Lindsay Hansen Park is a Utah public historian and the founder and host of the podcast ‘A Year of Polygamy.’ Her interest in the practice arose out of a visceral reaction while young to the possibility of her being one day required to share her husband with other women. In trying to understand polygamy Lindsay has bought to life; stories, narratives and questions that few have paid attention to, in a way that is engaging, interesting and accessible.
In this podcast we discuss both her disgust at and fascination with a marital practice that is one of Mormonism’s lasting cultural legacies.
Thank you, Lindsay! Year of Polygamy changed my view of polygamy entirely. Thank you for giving these forgotten women a voice. I hope you do get out of that “dark place” you are in. It’s taken me a while, but I think I’m getting out of mine. Getting out (for me) meant leaving behind what I thought I’d loved for so long. It’s a scary place to be, but there is peace.
oh you are so right to get out of satens church..god bless you
Thanks Anna!
Also, one correction on my own part. For whatever reason, I mention the Short Creek raid was in the 1930’s. It was 1953. Just didn’t want to spread misinformation. 🙂
Thanks for the great interview Gina. I love you and your podcast!
I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m a lifelong member who just can’t stomach the church’s recent insistence (via essays, etc.) that a loving God wanted what happened in Mormon polygamy. When all the information comes out, the picture will be exceedingly ugly.
Thank you, Lindsay and Gina. Wish we could have a live gathering sometime — feeling the sisterhood with people like you. So beautiful, yet poignant, this theme of embarking on deep truth-seeking with full hope, and then discovering darkness and fear(Feeling like you may “never recover from the loss”). I hear you. So many of us are going through it in our unique way. We feel the bursts of truth and light (and I do have full hope that diligent truth seeking leads to Light and Joy), but the process is painful because our perfect little worldview that has served us so well is upside down. I agree that we need to see the Fundamentslists as well as the CoC as part of our family, and bring the narratives together and grapple with them openly. So sad that we’ve disowned and condemned them all to such an extent — we can’t fully understand ourselves when we know nothing of them, especially when the little we do know is so inaccurate and distorted.
I so agree with you and with Justine. Those are my feelings exactly.
Thank you Gina for lining this up.
Lindsay thanks for coming online, but even more thanks for the tons of time, a part of your life, studying this issue and explaining it in a wonderful way. I am sorry for the emotional aches that this studying has caused you. You are certainly leaving a legacy.
*slow clap*
Thank you for this fantastic interview Gina.
Lindsay, thank you for all the work you have done. Thank you for shouldering this burden for all of us. So much of my journey and experience have been shaped by work that you have done. I related to so much of what you said. You had some really powerful insights. Thank you!
The music is playing and I have tears. I am imagining the scene that took place in my family when my great grandmother plead with my great grandfather to not bring home the second wife. He left to bring her back and my great grandmother died while he was gone. (She was sick when he left)
This is the true story of polygamy and one which you have labored to produce for us during all of these episodes. thanks Lindsay. Thank you for making this easier to understand even if it hasn’t been easy to hear.
Thanks Gina for interviewing her.
I enjoyed this podcast. Thanks for your story Lindsay which was fascinating, and of course not over. Your hard work and your moral passion – and yours Gina – is very inspiring. I thought what you had to say about polygamy, polygamist communities, and the LDS church today was spot on, including the doubt that anyone is up to dealing with it. I identify with your experience of a shattered world view and the impossibility of ever getting over the loss. But I admire the fidelity you expressed in the wake of that, which is rare and why, I think, your blogging is so powerful.
This was a wonderful interview. Great questions, and follow-up. Lindsay’s candor and authenticity are so welcome and needed. I just think there is a lot of mud to dig through before we reach clear water from this well, but it will come.
Hang in there, everyone. There IS beauty all around.
If we get to the bottom of all this… and put this polyandry where it belongs, I hope the status of women could rise.
This was fantastic. I just finished the Year of Polygamy up to this point, and just listened to Gina’s interview on Mormon Stories. Thank you so much! Keep up the great work you two.
And Gina, I love as an American living in your gorgeous country (up in Auckland), I love your perspective and even the way you talk. Your MS interview was wonderful, having lived in New Zealand for 3 years now it was nice to be familiar with all of the Kiwi lingo that you had to explain to John 😉
I was quite touched by the story you shared of you and your husband around the 24:00 mark, Lindsay. Thank you for this interview.