that do you like being with her yes it's pretty fun yeah but sometimes it gets a little embarrassing because everybody teases me why do they tease you i don't know it's just that chris and some of my other brothers they just really don't understand what it's like until they tease me about it i guess can you show us a picture of your girlfriend tell us what her name is yes i only got this picture she gave it to me her name's candice who gave you that picture her she gave it to me does she like you she has a picture of me i buy her bed too well i think she likes me she really expresses it do you worry that his heart will be broken yes i'm concerned that it could be but uh but i think that if he loved her enough that he would want her to do what she wanted and be happy [Music] is it confusing sometimes to know how to be with a girl i think you should let her make her own decisions and be friendly around her and i just feel like you should make him feel loved and needed that's kind of how father acts around my mother's and they just love it if i do marry a young wife again i would restrict her authority over the older children until such time as i felt that she had the experience and the maturity to effectively supervise them and obviously the time will come when the time may come when i have a wife that's younger than the children that we have here i mean just how do you expect children to understand that their father could have sexual relations with someone who's younger than they are how are you going to face that in the future the children that i have have been brought up in a plural family where their father has many wives and i mean my children understand about sex and how it works and what it's for and that it's confined to the bonds of marriage and they understand that the way that we have more babies come into this family is that the mothers and i have sexual relations they don't think anything of it and if i had another wife no matter what her age was they would understand that i would be having children with her and that sex is the way you make babies i doubt seriously they'd give it any thought i really do [Music] how do you deal with the sort of charge that could be leveled against you by perhaps a british audience that in britain you'd be prosecuted for child abuse for marrying girls age 14 [Music] and how would i respond to that for about 95 of the recorded history of man girls got married when they were ready to have babies physically i think god had a design there and i think if it's a mistake for a girl to get married when she's able to conceive children then the mistake is gods for making them able to be mothers long before they were ready it's not god who made them physically able to have them have children before they were mentally able to handle it that's at fault it's our societies our western societies that stopped preparing young men and women for the responsibilities of a family and began shifting that to preparing them to go to work in the workplace in utah it is still illegal for a man to have sex with a woman who is not recognized to be his wife the authorities do not acknowledge mormon plural marriages as lawful are you likely to be arrested right now there's a great push by an anti-polygamous group to get me arrested because they keep telling people that polygamy didn't work for them and and it can't work for anybody and then my wives tell people it works for us and so they would really like to have me discredited by being arrested and thrown into jail they've been pushing the county prosecutor to go after me and i don't know what he's going to decide there's a chance that any day the sheriff's cars could roll up the driveway and handcuff me and haunt me way to jail we live with that fear hanging over our head but if i go to jail for my religious beliefs i i'm not ashamed on july the 9th 1999 tom green and his wives were ordered to appear in front of the county attorney and there shall be no disputations among you tom is still waiting to hear if he will face trial what are disputations does anybody know if convicted on all counts of bigamy tom could spend up to 20 years in prison firm as the mountains around us consequently tom has delayed any marriage plans with candice you

Channel: True Lives

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Id: CTuNaZaPh0c

Length: 49min 57sec (2997 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 14 2021