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 enlarge | Author: Andrea Moore-emmett
Publisher: Pince-Nez Press
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy New: $10.15
You Save: $6.80 (40%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 65625
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.3 x 0.4
ISBN: 1930074131
Dewey Decimal Number: 289
EAN: 9781930074132
ASIN: 1930074131
Publication Date: June 1, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Very angry May 27, 2007
13 out of 18 found this review helpful
I'm giving this book a 5-star rating, because I think everyone should read it. It's an important book.
However, I have to warn you: these stories are angry. Say it again in a high-pitched, Margaret Cho-like screech--These stories are ANNN-GRY!!
I suppose that anger is the emotion you feel most after a lifetime of abuse, so I guess it makes sense.
As far as I can tell, this is a book about abuse. However, I think this book tried to take on way too may topics. I was left with these questions, which I think are all of the topics the book tried to tackle.
Is the book trying to be critical of the Mormons for no longer practicing polygamy?
Are they trying to be critical of the Mormons for not supporting anti-polygamist efforts more?
Is the book trying to stop underage marriages in polygamist groups?
Is the book trying to stop polygamy from ever happening?
Is the book trying to outlaw polygamy?
Is the book trying to inform the public about polygamist culture?
Is the book trying to stop incest?
Is the book trying to stop marriages that would result in incest (first cousins or closer)?
Is the book trying to be critical of the state of Utah?
Is the book trying to criticize the Mormon Church for distancing itself from polygamy?
Is the book trying to get people to donate to Tapestry Against Polygamy?
Is the book trying to pressure people once heavily involved in Tapestry Against Polygamy to return to working more for Tapestry Against Polygamy?
Is the book trying to talk about the prevalence of polygamy in the US and Mexico?
Is the book trying to say that men are bad?
Is the book trying to say that men, when in a polygamist religion, will eventually turn into abusive molesters?
Is the book trying to say that polygamists should use doctors?
Is the book trying to expose the covered-up deaths of some polygamists?
Is the book trying to expose tax fraud in polygamist religions?
Is the book trying to vilify all polygamist leaders?
Is the book trying to let polygamist women know that they can marry who they love instead of their old uncle?
Is the book trying to let polygamist women know how to escape?
I don't know. I really don't know. I couldn't put the book down, but the content confused me.
I think it would have been better this book had been just about one topic, or even limited to two, three, or four topics. Then, this book might have actually made a difference. This book has a very low likelihood of making a difference because it's really just a "rant" book.
Each of the 18 chapters is supposed to tell a story about a woman. Really each chapter is only 1/4 the woman's story and the rest additional commentary. The content of this book really seemed like the story of one women rather than the story of eighteen women. But, I couldn't tell for sure.
I was left wondering what was factual in this book. I attribute this to the book trying to tackle so many different topics at one time.
I could only conclude one thing for sure about polygamy from this book--that in polygamy a man will sleep with only one wife at a time. That was a question I had, and this book answered it.
I also need to mention the title--the title has nothing to do with the book. It's only there to provide a shocking title so that people will read the book
One of the basics about abuse is that abuse is not about sex to the abuser; it has to do with control and power. The title is probably harmful in that it seems to indicate that the rape and molestation are more about sex than about control and power.
Overall, though, you should read this book. Hopefully this book spurs many more books to be written, and hopefully they're a lot more focused.
Yikes! November 8, 2006
34 out of 37 found this review helpful
This expose is badly needed.
I am not a Mormon, but I do know that the original believers advocated polygamy and later on the mainstream LDS church repudiated it. Since I don't have a thorough knowledge of Mormon doctrine so I'll not attempt to do a critique on it here.
But I do know that the kind of polygamy shown in this book is ghastly. That's the only way I can describe it.
1. First of all, the young age of these brides is unbelievable. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old. I believe that no matter what the culture, a person needs to mature emotionally and physically before marriage.
2. The refusal of many of these men to support their wives and children, making them dependent on the welfare system. This is just plain unbiblical. Even in the early cases of polygamous marriages in the Old Testament, the Patriarchs kept their wives and families fed and cared for.
3. The spousal beatings. If these people claim to believe the Bible along with their Mormon doctrines, they will have to realize that there is not one command given to men (in either the Old or New Testaments)that they can beat their wives. In one of the examples given in Moore-Emmet's book, a man hit his wife so hard that he broke her eardrum. Religion or no religion, there's one word for an act like that -- it's a CRIME! And it needs to be prosecuted as one. (By the way, the man I just mentioned was prosecuted later on.)
4. Although this book mostly concentrated on the plight of the girls, it also showed that young boys can be victimized, too -- that sometimes they are considered threats to the older men who want the young wives.
5. The slowness of the city and state governments to do anything about it. When the whole state is majority Mormon, I can understand the uneasiness about prosecuting polygamy in general, although I think it needs to be done. But how about outright abuse that is against the law? Or, for those who think they are above the law of the United States, how about against the Bible itself?
I think polygamy is set up for problems, and I'm not just saying this because I'm female. History is full of family squabbles over the children of one mother ganging up on their half-brothers and sisters who are descended from a different mother. It can breed a lot of jealousy and resentment because many men will have their favorite wives and neglect the others.
It's a thorny problem that won't go away soon. But thanks to this and other books like it, our attention can be guided to the problem and some time in the future we can find a solution. We must never forget about it.
Unbelievable. February 5, 2006
43 out of 48 found this review helpful
The book is written by several different women who lived inside different polygamist groups. It was hard for me to believe that this type of practice still exists and it makes me sick that we allow this to continue within any state inside the U.S. I recommend this book to people interested in this subject. I read this book after reading, "Under the Banner of Heaven" and would recommend that book to anyone who hasn't read it yet - it explains the history of this religion and how the polygamy came to exist within it.
Wake-up call on the abuses inherent in polygamy July 30, 2005
41 out of 47 found this review helpful
This powerful book is hard to read at any length because of the horrifying stories it contains. It is clear that polygamy (specifically the marriage of many women to one man) turns ordinary men into abusive cult leaders. Want to create your very own Jim Jones, David Koresh or Sun Myung Moon? Then tell a man it is God's will that he should marry many wives. He will proceed to ignore the emotional anguish of his wives as they try and fail to suppress their inevitable jealousy, and he will walk around as if he is perfect and beyond reproach even as he perpetrates or encourages rape, incest, child abuse, neglect, welfare fraud, and murder. Only a truly cruel God would wish such a fate on women and children. The mainstream Mormon Church should have not merely discontinued the practice of polygamy (as they did in 1890); they should have declared that the entire revelation of Joseph Smith with regard to polygamy had been mistaken. But they didn't, and as a result breakaway sects of fundamentalist Mormons still feel encouraged to engage in this destructive practice. Meanwhile, the State of Utah, being dominated by Mormons, tries as much as possible to ignore the abuses. After a thoughtful introduction by the author, this book contains the painful stories of 18 women who broke free. You will not be able to take a laissez-faire attitude to polygamy again after you read this.
"...you are sharing one penis. That's what it all revolves around." July 21, 2005
20 out of 31 found this review helpful
(The fundamentalist groups represented in this book practice polygyny, not polygamy. One would think those who adhere to this lifestyle would want the word used correctly. Demonstrably, education really *isn't* a high priority in their world.)
Via the very effective combo of academic discussion and first-person narrative, God's Brothel provides access to an almost entirely closed world of severely limited choices, institutionalized defiance for the law, overtly acceptable child abuse of all kinds, scathing jealousies, and dire poverty--all in the name of religion.
So what's new? Such has been true throughout time. Perhaps one shouldn't be shocked that it's happening here and now, as is depicted in this book. After all, people have been folded, spindled, and mutilated in the name of religion since the beginning of settled societies thousands of years ago. Why worry about such a thing happening in Utah, here and now, when it's happening on almost every continent, just as it always has, just as it always will?
Personally, i'm outraged at the systematic abuse of the helpless by the polygamous religious cultists as so clearly portrayed in this book because i believe ardently that there are always more people who care, more people who are appalled and offended by such fanatics, then there are people who actually *are* such fanatics. There are more people who want to help, who want to make it better then there are people who want such abuse to continue--wherever and whenever it happens. I believe that. I do.
To whom do I send my contribution for the work Tapestry Against Polygamy continues to do?
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