Fauziya Kassindja was a Togolese teenager who fled her native land in 1994 to escape from a forced polygamous marriage and a tribal practice of female genital cutting.
According to feminist historian Sarah McDougall, the Christian European insistence on monogamy and its enforcement arose as a consequence of 16th Century Islamic incursions into Central Europe and the advent of European colonialism within the Americas, Africa and Asia, which exposed European Christians to cultures that practised polygamy.
The film is a dramatization of the lives of the people of Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah, United States, collectively known as "Short Creek," a community made up of members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a Mormon separatist group practicing child marriage and polygamy.
On July 13, 2011, Kody Brown and family, from the TLC reality television show Sister Wives, filed a complaint in the United States 10th District Court, District of Utah, to challenge Utah's polygamy laws.
On July 26, 1953, Arizona Governor John Howard Pyle sent troops into the settlement to stop polygamy in what became known as the Short Creek raid.
One of the last United Order cooperatives was located in Orderville, which continued until an 1885 anti-polygamy law enforcement action under the Edmunds Act effectively ended it by jailing many of its leaders.
While the Community of Christ had long been known for its anti-polygamy doctrine, its outreach efforts amongst the Sora people in India brought a re-examination even on this issue.
Although Sadleir was neither Williams' nor Milton's friend, Cyriack Skinner, her nephew, was a close associate with Milton, and it is possible that further information came from her relative Daniel Skinner, who helped Milton write his De Doctrina Christiana and had possible knowledge of Milton's views on divorce and polygamy.
She is active in Utah's movement to educate people about polygamy and has been a guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show, the Today Show, Larry King Live, Hannity and Colmes, and other talk and news programs.
Bigamy was illegal in the Kingdom of Great Britain at the time, but the law was apparently not fully operative in Gibraltar, and though polygamy had been banned by Rabbenu Gershom Meor Hagola since approximately 1000 CE, this ban was only accepted by Ashkenazi communities).
Shoneyin’s work is significantly influenced by her life, notably providing material on polygamy for her debut novel; her maternal grandfather, HRH Abraham Olayinka Okupe (1896-1976) was the traditional ruler of Iperu Remo and had five wives.
She is the author of Her Story So Far: Tales of the Girl Child in India (Penguin, 2003) and The Other Woman (Harper Collins, 2010), an edited volume which draws attention to the issue of the socio-economic impact of underage marriage, bigamy and polygamy on the Human Development index and Gender development index.
According to an article appearing in the Deseret News on August 26, 1918, "he did much to develop Utah mines, prosecuted John D. Lee, wrote his Reminiscences, exposed Mormon Apostle Orson F. Whitney, and was active in politics, especially against polygamy.
Sarah Marinda Bates Pratt (1817–1888), first wife of Orson Pratt; later a critic of Mormon polygamy
Edmunds–Tucker Act – an 1887 U.S. law that denied spousal privilege to polygamists.
According to Terry Purvis, mayor of Fouke, Arkansas, his office received complaints from former ministry members about allegations of child abuse, sexual abuse and polygamy since the ministry established itself in the area.