I really believed the language of the church - that my opinions didn't matter." Married twice more and divorced.įinally she ended up in a psychiatric ward where she began to free herself of the past.Īs terrible as her experiences were, they were not extreme, she maintains: "It could have happened to anyone. During the ceremony, her husband had ushered her through a veil, symbolizing how he would someday usher her into heaven.ĭesperately unhappy, she sought help through Mormon counselors and family, who accused her of trying to "castrate" her husband by challenging his will. But her marriage had been sealed in the temple, linking them for eternity. She was married in the temple in Mesa, Ariz., to a man she didn't love - a man who told her God had directed him to marry her.Īlthough they lived on her inheritance money, he alone decided how the money should be spent, how the house would be kept, and sometimes what and how much she could eat and what she should read.īeing raised to respect men as agents of God on earth (a rank women cannot achieve), Laake obeyed and became increasingly frustrated. Laake was raised in a devoutly Mormon family. She came to Seattle recently to promote "Secret Ceremonies: A Mormon Woman's Intimate Diary of Marriage and Beyond," (William Morrow & Co. One who was excommunicated was Deborah Laake, 39.
Yet other people remain and hope for change. Amidst the child-rearing, freezing, canning and church meetings - part of life by church directive - they are speaking out.
Yet for a some Mormon women, the church is anything but an enclave in a world gone mad with social change.
The number continues growing steadily, thanks to thousands of missionaries who advocate the doctrine of God, country and traditional family life. In the United States there are 4.5 million members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints about 200,000 live in Washington state. For years its image has been homey as a bowl of oatmeal, full of standards lofty as a flag salute, a denomination that produced Donny and Marie.
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