MARY ALICE WILLIAMS: It may be hard to believe that more than a century after polygamy was outlawed by the Mormon Church and the United States, an estimated 25,000 Americans are living in polygamous relationships. And prosecutors are cracking down on them. What they call freedom, the government calls fraud, abuse, incest. Lucky Severson met a family in Utah. They are 31 strong: 25 are children under the age of 13, five are wives, one is a fellow named Tom Green.

LUCKY SEVERSON: Almost everyone who lives here under the red mesas in Colorado City, Arizona, is a polygamist. Even though they are not members of the Mormon Church, they refer to themselves as Mormon fundamentalists, reaching back to the mid-1800s when the church practiced plural marriage. It was church doctrine then that the only way to attain the highest degree of heaven was to give birth to as many souls as possible, and because there were far more women members than men, the solution was plural marriage. But in the 1890s the church abandoned polygamy, and in 1896, when Utah became a state, it was declared illegal.

Professor IRWIN ALTMAN (University of Utah): And it is not an easy lifestyle.

SEVERSON: University of Utah psychologist Irwin Altman has written a book calledPOLYGAMOUS FAMILIES IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY.

Prof. ALTMAN: I think that the Mormon Church very vigorously and very explicitly excommunicates members of the church who they find to be practicing plural marriage.


SEVERSON: In 1951, the National Guard raided Colorado City, broke up dozens of families, and threw the men in jail. It was a dark time polygamists will never forget. It's why they are always looking over their shoulder.

Their lifestyles are so secretive, even in Utah, thousands of polygamists literally head for the hills, where they can live their lives as they please; in this case, 200 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. And there's plenty of room to manage an extra-large family without drawing any attention.

Every day at 4:00 sharp the school bus stops along this dusty road, delivering Lauren and Joseph, Mindy and Kelly and Sierra home to Greenhaven, Utah.

Mr. TOM GREEN (Polygamist): Oh, Bonnie, come here.

SEVERSON: You won't find Greenhaven on the map. The state and the Mormon Church would just as soon forget about the 35 people living here: five women, 29 children ...

Unidentified Woman #1: Come see, Elizabeth.

SEVERSON: ... and their father, Tom Green.

Mr. GREEN: It's the members of the church who feel that it's their duty to try to stop what we're doing, and those are the people who cease to be Christians and become zealots and become persecutors. I'm sad about that. That's one reason we live away from those people.

SEVERSON: Green settled here a few years ago. He lost one child when his home burned down. Now his rather large family lives quite snugly in a motley assortment of mobile homes. The first thing you'll notice at Greenhaven is the children: well-behaved, and they seem happy. The wives, who look young enough to be their siblings, actually are; sisters, that is.

Mrs. HANNA GREEN (Wife): Play ring-around-the-rosy.

SEVERSON: Four of them ...

Mrs. CARRIE GREEN (Wife): What's this?

SEVERSON: ... Carrie and Hanna, are only two years apart. They've been married to Tom seven years.

Mr. GREEN: This is my wife Shirley.

SEVERSON: Then there's Shirley and her sister Leanne. Together they eke out an existence, selling magazines by telephone and raising turkeys. They share everything, including the same man.

Did Tom ask you for your permission to marry his second wife?

Mrs. LINDA GREEN: No, I told him he should marry her.

SEVERSON: What about jealousy? Do you ever get that way with each other?