The picture of Carolyn Jessop on the cover of her book, Escape, is really what drew me in. I hadn’t really heard about the book and don’t know if it is really the kind of book I would usually pick up. I’m glad I did read it, though. It was a very interesting and thought provoking biography.
Carolyn Jessop was born into the FLDS. That is, the Fundamental Later Day Saints. This is a Mormon sect that has been totally disavowed by the mainstream LDS. One of the main things that sets them apart is that they believe in and practice polygamy. They follow the instructions of their prophet and in the last 20 years the instructions of that prophet, currently a man named Warren Jeffs, have become more and more extreme. Carolyn’s book describes incredible abuse of women and children that is accepted on religious grounds. A woman can be abused by her husband for practically any “infraction” no matter how small and that abuse is justified by claiming that the wife is “out of unity” with her husband, her spiritual head. The women trapped in these situations don’t really know anything different and have been brainwashed to believe that the outside world is evil. The situation described in the book is one that I cannot imagine putting up with.
One of the things that really struck me about this book is how we are adjusted to whatever our family norm is. It took 35 years for Carolyn to finally decide she’d had enough and escape from her situation…and she is a rarity. Most women, even those who think things aren’t quite right, never actually leave, largely because they are afraid of eternal damnation. It also brought home to me just how important it is to be sure of my beliefs, careful about the teachers I listen to, and certain to check every sermon or instruction that I hear against the ultimate authority, the bible. I really enjoyed the book and thought it was a cautionary tale against blindly following a man instead of God and against fundamentalism of any kind.
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