Research LDS "Escape to Babylon"

[BlackSnake]

Doing some research on polygamy in Utah. Wow! I bet my books will really sell there.
http://www.rickross.com/groups/polygamy.html

How for will you go to put some realism into your stories?

 

[Penelope Street]

How for will you go to put some realism into your stories?

Not far enough to marry two men

 

[dr_mabeuse]

If you want to read a good account of LDS polygamist groups, check out John Krakauer's book, "Under the Banner of Heaven". It's true, it's a great read, and it's pretty damned scary.

In all fairness, Mormons have renounced polygamy, but there are quite a few break-away groups that still condone it.

--Zoot

 

[Penelope Street]

Frankly, if a man can keep two women happy, he has my blessing. I figure that's one less woman sitting home lonely or, worse, stuck with a true loser.

But this thread is really meant to be about research instead of polygamy, isn't it?

If the story is a period piece, I'll probably spend more time reading than writing. My intention is always to write a story that could have happened and I'll do whatever amount of research it takes to achieve that end.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Frankly, if a man can keep two women happy, he has my blessing. I figure that's one less woman sitting home lonely or, worse, stuck with a true loser.

The problems is that polygamy amongst the LDS is (and always has been) pretty much an exclusively male idea. Even Joseph Smith's wife would have none of it. The women who are taken as plural wives are often way underage - 14 is not unheard of - and rarely if ever have any say as to who their husbands will be. You get fifteen year-olds married to 50 year-old men and things like that. Since they're already in violation of state law, they don;t care much about age restrictions.

For many of these women, plural mariage is pretty much the same as institutionalized slavery, and women who try to run away are excommunicated and banished from family and friends, if not worse.

 

[Penelope Street]

I specifically said a man who could keep two women happy had my blessing. The situations described clearly fail to meet that criteria.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I do more research than is necessary. I strive for accuracy, even when accuracy won't mean anyting to 99% of my readers.

In my period pievcesm, everything from the clothes to the weapons to the vocabulary are as accurate as I can get. So if I say a tank has a hatch in the forehull, you can bet it does. And if I say she was wearing a corset. you can bet she would have been.

The tapestry you weave in a story is all a reflection of your skill, but it's easier to make simething beautiful with the details as thread than it is to make up the threaded as well.

 

[Penelope Street]

I do more research than is necessary. I strive for accuracy, even when accuracy won't mean anything to 99% of my readers.

In my period pievcesm, everything from the clothes to the weapons to the vocabulary are as accurate as I can get. So if I say a tank has a hatch in the forehull, you can bet it does. And if I say she was wearing a corset. you can bet she would have been.

The tapestry you weave in a story is all a reflection of your skill, but it's easier to make something beautiful with the details as thread than it is to make up the threaded as well.

Vocabulary is one ingredient about which I often fret, especially when the characters wouldn't have been speaking English anyway. I mean, what's valid for vocabulary for a Greco-Roman tale?

Also, are there any good online resources for archaic vocabulary? If I want to see what a word meant in, say, 1650, is there any place I can go to easily find this information?

 

[Dar~]

So many people are misinformed about the polygamy in mormonism. It really amazes me. Back when mormons were heavily hated and percecuted it was legal in mnay states to kill them. If a moman man got killed back then it often left women unprotected in a time when women couldn't hold jobs or own property. 2% of the mormon men were able to marry a second wife.(only 2%) they did this as a form of protection for the women. Most times, the women maintained seperate lives and their own households. Very Very rarely did she ever sleep, or bear children with the man she married. it was simply to provide for women whose husbands or fathers were killed or who had died. In the Mormon faith, women are held in very high regard. A mormon man can not enter heaven without a wife but a mormon woman can with out a husband. its a very intriguing religion.