Big Love and Sister Wives: A Brief Comparison Between Matriarchs

Here's a brief comparison of the grandmothers of Big Love and Sister Wives.

Yes, I know Lois and Adaleen are fictional characters, but they do present some common characteristics with  Genielle; mainly hospitality and love of family. Well, perhaps Lois not so much on the hospitality.

Anyway, one thing for sure, they certainly love their children, although I don't think Adaleen nor Lois would be as kind as Genielle if their son tried to eat half of her breakfast.

Genielle Brown	Lois Henrickson	Adaleen Grant
First wife of Winn Brown, mother of Kody Brown. Has 2 other sister wives.	Second* wife of Frank Harlow, mother of Bill Henrickson. Had 5 other sister wives (one deceased).	Sixth wife of Juniper Creek’s prophet Roman Grant, mother of Nicolette and Alby Grant. Had 13 other sister wives.
According to Kody, his mother would “fall on her sword for me.”	Sliced off the right arm of Hollis Greene with a large serrated knife when he dared to put a hand on her son Bill.	Conspired to have son Alby murdered in a rest stop men’s room. (Tap...Tap...Tap)
Was LDS, and converted to fundamentalism when Kody was in his teens. Was later excommunicated from the LDS church while Kody was on his LDS mission. Her sister wife Sheryl is Kody’s wife Janelle’s mother.	Lois’ father Orville Henrickson was prophet of Juniper Creek who died under mysterious circumstances. He was succeeded by his accountant, Roman Grant.	Adaleen has a complicated family tree. As she explains:“I'm 32 out of 56 children. And when I married Roman, I became my own step grandma as my father married Roman's daughter Faylene.   When I had Alby, he became my great uncle and I became his great great grandmother. Which of course makes me my own grandmother." Not to mention she also married her daughter’s ex-husband J.J.
Had problems with jealousy when Sheryl joined the family. As she puts it “I took care of kids and Sheryl took care of Winn.” Later, she got to know Sheryl better, and now considers her one of her very best friends.	Was notorious for her ill treatment of her sister wives. Of the concussions her sister wives suffered at her hands, she explained  "The Principle brings up our jealousies for the purposes of healing."	When Adaleen was asked how she could stand a particularly loathsome sister wife, she replied “I love her, and we are all equals. But last night I did dream I was trying to push her out the car  while driving along at a pretty quick clip.”

Big Love and Sister Wives: Comparing Bill H. with Kody B.

Since Sister Wives is on hiatus, I thought it would be fun to take a look at HBO's Big Love - the series that literally put polygamy on the prime time TV map.

So here's the first installment, a general comparison between Bill Henrickson and Kody Brown.
I know a lot of you were fans of Big Love, so feel free to add your own comparisons.

And for those of you who are in the process of watching Big Love, unfortunately, it would be difficult to prevent spoilers, so be warned...

SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT

KODY BROWN…	BILL HENRICKSON…
Is a reality show polygamist with 4 wives.	Was a fictional polygamist with 4 wives (one wife left him)
Use to live in a big house. wives now live separately in 4 houses on 4 different streets, but hope to purchase 4 adjacent homes in a cul-de-sac that will share a common backyard.	His wives live separately in 3 adjacent houses that share a common back yard, but hopes someday to move all his wives and children into a big house.
Was a sign salesman. Currently works in an unknown capacity for a MLM company.	Was a businessman, owned 2 retail stores called HomePlus.
Third wife Christine Allred is the granddaughter and grandniece of 2 leaders of the AUB, a polygamous religious group.	Second wife Nicolette Grant was a daughter of the prophet of the UEP, a polygamous religious group.
Refuses to discuss the subject of his sex drive or if he has to use Viagra to keep up with his wives sexual  needs.	Has to use viagra to keep up with wives sex drive.
Extremely autocratic in his approach to his family and wives.	Extremely autocratic in his approach to his family and wives.
Wives gave him a gun for Christmas. Right after giving birth to his 17th child Sol, Kody's wife Robyn offers to be a surrogate for Meri.	Gave his wives guns for Christmas (season 5) When Nicki discovers she has unexplained infertility, 3rd wife Margene offers her eggs to be implanted into Nicki. Nicki declines, saying (among other things) she didn't want to give birth to one of Margene's big headed babies.
Drives a $60K Lexus sports car while his wives drive clunkers that were falling apart (seasons 1-3). Kody's Chevy Suburban blew an engine on the way to Wyoming in season 2.	Drives a $60K GMC Denali while his wife Barb drives a well maintained but extremely ancient Ford LTD station wagon.

Book Review: Becoming Sister Wives Part Four: Celebrity and Epilogue: Kody

Part Four: Celebrity

Meri's Chapter

Some interesting tidbits:

• Found it difficult to lie about being a polygamist and that Janelle and Christine were not Kody's sisters but actually Kody's wives. Meri said "Lying is not part of our faith, nor part of my own moral compass so to feel as if I had to lie, or at least not tell the full truth, was quite difficult for me."
• Believes Kody is a dreamer: Kody was on board for doing the reality show long before Meri was. She "...assumed this was another one of those plans that he would eventually drop." She was wrong.
• She claims Kody's purpose for doing the show was to show a different side of polygamy, different from Warren Jeffs and the FLDS.
• Meri was very uncomfortable the first days of filming. She said that Christine was the actor of the family and Meri found it difficult to act naturally around the cameras.
• Meri feels she is a black and white type person. She doesn't sugar coat and can only be honest. The couch sessions were a wake-up call because they had to learn to think before they spoke. Occasionally, someone would "..inadvertently throw a sister wife or Kody under the bus."
• Meri's relationship with Robyn suffered at the beginning because she felt unwanted and unloved. They were able to work through those feelings, and Meri now claims this shows the audience the beauty of the sister wife relationship - the constantly evolving of relationships towards being people.
• Meri said she was terminated from her job at a rehabilitation center for troubled youth because the management was afraid that the investigation by Lehi police would "...bring unwanted attention to the facility and the children housed there."
• She still is surprised when people across the USA recognize her as a Sister Wife. She believes she is just a wife and mom who happens to be on TV.
• She says she ignores "...the polls and commentary on the Internet about our show or family members. I have more important things to do with my time!"

Janelle's Chapter



The Moment Kody announced he picked out Robyn's wedding gown - just before Christine left the set for 3 days!

Some tidbits:

• Although originally apathetic about doing the reality show, as the premiere got closer Janelle found herself worrying and stressing out to the point she sought counseling. She says this annoyed Kody, who said she should think more positive.
• She was particularly worried about her job. The HR department advised her that as long as she never mentioned who she worked for, what she did in private was her own business even if it would be showcased on TV.
• Janelle said once TLC began advertising the show, her church community became very upset, "...worried that we were going to be sensational and improper. Once they discovered that we intended to film Robyn's wedding reception, some members became even more concerned."
• Janelle felt that at the beginning, the couch sessions were "...unearthing emotional hurts that we had skimmed over to keep the peace. There are times when we don't watch our words and put our feet in our mouths."
• Case in point, when Kody announced that he had selected Robyn's wedding gown, Christine walked off the set. What wasn't shown was that Christine walked out of the couch interview AND DID NOT RETURN FOR THREE DAYS!
• Janelle feels "...many intelligent Americans cannot differentiate between a healthy, polygamous family and a man cheating on his wife -- or even a harem!"
• When they decided to leave Utah, they told no one - including friends coworkers. She said even the show's producers had no clue they were leaving.
• Janelle credits moving to Las Vegas for exposing her children to a more diverse culture.

Christine's Chapter

• Christine states "My dad was drafted into the Vietnam War when he was nineteen. He was frustrated that he had to serve a country whose laws denied his family fundamental civil rights and caused them to live in fear."
• She was asked to represent her faith in Principle Voices, the public face of polygamy.
• It was Principle Voices that thought the Browns would represent polygamous families in a positive light. They were introduced to a journalist who wanted to use the Browns' story as a promo for a possible documentary. They eventually turned down this offer.
• Eventually, through Principle Voices they were contacted by Tim Gibbons, and that's how Sister Wives got started.
• During the early publicity interviews, some journalist asked extremely brutal questions to Christine, which caused her to nearly break down.

Robyn's Chapter

 Some tidbits:

•  Robyn attended public school and her father would walk away from her mother, brothers and sisters if he saw someone he knew outside of his faith. She was terrified someone would discover her beliefs.
• When she was dating Kody, she couldn't be truthful to her non plyg friends about the relationship.
• She initially dismissed Kody and family being on a reality show as a pipe dream.
• Eventually, she soon realized the show was happening, and that if she did marry Kody, she would be signing on for the reality show.
• Some of her family members believe being on a reality show about polygamy is sacrilegious. Her mother has struggled the most, and has even blocked Robyn's posts from her facebook page.
• She says "Sadly, during the first season, many of our fans cast me as a home wrecker out to destroy Meri, Janelle, and Christine's happy family. I try not to dwell on the Internet commentary, but since I think it's important to interact with our fans, I can't entirely avoid it. There have been so many negative comments about me that it's been difficult to shrug them off. People believe I have an ulterior motive -- that I want Kody for myself and not because I love the family or my sister wives. People believe I'm manipulative and conniving. I usually place last in the 'Favorite Sister Wife' poll."
• Robyn believes being on Sister Wives has taught her about herself and that the one constant in her life is her family.

Epilogue: Kody

• Kody claims the reason he left Lehi was because the situation had become unstable and unsafe.
• He coined the move as "the Vegas Vacation."
• Operation Detox partnership was due in part to his wives association with their fitness coach.
• Kody says "I'm sure that there are millions of people in the world who misinterpret what I do as hedonistic and selfish. My response is: Every day I work my tail off for this family. Every day I manage four separate marriages, four entirely different relationships, four distinct personalities. I'm not doing this for fun and games. I'm doing it because it is my calling..."

What ever, dude...


I am so glad I've finished this book, I'm just hoping I will probably never have a need to read it ever again!

Oh yeah...and a lot of trees gave up their lives for this book.

reprinted 7/25/14