Twenty-one years ago, in accordance with tradition, Joe Darger dropped to one knee, held a woman’s hand and asked her to marry him.
But one aspect of his proposal smacked tradition upside the head. Because in his other hand, Joe held the hand of yet another woman and his question was directed not at one or the other, but at both.
“Love Times Three” tells the inside story of Utah’s polygamous Darger family, written from the alternating perspectives of all four spouses.
The Dargers live in a 5,500-square-foot, two-level home in a suburb of Salt Lake City with 20 of their children (three older kids have moved out; a 24th died as an infant).
Living in 11 bedrooms with five bathrooms, the Mormon clan spends $500-$700 a week on groceries, goes through 36 rolls of toilet paper a week, and does 10 loads of laundry every day. They also eat three to five loaves of homemade bread daily, and their Sunday brunch requires five dozen eggs and 60-70 waffles.
All of the Dargers come from large polygamous families. Joe is one of 17 children from his father’s four wives; wives Vicki and Val, who are twins, have 38 other siblings and three moms; and their cousin Alina, Joe’s other wife, is one of 32 kids from her father’s two wives. The four have known each other since childhood, as among other connections, one of Vicki and Val’s older sisters was married to Joe’s uncle.
Cousins Vicki and Alina developed crushes on Joe as teens, and Joe’s mother suggested they pursue him together.
The three would go on picnics and hikes, navigating the sensitivities and jealousies involved in multiple dating.
“What was the proper way to show affection to Joe in front of each other?” wondered Alina. “Who sat next to him in the car? When was it OK to hold his hand? To kiss?”
Considerations of this sort caused insecurities in both women. Alina thought that Joe was always bringing her home first after dates, leading her to conclude that he liked Vicki better. (He’d actually been alternating the drop-offs.)
After one three-way date, Alina learned that Joe and Vicki had been kissing, something they agreed to postpone until marriage (although Alina broke this pledge more than once as well). Alina felt “sick inside,” and Joe wound up in tears, telling her, “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to do.”
While Vicki and Alina had become close during the courtship, jealousy was still a factor in their marriage.
“In the first year, I felt awkward any time Joe showed affection to Alina in front of me,” writes Vicki, who confesses to being “devastated” when Alina got pregnant before she did. “If I walked into a room and they were huddled together, I wasn’t sure what to do.”
One area that has remained jealousy-free is the bedroom. “There are some things we just do not share, mostly involving our intimate relationships with Joe,” writes Alina. “Absolute privacy on that issue is one of the unwritten rules of our marriage.”
Several years into Joe’s marriages, Val divorced her compulsive gambler husband, and a feeling soon developed that Val should join her twin sister as a wife of Joe.
The lessons on how to behave together replayed themselves — they needed a family meeting about who would sit where in the car — but time and shared experience secured Val’s place as a sister wife, including her place in the intimacy rotation.
Joe alternates his nights with each — the four keep their dating and who-sleeps-with-whom schedules in their BlackBerries — although they’re flexible for special occasions or emergencies, as when Vicki suffered through severe postpartum depression and Val and Alina gave up nights so Joe could comfort her.
Despite many salacious insinuations from strangers, the sleeping arrangements are never combined. “I have three separate sexual relationships with my wives. There is absolutely no kinkiness,” Joe writes. “When Alina, Vicki and I were first married, there were rumors we were having a menage a trois. I didn’t even know what that phrase meant!”
The book ultimately is a defense of polygamist relationships, with Vicki saying, “It’s a good way to raise a family.” But the Dargers aren’t sure that even their own children will continue the tradition, as Joe writes.
“My oldest son, who was 9 at the time, came along when I went to get a haircut and got upset when I engaged in friendly banter with the hairdresser,” he says. “He figured I was trying to get another wife.”