This Village In America Still Practices Polygamy
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In a quiet corner of the American Southwest lies a village where one man having three or more wives is not an anomaly; it’s expected. In this community, dozens of children may share the same father, and everyone seems to be a cousin. But behind the tranquil image of faith and family is a growing public health disaster.
This is the story of Short Creek, an isolated town where polygamy and genetics have collided to create one of the highest known concentrations of a rare, devastating disease.
Where Is Short Creek, And Who Lives There?
Short Creek refers to the twin towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona, sitting right on the state border. With a combined population of about 7,700, these towns are home to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), a polygamist sect that split from mainstream Mormonism in the early 20th century.
In the FLDS, polygamy isn’t just allowed, it’s considered essential for salvation. “Most families include at least three wives, because that’s the number you need to enter heaven,” says Faith Bistline, a former FLDS member who had three mothers and 27 siblings. While the mainstream LDS church banned polygamy in 1890, the FLDS community has doubled down on the practice, leading to an unusually concentrated and genetically closed population.
A Mysterious Disease In A Remote Town
As reported by the BBC, in 1990, a 10-year-old boy from the region was presented to a rare disease specialist in Arizona with unusual features: a large forehead, small jaw, and severe developmental delays. After extensive testing, doctors diagnosed him with fumarase deficiency – a metabolic disorder so rare that only 13 cases had ever been reported worldwide, a rate of about 1 in 400 million.
But it didn’t stop there. The boy’s sister was diagnosed with the same disease, and soon, eight more children from the same area were found to have it. Every child had the same distinctive symptoms delayed development, severe intellectual disability, and facial abnormalities. Many couldn’t walk or even sit up. “It results in structural abnormalities and a syndrome including seizures and delayed development,” explains Dr Vinodh Narayanan, a neurologist at the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Arizona.
In Short Creek, where cousin marriage is common and family trees intertwine quickly, over 20 cases of this supposedly rare disease have now been identified, a rate over 1 million times higher than the global average.
How Polygamy Triggers Genetic Crisis
The root of the crisis lies in the math of inheritance. Every person carries 1–2 lethal recessive mutations in their genome, genes that are harmless when paired with a healthy one, but can be deadly if two carriers have children. In large, diverse populations, this rarely poses a problem. But in genetically closed communities, like Short Creek, it’s a ticking time bomb.
The math becomes chilling when polygamy enters the picture. Take Brigham Young, a Mormon leader from the 1800s with 55 wives and 59 children. Those children went on to have 204 grandchildren, who produced 745 great-grandchildren. By 1982, he had at least 5,000 direct descendants, and counting. In Short Creek today, only two surnames, Jessop and Barlow, dominate. According to historian Benjamin Bistline, 75–80% of the community is related to the founding patriarchs Joseph Jessop and John Barlow.
Polygamy accelerates this process. One man with 3 wives and 10 children per wife can theoretically produce over 24 million descendants in just five generations. Of course, reality tempers those numbers, but not enough to stop severe inbreeding from becoming the norm.
Pysically and mentally disabled,” she says.
Content retrieved from: https://edtimes.in/this-village-in-america-still-practices-polygamy/.
