Six wives
In a desolate desert in Utah, USA, lives such a strange family. The man Tom and his 6 wives and their 26 children.
The first wife, Linda, was only 14 years old when she married Tom, and Tom was 35 years old at the time, and had a marriage, Linda's parents and Tom are very good friends, they feel that Tom is calm and reliable, and the daughter can rely on for life, and Linda's love is just beginning, and she is also full of love for this old man, so the two held a marriage ceremony in the blessing of their parents.
Tom and Linda
The second wife, Shirley, she was originally a nurse hired by Tom during Linda's pregnancy, she was just 15 years old at the time, after working in Tom's house for only a month, Tom didn't know what kind of magic he had, the little girl Shirley was deeply fascinated by him and vowed not to marry Tom, and Linda and Shirley had a good relationship, the two were like good sisters, Linda not only did not stop, but encouraged Tom to marry Shirley.
Tom and Shirley
Not long after marrying Shirley, Tom took a fancy to Shirley's mother Jon, his mother-in-law, and Jon also met Tom, so Tom married Jon back home.
Jon
The fourth wife, Lianne, whose mother was Tom's ex-wife, meant that she was Tom's stepdaughter, fell in love with her stepfather when she was 13 years old, and then married her former stepfather.
Lian
The fifth wife, Kelly, Tom told her that he liked her and was serious, and Kelly said I was also serious, and the two got married.
Kelly
The sixth wife, Hannah, who is Kelly's sister, married Tom two weeks after her sister married Tom, when at her sister's brother-in-law's wedding, Kelly arranged for Hannah and her husband to sit in the back of the car, Hannah said to Tom, I like your eyes, I want to have a child with eyes like yours, Tom immediately said, this is not a problem, I can let you realize this idea.
Hannah
It seems that this Tom is indeed a master of flirting with sisters, in just a few years, he married 6 wives in a row, and among her wives, there are mothers and daughters, there are sisters, how to get a garbled word.
How to live
Tom's ex-wife gave him three children, and now these three children have left home as adults, and the six wives Tom married have successively given him 26 children.
Tom runs a small dry cleaner with limited financial means, and in order to accommodate this huge family, he bought a plot of land in the desert 200 kilometers away from the city, and when he couldn't build a house, he bought a lot of second-hand simple tin RVs, which were stacked together in disorder, and from a distance, it looked like a small shabby village.
The 26 children live in this desert every day, with almost no communication with the outside world, they do not go to school, they are taught at home by their mothers, they play with the sand and dirt, ride their bikes, and they are unrestrained.
Each RV has a living room, bedroom, kitchen, where wives live with their children, while Tom does not live with any wife, he lives alone in an RV, and the wives go to her husband's place for the night according to the pre-arranged form.
What's more funny is that Shirley and her mother both gave birth to a boy for Tom, and they were born on the same day, and in the face of reporters' questions, Shirley was frankly right, my son is my mother's grandson, and my mother's son is my younger brother. The two of them are called brothers, and in our faith, this is normal, I don't feel bad, we have been taught this way since childhood.
This large family of 33 spends about $50,000 a year on food, drink, Lasa and other miscellaneous expenses, and about $35,000 on other miscellaneous items such as repairing the house.
In order to open source, every weekend, Tom would drive eight hours round trip to Salt Lake City with his two wives and two children to sell magazines and order, and if he ordered a newspaper, he would be able to feed the extended family for three days.
Aren't wives jealous of each other?
Tom said that when he first got married, he made a sacred marriage contract with each of his wives, and he was very satisfied with his wives, all this was arranged by God, and although his wives were young, they were all very capable and mature, and he encouraged them to develop themselves.
And the wives told reporters that they took the initiative to choose Tom, not Tom, and so far, they are satisfied with their choice, and this big family makes them feel very happy.
And wives don't mind sharing their husbands with others, because the husband is a good man, such a good man has to be shared by everyone, if it is exclusive, he is too selfish and will feel guilty.
Isn't it illegal?
Tom's polygamous life caused quite a stir in the United States, and people accused him of living this absurd life in the name of teachings, but Tom insisted that all this was God's plan, that God sent these girls to him, and these girls also grew up under this Mormon influence, although living in the 21st century, but obviously completely brainwashed.
Just as Tom was preparing to marry his seventh wife, 14-year-old Condes, he was arrested and imprisoned on charges of bigamy and seduction of underage girls, and was released on parole from 2001 to 2007 after serving six years in prison.
Later, two of her wives left him and started a new life, of which Lian also became a photographer for Geographic magazine, while the other four followed him until 2021, when Tom contracted the new crown and died at the age of 72.
In Utah, there are reportedly more than 50,000 such polygamous families, all Mormons, which of course is not in line with current laws in the United States, but this phenomenon has persisted for a long time, and later, the government stipulated that as long as these believers were married and there was no coercion, the government turned a blind eye.