Warren Steed Jeffs’ vestiges of maleness a Muslim typicality
Isabel P. Ball
September 04, 2006
That crime doesn’t pay is depicted once again in the recent apprehension of the abominable polygamist, Warren Steed Jeffs. Fortunately, life has its own way of maintaining balance, setting up a way to ensnare malfeasant individuals. Nothing but that power could explain the oddest of ways to have caught the elusive and wily fugitive.
Alleged of having committed several immoral conducts, Jeffs, is mainly accused for arranging minor girls, in the commune, to betroth to the elder men of the congregation. Jeffs leads 10,000 followers of the FLDS (Fundamental Latter Day Saints), stragglers of the Mormon Church in Colorado City, Arizona, and in Utah.
Plural marriage or polygamy has been the markstone of the Mormon founder and saint, Joseph Smith, who had claimed that God has ordained him to cohabitate with as many “virgins to multiply and replenish the earth,” a doctrine that he followed and practiced. According to records, he kept 33 wives. From that belief, the Mormon’s became a persecuted group, chased away by the monogamous believers. They found a rightful location for their religion in Utah. But the church, much criticized, has stopped the polygamous practice century ago. Jeffs’ group lives in a compound in a community established for the Fundamentalist Mormon followers of polygamists, and every now and then, have emerged in the news for some behavioral discrepancy, but never been demolished for good.
A rotten core is being peeled away day by day since his capture. Jeffs inherited the leadership in 2002, upon the death of his aged father, Rulon. The son is reported to have a harem the latest count was 80, including the widows of his 98-years-old father. Jeffs has sired 60 children, and could be counting as the investigations continue. Following in strict footing with the founding fathers of the church in the beginning, Jeffs is said to be taking in younger brides.
Interestingly, in recent news, a former LDS supporter felt just like what I have felt initially upon hearing of the case. She has likened the Jeffs’ FLDS organization as a “Taliban, a homegrown terrorism.” Jeffs and the Muslims share typicality; they are uncouth in the treatment of the women. Such attitude has always been attributable to the concept of creation blatant in the pages of the bible that women are men’s subordinates, not their equal. While anatomically an obvious disparity in physique or build between the two species, but in most respects, since the emancipation of the women, fast forward today, in particular, here in the U.S., where laws have been in place to promote women’s rights, women workers and entrepreneurs have grown in leaps and bounds in the workforce. In the media alone, they teem as broadcasters and as TV shows hosts and as legal analysts. It is interesting to note that NBC, CNN, and Fox have an increasing number of straight talking, assertive, aggressive women in their program line up, wittily and equally butting heads on with their guests on all issues. Women are in politics, and have led many nations of the world. They are in the United Nations, science, and many other fields, thanks to the pioneers in human rights.
Women are proving capable partners and participants in all aspects of our societies, since weaned out from her domestic domain in the era of subjugation. This trend is proving a point that control through physical strength was the single factor for women to have been relegated under male anarchy, now gradually being dismantled by the force of the law inspired by the democratic ideals, ironically, born of those great minds of men with foresight and wisdom to have acknowledged that men (humans) are born equal.
In the case of Jeffs, he has been wielding complete and total control of his followers, whose minds, he was able to manipulate through combination of religion (fear of god’s punishment), force, and other torturous punishments. The Muslims do the same to their women; they keep them in purdah (behind curtain). Even in Iran, the women are under the control and influence of the dominant male clerics, or colloquially, under the gun? They are shown in news footages, in chador, a female militia bearing arms parading on the streets, is a hollow, facade show of these mind-altered women’s devotion to their faith.
Like the Muslims, Jeffs would not relinquish the right to fornicate, subjugate, and oppress the women. Not with the flesh demands for women as a paramount privilege accorded of as the leader, and the right to sanction such practices among his other male followers. What a reservoir of libido and a beast of man they are displaying! How could one be judicious as to lead a flock, when the mind teems with lust, sex, and power, all the time? The likelihood is that they are like an addict opiate of drugs. This uncivilized behavior somehow reflects as misconducts, the very reason why, in the case of Jeffs, he is avoiding the law enforcement for sometime using all kinds of disguises and preparedness. Some of the paraphernalia found in his car were several wigs, sunglasses galore, and police scanner device, several laptops, and $54K cold cash. A man apparently could not be without a woman, a wife was also found with him in the car.
In the Muslim society, men are granted the rights to have up to four wives only, but more could be have depending on ones affluence and influence. The practice is polygamy just the same and loathsome. These vestiges of maleness is now becoming an extinct social practice, what with the many associated problems related to it, made stark in the face of a much more objectified rules and laws. In the Muslim world, abuse of the women has been a sore spot in the diplomatic relationships with the western world clamoring for the Muslim women rights. However, in the eyes of the Muslim male, the women are just what they have been eons of time in the society, good for nothing domestic partners with no rights at all. The world had a glimpse of a Taliban beating on a woman from Afghanistan clad in a shuttlecock burqa. Hapless, she was absorbing the agony. The scene caused a world conflagration of protests, and American troops, like a Superman, swooped down on the country and rid of the Talibans.
Although Jeffs in his compound have not been cited for physical abuse, we are not assured that he is not doing it on some women, afterall, he has absolute control of the congregation, a power to expel male insubordinates, and deploy of young men to some other place to keep them away from the young women, as he himself and other elder men, like beasts ravaged on this minors with impunity.
Like the Muslim problem, America should heed on these practices occurring in its own soil as a problem urgent enough to demand exigent measures to uproot the practice, just like it needs to do with the rogue leaders of the world in to create problems for its people, and to the world in the future.
Alleged of having committed several immoral conducts, Jeffs, is mainly accused for arranging minor girls, in the commune, to betroth to the elder men of the congregation. Jeffs leads 10,000 followers of the FLDS (Fundamental Latter Day Saints), stragglers of the Mormon Church in Colorado City, Arizona, and in Utah.
Plural marriage or polygamy has been the markstone of the Mormon founder and saint, Joseph Smith, who had claimed that God has ordained him to cohabitate with as many “virgins to multiply and replenish the earth,” a doctrine that he followed and practiced. According to records, he kept 33 wives. From that belief, the Mormon’s became a persecuted group, chased away by the monogamous believers. They found a rightful location for their religion in Utah. But the church, much criticized, has stopped the polygamous practice century ago. Jeffs’ group lives in a compound in a community established for the Fundamentalist Mormon followers of polygamists, and every now and then, have emerged in the news for some behavioral discrepancy, but never been demolished for good.
A rotten core is being peeled away day by day since his capture. Jeffs inherited the leadership in 2002, upon the death of his aged father, Rulon. The son is reported to have a harem the latest count was 80, including the widows of his 98-years-old father. Jeffs has sired 60 children, and could be counting as the investigations continue. Following in strict footing with the founding fathers of the church in the beginning, Jeffs is said to be taking in younger brides.
Interestingly, in recent news, a former LDS supporter felt just like what I have felt initially upon hearing of the case. She has likened the Jeffs’ FLDS organization as a “Taliban, a homegrown terrorism.” Jeffs and the Muslims share typicality; they are uncouth in the treatment of the women. Such attitude has always been attributable to the concept of creation blatant in the pages of the bible that women are men’s subordinates, not their equal. While anatomically an obvious disparity in physique or build between the two species, but in most respects, since the emancipation of the women, fast forward today, in particular, here in the U.S., where laws have been in place to promote women’s rights, women workers and entrepreneurs have grown in leaps and bounds in the workforce. In the media alone, they teem as broadcasters and as TV shows hosts and as legal analysts. It is interesting to note that NBC, CNN, and Fox have an increasing number of straight talking, assertive, aggressive women in their program line up, wittily and equally butting heads on with their guests on all issues. Women are in politics, and have led many nations of the world. They are in the United Nations, science, and many other fields, thanks to the pioneers in human rights.
Women are proving capable partners and participants in all aspects of our societies, since weaned out from her domestic domain in the era of subjugation. This trend is proving a point that control through physical strength was the single factor for women to have been relegated under male anarchy, now gradually being dismantled by the force of the law inspired by the democratic ideals, ironically, born of those great minds of men with foresight and wisdom to have acknowledged that men (humans) are born equal.
In the case of Jeffs, he has been wielding complete and total control of his followers, whose minds, he was able to manipulate through combination of religion (fear of god’s punishment), force, and other torturous punishments. The Muslims do the same to their women; they keep them in purdah (behind curtain). Even in Iran, the women are under the control and influence of the dominant male clerics, or colloquially, under the gun? They are shown in news footages, in chador, a female militia bearing arms parading on the streets, is a hollow, facade show of these mind-altered women’s devotion to their faith.
Like the Muslims, Jeffs would not relinquish the right to fornicate, subjugate, and oppress the women. Not with the flesh demands for women as a paramount privilege accorded of as the leader, and the right to sanction such practices among his other male followers. What a reservoir of libido and a beast of man they are displaying! How could one be judicious as to lead a flock, when the mind teems with lust, sex, and power, all the time? The likelihood is that they are like an addict opiate of drugs. This uncivilized behavior somehow reflects as misconducts, the very reason why, in the case of Jeffs, he is avoiding the law enforcement for sometime using all kinds of disguises and preparedness. Some of the paraphernalia found in his car were several wigs, sunglasses galore, and police scanner device, several laptops, and $54K cold cash. A man apparently could not be without a woman, a wife was also found with him in the car.
In the Muslim society, men are granted the rights to have up to four wives only, but more could be have depending on ones affluence and influence. The practice is polygamy just the same and loathsome. These vestiges of maleness is now becoming an extinct social practice, what with the many associated problems related to it, made stark in the face of a much more objectified rules and laws. In the Muslim world, abuse of the women has been a sore spot in the diplomatic relationships with the western world clamoring for the Muslim women rights. However, in the eyes of the Muslim male, the women are just what they have been eons of time in the society, good for nothing domestic partners with no rights at all. The world had a glimpse of a Taliban beating on a woman from Afghanistan clad in a shuttlecock burqa. Hapless, she was absorbing the agony. The scene caused a world conflagration of protests, and American troops, like a Superman, swooped down on the country and rid of the Talibans.
Although Jeffs in his compound have not been cited for physical abuse, we are not assured that he is not doing it on some women, afterall, he has absolute control of the congregation, a power to expel male insubordinates, and deploy of young men to some other place to keep them away from the young women, as he himself and other elder men, like beasts ravaged on this minors with impunity.
Like the Muslim problem, America should heed on these practices occurring in its own soil as a problem urgent enough to demand exigent measures to uproot the practice, just like it needs to do with the rogue leaders of the world in to create problems for its people, and to the world in the future.
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